Gays Reading

By Jason BlitmanComedy Society & Culture Arts Books Comedy Interviews

Gays Reading episodes

May 05 Douglas Stuart, John of John
In the 200th episode of Gays Reading, host Jason Blitman talks to Booker Prize-winning novelist, Douglas Stuart (Shuggie Bain, Young Mungo) about his latest book, John of John.

Conversation highlights include:
🎶 The Spice Girls
🧑‍🧑‍🧒 Filial duty in the queer community
⏳ What happens to gay people as we age?

Douglas Stuart is a Scottish-American author. His New York Times-bestselling debut novel Shuggie Bain won prizes including the 2020 Booker Prize and the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, was a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN/Hemingway Award, and was named one of the “25 Best Books of the 21st Century” by the Sunday Times (UK). His latest novel, Young Mungo, was a national bestseller, longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal and a finalist for the British Book Award, and one of the most highly acclaimed books of the year. His stories have been published in the New Yorker and his essays have featured on Literary Hub. He lives in New York City.
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55 min
May 01 What Are You Reading? feat. Stephanie Sy-Quia
In this episode of What Are You Reading? debut novelist Stephanie Sy-Quia shares what she's been reading and talks about her new book, A Private Man.

Stephanie Sy-Quia was born in California in 1995 and is based in London. Her writing and criticism have been published in The Guardian, The White Review, The Boston Review, Granta, and elsewhere. Her debut poetry collection Amnion, published in the UK by Granta Poetry in 2021, received a Somerset Maugham Award and was a Poetry Book Society Winter Recommendation; was longlisted for the Rathbones Folio and RSL Ondaatje Prizes; and won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. She is the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award and is a fourth-generation teacher.

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35 min
April 28 Xochitl Gonzalez, Last Night in Brooklyn
Host Jason Blitman talks to acclaimed author Xochitl Gonzalez (Olga Dies Dreaming) about her lates book, Last Night in Brooklyn.

Conversation highlights include:
🎉 Parties in the aughts
🌃 The magic of New York
🏘️ Urban planning and future extrapolation

Xochitl Gonzalez is a contributor to The Atlantic, where she was recognized as a 2023 Pulitzer Prize finalist in Commentary. She is also the New York Times bestselling author of the award-winning novel Olga Dies Dreaming, the Reese’s Book Club Pick Anita de Monte Laughs Last, and her latest novel Last Night in Brooklyn. A native Brooklynite and proud public school graduate, Gonzalez holds a BA from Brown University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and is a trustee of the corporation of Brown University and the Brooklyn Public Library.

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58 min
April 24 What Are You Reading? feat. Jayne Anne Phillips
In this episode of What Are You Reading?, Jason sits down with Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jayne Anne Phillips to discuss books she's been reading and her highly anticipated memoir-in-essays, Small Town Girls, which Oprah named her #1 most anticipated read of the year.

Jayne Anne Phillips is the author of Black Tickets, Machine Dreams, Fast Lanes, Shelter, MotherKind, Lark and Termite, Quiet Dell, and Night Watch, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2024. Her work has been a finalist once for the National Book Award and twice for the National Book Critics Circle Award. The recipient of Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Arts, Howard, Bunting, and Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships, she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Boston and New York.
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38 min
April 21 Abigail Savitch-Lew, Livonia Chow Mein
Host Jason Blitman talks to debut novelist Abigail Savitch-Lew about Livonia Chow Mein.

Conversation highlights include:
🪧 Local activism
🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒 Family legacy

Abigail Savitch-Lew is a writer of fiction and nonfiction and an American of Jewish and Chinese (Ashkenazi and Toisanese) descent. She 🪧has a BA in literary arts from Brown University and an MFA in fiction from Rutgers University-Newark. She is the author of the novel Livonia Chow Mein, and her short stories have been published in The Round, Post Road, The Best Teen Writing of 2010, and The Apprentice Writer. Previously, she was a staff reporter for City Limits, an Asian American Writers’ Workshop Margins Fellow, and an adjunct professor of creative writing at Rutgers. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, the artist Emmanuel Knight, her sister-in-law, and their cat.
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44 min
April 17 What Are You Reading? feat. Jessica George
In this episode of What Are You Reading? Jason talks to author Jessica Geroge (Maame) about what she's been reading and about her latest novel, Love by the Book.

Jessica George is the New York Times bestselling author of Maame. She was born and raised in London to Ghanaian parents and studied English Literature at the University of Sheffield.
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28 min
April 14 Patrick Radden Keefe, London Falling
Host Jason Blitman talks to acclaimed journalist Patrick Radden Keefe about his latest book, London Falling. London Falling is the April 2026 Late Show with Stephen Colbert Book Club pick.

Conversation highlights include:
🤫 How we all tell lies in one way or another
🐱 Cats, the musical
⚽️ The various sports Keefe has played

PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of The New York Times bestsellers Rogues, Empire of Pain (winner of the 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize) and Say Nothing, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award and was named one of the Twenty Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times Book Review. His work has been recognized by a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing and the Orwell Prize for Political Writing. He served as an Executive Producer on the award-winning FX series “Say Nothing,” based on his book. He is also the creator and host of the eight-part podcast “Wind of Change,” about the strange convergence of Cold War espionage and heavy metal music, which The Guardian and Entertainment Weekly named the #1 podcast of 2020.
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56 min
April 10 What Are You Reading? feat. Emma Brodie
In this episode of What Are You Reading?, Jason is joined by author Emma Brodie to discuss the books she's been recommending lately and to celebrate her new novel, Into the Blue, this month's Reese's Book Club pick.

Emma Brodie has worked in book publishing for fifteen years, currently as an Executive Editor at Clarkson Potter. She graduated from Johns Hopkins University’s Writing Seminars program, and her debut novel, Songs in Ursa Major, received the American Book Award. She lives on Martha’s Vineyard with her husband and their very good dog, Freddie Mercury.
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38 min
April 07 Caro Claire Burke, Yesteryear
Jason Blitman sits down with Caro Claire Burke to discuss her debut novel Yesteryear, April 2026's Good Morning America Book Club pick.

Conversation highlights include:
🩰 Ballerina Farms
🐳 Why all millennials wanted to be marine biologists
📱 TikTok, culture at large, and fitting in

CARO CLAIRE BURKE received her Master’s in Fine Arts from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She is the co-host of Diabolical Lies, a politics and culture podcast. Yesteryear is her first novel.
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58 min
April 03 What Are You Reading? feat. Lisa Lee
In this episode of What Are You Reading?, host Jason Blitman sits down with Lisa Lee to talk about the books that shaped and sustained her through the decade-long journey to her debut novel, American Han.

Lisa Lee is the recipient of the Marianne Russo Emerging Writer Award from the Key West Literary Seminar, an Emerging Writer Fellowship from the Center for Fiction, and a Pushcart Prize. She has received other fellowships and awards from Kundiman, Millay Arts, Hedgebrook, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Tin House, Jentel Artist Residency, and the Korea Foundation. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, VIDA, North American Review, Sycamore Review, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. Lee holds an MFA from the University of Houston and a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Southern California. She lives in Los Angeles.
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23 min

About Gays Reading

From the publisher's feed

Best authors. Best banter. Host — and gay reader — Jason Blitman is joined each week by bestselling authors, VIP gay readers, cultural icons, and other special guests…