Memoirs to Read During Pride Month (And All Year Round!)!

Pride Month is here and there is much to celebrate and honor—LGBTQIA+history, politics, theater and film, culture, music, art, and especially literature. This blog post highlights four  recently published memoirs by LGBTQIA+writers. Take the time to read their beautiful and inspiring stories.

Amateur: A True Story about What Makes a Man by Thomas Page McBee: McBee’s beautifully written and deeply personal memoir captures his experiences training to fight a charity boxing match at Madison Square Garden, all while struggling to define what it means to be a man both in and outside the ring. McBee additionally explores themes such as gender stereotypes, toxic masculinity, and bodily limitations throughout.

Brown White Black: An American Family at the Intersection of Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Religion by Nishta J. Mehra: Mehra’s personal essays are unique and powerful. She writes honestly and openly about her experiences growing up feeling different from her peers, struggling with her Indian heritage, coming out as a lesbian, and facing prejudice while raising her black adopted son with her white wife.

Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls: A Memoir by T Kira Madden: As a lonely only child growing up in Florida, Madden yearned for “love the size of a fist.” She wrote stories to help quell her loneliness. When her family relocated to Boca Raton, Madden was able to attend private school, get riding lessons and have horses of her own. Despite having these privileges, her parents’ relationship was toxic and fraught with alcoholism and drug addiction. Years later as a teenager she was able to move to NYC and studied fashion design. More importantly, she started dating women and in these relationships was she finally able to cope with her father’s passing and meeting her older half-sister for the first time.

No Ashes in the Fire by Darnell L. Moore: Moore’s heartbreaking and inspiring memoir starts with his experiences being severely bullied as black and gay man during the height of the AIDS epidemic in poverty stricken Camden, NJ. His life drastically changed after attending a rally in Newark—he was introduced to the Black Lives Matter movement. Moore eventually became a leading organizer and activist for BLM.