Every month the LGBTQ+ Virtual Book Club members read one LGBTQIA+ book as a group. During the first week of each month, members will meet either in-person or via Zoom for discussions about the book. Sometimes, via Zoom, even the author can join us at some meetings! Every year the group votes on the selection of books to be read. If you have suggestions, share them with the moderator.
The LGBTQ+ Virtual Book Club is completely free to join! We're excited to read with you!
Click the button below to join our private Facebook group "MSCCP LGBTQ Book Club" as it will serve as a safe place for continuous dialogue amongst the group.
Not on social media? No problem! Join our email list and keep up-to-date on all things LGBTQ+ Virtual Book Club!
We ask that, if possible, you buy your books from local Mississippi Book Stores. We call or email these stores in advance of any books chosen to be read to make sure that they will have them in stock. Three that we recommend are:
Lemuria Books - Jackson, MS (601-366-7619)
Violet Valley Bookstore - Water Valley, MS (662-506-2750)
Friendly City Books - Columbus, MS (662-570-4247)
Equal parts bravado, tenderness, and humor, and bursting with misfits, magicians, musicians, and mimes, Stop Me If You've Heard This One is a masterpiece of comedic fiction that asks big questions about art and performance, friendship and community, and the importance of timing in jokes and in life.
Kristen Arnett is the queer Floridian author of the novels STOP ME IF YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE (Riverhead Books, 2025) which was shortlisted for the Comedy Women in Print Prize, With Teeth (Riverhead Books, 2021) which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in fiction, and the New York Times bestselling debut Mostly Dead Things (Tin House, 2019) which was also a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in fiction and was shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. She was awarded a Shearing Fellowship at Black Mountain Institute, has held residencies at Ragdale Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, the Millay Colony, and the Studios of Key West, and was longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. She runs the substack “Dad Lessons.” Her work has appeared at The New York Times, TIME, Vogue, The Cut, Oprah Magazine, PBS Newshour, The Guardian, Salon, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. Her upcoming short fiction collection, Party at the End of the World, will be published by Riverhead Books. She has a Masters in Library and Information Science from Florida State University and lives in Orlando, Florida.
Have recommendations for us to read in 2026? Let us know via the "Join the email list" form!
Need recommendations? See our past book club choices below!
January: The Majestic Leo Marble by R.J. Lee
February: Love and Hot Chicken by Mary Liza Hartong
March: We Have Always Been Here: A Wueer Muslim Memoir by Samra Habib
April: The Map that Led to You by Ella McLeod
may: These Letters End in Tears by Musih Tedji Xaviere
June: Outlawed by Anna North
July: Woodworking by Emily St. James
August: What the Woods Took by Courtney Gould
September: Reader’s Choice: All the Things We Don’t Talk About or Willa & Hesper by Amy Feltman
October: Stop Me If You Heard This One by Kristen Arnett
November: Homebodies by Tembe Denton-Hurst
December: Oye by Melissa Mogollon
January: The Welcome by Hubert Creekmore (intro by Philip Gordon)
February: The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
March: Pageboy: A Memoir by Elliot Page
April: Dykette: A Novel by Jenny Fran Davis
May: Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller
June: Memoir of a Race Traitor: Fighting Racism in the American South by Mab Segrest
July: Ten Steps to Nanette by Hannah Gadsby
August: Better Living Through Birding by Christian Cooper
September: A Rabbi and a Preacher Go to a Pride Parade: And other musings, sermons, and such by Bert Montgomery
October: Drastic Dykers & Accidental Activists: Queer Women in the Urban South by LaShonda Mims
November: The Queer South: LGBTQ Writers on the American South by Douglas Ray
December: Black. Queer. Southern. Women.: An Oral History by E. Patrick Johnson
January: Diary of a Misfit: A Memoir and a Mystery by Casey Parks
February: A Wild and Precious Life: A Memoir by Edie Windsor
March: Mississippi Sissy by Kevin Sessums
April: The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi Durrow
May: Lark Ascending by Silas House
June: The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison by Hugh Ryan
July: Crooked Letter I: Coming Out in the South
August: The Weeds by Katy Simpson Smith
September: Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake
October: Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan
November: The Librarian of Burned Books by Brianna Labuskes
December: Lesbian Love Story: A Memoir in Archives by Amelia Possanza
January: The Palace Blues by Brandy T. Wilson
February: The Secret Life of the American Musical by Jack Viertel
March: Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
April: Sweet & Low: Stories by Nick White
May: Who Killed Buster Sparkle? by John W. Bateman
June: With Teeth: A Novel by Kristen Arnett
July: A Time Before Me by Michael Holloway Perronne
August: I’m Just a Person: A Memoir by Tig Notaro
September: Broken Horses: A Memoir by Brandi Carlile
October: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
November: Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States by Samantha Allen
December: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
February: Coming Out of the Magnolia Closet: Same-Sex Couples in Mississippi by John F. Marszalek III
March: The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi
April: Gay Faulkner: Uncovering a Homosexual Presence in Yoknapatawpha and Beyond by Phillip Gordon
May: Southern Discomfort: A Memoir by Tena Clark
June: Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Upstairs Lounge and the Rise of Gay Liberation by Robert W. Fieseler
July: Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
August: Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing: Essays by Lauren Hough
September: A Lesbian Belle Tells: OUTrageous Southern Stories of Family, Loss, and Love by Elizabeth McCain
October: Mississippi Barking: Hurricane Katrina and a Life That Went to the Dogs by Chris McLaughlin
November: The Lesbian South: Southern Feminists, the Women in Print Movement, and the Queer Literary Canon by Jaime Harker
December: A Night at the Sweet Gum Head: Drag, Drugs, Disco, and Atlanta’s Gay Revolution by Martin Padgett
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