Books After Dark: An Adult Banned Book Fair - Pride Edition!

Books After Dark: PRIDE EDITION!!! Join us after hours on Sunday, June 14 from 6PM-9PM for a night of queer joy.

This is a ticketed 21+ event right smack in the middle of Pride Month with an emphasis on banned LGBTQ+ books.

There will be onsite bartenders with a selection of signature themed cocktails!

Customers can come sip and shop in ambient atmosphere while we discuss the tea surrounding the current sociopolitical climate. Like cultured adults.

Did you know that 3,743 unique titles were banned during the 2024-2025 school year? Book bans are a bellwether of broader societal trends. Since 2021, book bans have reflected backlash, at times coordinated, against the mainstream acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, efforts to reckon with the country’s history of racism and inequality, and increased comfort with open discussion of sex and sexuality. For books banned in the 2024-2025 school year, a strain of anti-intellectualism, as illustrated in bans on nonfiction titles, also mirrors the broader political attack on facts and knowledge and the skepticism and devaluation of, and disdain for, experts and expertise—tactics long associated with the rise of authoritarian regimes and intended to sow distrust in democratic institutions. Let's learn more about how to fight against book bans in Utah!

We are featuring Drag Story Hour, local vendors, artists/creatives as well as hosting a moderated book panel with local publishers, literary icons, and radical educators!

Tara Lipsyncki is the founder and executive director of the United Drag Alliance and Drag Story Hour’s Intermountain West chapter. Having performed for over 20 years professionally in drag and as a performer with Disney on Ice, they are a born entertainer. They have also been recognized by the Senate of California for being part of a community effort to raise over $1 million dollars for HIV/AIDS resources and homeless LGBTQIA+ youth in San Francisco.

@taralipsyncki Executive Director:@united.drag.alliance & @mosaics.utah on Instagram

Madazon Can-Can, M.Ed is a local performer, educator, activist, clown, and all around weirdo. They specialize in pursuing and teaching subjects that are taboo and often within the realm of the underground, the unseen and the under-appreciated. They have been reading Tarot professionally for 6 years and can be seen producing and performing and teaching all around the valley in subjects of art, dance, human relationships, self improvement and more. They are overjoyed to be working with Weller Book Works as a previous English Major and current radical educator specializing in their own programs and being a full-time self employed artist here in the valley of Sin and Salt. 

www.madazoncancan.com and @madazon_can_can on Instagram.

Rebekah Cummings is the Director of Digital Matters at the University of Utah Marriott Library and Co-Director for the Summer Institute “Humanities Perspectives in Artificial Intelligence.” Rebekah has championed library issues and funding since 2017 as the Utah Library Association President, Utah State Library Board Chair, and co-founder of Let Utah Read. Her library advocacy has been recognized by the American Library Association, Utah Library Association, the League of Women Voters, ACLU of Utah, and the Utah Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters. In 2024, Rebekah Cummings was the first librarian to run for the office of Lt. Governor on a major party ticket in the United States.

@rebekahcummings and @letutahread on Instagram

Will Neville-Rehbehn serves as Co-Executive Director and Executive Director at Torrey House Press, the region's leading nonprofit environmental publisher. With THP founder and publisher Kirsten Johanna Allen, he leads acquisitions for fiction and creative nonfiction, edits books, and oversees the organization's publishing, fundraising, marketing, and community engagement efforts. He received a BA in Theatre from Davidson College and a master’s in Political Management from The George Washington University. A Utah native and lifelong book nerd, Will returned to Salt Lake City in 2020 with his husband, their young son, and very old cat.

Before her retirement in 2019, local pediatrician Dr. Barbara Bean, founder of Brain Food Books, raised thousands of dollars in order to provide books to each patient during their wellness appointments. Her commitment to the community included keeping her book purchases local.

Through a chance conversation with Cal Crosby, Barbara and Cal discovered their shared goal of making books accessible to under-served communities. In 2022, Cal was honored to take the reins and step into Dr. Bean’s inspiring shoes as Executive Director of Brain Food Books.

https://www.brainfoodbooks.org/index.html#story
https://givebutter.com/brain-food-books

Out of the Shadows Theater Group (OSTG) 

Out of the Shadows Theater Group and All Sewn Up first performed Hedwig and the Angry Inch in Salt Lake City on Labor Day weekend in 2011 at the Tower Theatre. All Sewn Up is Salt Lake's only Hedwig shadowcast. They will be performing Hedwig and the Angry Inch – July 10-11, at 8pm at Alliance Theater, Trolley Square – livestream available.

A transsexual punk rock girl from East Berlin tours the US with her rock band as she tells her life story and follows the ex-boyfriend/bandmate who stole her songs.

Out of the Shadows Theater Group was founded in 2010 in order to bring a wider variety of shadowcasting and hold a more professional footing to the Salt Lake City area. OSTG is a local non-profit community theater group providing an alternative aspect to the performing arts and cinema. Catering to cult film followers and encouraging audience participation.

What we do is called shadowcasting. A shadowcast is a group of actors who get onstage to do a performance of a movie while the movie itself plays on the background, therefore casting shadows on the screen.

While the Rocky Horror Picture Show has been a Halloween staple at the Tower Theatre, and Blue Mouse prior to that, for more than 40 years, with the Latter Day Transvestites since 1995 (officially as a cast [originally named Little Cast of Horrors]). We have added to our repertoire over the years. We also present Repo! The Genetic Opera with the Utah Scalpel SL,UT’s cast and Hedwig and the Angry Inch with the All Sewn Up cast in the spring/summer.

Syvlie Luna Thorn (She/They/Fae)  is a local artisan specializing in Occult wares. Her work includes blacksmithing, leatherworking, woodcarving, and the incorporation of natural materials, making each piece a unique wonder. Her craft and vending have been fixtures annually during Dark Arts Fest held at Club Area 51. She is also a teaches classes on metal work at Make Salt Lake and was a company set carpenter with the University of Utah Theater Department.

@wanderer.malik and @WanderWitch.Esoterica on Instagram