Join Rae Garringer and special guests Neema Avashia, Kijana West, and David Rodriguez for a virtual launch and celebration of Country Queers: A Love Letter.

Part photo book, part memoir, part oral history project, this volume paints a vivid portrait of queer and trans experiences in rural areas and small towns across the US.

After years as a DIY, minimally funded, community-based oral history project, the work now takes a new form in Country Queers: A Love Letter—a book of full-color photos and interviews with rural folks from Mississippi to New Mexico and beyond, with Garringer’s account as traveler and interviewer woven through the pages. In these intimate conversations, we see how queerness—shaped, as all things are, by race, class, gender, and more—moves in rural and small-town spaces, spotlighting how country queers make sense of their lives through reflections on land, home, community, and belonging. While media-driven myths suggest that big cities are the only places queer folks can find love and community, Country Queers resists that trope by centering rural queer and trans stories of the joys, challenges, monotony, and nuances of their lives, in their own words.

***Please note: This discussion was recorded on October 8, 2024.***

Speakers:

Neema Avashia is a West Virginian-born Indian American who writes about her identity, culture, and politics. She is the author of Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place.

Rae Garringer is a writer, oral historian, audio producer, and goat farmer based in southeastern West Virginia, where they were raised. They are the author and editor of Country Queers: A Love Letter.

Kijana West is the founder of Safe Space Cumberland, a home for the LGBTQIA+ family in Cumberland, MD working in intersectional partnership with other historically marginalized communities.

David Rodriguez is a goat farmer from Lane City, Texas. He and his husband run Country Q's: a goat milk soap company.

Get the book: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2439-country-queers

Watch the live event recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2gY7BWTkF4