Aesop celebrated bibliophiles of all stripes with the opening of the Aesop Queer Library during Australia’s 2022 Pride festivities, Midsumma Festival and Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Following similar activations in the US, Canada, the UK and Taiwan, two Aesop stores—one in Melbourne and the other in Sydney—devoted their spaces to amplifying queer voices.
The Aesop Queer Library: Australia Edition
The shelves of Aesop Fitzroy and Aesop Paddington were cleared of product to showcase over 5000 volumes of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by 60 LGBTQIA+ authors, in a gesture aimed at raising awareness and empathy.
To compose these iterations of the Aesop Queer Library, retail and office teams across Australia were invited to recommend their best-loved queer authors and titles. As a way of supporting independent businesses, the volumes were purchased from the queer bookstores Hares & Hyenas in Melbourne and The Bookshop in Sydney. Penguin Random House and Allen & Unwin also generously assisted Aesop in the provision of books.
To further satiate any lingering thirst for thought-provoking queer literature, the full catalogue of titles and authors featured in the ephemeral Aesop Queer Library can be found on the link below.
Jazz Money, pronouns: she/her, How To Make A Basket
By turns scathing, funny and lyrical, How To Make A Basket examines the tensions of living in the Australian colony today. Money uses her poetry as an extension of protest against the violence of the colonial state, and as a celebration of Black and queer love, in a luminous and seamless collection that reflects on identity and passion. Deeply personal and fiercely political, these poems attempt to remember, reimagine and re-voice history. Writing in both Wiradjuri and English language, Money explores how places and bodies hold memories, and the ways our ancestors walk with us, speak through us and wait for us.
Photograph by Hannah Léser
Money is a poet of Wiradjuri heritage, currently based on sovereign Gadigal land. Her practice is centred around the written word while producing works that span installation, digital, film and print. Trained as a filmmaker and educator, Money also specialises in community collaboration and digital production, working with First Nations artists and communities to realise digital projects. Her writing has been performed and published in Australia and overseas, and in 2020 Money was awarded the David Unaipon Award from the State Library of Queensland and a First Nations Emerging Career Award from the Australian Council for the Arts.
Yves Rees, pronouns: they/them, All About Yves
What happens when, aged 30, you understand you're transgender was the question that confronted Yves Rees, a historian whose life was upended by gender transition in 2018. Then known as a woman called Anne, Yves was forced to grapple with the sudden knowledge that they were not, in fact, a woman at all. But when you've lived a lie for so long, discovering who you really are and re-learning to live in the world as a different gender is no easy feat. All About Yves tells their moving journey of re-becoming, at the same time laying bare the messiness of bodies, gender and identity. It shares the challenges and joys of being transgender in Australia today, and shows what trans experiences like Yves's can reveal about what it means to be human.
Photograph by Susan Papazian
Dr Yves Rees is an award-winning writer and historian living on unceded Wurundjeri land. Rees is a lecturer in History at La Trobe University and co-host of the Archive Fever podcast.
They were the recipient of the 2020 Calibre Essay Prize, awarded for their essay Reading the Mess Backwards, and were a 2021 Varuna Residential Fellow. Rees has a regular history segment on ABC Radio Melbourne and their writing has featured in the Sydney Review of Books, The Age, Archer Magazine, Guardian Australia, Overland, Meanjin, Junkee, Australian Book Review and The Conversation. They are the co-founder of the Spilling the T transgender writing collective and volunteer with Transgender Victoria.
Gary Lonesborough, pronouns: he/him, The Boy From The Mish
Gary Lonesborough’s The Boy From The Mish gives shape and sound to the experience of growing up Indigenous and queer in Australia. From its opening line, ’The white boys stare at us from the pub’, Lonesborough brings his readers into the First Nations community of the South Coast of NSW and into the realm of Aboriginal protagonist Jackson on the cusp of adulthood. Loosely based on Lonesborough’s individual journey through what it means to be Indigenous and queer in this country, his Young Adult novel is about identity, first love and the power of self-belief. Compelling and honest, Lonesborough’s novel is rich with moments that can only be crafted from lived experiences at the intersection of First Nations and queer identities.
Gary Lonesborough is a Yuin writer, who grew up on the Far South Coast of NSW as part of a large and proud Aboriginal family. Growing up as a Kylie Minogue and North Queensland Cowboys fan, Lonesborough was always writing as a child, and continued his creative journey when he moved to Sydney to study at film school. Gary has experience working in Aboriginal health, the disability sector and the youth justice system, and also worked on the feature film adaptation of the novel Jasper Jones.
Ellen van Neerven, pronouns: they/them, Heat and Light
Heat and Light takes traditional storytelling and turns it on its head. Over three parts, van Neerven’s novel-in-stories takes readers on a journey that moves with ease between realism and fantasy, incorporating elements of myth and mysticism in a rich and suggestive narrative. 'Heat’ introduces several generations of the Kresinger family and the legacy left by the mysterious Pearl. In ‘Water’, van Neerven offers a futuristic imagining of a people whose existence is under threat, while in ‘Light’, familial ties are challenged and characters are caught between a desire for freedom and a sense of belonging. Each story is told with passion, conviction and startling originality, making Heat and Light a lauded and thrice-awarded debut.
Photograph by Anna Jacobson
Ellen van Neerven is an award-winning author, editor and educator of Mununjali (Yugambeh language group) and Dutch heritage. They write fiction, poetry, and non-fiction on unceded Turrbal and Yuggera land. Van Neerven’s first book, Heat and Light, was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers Prize.
Benjamin Law, pronouns: he/him, Growing Up Queer in Australia
’For better or worse, sooner or later, life conspires to reveal you to yourself, and this is growing up.’ So writes Benjamin Law in Growing Up Queer in Australia, a collection of stories compiled by the author, journalist and playwright. Assembling voices from across the spectrum of LGBTIQA+ identity, the book spans diverse places, eras, ethnicities and experiences, cumulating in a rich and nuanced account of growing up queer in Australia. The book is part of the bestselling Growing Up series, and features contributions from David Marr, Fiona Wright, Nayuka Gorrie, Holly Throsby, Tony Ayres and many more.
Photograph by Daniel Francisco Roble
Law is also the author of the memoir The Family Law, Gaysia, and a Quarterly Essay contribution titled Moral Panic 101. A columnist for Good Weekend Magazine, Law has also written for over 50 publications internationally and is a co-host on ABC Radio National’s Stop Everything. Benjamin created and co-wrote three seasons of the award-winning SBS TV series The Family Law, based on his memoir, and wrote the mainstage play Torch the Place for Melbourne Theatre Company.
He also hosted ABC TV’s two-part feature documentary on Chinese-Australian history Waltzing the Dragon, and has a PhD in creative writing and cultural studies from the Queensland University of Technology.
Further reading
Explore more LGBTQIA+ reads, author interviews, a Pride playlist and details of Aesop Queer Libraries across the globe.
