Our June-July Queer IRL gallery was Queer on Holiday, a vitalizing journey through some of your best summer days. We saw you at the lake, on your honeymoon, jumping on the beach, going to Pride with your friends, and generally just being cute and queer and full of life. Maybe go ahead and bookmark that gallery now so you can come back to it during the chilly winter, when you just can’t go for a topless swim, no matter how much you want to.
Hey are you ready for August’s theme? COOL LET’S DO IT.
August’s Gallery Theme: Queer in the Stacks
You might think I’m talking about a public library situation here, but I’m talking about you and your personal bookshelves! Your bookcases! Your books your books your books. You’ve got ’em, now go take a picture with ’em!
Instructions
1. Take a large, high quality picture of you and your bookcase. This is doable with most smartphones, so don’t worry if you don’t have a fancy camera. You know what else works and is super fun? Disposable cameras. I keep mentioning this because I just don’t want you to forget it.
Photos should be between 1024-3024 pixels wide so they’ll look nice on a full screen. Please don’t send anything smaller than 1024 pixels wide.
2. Send your picture and info to me at [email protected]with the subject QUEER STACKS. Copy/paste this mini form into your email and fill in the blanks with your info!
NAME / AGE* / LOCATION
Details: Tell me about your bookshelf, your favorite book, how you’ve got the books organized, what other beloved items are you showing off on these shelves?
*Optional but cool.
I reserve the right to edit your sentence/s for length or spelling errors. (I’m a pretty good editor though, so.) Your photo will appear in a full screen gallery on Autostraddle.com — the main site, not A+ — and might be used on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr) to promote the gallery. If you don’t want your photo to appear on social media, please make a note of that with your submission. You reserve full rights to your photo. Photos will not be used to promote anything other than this exact gallery, and will not be used in any other future post.
Deadline: Monday, August 28
FAQ
1. What is a bookcase?
A bookcase or a bookshelf or a book table or a book tower are all just places where you’re keeping and displaying your books.
2. What is a queer person?
Queer people are lesbians, bisexuals, queer and otherwise-identified women, trans and non-binary folks.
3. Do you want us to be in the photo?
I do, yes! Yes please! I’d love that. You don’t necessarily have to be in it, but I think all your other queer person-reader friends would appreciate seeing another queer person staring back at them from their electronic screen situation. I know I do. Please be in your photo!!
4. What about my friends or my pets? Should they be in the photo?
I’d be mad if they weren’t.
5. What if my ‘bookshelf’ is really just a modest pile of books on my nightstand? What if I want to make this about my public library and not my private collection?
If you have any number of books gathered together in one location, I think that counts! If you want to make this about your public library, DO IT. Be sure to include the name of the library and why you chose it.
6. Wait wait wait, I have like 15 bookshelves! Do you really want 15 pictures?!
Thank you for checking, no I do not. It’s true that 15 photos would be outlandish. Why don’t you choose your favorite bookshelf? Or maybe your three favorites.
6. How sexy can we get here? Also tell me about your nudity policy.
We shan’t show nipples, genitalia, or simulated or actual sex. Sex toys or nude art are totally permitted.
Deadline: Monday, August 28
Leave your questions in the comments and if you have an idea for a future theme, let me know! [email protected]
Oh no! I have like 400 books spread across 6 shelves in various rooms of my apartment. The hardest part of this will be choosing which shelf to go with. This’ll be a struggle.
noooo *slow wall slide* all of my books are packed up because I’m moving next week! I dont know if I’ll be done setting them up in time
SAME! but motivation to make my bookshelves the first things I set up!
I feel like a photo of you next to your boxes of books would totally count. (Unless you want the motivation to unpack them)
haha for me that would also be quite a picture, managed to fit them all in a total of 5 boxes, 6 large tote bags, Very Heavy suitcase, and large backpack. But my shelves look so pretty when they are set up so definitely going to work towards that goal
Another Sophia here with bookshelves in various rooms, including built-in bed bookshelves, two under-the-desk sets of shelves, a locker in the university library, shelves and piles at my desk at said university, and a few regular shelves two rows deep with books and sometimes with piles on top…all of which I keep wanting to re-organize. I love this theme!
