Our Goals

• Support LGBTQ writers & artists by paying them, increasing their audience and building supports
• Prioritize and promote underrepresented identities and experiences
• Work closely with Glad Day Bookshop to support its survival and continued community service
• Record, archive and share our stories and work on a variety of platforms
• Create both physical and virtual spaces that facilitate real relationships and community building across age, gender, ability and culture
• Use story as a catalyst to resist oppression, explore desire, increase love & heal trauma for anyone whose gender or sexual identity doesn’t fit society’s narrow limits and expectations

Our History

Since 2012, the new team at Glad Day Bookshop has been supporting authors, organizing events and creating space for possibility. In 2015 we created Naked Heart - The LGBTQ Festival of Words which has become the largest LGBTQ literary festival in the world. Naked Heart and most of our major event organizing has been done in our unpaid, volunteer time. In 2016, we incorporated Glad Day Lit as a separate non-profit organization so we could expand our capacity and funding to further support this important work.

Funds Go Back Into Our Communities

We are committed to making sure our funds circulate back directly to our LGBT2S community members.
Since 2015, Glad Day Lit has paid almost $100,000 directly to LGBT2SQ authors for being a part of panels, readings, workshops, performances and special events and has provided over $12,000 for Sign Language interpretation at events.

Our space is constantly being used at low-or-no cost by local performers, artists, authors and community groups, which is another way that over $100,000 a year gets generated and goes right back into our communities.