This Week's Guest: Phil Stamper
My guest this week is Phil Stamper, whose book The Gravity of Us tells the story of two young men who fall in love amidst the drama of a mission to Mars. For years, Phil struggled to balance competing impulses to be silly and serious, and to keep his creative spark alive throughout the drudgery of office work. The result is an upcoming debut novel that amplifies his own queer experiences with some help from science fiction.
Just a reminder -- I hope you'll join us for the next Sewers of Paris live chat on Saturday May 19, at 2pm Pacific with special guest Fazaad Feroze. We want to hear about the book and movies and songs and shows you're obsessed with right now.
And if you're in Seattle for Pride next month, mark your calendars for June 21! We're doing our next live Dungeons & Drag Queens show at Kremwerk. Tickets are now on sale at QueensOfAdventure.com.
Huge thanks to everyone who makes The Sewers of Paris possible with a pledge of a dollar or more a month on Patreon. If you're enjoying the show, click "Support the Show on Patreon." Or you can support The Sewers of Paris for free by leaving a review on your podcast platform of choice -- that really helps people find the show.
This Week's Recommendation: Steven Universe
Thanks again to Phil for joining me. You can find out more about him and his book at PhilStamper.com. We talked this week about the mix of culture both silly and serious, and for my recommendation I hope you'll take a look at one of my favorite shows, Steven Universe.
You'll want to give it a few episodes to really get going, and then the show will reward your patience many times over. What seems at first like a goofy kid's show suddenly yanks back the curtain midway through the first season to reveal a show that, while still fun, has seemingly endless layers of depth and sophistication and darkness and a pumpkin that barks and cuddles like a dog.
It is also possibly one of the queerest shows ever to have existed, featuring magical science-fiction women in relationships so complex we don't even have words for how they relate to reach other. Come for the zapping lasers and space battles; stay for the lesbian commune drama.