Peach Magazine V6-i30 | Summer Sign-Off

Dive Into Classic Swimwear Fight the Queer Book Ban Great LGBTQ+ Reads Summer Sentiments Carry On the Feeling Plus+ Event Photos and much more

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The Dog Days Are (Almost) Over

By Mikkel Hyldebrandt

Although summer isn’t over yet - official end of summer is September 22 – most people have concluded their summer travels and are back to work and everyday responsibilities.

But remember that feeling of carefreeness and those moments of total relaxation when you were fully immersed in summer? You can still incorporate those, even if you have fully returned to a busy schedule. Here are a few tips on how you carry a bit of summer with you well into fall.

Get Outside

Just because you are back to work doesn’t mean you can’t take breaks to go outside. In fact, over the next few weeks and months the weather is going to cool off in Atlanta, making it much more bearable to be outside. Take advantage of that!

Stay Spontaneous

Just because your schedule has become more regimented, you can still make those lastminute plans to meet friends or have people over for a drink. Being spontaneous is not just for when you have time off, and it doesn’t have to interrupt your entire schedule. An impromptu cocktail hour or meeting a friend for dinner short notice are great examples of doing something that’s not necessarily on your immediate schedule.

Keep Building Relationships

Remember how open you were to meet new friends and make new connections while you were on vacation? Whether it is a friend, neighbor, or someone you just met be open and friendly and find that common ground. Even though you may not build a lifelong friendship, you will have a bright moment in your day.

Keep Moving

Those endless miles you walked in a new city, in a museum, or at the beach did your mind and body good. Keep incorporating movement into your day, which doesn’t have to be at the gym; a brisk walk in your neighborhood works too.

Explore More Food

Remember being completely open to trying new foods and treating yourself when you were on vacation? Keep having fun with food, explore new things to eat, and find moments where you can treat yourself. Some things may not be in season anymore, but you can still try out new stuff – and why not have that iced coffee and enjoy a moment of indulgence?

Try New (Naughty) Things

Part of vacationing is having that ‘let’s do it’ attitude and being open to new connections and trying new things. Now that you are back on your regularly scheduled programming, you can still find moments to get down and a little dirty as long as you are open to it. Who knows, you may find a new partner or take your relationship to the next level.

Take time to wind down

Think back to how well that afternoon nap did you when you were on vacation. You may not have the time to take hourlong naps, but a 15-minute powernap will still reset your body and mind. Taking the time out of your busy schedule to simply relax does not mean you are inefficient but rather that you are taking care of yourself, so that you can perform better without burning out.

Fight the Queer Book Ban By Lovin’ Up on These 11 New LGBTQ+ Reads

By Chris Azzopardi No matter what Republicans tell you, there’s never a bad time to get lost in a queer book. But now just happens to be a really good time to do so as parents pressure administrators to ban books with LGBTQ+ content from school classrooms and libraries. You can take action against these conservative groups relentlessly pushing their troubling censorship efforts. One way? To simply exercise your reading rights by supporting these LGBTQ+ stories and authors.

I Was Better Last Night, Harvey Fierstein

Just By Looking at Him, Ryan O’Connell

Harvey Fierstein is a bona fide gay legend across the board, from his illustrious stage and screen career (among his most memorable work: “Torch Song Trilogy,” “Hairspray” and “Mrs. Doubtfire”) on through “Kinky Boots,” the Tony Award-winning musical he wrote the book for. Of course, there’s everything in between and everything that came before, and in his first memoir, “I Was Better Last Night,” Fierstein reflects on all of the above. The book covers aspects of his life as a prominent figure in the LGBTQ+ community, including his community theater roots in Brooklyn, his nonconformist childhood and two seminal moments in queer history — the early gay rights movement in the 1970s and the AIDS crisis the following decade. In a 2015 interview with Pride Source, Fierstein said, “I don’t believe in life after death, so whoever’s gonna remember me is none of my business, certainly. I ain’t gonna know about it.” With this memoir, surely, though perhaps unintentionally so, he’s given us yet another reason to not let him slip away into oblivion.

