Faber is to publish a social history of queer Britain, by writers Tash Walker and Adam Zmith, which will hit shelves in 2025.
Inspired by the authors’ award-winning podcast The Log Books, the book is based upon the archives kept by the LGBTQIA+ helpline Switchboard since 1974.
Commissioning editor Mo Hafeez acquired UK & Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada, audio) from Sophie Lambert at C&W. Publication is currently scheduled for autumn 2025.
“The organisation has entrusted Tash and Adam with the stories contained within these archives – stories which are by turns joyous, intimate, sensuous and heart-rending. With great care and empathy, they will pull them together into what promises to be an astonishing, revelatory and moving social history of a community which has been long overlooked.”
Walker and Zmith said: “The stories we found in the archives and the memories of hundreds of queer elders we interviewed for The Log Books are full of life, love and loss. This unique repository gave us an insight into LGBTQIA+ life in the decades before we were born and as we grew up in a time defined by hostility towards queer people; it was a window into a history that was hidden from us. We are thrilled to have the chance to continue our work with Mo and the team at Faber, to further explore the special bonds fostered between queer people across generations.”
Hafeez added: “It is a genuine privilege to be working with Tash and Adam on this incredible project. Their writing represents a bridge to the past, a reflection of the present, and a look into the future; they succeed in capturing queer lives and history but do not settle there, opting instead to propel these things into the very foreground of our national story.”
Adam Zmith is a writer and podcast producer whose work focuses on sex, queer identity, LGBTQIA+ lives, history, art and desire. He is the author of Deep Sniff: A History of Poppers and Queer Futures (2021), which won the Polari First Book Prize in 2022 and was a LGBTQIA+ Nonfiction finalist at the Lambda Literary Awards that same year.
Adam is a co-director of the podcast production company Aunt Nell; he is a former literature programmer for Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest, was previously a journalist, and audience engagement editor at The Economist.
Tash Walker is a writer, podcast producer and community organiser. A founding director of Aunt Nell production company and a queer historian, she has worked with organisations such as the National Archives, Barbican, BBC, Bishopsgate Institute and Queer Britain; Tash was also Trustee and then Co-Chair of LGBTQIA+ charity Switchboard from 2014 to 2022, and continues to manage their archives at Bishopsgate Institute. In 2022 she was included in Stonewall and DIVA’s Pride Power List featured in the Guardian.
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