Flamboyants

“Johnson’s lively delivery keeps listeners interested…Each chapter is delightfully introduced with music from the period that highlights the timeframe…Both teens and adults will enjoy listening to Johnson's masterful performance in this vivid production.” — AudioFile

This program is read by the author and features music from Josephine Baker, Gladys Bentley, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Ethel Waters to enhance the listening experience.

From the New York Times–bestselling author of All Boys Aren’t Blue comes an empowering set of essays about Black and Queer icons from the Harlem Renaissance.

In Flamboyants, George M. Johnson celebrates writers, performers, and activists from 1920s Black America whose sexualities have been obscured throughout history. Through 14 essays, Johnson reveals how American culture has been shaped by icons who are both Black and Queer – and whose stories deserve to be celebrated in their entirety.

Interspersed with personal narrative, powerful poetry, and illustrations by award-winning illustrator Charly Palmer, Flamboyants looks to the past for understanding as to how Black and Queer culture has defined the present and will continue to impact the future. With candid prose and an unflinching lens towards truth and hope, George M. Johnson brings young adult readers an inspiring collection of biographies that will encourage teens today to be unabashed in their layered identities.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.