Ryan O’Connell is currently playing a gay pop culture nerd on Peacock’s “Queer as Folk” reimagining, while also serving as a writer and executive producer. And before that, he created “Special,” the Emmy-nominated comedy-drama loosely based on O’Connell’s life as a gay man living with cerebral palsy that ran for two seasons on Netflix. Now you can add author to his ever-expanding resume with his first foray into fiction. “Just By Looking at Him” tells the story of Elliott, who masks his alcohol addiction with a smoke-and-mirrors career as a TV writer. He’s cheating on his boyfriend, though, and things aren’t great overall.

All the while, he has cerebral palsy, which makes him feel like a “gay Shrek.” O’Connell’s story is about the fight to overcome addiction while also searching for acceptance in an ableist world.

You Made a Fool of Death With Your Name, Akwaeke Emezi Nigerian fiction writer and video artist Akwaeke Emezi, who identifies as non-binary transgender, has been a celebrated queer voice — a “oncein-a-generation” one, according to Vulture — since “Freshwater,” their 2018 debut novel that is currently being adapted into a TV series for FX. Since then, Emezi has gone on to achieve major prestige, including being named a “5 Under 35” honoree by the National Book Foundation that same year. Their 2019 book, “Pet,” which explored identity and justice, was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. And their latest book, “You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty,” the story of Feyi Adekola grappling with the aftermath of her lover’s death, was described by The New York Times Book Review as “an unabashed ode to living with, and despite, pain and mortality.”

A visiting professor in fiction at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Lydia Conklin’s “Rainbow Rainbow” pulls from various aspects of queer, gender-nonconforming and trans life for this collection of stories: a young lesbian and her lover try to have a baby with an unprofessional sperm donor, a fifth grader dresses as an ox for a class “Oregon Trail” reenactment, and a nonbinary person experiences an open relationship alongside their top surgery during the height of the pandemic.

Ma and Me, Putsata Reang

A Previous Life, Edmund White National Book Award-winning author Edmund White explores polyamory, bisexuality, aging and love in “A Previous Life,” a book about Sicilian aristocrat and musician Ruggero and his younger American wife Constance’s decision to break their promise to each other to refrain from sharing intimate details about past relationships. Their transparency leads to some revealing revelations about each other: Constance was married to multiple older men, and Ruggero has loved not just women, but men too.

And White, whose book experiments with writing himself into the story as a secondary character, just happens to be one of them.

Rainbow Rainbow, Lydia Conklin

Described as “a layered story of queerness, assimilation and displacement” to the press, author Putsata Reang’s memoir sheds light on the gay refugee experience in America as she — born in Cambodia, raised in rural Oregon — tells her own story of intergenerational trauma and her complicated relationship with her mother, which she describes as “painful.” In “Ma and Me,” which is based on her Modern Love essay in The New York Times, Reang recalls how, in her 20s, after doing everything she could to be the kind of Cambodian daughter who would make her mother proud, she came out to her. Her mother tells her it’s only a phase, but then, in her 40s, Reang marries a woman, forever changing her relationship with Ma. A journalist for The New York Times, Politico and The Guardian, this is Reang’s first memoir.

Miss Memory Lane,, Colton Haynes Colton Haynes lays bare his thoughts on stardom, addiction and living as an

openly gay man in Hollywood in his debut memoir, which is described as the story of “a man stepping into the light as no one but himself.” The star of TV shows like “Arrow,” “Teen Wolf” and “American Horror Story,” Haynes writes about a death scare in his 20s that led to his sobriety. He chronicles that galvanizing episode in the book, when he woke up in a hospital after having two seizures, lost sight in one eye, ruptured a kidney and was put on involuntary psychiatric hold. His frank storytelling and emotional transparency moved Elton John and his husband David Furnish; they called the book a “brutally honest memoir that socks you in the gut with its candor,” adding that “Miss Memory Lane” is an example of “how conquering our demons in life is a never-ending journey.”

