Below is a list of my forthcoming public events – it would be lovely to see you at any of them!
If you’d like to receive infrequent emails to update you on my books and public events (or you’d like a more reliable and ethical alternative to following me on social media), you can sign up to my mailing list.
And if you can’t make any of these events, why not book your own? Take a look at the talks or heritage activities I can offer.
February 2026
Sunday 7 February, 11.00 – 15.00: Make Your Plaque workshop
Location: Crescent Arts, Woodend Creative Space, The Crescent, Scarborough YO11 2PW
Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/out-of-the-margins-make-your-plaque-workshop-tickets-1974966914205
Drop in to make a rainbow plaque to commemorate the LGBTQ+ history that’s important to YOU. From forgotten bars, to iconic drag performances, to the place you first held your partner’s hand – no story is too small to be worth commemorating.
When you’ve made your cardboard plaque, you can take it home with you, or join us as we take to the streets to display our plaques and make our history visible.
Sharing these histories will also pave the way for our second workshop – see https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/out-of-the-margins-raise-your-banner-tickets-1976700678942.
Tuesday 10 February, 19.00: The Log Books: In Conversation with Tash Walker & Adam Zmith
Location: The Bookish Type, 77a Great George Street, Leeds LS1 3BR
Tickets: https://thebookishtype.co.uk/products/queer-history-club-the-log-books
As part of Queer History Club we are super excited to bring you a conversation and book signing with queer writers Tash Walker and Adam Zmith.
The Log Books is an intimate history of LGBTQ+ life over four decades, discovered in a stash of forgotten, handwritten notes.
In a crawlspace at the offices of Switchboard, a queer helpline in operation since 1974, lies dozens of log books kept by volunteers describing the phone calls they had taken: a teenager whose parents had kicked them out of their home for dressing as the wrong gender; a lesbian terrified of having her baby taken away from her; a man arrested for chatting up another man in a public toilet; a young person wanting to know how to come out.
These logs were traces of tens of thousands of queer lives, a bridge to a past hidden from people like Tash Walker and Adam Zmith in their youth, captured by people who lent an ear to those in need. Walker and Zmith came of age in the time of Section 28, a law which banned councils and schools ‘promoting the teaching of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’. In recovering these logs, they encountered people grappling with feelings, questions and problems both familiar and different. They set out to learn from – and sometimes speak to – people on both sides of the calls.
Charged with joy, gossip, sensuality, heartbreak and sometimes fear, and with a potent relevancy to the world today, Walker and Zmith have collected these stories in The Log Books. They capture queer lives in stunning detail, embarking on a journey of both collective history and self – discovery, propelling it into the foreground of our national history.
Tash & Adam will be in conversation with historian Kit Heyam and will be signing copies of their book, The Log Book, which will be available to purchase at the event.
Thursday 12 February, 18.00: Thackray Lates – Anatomy Uncovered
Location: Thackray Museum of Medicine, 141 Beckett Street, Leeds LS9 7LN
Tickets: https://thackraymuseum.co.uk/event/thackray-lates-anatomy-uncovered/
As part of the Thackray’s incredible annual Anti-Valentine’s Late, I’ll be speaking on a panel discussing the history of anatomy and the representation of marginalised bodies in anatomical illustration – more details coming soon!
Thursday 19 February, 18.00: Leeds’s Hidden Queer History walking tour – City Centre
Starting point: The Bookish Type, 77a Great George Street, Leeds LS1 3BR
Tickets: https://thebookishtype.co.uk/products/leeds-queer-history-tour-city-centre-1
Queer history is all around us. The building we walk past on the way to work might have witnessed the first meeting of a campaign group; the bus stop we use every day might be remembered fondly as the site of someone’s first kiss. But like many marginalised experiences, too often this history remains invisible.
On this walking tour, historian Kit Heyam will take you on a tour of Leeds’ queer history highlights. From Pride to squats, from 1840s court cases to 1990s raves, you’ll see the city and its past in a new light.
Saturday 21 February, morning: English Heritage Members’ Event – Edward II and Piers Gaveston
Location: Scarborough Castle, Castle Road, Scarborough, YO11 1HY
Tickets: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/whats-on/me-scarborough-edward-ii-21-feb/
In May 1312, King Edward II and his favourite Piers Gaveston parted for the final time at Scarborough Castle. Chroniclers, poets and dramatists would soon develop their narrative into a tragic love story. But how did Edward II get his queer reputation? Join Dr Kit Heyam, author of The Reputation of Edward II, to uncover the life and afterlives of Edward and Gaveston, at Scarborough and beyond.
Sunday 22 February, 11.00 – 15.00: Raise Your Banner workshop
Location: Crescent Arts, Woodend Creative Space, The Crescent, Scarborough YO11 2PW
Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/out-of-the-margins-raise-your-banner-workshop-tickets-1976700678942
Make your mark on a community timeline banner showing the centuries-long span of Scarborough’s LGBTQ+ history.
Just like the plaques, we’ll commemorate nationally significant events alongside the events that matter most to local LGBTQ+ people.
