Plot twist, new queer book club on campus

Building community with every page turn, Cal Poly Humboldt has a new queer book club where students can go and build community with one another in a safe and inclusive environment.

“I wanted a community to talk about literature, and I’ve wanted to get more into queer literature, which I have been doing on my own the past couple of years but I wanted a space for it, and a safe space for readers,” said Vice President of the club Millie Bailey, a junior English major. “A big thing for me with this entire creation of the book club was to bring people back into the love of reading.”

The club wants to encourage others to read and not feel pressured by assignments or classes. Their goal is to welcome new members who want to have a voice, to be heard and create a space where people can foster friendships and new relationships with the goal of connecting through queer literature.

“The thing that makes this different is the focus on queerness. We’re trying to highlight queer stories and queer creators above anything else,” Bailey said.

Books read are picked by the members based on a voting system each month, books with trigger warnings and sensitive topics are talked about beforehand. Books that get picked are also under 400 pages, in the hopes that people with busy schedules don’t feel overwhelmed with the reading.

“You don’t have to do any assignments around the book. Just read it and let’s talk about it,” said senior English major Luke Mellom, treasurer of the club.

Lily Merrell, a junior English major and the president of the queer book club wanted to create a space where the reader can relate to the content of the books.

“I think a lot of books, especially the books we read in high school focus on usually a male main character, and it’s almost always a white main character and it is usually perpetuating heteronormative beliefs and culture, so a lot of people can end up falling through the cracks of those stories and feeling invisible, or, like, they don’t exist,” said Merrell. “So that is another thing we wanted to do with this club, is to try to highlight stories that feature people that a lot of books don’t focus on and to elevate authors that maybe look different, or are different than what the mainstream media focuses on.”

The club members value respect for one another and have little to no rules or requirements, they only ask that members read the books and participate in an open discussion. Those who are behind on the readings can opt out of attending for that week to catch up, or the club is open to adjusting the conversation to avoid major spoilers.

“Anyone is welcome to join the club. You don’t have to be queer to be in the club. If you want to use the club to educate yourself, that’s fantastic,” said Merrell. “We want to encourage anybody who’s willing to be open and respectful to come to the club.”

The club was created in the spring semester 2026 and meets every other week on Tuesdays, next meeting is on April 7, from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. and is located in Founders Hall room 163. For Queer Book Club updates go to @ queerbookclub_cph on Instagram.