Local Authors Pen LGBTQ Almanac, Odd Cape Cod Tales

South Chatham author Deborah G. Felder has just released “The LGBTQ Almanac: 500 Years of Queer Culture in American History” (Visible Ink Press, 2026).

 “One of the reasons I love writing about history is the promise of finding stories to tell, and my research rewarded me with a treasure trove of stories about LGBTQ Americans, stories both triumphant and tragic or just plain interesting,” Felder said in a recent email interview. “It’s my hope that readers will enjoy the stories and the biographies in the book as much as I enjoyed writing them.”

 The stories in this comprehensive 644-page book run from the 17th century (with a nod to antiquity) through today. An appendix examines LGBTQ rights around the world. 

 The first gay man in North America known to have been convicted of sodomy and executed was an “unnamed colonist from the French settlement of Fort Caroline” in South Florida in 1565. A half century or so later, a ship’s master with the surname Cornish was hanged for allegedly sexually assaulting his male indentured servant. Generally, execution remained the punishment for same-sex relationships through the 19th century. And it was only in the late 20th century that states began to repeal the felony “sodomy” laws that were still on the books.

 The 17th and 18th centuries offered examples of both men and women who dressed up as the opposite sex and so challenged gender norms. In the 19th century women posed as men to become soldiers in the Civil War.

 Felder says the historical overview chapter took her the longest to write and research because it needed to include a social and cultural history as well as to set the tone for subsequent chapters. “I was fortunate in finding excellent sources to back up and expand upon what I already knew and to teach me new information,” she says.

 Subsequent chapters explore the history of LGBTQ people in the fields of activism, education, religion, arts and entertainment, media, science, law and government, business, military and sports.

 This “was the largest and most complex manuscript I’ve written, and it took me about two-and-a-half years to finish,” Felder says. She notes, too, “the dramatic shift in the perception and status of LGBTQ Americans, from their social and political marginalization at the beginning of the 20th century to empowerment and acceptance by the first decades of the 21st century.”

Felder has lived in South Chatham since 1997 with her husband Daniel Burt, a retired college English professor. She has written both fiction and nonfiction books for middle grade, young adult and adult readers.

 “The LGBTQ Almanac” is currently available through online stores.

 Cape Cod authors Jim Coogan and Jack Sheedy teamed up to write books about 30 years ago and their partnership is still going strong, Coogan says. The latest — their sixth collaboration — is “Cape Cod Flotsam and Jetsam: A Collection of Tales that Washed in with the Tide” (Harvest Home Books, 2026). They dedicate the book to “all those for whom Cape Cod has inspired peace, love, and purpose.”

 The authors divided the book into two parts — flotsam, written by Coogan, and jetsam, written by Sheedy. The 177 pages of stories will interest both the newcomer or visitor to the Cape who wants to know the area’s history and idiosyncrasies better, and the long-time Cape Codder or washashore who will benefit from Coogan and Sheedy’s agile storytelling skills.

 Take the well-known story of Dorothy Bradford, who drowned when she plunged off the Mayflower into Provincetown Harbor in 1620. Coogan calls it “a storyline that combines unrequited love, a strange twist of fate, and maybe even suicide.” Add in a few other sad elements, and “you have a prescription for tragedy.”

 Was Bradford’s death a murder? A suicide? The truth likely can never be known after four centuries, but one thing is true, Coogan tells us in “A Dark Pilgrim Tale”: Three years after Dorothy’s death, her husband William, elected governor of Plymouth Colony in 1621, married the love of his young years, the widow Alice Carpenter Southworth.

 On a lighter note, did you know that way back in 1609 Henry Hudson spotted a mermaid on a Cape Cod beach? Then, in 1873, another mermaid was sighted on a Brewster beach. That one had the head of a child and the body of a fish, Sheedy tells us in “Whimperackeral and Other Local Sea Creatures.” The sightings of mermaids and sea serpents have gone on for centuries, with several serpents spotted in 1936 alone. This juicy tale was not ruined when the carcass of one of the “serpents” that washed ashore that year was determined to be a dolphin.

 Coogan and Sheedy met when they were both freelancers at the Barnstable Patriot newspaper and contributing to the paper’s “Summerscape” magazine. Eventually they collected their “Summerscape” pieces and published them as their first book, “Cape Cod Companion.”

 “Together, our styles and approach to stories mesh well,” Coogan says. “I consider Jack one of my best friends and a valuable and necessary sounding board for anything I’m thinking of creating.”

 “Cape Cod Flotsam and Jetsam” is available locally at Snow’s in Orleans and at Brewster Book Store in Brewster.