Queerly Recommended

By the time you hear Kris say she's looking forward to the upcoming ClexaCon, bemoaning her 9 AM panel and how everyone'll be hungover… it's already happened. Time is weird, people.

Regardless, WHENEVER you're reading this (hearing this?) you'll be treated to Tara and Kris passing judgement on the contestants wimping out of Alone: Frozen, all from the comfort of their homes. There's a bunch more stuff, too, all of it very good. Too much to list, really (there is a list, it's below). Oh, they pick their favourite Drunk Histories! Come on in.

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Official Recommendations

This week, Kris hits a home run with her official recommendation of Prime Video's A League of Their Own. Rather than remaking the 1992 hit movie, this series version shares the stories of queer and/or Black players in the 1940s that couldn't be told 30 years ago.

And Tara brings us home with Hulu's Fire Island. This gay romantic comedy is a contemporary reinterpretation of Pride and Prejudice. It takes place on real world Fire Island, where Noah makes it his weeklong business to get his friend Howie laid…all while a new Mr. Darcy enters the field.

Works/People Discussed

• ClexaCon
• First Kill (Netflix) based on the short story "First Kill" by V.E. Schwab, from the collection Vampires Never Get Old
• The Wilds (Amazon Prime Video)
• Killing Eve (BBC America/AMC)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer (The WB/AMC)
• Lightyear (2022)
• Alone: Frozen (History Channel)
• Glow Up (BBC/Netflix)
• Canada's Drag Race, RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under, RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race
• Vanderbilt by Anderson Cooper
• The Sparks Brothers (2021)
• Mark Cuban CostPlus Drug Company
• Drunk History (Comedy Central)

A lot is going on in this episode!

Kris has a book baby coming out. Who does it look like? We'll find out! Tara reveals how the cosmic calendar and the finite nature of the known universe gave her some peace. They both try their best to fan cast The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and find it surprisingly tough. Kris walks down memory lane with her experiences of Lilith Fair and makes an impassioned argument for its return. To top it off, Kris reveals whether or not she has ever been dumped.

If you enjoy this episode, please consider buying Kris & Tara a Ko-fi!

Official Recommendations

This week, Kris recommends the Neil Patrick Harris show Uncoupled (Netflix), which follows Neil's character Michael after he is dumped by his partner on his 50th birthday and his subsequent journey into middle-aged queer dating. Kris loved the focus on queer adults and the particular challenges and opportunities that come with that experience.

Tara doesn't usually gush, but... who are we kidding? She totally does. And this week, she's gushing about Ann McMan's Dead Letters From Paradise. It's a historical mystery about a young woman managing the dead letter office Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and how her experiences there widen her world and connect her to the community around her. Tara tentatively describes this as Ann McMan's best book. Listen to the review then go and pick this up!

Works/People Discussed

• Serendipity by Kris Bryant
• Fire & Ice by Rachel Spangler
• Fire on the Ice by Tamsen Parker
• In Her Court by Tamsen Parker
• Stranded Hearts (Romance Novellas) by Kris Bryant & Amanda Radley & Emily Smith
• Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (2014)
• Blowers & Grafton: Halifax Street Food and Bar (Calgary)
• Alone and Alone: Frozen (History Channel)
• Trainwreck: Woodstock '99 (Netflix)
• Age of Adaline (2015)
• Canada's Drag Race
• RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under
• The Anarchists (HBO Max)
• LuLaRich (Prime Video)
• Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama

With COVID behind her, we welcome Tara back to the land of the living (sorry, it's a bit of a mess right now) and catch up with Kris who is back with Brit Ryder's award from GCLS (thief!). There's tons to catch up on!

We revisit a tale of sisterly abuse, which Tara claims is the best story she's ever heard, minus the living-with-trauma bits. For some reason, the evil presence of Subway's Jared is invoked, but don't worry, we hold it down with catching up on Drag Race and recommending two, count 'em, two books!

If you enjoy this episode, please consider buying Kris & Tara a Ko-fi!

Official Recommendations

This week, Kris brings us two-time Goldie Award winner, Changing Majors by Ana Hartnett Reichardt. It's a story about going off to college, thinking you'll end up one way and discovering, welp, you're going in a whole different direction. Kris loves the writing on this one, even if it is — gasp — first person present tense. It works, y'know?

Tara's love of ice queens and the rich girl/poor girl trope strikes again with The Delicate Things We Make by Milena McKay. Journalist Jamie lands the assignment of a lifetime when she's tasked with discovering the secret identity behind the elusive artist DeVor. Turns out, she discovers more than what she signed up for when she falls in love with none other than DeVor herself. Tara loves this one, between the tension, mutual obsession, and exploration of ethics and social issues. It's a hard recommend from one of our two self-described softies.

