homo-centric — LA Queer Literary Reading

“Every third Thursday at the bookstore on Sunset. Queer writers…”

Hank Henderson believed queer writers needed a permanent home to read out loud — not a stage, just a room. So he started showing up at Stories Books & Cafe on the third Thursday of the month with a few friends, then a few more, and now it has been running long enough that people plan their evenings around it without thinking. The lights stay low. The seats fill up. Someone always comes who hasn't been before, and someone always reads something they wrote that week and hadn't yet said out loud. The work is queer — that's the room's whole architecture — but the readings range across forms and decades, sometimes a debut novelist with a fresh galley, sometimes an old hand testing something they're not sure works yet. The bookstore stays open before the reading so you can browse the shelves and grab tea or coffee from the baristas. Doors open early. The first reader starts at 7:30 sharp. The third Thursday of every month, the same room, the same chairs, the same regulars who somehow always make space for one more.