BONUS 0.18. Take Me Out to the Ball Gayme: Will Graham Talks A League of Their Own

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Have you, like our dear host Leigh, gotten totally sucked into the amazing new Amazon Prime adaptation of A League of Their Own? Do you want to hear all about the show, its meticulous research into queer life of the 1940s and how the writers, producers, and cast opened up the scope of the movie to focus on the lives of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League’s queer players? Well then, hop in to this episode, where I’m joined by co-creator Will Graham to dive deep into A League of Their Own, early queer nightlife, the importance of representation both on and behind the camera, and what it means to be a young, queer kid who just wants to play ball and has finally found their team.

A League of Their Own follows queer women athletes and players during the first season of the All-American Girls’ Professional Baseball League, started in 1943 by chewing gum magnate and owner of the Chicago Cubs, Phillip K. Wrigley, in response to a shortage of male players due to World War II, We’ll be doing a full episode on the queer history of the AAGPBL and queer women in baseball/softball during this era next, so stay tuned!


Will Graham is a writer, director, and showrunner. He directed and executive produced episodes of Amazon’s Emmy and Golden Globe-winning series Mozart in the Jungle. He also wrote multiple episodes of Amazon’s comedy series Alpha House. Graham was one of the original founders of The Onion’s Onion News Network web series and won a Peabody Award for his directing and executive producing work on the show. He subsequently served as showrunner on IFC’s The Onion News Network series.

He founded Field Trip Productions in 2017, along with former UTA agent Hailey Wierengo. The company is currently producing multiple series through their first-look TV deal with Amazon Studios, including A League of Their Own, with Graham serving as co-creator and co-showrunner alongside Abbi Jacobson; Daisy Jones and the Six with Hello Sunshine, as well as many other forthcoming shows.


You can watch the first season of A League of Their Own on Amazon Prime.

To give you a taste, check out the trailer!

Where To Find Will Graham Online:

And for more information on A League of Their Own:

Until next time, stay queer and stay curious!

BONUS 0.15. Malinda Lo and Queer YA Historical Fiction

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Another interview episode for you all in the feed today, this time Leigh sat down with author Malinda Lo about her writing, her interest and research into queer history, and the trajectory of queer literature since her first published book in 2009.

Her award-winning novel Last Night at the Telegraph Club is a queer historical fiction coming-of-age story set in 1954 San Francisco, following Chinese-American teenager Lily Hu as she discovers her queer identity, falls in love with classmate Kath Miller, and sneaks out to the Telegraph Club, a lesbian bar humming with life and new experiences.

We dive into the research and real-life queer San Francisco scene Lo explored to create the world of Last Night at the Telegraph Club, as well as her newest book, A Scatter of Light, a companion novel set against backdrop of the first major Supreme Court decisions legalizing gay marriage.

"That book. It was about two women, and they fell in love with each other." And then Lily asked the question that had taken root in her, that was even now unfurling its leaves and demanding to be shown the sun: "Have you ever heard of such a thing?" 

Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can't remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. 

America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father - despite his hard-won citizenship - Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day. 

Last Night at the Telegraph Club author Malinda Lo returns to the Bay Area with another masterful queer coming-of-age story, this time set against the backdrop of the first major Supreme Court decisions legalizing gay marriage.

Aria Tang West was looking forward to a summer on Martha’s Vineyard with her best friends—one last round of sand and sun before college. But after a graduation party goes wrong, Aria’s parents exile her to California to stay with her grandmother, artist Joan West. Aria expects boredom, but what she finds is Steph Nichols, her grandmother’s gardener. Soon, Aria is second-guessing who she is and what she wants to be, and a summer that once seemed lost becomes unforgettable—for Aria, her family, and the working-class queer community Steph introduces her to. It’s the kind of summer that changes a life forever.

And almost sixty years after the end of Last Night at the Telegraph Club, A Scatter of Light also offers a glimpse into Lily and Kath’s lives since 1955.

 

Photo credit: Sharona Jacobs

Malinda Lo is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels, including most recently A Scatter of Light. Her novel Last Night at the Telegraph Club won the National Book Award, the Stonewall Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, a Michael L. Printz Honor, and was an LA Times Book Prize finalist. Her books have received 15 starred reviews and have been finalists for multiple awards, including the Andre Norton Award and the Lambda Literary Award. She has been honored by the Carnegie Corporation as a Great Immigrant. Malinda’s short fiction and nonfiction has been published by The New York Times, NPR, Autostraddle, The Horn Book, and multiple anthologies. She lives in Massachusetts with her wife and their dog.

Notes from the Telegraph Club

Malinda also has some other queer history and current events articles on her blog, one of which we’ve even used as a source in a previous episode. We recommend you check these out:

Where To Find Malinda Lo Online:

Until next time, stay queer and stay curious!

BONUS 0.14. A Pod Meets BROS Love Story: Making Queer (Romcom) History!

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While Leigh is working on putting together the next regular History is Gay episode for you, we've got a special treat in the form of a minisode, all about the new film BROS, making history as the first romantic comedy from a major film studio about two gay men and featuring an all LGBTQ+ principal cast! It's uproariously funny, filled with queer history tidbits, and we worked on it!

History is Gay did some research consulting for the film back in 2021 as they were building out their set design of The LGBTQIA+ Museum, which serves as backdrop for some of the film, and Leigh got a chance to sit down with three of the cast members who play board members of the museum— Dot-Marie Jones, Academy Award winner Jim Rash, and Eve Lindley— to talk about their roles, their own queer history knowledge, and what it meant to them to be part of this project!

BROS is out in theaters now as of September 30, 2022 -- go support the film, and keep your eyes peeled for a fun History is Gay easter egg in the film! Tweet us your thoughts!




From left: Ts Madison, Billy Eichner, Miss Lawrence, Eve Lindley, Jim Rash and Dot-Marie Jones as board members of the LGBTQIA+ museum in "Bros." Museum scenes were filmed at the Newark Museum of Art. Nicole Rivelli | Universal Pictures

 

Dot-Marie Jones has received three consecutive Emmy® Award nominations (2011, 2012, 2013) for her role as football coach Shannon Beiste on FOX’s megahit television show Glee (Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series, Season 3). With an expansive list of diverse film and television credits, Jones is known for her poignant roles in both drama and comedy. In 2017, Dot performed in her first theatre production of Our Town (Deaf West Company, The Pasadena Playhouse). She portrays LGBTQIA+ Museum board member Cherry in BROS.

Jim Rash is an actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is widely known for his role as Dean Craig Pelton on the NBC sitcom Community (2009–2015), for which he was nominated for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2012. In that same year, he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and received a Golden Globe nomination as one of the writers of The Descendants. He portrays LGBTQIA+ Museum board member Robert in BROS.

Eve Lindley is an actress and model, best known for her roles in the television series Dispatches from Elsewhere and the film All We Had. In 2016, she was named in Out magazine's OUT100. As a model she has worked with Barneys New York. She portrays LGBTQIA+ Museum board member Tamara in BROS.

 

Learn more about BROS and our guests for this episode:

Until next time, stay queer and stay curious!