Works/People Discussed

• The Golden Crown Literary Society (GCLS)
• The Great Canadian Baking Show: Season Five (CBC)
• Alone (History Channel)
• The Boys (Amazon Prime Video)
• RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars Season Seven
• Drag Race Canada Season Three
• Queer Eye Season Six
• Queer Eye Germany
• It Started With a Kiss by Clare Lydon
• Dead Letters from Paradise by Ann McMan

Sorry, friends. No episode this week, because Tara got COVID and couldn't record an episode. But, in the most mini of mini-sodes, Tara recommends two things:

1. Self-care
2. The Great Canadian Baking Show (and yes, it has great queer representation!)

See you in two weeks!

The world's a heavy place right now, so after pleasantries about puppies and tattoos, Kris and Tara sit down to talk about the devastating attack on reproductive rights that is the repeal of Roe vs. Wade. There's no jokes about this, it just sucks.

Know what else is unacceptable? Sexual harassment of authors. Instead of questions this week, Kris and Tara bring on popular lesfic author, Jae, and Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches Trashy Books to talk about some all-too-prevalent problem behaviours that authors face, ranging from inappropriate emails to straight-up stalking.

Then, of course, Kris and Tara share their recommendations as always. It might seem trivial in light of everything happening right now, but connecting people with queer media and creators is more crucial than ever. Seeing ourselves in the world is vital to begin changing it — and it fucking needs changing.

No Ko-fi link today, friends. Please donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds instead.

Transcript coming soon

This week, Kris brings us Transhood, a documentary from 2020. Transhood follows four children through their coming-of-age journeys over five years.

Tara brings us a few different pieces of media that tell Tig Notaro's story. Tara starts with Tig's groundbreaking album Live, then recommends her documentary, Tig, her autobiography I'm Just a Person, and the show One Mississippi. Tig's health struggles, trauma, recovery and success are expressed beautifully in each, ensuring there's at least one way you can take in her story, no matter your media consumption preferences.

• Jae's post about stalking and harassment
• Queer as Folk (Peacock)
• Umbrella Academy (Netflix)
• The Last Lavender Sister by Melissa Brayden
• RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars, Season Seven
• Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
• Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend (Netflix)

There are many key figures in lesbian literature, without whom, we wouldn't have today's rich publishing scene. Radclyffe is one of them.

In this episode, Radclyffe shares what inspired her not just to write but to publish lesbian fiction, her thoughts on the industry, why lesbian fiction has always been political, and what she queerly recommends. Happy Pride y'all!

If you enjoy this episode, please consider buying Kris & Tara a Ko-fi!

Transcript coming soon

• Women's Barracks: The Frank Autobiography of a French Girl Soldier by Tereska Torrès
• Odd Girl Out by Ann Bannon
• The Latecomer by Sarah Aldridge

Welcome, welcome, one and all to your Queerly Recommended meal of the week!

As a little aperitif, we begin with a discussion of the corporatization of Pride. Following this is a starter of listener questions…as well as other questions! Is Kris a people pleaser? Who was the first lesfic author Tara and Kris met? We have a relaxing deconstruction of 80s fashion trends, an out-of-left-field callout on megahit and media darling, This Is Us, and Kris processes her toxic relationship with Survivor.

Finally, it's main course time, and we have our official recommendations!

If you enjoy this episode, please consider buying Kris & Tara a Ko-fi!

Transcript coming soon

Official Recommendations

This week, Kris brings us the comedic drama 4th Man Out, where a working-class car mechanic makes the jump to come out to his best friends and live the life he's always wanted.

Tara's pick this week is the 1968 documentary, The Queen. If you care about the history of drag and queer culture, you'll want to watch, as it covers the 1967 Miss All-America Camp Beauty Contest and the contestants involved. It even includes one of the most iconic reads of all time.

Works/People Discussed

• Stranger Things Season Four (Netflix)
• The Lincoln Lawyer (Netflix)
• The Staircase (HBO Max)
• Survivor (CBS)
• RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars Season 7
• Heartstopper (Netflix)
• Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
• Grey Gardens (1975)
• Derry Girls (Channel 4)
• Paris is Burning (1990)

Kris and Tara are talking about drugs this episode — specifically, cannabis. They wonder about their parents' experience with Mary Jane and modern technology, before getting into their recs.

And the recs? They cover a wide variety (although very few books this time). Lots of good TV and movies out there, especially documentaries. We're living in a golden age!

If you enjoy this episode, please consider buying Kris & Tara a Ko-fi!

