Join us in celebrating the release of Washington Writers’ Publishing House’s first pocket-sized anthology, CAPITAL QUEER: A PRIDE Celebration, a collection honoring the LGBTQ+ experience through poetry, fiction, and essay. The anthology explores themes of love, resilience, identity, and liberation.

The collection features a cross section of 32 writers from DC, Maryland, and Virginia. Capital Queer is a bold statement of queer love and survival, and this collection arrives at a critical moment. As the editors of this anthology, Jona Colson and Caroline Bock share in their dedication, “To all those in the LGBTQ+ community, as well as the allies, friends, and family, who believe in a diverse, inclusive, equitable, and rainbow-filled world, Capital Queer is for you.” Colson and Bock also serve as the co-presidents of the Washington Writers’ Publishing House.

Washington Writers’ Publishing House is the longest continuously operating nonprofit, cooperative, literary small press in the United States. Established in 1975 in our nation’s capital, the press has published over 100 volumes of poetry as well fiction and nonfiction in more recent years. You can learn more at https://www.washingtonwriters.org/

Caroline Bock is the co-president and prose editor at the Washington Writers’ Publishing House. She is the co-editor of CAPITAL QUEER: A PRIDE CELEBRATION.

Jona Colson is the co-president and poetry editor at the Washington Writers’ Publishing House. He is the co-editor of CAPITAL QUEER: A PRIDE CELEBRATION.

Chris Biles (she/her) currently lives and works in Washington, D.C., where she enjoys playing with the light and the dark and losing herself in music, anything outside, and some words here and there. She is published in several literary magazines, journals, and anthologies in print and online. You can find her at marks-in-the-sand.com / Instagram: @marks.in.the.sand / out walking the city streets.

Bree Fram is a colonel and astronautical engineer in the U.S. Space Force. Bree lives in Virginia with her wife and two kids. She is stationed at the Pentagon and is one of the highest-ranking transgender service members in the military. The views presented in Capital Queer are personal and do not reflect the official guidance or position of the U.S. government or the Department of Defense.

Natalie E. Illum (she/her) is a poet, disability activist and singer living in Washington, D.C. She is the recipient of multiple Poetry Fellowship Grants from the D.C. Commission for the Arts and Humanities, a former Jenny McKean Moore Fellow and a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize Nominee. She was a founding board member of mothertongue, an LGBTQIA open mic that lasted 15 years. Her work has appeared in various publications, and on NPR’s Snap Judgement. Natalie has an MFA in Creative Writing from American University. You can find her on Instagram as @poetryrox, and as one half of the band All Her Muses. She loves whiskey, giraffes and plants.

Tanya Olson lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. She is the author of Boyishly, Stay, and Born Backwards, all out from YesYes Books. She has received a Discovery/Boston Review prize and an American Book Award and was been named a Lambda Fellow by the Lambda Literary Foundation. Born Backwards was named a top ten 2024 LGBTQ+ work by Foreword Reviews.

If you’d like to purchase this title online and still support People’s Book, follow the link below:

https://bookshop.org/a/88548/9781941551516

This is an in-person event. Seated capacity at People’s Book is 50 patrons. Standing room is an option. All events are first-come, first-served seating. Accessible seating is always available.