Author Event! Larry Bagneris, Bobby Fieseler and Frank Perez

Larry Bagneris, Robert Fieseler, and Frank Perez, authors of new books on queer life and identity, will discuss them at 7 p.m., Wednesday, July 24, at the East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon, Metairie.

This event is free of charge and open to the public. Registration is not required.

Call Me Larry, A Creole Man’s Triumph Over Racism and Homophobia, by Larry Bagneris

Raised in a large, loving Creole family, Larry Bagneris Jr. knew from a young age that he liked boys. But New Orleans in the 1950s and early 1960s wasn’t an easy place to be out. In high school, he channeled his energies into the Civil Rights Movement. By college, he was exploring the gay bars of the French Quarter—and telling new acquaintances to ask for Larry, not Lawrence, when they phoned him at home. It wasn’t until his 1969 move to Houston that the many facets of his Creole identity coalesced into a political force for gay rights.

In this memoir, Bagneris recalls his activist career: as founder of Houston’s Pride Parade and then, following a return to his hometown, as political organizer and mainstay of the local gay community. He invites readers to join him on his travels, as well—from San Francisco to New York, Tel Aviv to Bangkok—as he builds community and finds family in queer spaces around the world.

Larry Bagneris, a native New Orleanian, began his civil rights activism as a student at St. Augustine High School. He graduated from Xavier University of Louisiana and moved to Houston where he was a two-term president of the city’s Gay Political Caucus, chairperson of Gay Pride week, and, in 1979, founder of Houston’s Gay Pride parade. Bagneris returned to New Orleans in the 1990s and became a lobbyist for the NO/AIDS Task Force. He served four mayoral administrations as executive director of New Orleans’s Human Relations Commission before retiring in 2018. He is the author of the memoir Call Me Larry: A Creole Man’s Triumph over Racism and Homophobia, forthcoming March 2025 from The Historic New Orleans Collection.

American Scare, Florida’s Hidden Cold War on Black and Queer Lives, by Robert Fieseler

American Scare tells the riveting story of how the Florida government destroyed the lives of Black and queer citizens in the twentieth century. Using a secret trove of primary source documents that have been decoded and de-censored for the first time in history, journalist Robert Fieseler unravels the mystery of what actually happened behind the closed doors of an inquisition that held ordinary citizens ransom to its extraordinary powers.

Fieseler says that the state of Florida would prefer that this history remain buried. But for nearly a decade, the Florida Legislature founded, funded, and supported the Johns Committee—an organization using the cover of communism to viciously attack members of the NAACP and queer professors and students. Spearheaded by Charley Johns, a multi-term politician in a gerrymandered legislature, the committee was determined to eliminate any threats to the state's white, conservative regime.
 
Fieseler describes the ramifications for citizens of Florida whose lives were imperiled, profiling marginalized residents with compassion and a determination to bring their experiences to light.

Robert W. Fieseler is a journalist investigating marginalized groups and a scholar excavating forgotten histories. A National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association Journalist of the Year and recipient of the Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship, his debut book Tinderbox won seven awards, including the Edgar Award, and his reporting has appeared in Slate, Commonweal, and River Teeth, among others. Fieseler graduated co-valedictorian from the Columbia Journalism School and is pursuing a PhD at Tulane University as a Mellon Fellow. 

Rainbow Fleur de Lis: Essays on Queer New Orleans History, by Frank Perez

Rainbow Fleur de Lis: Essays on Queer New Orleans History is an anthology of 85 short essays that originally appeared in Ambush Magazine and French Quarter Journal. Author Frank Perez has collected essays on a wide variety of topics in LGBTQ+ history and arranged them into multiple sections. Each section contains five essays and begins with a brief introductory overview that ties the individual pieces together.

The book opens with Gay Carnival and provides a glimpse behind the scenes of this distinct New Orleans tradition. “Bars and Gay Spaces” examines the ever-shifting queer centers of gravity throughout the French Quarter. The section on the AIDS epidemic demonstrates how, by the end of the 1980s, New Orleans was a model city for providing AIDS-related services. “Arts and Letters” highlights figures such as lesbian photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston and playwright Tennessee Williams. The next section looks at homophobia in New Orleans in the 1950s. “Activists and Activism” traces the birth and rise of queer activism in New Orleans. Historical surveys of several organizations are then provided, followed by a unit on the Up Stairs Lounge fire.

Frank Perez is cofounder and current executive director of the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana. He is an instructor in the Office of Professional and Continuing Studies at Loyola University New Orleans, owner of Crescent City Tour Booking Agency, and columnist for Ambush Magazine and French Quarter Journal. He is creator of Treasures of the Vieux Carré: Ten Self-Guided Walking Tours of the French Quarter and Political Animal: The Life and Times of Stewart Butler, the latter published by University Press of Mississippi; and coeditor of Southern Decadence in New Orleans, My Gay New Orleans: 28 Personal Reminiscences on LGBT+ Life in New Orleans, and In Exile: The History and Lore Surrounding New Orleans Gay Culture and Its Oldest Gay Bar.