Children’s book author “Queer And Fearless” hosts book event in St. Pete

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — Children’s author Rob Sanders will appear at Allendale United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg on Tuesday at 7 p.m. to read and discuss his latest book, “Queer and Fearless.”

The picture book, published in April by Penguin Random House, contains 15 biographical poems celebrating the lives of 17 LGBTQ+ heroes.

At the event, Tampa Bay Area writers Sheree Greer, Tyler Gillespie, Maria Ingrande Mora, Silk-Jazmyne Sampson Hindus, Gloria Muñoz and Sam Obeid will read excerpts from Sanders’ book.

He will also be interviewed by Colette Bancroft, book editor of the Tampa Bay Times, and there will be a fundraiser for Equality Florida.

Sanders told Patch that he had been working on the collection for years, although he had no original intention of publishing it.

“I’ve been writing about LGBTQ+ heroes for some time, every time a historical event happened, someone died or an anniversary was celebrated,” said the St. Petersburg author. “But I wrote them just for myself and then put them away.”

At some point he realized that there might be more to the project.

“Over time, I had this collection of poems and thought, ‘I should do something with this,'” Sanders said.

The LGBTQ+ heroes featured in the book range from the 1950s to 2022 and include Marsha P. Johnson, Harvey Milk, Cleve Jones, Pauline Park, Richard Blanco and Pete Buttigieg.

“I tried to cover an entire historical period and not just a part of the community,” he said.

It’s important to share these stories with children, Sanders added. “Probably anyone in the LGBTQ+ community over the age of 25 didn’t grow up with our history or didn’t have resources we could draw on without doing a lot of research.”