Inspired by the medieval marginalia of the town’s most famous queer love story – King Edward II’s final goodbye to Piers Gaveston at Scarborough Castle in 1312 – we’ll decorate the edges of our timeline with textile art and fabric painting/drawing. You can suggest a milestone for the timeline, and/or you can help us decorate it – whatever works for you!
Wednesday 25 February: A Jingle Jangle Song: In Conversation with D-M Withers
Location: The Bookish Type, 77a Great George Street, Leeds LS1 3BR
Tickets: https://thebookishtype.co.uk/products/a-jingle-jangle-song-in-conversation-with-d-m-withers
Join D-M Withers and Kit Heyam for an evening of conversation about A Jingle Jangle Song and the wider Lurid project!
Lurid Editions publish rediscovered queer authors from the twentieth century archive, a publishing project committed to intentional and conscientious acts of archival repair. Founded in 2022, A Jingle Jangle Song is the fifth title from Lurid Editions.
Buried in the archives for far too long, A Jingle-Jangle Song is the lost queer novel of the late 1960s. Eccentric and atmospheric, sweet and satirical, the novel celebrates how queer desire erupts in unexpected – and unignorable – ways.“You get fed up singing jingle jangle songs and doing gigs around the country. There’s no time to wonder, no time to lie in the grass and dream. One loses so much: one just isn’t a real person any more.”
Late 60s London, folk singer Sarah Kumar arrives to give a concert. She is hot stuff and a hot mess – androgynous, awkward and alluring. Kumar attends hip parties, sings to her fans and passes out wasted. She is a picture of consummate coolness, hid nervously behind huge sunglasses – a subversive imagining of a strong queer female lead amid the commercial folk boom.Inside the countercultural throng, Kumar’s life is soon derailed by an encounter with an older woman, the intoxicating Mrs. Stankovich.
D-M Withers said: “When I first read A Jingle Jangle Song, I was thrilled by the prose, intoxicated by the story and captivated by the protagonist Sarah Kumar’s Main Character Energy. I then felt sad, and furious, that a book this good was not more widely available, and that such an interesting queer author, published by a stellar literary publisher in the 1960s, has more or less totally disappeared from the literary map. Bringing out a new edition of Villa-Gilbert’s most groovy novel is a restorative act that will enable her work to be read again in a historical moment that will understand and – I hope – embrace her.”
Saturday 28 February: Queer-ying the Museum
Location: Royal Armouries Museum, Armouries Dr, Leeds LS10 1LT
Tickets: https://royalarmouries.org/leeds/whats-on/queerying-the-museum
Celebrate LGBTQ+ History Month at the Royal Armouries with a day of events exploring the queer histories of arms and armour.
See the galleries brought to life by Run of the Mill History.
Try your hand at self-defence with Bent Collective.
Discover bi icon La Maupin through a display of dazzling swordswomanship by the Armouries’ own live combat team.
Uncover hidden queer stories – from the use of armour as gender disguise in the early modern world, to the musket that inspired a lesbian opera storyline – with historians Mabel Mundy and Kit Heyam.
March 2026
Sunday 15 March, 14.00: Leeds’s Hidden Queer History walking tour – Music & Nightlife
Starting point: The Bookish Type, 77a Great George Street, Leeds LS1 3BR
Tickets: https://thebookishtype.co.uk/products/leeds-queer-history-tour-music-nightlife-1
Where did Soft Cell’s Marc Almond hear his first disco tune? Why did people stick money to the floor in The New Penny? And what happened when a bunch of lesbians wanted to start a pool tournament?
Find out, and discover the history of Leeds’s queer music and nightlife scenes, on this new walking tour of Leeds City Centre.
Wednesday 18 March, 18.00: Leeds’s Hidden Queer History walking tour – City Centre
Starting point: The Bookish Type, 77a Great George Street, Leeds LS1 3BR
Tickets: https://thebookishtype.co.uk/products/leeds-queer-history-tour-city-centre-1
Queer history is all around us. The building we walk past on the way to work might have witnessed the first meeting of a campaign group; the bus stop we use every day might be remembered fondly as the site of someone’s first kiss. But like many marginalised experiences, too often this history remains invisible.
On this walking tour, historian Kit Heyam will take you on a tour of Leeds’ queer history highlights. From Pride to squats, from 1840s court cases to 1990s raves, you’ll see the city and its past in a new light.
April 2026
Saturday 18 April, 14.00: Leeds’s Hidden Queer History walking tour – City Centre
Starting point: The Bookish Type, 77a Great George Street, Leeds LS1 3BR
Tickets: https://thebookishtype.co.uk/products/leeds-queer-history-tour-city-centre-1
Queer history is all around us. The building we walk past on the way to work might have witnessed the first meeting of a campaign group; the bus stop we use every day might be remembered fondly as the site of someone’s first kiss. But like many marginalised experiences, too often this history remains invisible.
On this walking tour, historian Kit Heyam will take you on a tour of Leeds’ queer history highlights. From Pride to squats, from 1840s court cases to 1990s raves, you’ll see the city and its past in a new light.
Kit Heyam 