Tripping Arcadia, Kit Mayquist

If you’ve ever been desperate for a job, you might understand Lena’s situation — to make money, in this case to support her financially challenged parents, no matter how unusual the work. And working for one of Boston’s most elite families is… weird. Weirder, too, the more Lena, a med school dropout, learns about the family; there’s that mysterious live-in doctor and Jonathan, the sickly poetic and drunken heir to the family empire. The author is Kit Mayquist, who is trans, and “Tripping Arcadia,” her debut novel, is a Mexican Gothic soap opera where the champagne flows as freely as revenge and greed.

Young Mungo, Douglas Stuart The second novel from author Douglas Stuart, winner of the Booker Prize for “Shuggie Bain,” is, at its tender core,

a story of queer love and workingclass families. Stuart, of course, is no stranger to steeping his literary work in queerness: In “Shuggie Bain,” his coming-of-age debut novel, he wrote about Hugh, a young gay boy growing up in the 1980s with an alcoholic mother. Now, in “Young Mungo,” we meet Mungo and James, who grow up together in a Glasgow housing estate.

A world seeks to divide them, but their against-all-odds friendship — that, in time, blossoms into a romance — pushes against the violent, dangerous forces they must, like many queer people, face together.

Time Is a Mother, Ocean Vuong “I was grieving, the world was grieving, and the only thing I really had was to go back to poems,” Vuong, who wrote “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” told TIME magazine earlier this year.

At the time, he was expressing how his mother’s death, paired with the pandemic, led to his latest work, “Time Is a Mother.” The openly gay Vietnamese-American essayist and novelist, whose mother died in 2019 from breast cancer, writes about how he survived that loss in the collection, his second poetry book after 2016’s “Night Sky with Exit Wounds.”

Girls Can Kiss Now, Jill Gutowitz Author and humorist Jill Gutowitz has been writing about her gay relationship with pop culture (thankfully lots about Taylor Swift) for 15 years, in magazines such as the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Vulture. Now, in her first book of essays, “Girls Can Kiss Now,” the journalist and essayist expands, with her signature wryness, on the popculture stuff that makes her tick. And then, of course, there is, as the back of the book promises, “the time the FBI showed up at her door because of something she tweeted about ‘Game of Thrones.’”

Dive Into Classic Swimwear Models: Miguel Peña | @miguelbpl Inigo Calve | @ian.o.goh

There’s still time to hit the beach or the pool, so take a dip in some classic swimwear styles that will be future-proof for next summer too.

All images courtesy of Teamm8 all styles are available at teamm8.com

Classic Swim Brief in Rio Red and Capri Blue, $59 at Teamm8.com Miguel is wearing the Grid Swim Short in Army, $68 at Teamm8.com Inigo is wearing the Classic Swim Short in Black, $68 at Teamm8.com

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BOYS OF SUMMER FELIX’S - WEEK 2

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9 10 & Piedmont 991 Piedmont Ave NE 10 Campagnolo 980 Piedmont Ave NE 16 G’s Midtown 219 10th St NE 17 Henry’s 132 10th St NE 19 La Hacienda 900 Monroe Dr NE 20 Guac y Margys 502 Amsterdam Ave NE

6 My Sister’s Room66 12th St NE 7 X Midtown 990 Piedmont Ave NE

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14 Urban Body Fitness 500 Amsterdam Ave NE 15 Flex Spa

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26 Barking Leather 27 Southern Nights

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28 Heretic 29 Tokyo Valentino

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Midtown Moon 1492 Piedmont Ave NE Felix's 1510 Piedmont Ave NE The Hideaway 1544 Piedmont Ave NE Mixx 1492 Piedmont Ave NE Oscar's 1510 Piedmont Ave NE Mary's 1287 Glenwood Ave SE Sister Louisa’s Church 466 Edgewood Ave SE Lips Atlanta 3011 Buford Hwy NE 465 Boulevard SE The T Woof's 494 Plasters Ave NE

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1447 Piedmont Ave NE 1510 Piedmont Ave NE

41 Equilibrium Fitness 1529 Piedmont Ave, Suite L

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CARSON COWAN REALTOR® c. 404.998.9944 / o. 404.874.0300 / carson@carsoncowan.com / CarsonCowanRealEstate

Atlanta Fine Homes, LLC fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Each franchise is independently owned and operated.

