The Consumer Marketing Team, in partnership with the Penguin Random House LGBTQ+ Network and our esteemed authors, has officially dropped Pride in Your Words, our first-ever zine, a cornerstone of this year’s Pride campaign.
This month, consumers can download the digital issue and sign up to receive one of one thousand copies of the sixty-page print edition in the mail. You can view the zine here.
“We’re thrilled to be releasing our first zine. It’s a format we’ve been wanting to test for a while, and this felt like the right moment and the right audience. We look forward to publishing new issues in the future and continuing to work with the LGBTQ+ Network to create meaningful and lasting connections with readers and celebrate our amazing books and storytellers during Pride and throughout the year,” said Adam Royce, VP, Creative Strategy.
The zine opens with an introduction from the LGBTQ+ Network and highlights authors and books published in 2022, with passages and interviews from Vagabonds! by Eloghosa Osunde, All the Flowers Kneeling by Paul Tran, Acts of Service by Lillian Fishman, and I’m Not Broken by Jesse Leon, as well as coloring pages from Color Me Queer by Anshika Khullar. Also included are a 2022 Pride reading list, an illustrated guide to making your own zine, and four original illustrations from lettering artist Kyle Letendre.
“We’re excited to partner with PRH Consumer Marketing to be a part of this publication. It’s our goal to creatively spotlight queer authors. The magic of publishing is how it gives voice to the unheard. As Paul Tran acknowledges in All the Flowers Kneeling, ‘There is no sorcery without sacrifice—without support, solidarity in struggle, and the sustenance required to survive,’” said Paul Legault and Kaitlin Ketchum, co-chairs, LGBTQ+ Network.
To take the words from the zine beyond the page, for the month of June, you can also find them on signs and billboards across the country, from New York City and Chicago to Dallas and Orlando. Our hope is that more people will see—and truly understand—the power in these words, that the zine will inspire conversation and move us toward a better future.
To underpin our efforts, we’re also creating and updating book lists and resources on both PRH.com and Brightly (such as The Ultimate LGBTQIA+ Pride Book List and Great LGBTQIA+ Books for Kids and Teens), which consumers can access via the zine, the billboards, and a robust organic and paid digital campaign.
We’ll be donating 15 percent of PRH.com net proceeds in June to LGBTQ Saves and The Zebra Coalition, to uplift LGBTQ+ youth and help to ensure they get the chance to write their own stories.