Gay Bar : Why We Went Out

Lively and dirty, intellectual and gossipy, Gay Bar feels both like a guilty pleasure and like it is making you considerably smarter as you read. A super exciting debut.” - Michelle Tea

We blended vicarious living & nostalgia at the launch of GAY BAR, on Thursday 11th March at 7pm - and you can rewatch that below!

From leather parties in the Castro to Gay Liberation Front touch-ins, from disco at Studio One to dark rooms in Vauxhall railway arches, the gay bar has long been a place of joy, solidarity and sexual expression.

In his new book Gay Bar, Jeremy Atherton Lin returns to his old stomping grounds, and their memories and legacies.

Gay Bar is a sparkling, richly individual history of enclaves in London, San Francisco and Los Angeles. It is also the story of the author's own experiences as a mixed-race gay man, and the transatlantic romance that began one restless night in Soho. Expansive, vivacious, curious, celebratory, Gay Bar asks: does gay still have a place?

We're thrilled to be hosting the Edinburgh launch of this glorious book with none other than Bob Orr, co-founder of Lavender Menace, Scotland's first LGBT Bookshop as our chair.