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ATLANTA SOCIALIZERS CLUB THE NOOK

A snapshot of Gay Atlanta’s favorite destinations. View their ads in Peach ATL & visit their websites for weekly event listings.

SNAPS Peach Scene @ MIDTOWN

BLAKE’S ON THE PARK blakesontheparkatlanta.com 227 10th St NE BULLDOGS 893 Peachtree St NE FRIENDS NEIGHBORHOOD BAR friendsonponce-atl. com 736 Ponce De Leon Ave NE MY SISTER’S ROOM mysistersroom.com 66 12th St NE X MIDTOWN fb.com/XMidtownX 990 Piedmont Ave NE THE T modeltatlanta.com 465 Boulevard SE CHESHIRE

HERETIC hereticatlanta.com 2069 Cheshire Bridge Road BJ ROOSTERS bjroosters.com 2043 Cheshire Bridge Road NE

WESTSIDE

MARQUETTE 868 Joseph E. Boone Blvd NW 840ATL 840 Joseph E. Boone Blvd NW ANSLEY

MIDTOWN MOON 1492 Piedmont Ave NE FELIX’S 1510 Piedmont Ave NE THE HIDEAWAY 1544 Piedmont Ave NE MIXX mixxatlanta.com 1492 Piedmont Ave NE OSCAR’S oscarsatlanta.com 1510 Piedmont Ave NE WOOFS woofsatlanta.com 494 Plasters Ave NE EAST ATLANTA, GRANT PARK & EDGEWOOD

MARY’S marysatlanta.com 1287 Glenwood Ave SE SISTER LOUISA’S CHURCH

sisterlouisaschurch.com

466 Edgewood Ave SE

DINING MIDTOWN

10TH & PIEDMONT 10thandpiedmont. com 991 Piedmont Ave NE G’S gsmidtown.com 219 10th St NE HENRY’S henrysatl.com 132 10th St NE LA HACIENDA lahaciendamidtown. com 900 Monroe Dr NE

FITNESS MIDTOWN URBAN BODY FITNESS urbanbodyfitness.com 500 Amsterdam Ave N CHESHIRE GRAVITEE FITNESS graviteeatl.com 2201 Faulkner Rd NE SPAS/BATHS ADULT FLEX SPA flexspas.com 76 4th St NW CHESHIRE

DEKALB

LIPS ATLANTA atldragshow.com

3011 Buford Hwy NE RETAIL MIDTOWN

BARKING LEATHER AFTER DARK barkingleather.com 1510 Piedmont Ave NE CHESHIRE

SOUTHERN NIGHTS VIDEO 2205 Cheshire Bridge Rd NE ANSLEY

BOY NEXT DOOR MENSWEAR boynextdoormenswear.com 1447 Piedmont Ave NE GCB & PLEASURES brushstrokesatlanta. com 1510-D Piedmont Ave. NE

EMAIL JOSH@PEACHATL.COM FREE BUSINESS LISTING, THERE IS ROOM FOR YOU!

BARS & CLUBS

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ATL “Anything But Clothes” @ Heretic | Parliament of Owls Lantern Parade @ AUG. 5TH AT 10 PM Colony Square | AUG 6TH AT 8 PM Deviant ATL ask you to get in your creative bag and Elegantly weird, Parliament of Owls is a black and wrap yourself in Anything But Clothes and burn up the white owl themed lantern parade based in community participation. Everyone is invited to make an owl dance floor. lantern and fly together through the streets of Midtown Atlanta on August 6. Let’s flock together as we start Saturday, 08/05 and end the event in The Plaza.

10PM — 3AM $15 General Admission The Hangar $35 VIP (Lounge + Clothes For additional event details and lantern making DJ Jash Jay x Kenneth Check) workshops, visit go.colonysquare.com/owls Kyrell Deviant Dress Code is Parliament of Owls is a Chantelle Rytter Project with Pre-Sale required! the Krewe of the Grateful Gluttons and the Black Sheep Ensemble sponsored by Midtown Alliance.

VIP includes LOUNGE access and Clothes Check.

All ticket sales are non-refundable and nonThe Heretic Backroom Burlesque Show transferrable.

General Admission does NOT include LOUNGE access featuring the Armorettes! @ Heretic | AUG or clothes check.

