Thank You For Calling the Lesbian Line

‘Compelling, funny, intelligent . . . Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line is a remarkable piece of work.’ Kerry Hudson, Observer

‘Utterly essential queer reading.’ Lucy Rose, author of THE LAMB

‘Deliciously informative and rigorously researched . . . I loved it.’ Julia Bell, author of DIRTY WORK

With warmth and humour, Elizabeth Lovatt reimagines the women who both called and volunteered for the Lesbian Line in the 1990s while also tracing her own journey from accidentally coming out to disastrous dates to finding her chosen family.

With callers and agents alike dealing with first crushes and breakups, sex and marriage, loneliness and illness (or simply the need to know the name of a gay bar on a night out), this is a celebration of the ordinary lives of queer women.

Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line is a timely and vital exploration of how lesbian identity continues to remake and redefine itself in the 21st century and where it might lead us in the future.

Author Biography

Elizabeth Lovatt is a writer of fiction and creative non-fiction currently living in London. In 2019, she was writer-in-residence for Islington Pride and the ruckus! archive. In 2020, she was part of Penguin Books’ #WriteNow mentorship scheme. She has an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from Birkbeck and her dissertation was awarded the Lynne Segal BiGS Prize in Gender and Sexuality.