Description

*Shortlisted for the 2026 GORDON BURN PRIZE**

‘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.

Publisher Review

Compelling, funny, intelligent . . . Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line is a remarkable piece of work . . . A gift for those of us who have lived in our queer skins for many decades, and for young lesbians who are looking for a primer in lesbian history, an understanding of what it means to look for identity and place in our community. — Kerry Hudson * Observer * A triumph . . . The book I wish I’d read as a young queer person. Intricately woven together, it is overflowing with empathy, warmth and tenderness. Elizabeth Lovatt is a wonder and she’s recorded something deeply compelling and incandescent. You will laugh. You will cry. This is utterly essential queer reading. — Lucy Rose, author of THE LAMB Deliciously informative and rigorously researched, this book imagines the often invisible lives and denied passions of callers to the Lesbian Line, as well as tracing the author’s own coming out story. I loved it. — Julia Bell, author of DIRTY WORK It would be hard not to love a book with this title and happily, Elizabeth Lovatt has done it proud . . . This is a warm, thoughtful book. * London Standard *