6TH AT 8 PM

Atlanta Gay Sports Alliance Beer Bust @ Hideaway | AUG 6TH AT 12:30 PM

Join us at The Heretic as we continue to celebrate 43 years with current and former Armorettes!

Saturday Social Meet & Greet while drinking beer and raising some funds for Atlanta Gay Sports Alliance.

Blue Moon Beer featured along with Great Drink Specials for Everyone. DJ Devon Rex will be spinning tunes all afternoon. The Atlanta Braves World Series Trophy Tour will be on hand for Photos and Meet and Greet. It’s an Afternoon of Fun!

Baby D Galore Kitty Love Antionette Muffy VanBeaverHousen Nurse Holly Pink Le’Monaid Ryeleigh St. James

Rainbow Road Bar Crawl and Scavenger Hunt @ GYM Midtown | AUG 6TH AT 3 PM

Special Guests: Bastiana St. Martin Cypress Couture

Please note that The Heretic currently requires proof of vaccination in order to enter or a negative COVID test within 72 hours of the event.

F.A.B. @ Waiting Room | AUG 6TH AT 9 PM

Gay Bowl Hawaii fundraising event for One Atlanta Travel hosted by The Atlanta Rise Brigitte Bidet and Lily Gatins are inviting you to a ONE NIGHT exclusive - think “disco” “fashion” “glamour” A bar crawl with a scavenger hunt twist - teams of five and FABulousness ~~~> we have teamed up to create will work together to accomplish a list of tasks while a delicious, editorial coffee-table book to celebrate drinking your way through your favorite bars. The first, our recent collaboration at The Waiting Room ATL. second, and third teams to finish the scavenger hunt Photographed by Lyte (@yeahitslyte) with BTS by @ will win a prize!!! matthew.geovany Featuring DJ’s Ree de la Vega & Babysp1der !! ! !

Where: @guacymargys (check-in), @blakesatl , come in a LEWK or ... be square @zocaloatl , @henrysatl Copies of the book will be available (purchase of Teams must consist of five participants with a book gains entry or $10 cover) registration fee of $25/participant. The team captain is responsible for registering the team, as well as PROUDLY SPONSORED BY TITO’S VODKA submitting the $125 to @NFFLA via Venmo. Register your team by July 29th!

HARNESS PARTY DJ Mike Pope @ Heretic | AUG

Anyone can participate, Register Today !!!!

6TH AT 10 PM

Chaka Khan Hacienda: Venus X @ Pullman

HSL End of Season Party @ The Hideaway Yards | AUG 7TH AT 5 PM | AUG 6TH AT 3 PM

Venus X, Ree de la Vage, BABYSP1DER 21+

Come celebrate the 2022 HSL season at the Hideaway!

We’ll have trophy presentations, free beer and bbq for players, drink specials, and the BRAVES WORLD Always Free SERIES TROPHY!

PALS Bingo - Disco @ LIPS | AUG 9TH AT 7:30 PM

WANT YOUR EVENT HERE? EMAIL CHRIS@PEACHATL.COM

How do I make sure that I can actually take care of myself? I feel like I’m reaching adulthood in my age but I don’t necessarily know if I am able to act as an adult or what’s expected of one. Any advice on how to grow up?

This is deenitely a question that I feel a lot of people need to be asking.

First and foremost your nances are something that you deenitely need to pay close attention to. You had disposable income because you were living under your parents roof or you were living with a roommate, now you need to pay attention and see if you can afford to live on your own. By no means is living on your own the sign of being an adult but in an older age you will start to notice that you do like to have your privacy. Secondly, make sure that communication is something that is at the forefront of your mind all the time. As you get older and start to encounter other people in the workplace you will begin to notice that things can get misconstrued. If you can effectively communicate with other people then the world is your oyster. Through networking and friendship you’ll be able to build a support system… which brings us to THREE: have a solid support system around you! You need to have a solid support system in order to succeed. Find those friends that will be those ride or dies until the very end. They are few and far between but when you nd them you’ll know. And even those friends that you think will be in your life for just a reason or a season, they have their purpose in your life and you in theirs.