This Queer Book Saved My Life
Fans of On Being and Los Culturistas love this 2024 GLAAD Media Award nominee for Outstanding Podcast. Featuring Carmen Maria Machado, Alison Bechdel, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Greg Louganis, Becky Albertalli, and so many more, guests from across the rainbow tell these authors how their books helped them overcome alienation, gender dysphoria, familial homophobia, and being outed. Essayist and Lambda Literary Fellow John Parker hosts the conversations with a gentle and energetic style, standing in as conversational partner for posthumous authors. Stay tuned to off-weeks which features new episodes of 7 Minutes in Book Heaven and The Gaily Show.
This Queer Book Saved My Life
The Velvet Rage with Max Hovey
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This book helped me understand my brain and in particular the queer brain.
Today we meet Max Hovey and we’re talking about the queer book that saved his life: The Velvet Rage by Alan Downs.
Max Hovey is a London-based writer, creator, and queer advocate. He dedicates his platform to sparking discussions about and promoting body acceptance, sex positivity, mental health awareness, and other topics relating to LGBTQIA+ issues. His writing and work have been featured in the Independent, Attitude Magazine, GQ, Bustle, and other outlets. No Fats, No Fems: A Guide to Queer Empathy and Unpacking Prejudice is his first book (comes out May 19, 2026).
Through brave individual stories and compassionate analysis, The Velvet Rage explores how shame is insidious, and can be traced back to childhood feelings of "otherness". Drawing on contemporary psychological research, The Velvet Rage offers a path to emotional well-being and an end to self-defeating behavior.
Alan Downs, PhD is a clinical psychologist and the bestselling author of seven books.
Connect with Max
youtube: youtube.com/@climaxlgbtq
instagram: @max_hovey
tiktok: @maxhovey
Our Bookshop
Visit our Bookshop for new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbook
Buy your copy of The Velvet Rage here: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780802135223
Buy your copy of No Fats No Femmes: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780063423466
Become an Associate Producer!
Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbook
Credits
Host/Founder: John Parker
Executive Producer: Jim Pounds
Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Troy Ford, Jonathan Fried, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, Sean Smith, and Karsten Vagner
Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, Sofia Nerman, and Gary Nygaard.
Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson
Quatrefoil Library
Quatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can’t buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1
