I closed out Pride Month by attending the fabulous and charming Queer Talent Show at Friday Afternoon Tea in Wallingford. This Queer and woman-owned business is a wonderful location with kind and knowledgeable staff, and their get-together for the end of Pride was cozy, loving, and all-around magical. Owned by the amazing Friday Elliott, Friday Afternoon Tea is quite simply the place to be.

Jasmine Joshua and Heather Ragusa’s musical Here & Their, starring Chloe Payne and Meg McLynn, is shaping up to be a new Queer musical classic! With top-tier vocals, witty lines, and songs that are sometimes hilarious and sometimes heart-wrenching, Here & Their brings a fresh perspective on Queer stories that many of us can relate to as well as creates levity during these dark times. This musical is joyous, hopeful, and feels like finally taking a deep breath after a tense and stressful start to 2025.

On June 15, millions of Americans took part in the No Kings protest. In Seattle, around 70,000 protestors marched from Cal Anderson Park in Capitol Hill to Seattle Center. Whether you were among them or not, the ripples of the protest could be felt all over the city. For weeks, I have seen people with signs and heard chanting from around my block in the University District, and on my usual weekend commute, I have watched protestors stand together around Seattle Center. This is the first truly hopeful week I have had in a long time, and in the middle of Pride Month, knowing there are so many people willing to fight against this administration has been inspiring.

Have you noticed that Vampires are making a comeback? With two new iconic vampire movies to swoon over, Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu remake (2024) and—a new personal favorite—Ryan Coogler’s Sinners (2025), there’s a growing trend towards blood sucking fiends in media (again!). And these aren’t the tame, glittery vampires from Twilight—these are the gritty, murderous creatures from our nightmares, and I love it! After watching Sinners during its box office run, I have been on a major vampire kick. So, naturally, I had to deliver a vampire novel for Parker’s Pages this month, and I found the perfect speculative fiction story for you all.

On December 7, 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor marked the start of the United States’ involvement in World War II. It also started a wave of fear and unrest throughout the country, leading to an overwhelming prejudice against Japanese Americans. “Most of us had no ties to Japan,” Lilly Kodama, a survivor, explained. “We had never been there. We had never even seen it.” Similar to the reactionary racism and prejudice against Arab Americans following 9/11, the discrimination against Japanese Americans had no true basis in fact, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order only created more harm and prejudice against an already vulnerable community.

When I brought the idea of beginning a new series to my managing editor, I had the intention to create an informative column. I would look at the news and digest it as best I could, making a one-stop place for Trans News. But, as I’ve said, the news is changing rapidly, court decisions are made every day, and new propositions and bills are entering the floors of city, state, and federal chambers at breakneck speeds. There’s too much to break down and others work tirelessly to update the community on a national scale, so I’ve shifted the focus of our column to advice, local news, and uplifting stories for Trans, Nonbinary, and Gender Non-Conforming people in the Puget Sound region.

Let me start by saying that 2025 is STILL the year of the bird! And with a world rife with bad news, it’s a great time to stretch your limbs, put down the phone, and get outside. There’s so much to learn about the world and about our bird friends!

I’ll start you off with some basic bird facts that you can whip out at your next Birdwatching hang out.

If you’re anything like me, then you’re approaching Emerald Street knowing next to nothing about Hip Hop, but Abe has you covered. His approachable and straightforward explanations are easy to follow and even easier to enjoy. Starting us in Seattle’s Century District, we move through time and space, beginning at Seattle’s early Hip Hop days and arriving in the present where the community thrives.

Created by Eva Anderson, Derek Bishé, Mali Elfman, Eric Hoff, Tommy Honton, and E3W Productions (Aaron Keeling, Austin Keeling, Natalie Jones), AOTW is a completely new flavor of production. The focus of AOTW is to create a deeper relationship between art and its participants, and the entrancing world of The Shape of the Night is completely enrapturing, entangling you in the story, performance, and atmosphere. The Shape of the Night is an art gallery, an escape room, a drag show, a play, and a magical realm.

