Sapph-Lit Book Club: An Online Queer Safe Space
By: Mallory Johnson
Back in July of 2021, I was scrolling through TikTok, and I came across a video about young adult queer books, posted by Nina Haines. After watching the video, I went to the comments and saw that someone suggested that Nina start a book club...and the rest is history. The club is called Sapph-Lit and currently has approximately 1950 members (and counting!) Sapph-Lit is on the app Geneva, which allows for a group chat feel. We started off reading adult sapphic (queer women and non-binary characters and authors) fiction books, but we quickly added a queer theory non-fiction pick too. Our first pick in June was the brand new One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston, who is the author of the (very popular) book Red, White, and Royal Blue (I loved both of their books). Geneva allows us to talk about life, queer books, queer popular culture, and of course our monthly books. There have been wonderful opportunities to attend Zoom interviews with some of the authors of our monthly picks! The very first author interview was with the author of the (very large) fantasy book The Priory of the Orange Tree (July, fiction), Samantha Shannon. I did not attend this one because I did not read the book, but this started a Sapph-Lit trend! The next interview was Shelley Parker-Chan, who wrote She Who Became the Sun (August, fiction). I attended the September non-fiction interview with the author of the 2000s Made Me Gay, Grace Perry! I had a lot of fun and I loved the book (and I highly recommend it if you want to learn about growing up as a lesbian). The next interview was Jen Winston, who wrote the October non-fiction book, called Greedy: Notes from a Bisexual Who Wants Too Much. The most recent interview was for the November fiction book called Detransition, Baby, Torrey Peters. Sapph-Lit has become a highlight of my year and one of my favorite parts of every month is voting on the books - sometimes the races are tight! There are monthly Zoom chats about both books, and I attended the one for the November non-fiction book, which was The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson. I had a lot of fun with a few other members of Sapph-Lit. It is such a nice opportunity to have an accessible online queer safe space and queer community, especially while living in a small town in a pandemic where we must stay at home. Sapph-Lit has a very large number of members, so they all offer very diverse and interesting perspectives on the books we read. It is very interesting to me reading everyone's thoughts on the books, even if I did not read the book! We make sure our picks are as diverse as our members. Sapph-Lit allowed me to grow my reading horizons - before this year, I did not read much non-fiction, but I do now! I also tried to read my second ever fantasy book, She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan (but I decided not to finish it). I am so grateful for Sapph-Lit and I wish I had this community when I was in the closet in high school, but I am so happy I found it now! Our December picks are Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo for fiction, and In the Dream House my Carmen Maria Machado for non-fiction. I am so excited to read these now that I am on winter break! To join Sapph-Lit, go to the club’s Instagram page @sapphlit!