Karl Kilian pictured inside Brazos Bookstore in 2003. Kilian founded the bookstore and ran it until 2006, when it was sold to a collective of more than a dozen Houstonians. Brazos celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspap/Houston Chronicle via Getty Imag
So much of LGBTQ+ life, of celebrating Pride, revolves around nightlife, drag shows, drinking, DJ sets. These things are great, and we love our gay bars. But if you’re not the going-out type but want to find community, where do you go? For some, the answer can be found in a good book.
“Oftentimes, people want ways to connect with one another in a space that is a little bit less extroverted, you know?” says Abby Yesso, who runs Queer Book Club Houston. “Literature is something that people connect with on a very personal level.”
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Once a month, LGBTQ+ Houstonians and allies get together for Queer Book Club at Houston’s storied Brazos Bookstore to discuss books of all genres by queer authors. Yesso began running the group in 2021 after the club’s former president moved away. As a self-described “aggressive reader” who has always had a love for LGBTQ+ stories, Yesso was ready to step in.
“I probably read more than I do anything else, and I’ve always been drawn to queer literature,” Yesso told Chron. “It wasn’t until I was in QBC that I realized I could spend most of my time reading queer literature, and things just kind of took off from there.”
When Yesso, originally from Southern Louisiana, joined the club, it was a smaller affair. Meetings were held at Campesino Coffee House in Montrose with just a handful of people. In 2022, the group moved to Brazos Bookstore, where it has grown to anywhere from 20 to 30 members. There’s also a much larger Discord group for discussions. Keerthi Tumuluri, the interim general manager of Brazos Bookstore, told Chron that hosting the group was a perfect fit for the store, which hosts several other book clubs. It didn’t hurt that Yesso is a longtime patron at Brazos, either.
“[Queer Book Club] is very in line with what our customers here read and what the staff likes,” Tumuluri said. “It just felt like a great partnership to have with a customer that we already had so much love for.”
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Queer Book Club Houston president Abby Yesso.
Courtesy of Abby Yesso
“Common ground” over a good read
Yesso said that gatherings like Queer Book Club offer not just an inclusive space for people to meet others, but something for everyone to immediately bond over. Whether or not a book like John Wiswell’s fantasy novel Someone You Can Build a Nest In (one recent book club read) resonated with you, everybody read the book and has a jumping-off point for discussion.
“It creates this common ground that I think that we just don’t necessarily always have in any space, queer or otherwise,” Yesso said. “I think that people are really seeking that right now. They’re trying to seek ways to connect with people who have a blueprint.”
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And besides connecting people, Yesso says that reading and discussing a book, especially queer and transgender stories, can help people practice compassion and understanding. As Yesso said, queer literature is especially good for helping people “build their natural capacity for empathy.”
“Even if they’re not experiences that necessarily resonate with you, I think queer literature often focuses on growth and coming of age and understanding yourself and your life journey,” Yesso said. “Those are things that are relatable regardless of your sexuality or your gender identity.”
This reporter attended a discussion of Emily St. James’ transgender coming-of-age novel Woodworking at Queer Book Club earlier this year, and what Yesso was talking about was on display. People who were as secure as they could be in their gender were able to understand the struggles of hiding part of themselves, of living a life you know deep down you’re not meant to.
Members of Queer Book Club Houston, which meets once a month at Brazos Bookstore.
Courtesy of Abby Yesso.
“We have members who are ages 16 to 70,” Yesso said. “Some of those individuals are queer, and some of those individuals are straight allies, and somehow we’re all able to be in the same room together and have a good time.”
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For Tumuluri, hosting Queer Book Club helps Brazos fulfill its mission of being not just a bookstore, but a community resource.
“One of our main goals here at Brazos is to create a safe space for people of all walks of life,” Tumuluri said. “That is something that can be lacking, especially in a place like Texas, and it’s very important to us to have that.”
Running Queer Book Club has had an impact on Yesso, too. When she joined, she identified as straight. But joining and now running the club and meeting other queer readers has helped her explore her sexuality.
“I started to really think about ‘Why is it that these stories resonate with me? Why is it that when I’m in a room full of queer people, there’s something that feels liberating and that feels like coming home?'” Yesso said. “I was like, ‘You big dummy, it’s because you’re one of them.’ Queer Book Club is literally the outlet that led me to that.”
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Now, with so many members that the club often breaks book discussions up into smaller groups at Brazos, Yesso has seen so many members go through the same journey. Her dream, she joked, is that one day she’ll get to officiate a marriage that sprang out from Queer Book Club.
“That feels incredible to be a part of a group where people suddenly feel like they have the support to be the most authentic version of themselves,” Yesso said. “I don’t know if there is a better feeling in the world.”
Queer Book Club Houston meets once a month at Brazos Bookstore at 2421 Bissonnet St.
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