Transcript coming soon

Official Recommendations

This week, Kris decided to balance all the fluff that she's been bringing with the Patty Jenkins' 2003 directorial debut, Monster. A biographical crime drama, Monster tells the story of Aileen Wuornos, a sex worker who murdered seven of her male clients over the space of two years, and her relationship with the semi-fictionalized lover, Selby Wall.

And, it's been a while since Tara's recommended a game, but this is a good one. Half-visual novel, half tabletop roleplaying game, Citizen Sleeper puts you in the role of an android with the memories of the human who sold a copy of themselves into corporate slavery. You wake up on an ancient space station, after escaping the company. Each day you manage your precarity by taking jobs, meeting people and making choices. Will you use your energy to help a friend or do something so you can get more food? Only you can decide.

Works/People Discussed

• Kris's Patreon
• Raina Telgemeier
• Same But Different (2019)
• The Lost City (2022)
• The Staircase (HBO Max)
• The Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness podcast: Episode 26 Who Were History's "Female Husbands"? with Professor Jen Manion
• Heartstopper (Netflix)
• Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street (2021)

Context for future historians: the world is currently ON ONE. Things are looking pretty dark right now. But if there's one theme for this week's episode, it's that we've been here before and we will fight again.

This week, Kris and Tara go hard. Kris talks about her moving experience supporting queer kids who were targeted by parents at their school. And watch out supporters of Friends, Pretty Woman and Batman (individually or all together, you know who you are), because Kris is coming in hot with some blistering takes on your formative cinema.

Tara details her trip from reading Jonathan Van Ness's new book to digging into the queer history of her hometown and do you know what she finds? We've been here before. We'll do it again. Despite the darkness and the erasure, these books, films, games, and everything that Kris and Tara recommend or talk about on this show are the result of queer lives coming to light. Queer isn't new. It's old as bones. None of us is alone.

If you enjoy this episode, please consider buying Kris & Tara a Ko-fi!

Transcript coming soon

Official Recommendations

Kris's official recommendation for this week is the British coming-of-age romantic series, Heartstopper, which follows Charlie Spring, a gay schoolboy who falls in love with someone he sits next to in class, Nick Nelson. She (and so many other people) say it's ADORABLE.

This week, Tara recommends the 2018 documentary Mapplethorpe, which tracks the Robert Mapplethorpe from his rise to fame in the 1970s to his untimely death in 1989. Mapplethorpe was a photographer best known for his black-and-white photographs and his controversial works that detailed the gay male BDSM subculture of New York City in the late 60s and early 70s.

Works/People Discussed

• Truth and Measure/Above All Things by Roslyn Sinclair
• All That Matters by Susan X Meagher
• While You Were Sleeping (1995)
• Luca (2021)
• Ambulance (2022)
• The State of Modern Action Films
• The Batman (2022)
• Love That Story: Observations from a Gorgeously Queer Life by Jonathan Van Ness
• Womontown | A Kansas City PBS Documentary

This week opens on one of those eternal questions. No, it's not "Cake or Death?" It's something a lot more…I dunno, you're going to have to listen.

Kris and Tara go all over the map in this one. They discuss THAT ENDING of Killing Eve. They pass judgement on store names in Hallmark movies. And, speaking of Hallmark movies, Kris might have to rescind her "No Hallmark" bumper sticker. Also, if you haven't been listening beyond the outro in previous episodes, maybe now's a good time to start. :)

If you enjoy this episode, please consider buying Kris & Tara a Ko-fi!

Transcript coming soon

Official Recommendations

This week, Kris looks into the abyss of Hallmark and likes what she sees! It's the movie Love, Classified. Romance novelist Emilia returns to her tiny hometown and into the lives of her adult children, Taylor and Zach. Sure, she says she's there for a book signing arranged at the local book shop, but really, Emilia wants to reconnect with them. Taylor and Zach each explore the possibility of love using a classified app, and Taylor's match with a woman is a pleasant surprise within an overall delightful movie. Go Hallmark!

Tara's recommendation is actually a Kris recommendation, making it a twofer — one that comes with the Queerly Recommended Seal of Approval. Queercore is a documentary that follows the cultural and social movement that began as an offshoot of punk and was distinguished by its discontent with society's disapproval of the gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender communities. It includes appearances from Bruce LaBruce, GB Benson, John Waters, Kathleen Hanna, and Peaches.

Works/People Discussed

• Kraft Smooth Peanut Butter
• Killing Eve (BBC)
• Walking Dead (AMC)
• HALO (Paramount Plus)
• RuPaul's Drag Race
• Queer Eye
• Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love by Jonathan Van Ness