Works by
Joe Babcock
(Writer)

The Tragedy of Miss Geneva Flowers (2002)
Like many gay sixteen-year-olds, Erick Taylor dreams of being a star. The problem is that he’s unpopular and stuck in Catholic school, and his parents, in their own desperate search for sainthood, fail to see that their son is on a path toward self-destruction. Unable to face his tormentors at school, unsure of whether he wants to live or die, Erick meets Chloe, "a twenty-six-year-old self-proclaimed ‘grandiloquent’ drag queen." With a glam-rock makeover and a pair of platform shoes, Erick finally finds the courage to out himself, erasing his former identity and leaping blindly into Minneapolis’s gay nightlife. What begins as an innocent journey of self-discovery soon turns tragic when Erick’s life as an aspiring drag queen is halted by the unthinkable, and he finds himself alone, lost in the insanity of a world exploding. With exhilarating style and dark wit, Joe Babcock—winner of the Best Self-Published Novel awards from both Writer’s Digest and the Lambda Literary Foundation—paints a provocative, devastating portrait of what it’s like to grow up gay.

The Boys and the Bees (2005)
A gay 12 year old boy begins his first year of junior high with the vow that this will be the year that he kisses a boy. Like The Tragedy of Miss Geneva Flowers—only lighter, brighter and more youthful—The Boys and the Bees is set in Minneapolis and involves a confused but sweet adolescent kid coming to grips with growing up gay and feeling completely lost about it.