I had an impressive bookshelf at my parents house, but then I moved out and started downsizing because I got a Kindle :( I have 3 small bookshelves scattered around my house so I’ll have to choose the best looking one.
Dude, downsizing and using a Kindle are not things to frown over! Kindles are amazing. I have like 500 books on a tablet the size of a smallish book. And it doesn’t use any paper. And, you don’t have shelves full of books collecting dust. Anyone who claims to hate Kindles but love books is a liar, or more into the appearance of books than actually reading.
Maybe my submission will be a picture of me and my Kindle.
E-reader for life.
I do love my Kindle, but I also love physical books. Seeing them is comforting to me.
I thought about that too. I love my nook and my ebooks so, so much. I think I have more ereading related apps on my phone than any other kind of app.
I’m think I might do a photo of me, my ereader and my smart phone in front of one of my remaining bookshelves with print books.
Every time I see one of these I think “yes, awesome, totally gonna do that!”…and then I never do. But this time I’m really gonna do this!
I am debating participating in this. Not because my two teeny tiny shelves packed with books are bad or anything like that. I’m just more afraid of putting my face (being a pre-HRT trans woman) out there on the web.
But!!
I feel like pairing my face with something I love (books and talking about books!) may be a really great way for me to confront this discomfort and dysphoria I feel. So I’m kind of just going to give myself some time to think about it. But this is really cool that ya’all are doing this. ??
❤️?❤️?❤️
❤️?
Your cat is adorable!
You’re in a safe space Sarah I’m also early in transition. Seeing others willing to share their happy faces is so empowering. I’d love to see your book collection too! ^__^
Yes! Totally agree with this comment. Seeing happy trans people is very empowering!
And thanks!
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Hooray! This is by far going to my favorite gallery :D
I didn’t even know that this was the gallery I’ve been waiting for, but this is the gallery I’ve been waiting for!
/ I just moved and about 3/4 of my 15 boxes’ worth of books are all in (highly organized and alphabetized!) piles on the floor, so thanks for the added motivation to get to ikea and give them a more appropriate home. And also added motivation to fill the empty space in the middle of my Harry Potter collection, because an ex refuses to return books 4 & 5. :'(
This was me last year—and it took me ages since my bookshelves broke in the moving and so new ones had to be built. Good luck!
I’ve been waiting my whole life for this moment.
Well I could post a picture of the corner in my parent’s cellar were all my childhood books are kept. The pre-kindle era so to speak. Other than that my bookshelf is just a BIG pile of data.
I honestly don’t know what I’d do Pt1 and p2
I can’t post pics online but looking forward to seeing everyone’s & seeing which books match mine :)
I’m excited to take my photo for this! I felt I couldn’t participate in the last one because I was in the wrong hemisphere for a summer photo.
I’ve got a long shelf I’ll be trying to get into one photo, along with a Kindle, a few video game art books on my table (no room for a coffee table else they’d totally be coffee table books), and three accordion files of comics.
I have a good reason to submit a pic of my public library-I work there! I swear like half of my coworkers are queer and the entire library is my playground, it’s the best, I love it.
That is awesome!
I work at a library too!
Um… I don’t really have bookshelves per say. Is that still o.k. My room looks more like this. It’s really hard sometimes to find paths to my bed…
http://i.imgur.com/UFVTOim.jpg
*cracks knuckles* My time has come.
(I love how many librarians and future librarians are on Autostraddle. We’ve been preparing for this moment.)
Oh, yes! Librarian power!
YES. I keep on meaning to submit, but this I absolutely must remember to do! And it will be awesome to see what everyone’s got on their shelves!
I keep missing these galleries-so this time I will really do it! This will be good motivation to maybe dust??? and organize my bookshelves. Looking forward to seeing everyone’s books!
i might submit a photo of myself curled up in my dark storage locker, spooning the boxes full of books i won’t be able to unpack until late september when i get the keys to my new place. it’s been 3.5 years since i’ve seen many of them and there WILL be reunion photos when it happens. just not in time for this gallery!
Just sent my photo in. Kinda nervous, I think I rewrote the blurb like twenty times. Super excited though!