Birdwatching used to be the go-to hobby for outdoorsy folks with a lot of free time, usually in addition to hiking or backpacking, but now the birdwatching phenomenon seems to have spread far and wide. People who aren’t usually big nature fans are heading outside to join in on the hunt for Virginia Rails and Great Horned Owls, even with little experience or interest in other nature hobbies. So what is it about birds that seems to have drawn in so many people? And why now? And how do you escape the dreaded birdwatching FOMO?

Windfall takes us on an incredible journey, from Oregon to the North Dakota prairie, and from the present all the way back to the early 1900s. But even with these leaps through place and time, Bolstad keeps us rooted. She delivers both fact and imagination in her distinct journalistic style, helping us follow her line of inquiry into her family’s past.

I started taking testosterone in February of 2024, a decision made after years of teetering back and forth between comfort and safety. I wanted to be seen as myself. I wanted to look in the mirror and recognize the person who was looking back at me. But I also didn’t want the inherent danger that came with being trans in public—not the flaunting of my identity, but just the mere fact of my existence in the eyes of others. I didn’t decide it lightly.

I’m returning to my usual Parker’s Pages standard today and have an intense and thrilling novel to offer. Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka had me up all day and night, gobbling pages like a Thanksgiving feast. This novel is, quite simply, brilliant, and a great weaving of mystery, crime, horror, and intense character study. There simply isn’t anything else like it.

This week we’re taking a look at a book that’s a bit out of my normal reviews here in Parker’s Pages. This one is an interactive Tarot card guide called Every Little Thing You Do is Magic by two Seattle artists, Callie Little and Moorea Seal. While doing my usual rounds of the local bookstore, I came across this guide while digging through the store’s collection of Tarot decks and just knew I had to have it.

When life gives you a book about frogs, by golly, you’ve got to jump on it.

This week I discovered Frog Day, a stupendously cute and informative book all about frogs and toads and the wonderful world they live in. From the Earth Day series of the University of Chicago Press comes a 24-hour story about 24 different frog and toad species, written by herpetologist (a biologist who studies amphibians and reptiles) Marty Crump and illustrated by local Seattle artist Tony Angell.

After John Oliver’s aggressive campaign for the Puteketeke to become New Zealand’s Bird of the Century, it seemed only right that I follow in his footsteps to elect my own Pacific Northwest Bird of the Century. I may not go so far as to don a giant bird-suit on live television (like John Oliver did on Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show), but I’ll happily offer up my own strong opinions of the little flying creatures we see around the Sound. So buckle up for the Top 10 Birds of the PNW, culminating in my pick for the PNW’s Bird of the Century.

I desperately needed an escape this month and happily uncovered one of the most delightful fantasy novels I’ve ever read while scouring the local bookstore. The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister creates a cozy atmosphere right off the cuff, weaving lyrical writing with gloriously sensual descriptions of scents to create a reading experience that feels like no other. I have never had a novel tug at my sense of smell quite like this one; it brings to mind memories old and new, just as it does for the main character of the novel, Emmeline.

Jim Lynch is a Washington native and you can tell. This book practically reeks of the Puget Sound, of Olympia, and the clear water of the bay; you can hear, taste, and feel it on each page. This novel was written by someone who knows the Sound like an old friend, and although I’m not a natural born Seattleite, I could picture each place described in this novel with sharp clarity. Be they skittling crabs, spitting geoducks, or a squirming sea slug, this book brings the animals of the bay to life.

We the Trolls of the Sound

Wish for you to gather ‘round

As we tell our tale of all our deeds,

Our arrival here, our sowing seeds….

Recipe for a Charmed Life by Rachel Linden made for a perfect evening, and I can’t recommend it enough. If you are looking for something fun and easy to get in to, this is the book for you! Whether describing a perfect Parisian dish or the green-blue water of the Sound, Linden has descriptions to die for, and a perfect grasp of pacing. And as if that wasn’t amazing enough, her characters are likable, with strong convictions that propel them forward in satisfying (and sometimes tense) ways.