Hello, our May-blooming friends 🌷

Spring is in the air, the desert is in flower, and the lil’ dogies are getting ready to ride. When we were just lil’ dogies ourselves, learning to play Lavender Cowboy at our father’s knee, we never dreamed that we’d be releasing a whole collection of stories about queer cowpokes, but what do you know? The future unfolds in mysterious ways, and starting today you can pre-order our new gay romance anthology, Wild Blue Yonder: A Trio of MM Cowboy Romance Stories.

In honor of our forthcoming publication, we have collected some of the pieces that inspired us and our authors to don some spurs and hit the dusty trail. Please enjoy, with our compliments.

We cannot put anything at the top of this list other than this song by living legend Willie Nelson and his collab with Orville Peck, Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other.

We also cannot follow them with anyone other than the premiere rodeo queen herself, Beyonce, and her new album Cowboy Carter. If you haven’t checked it, you are missing out.

Of course we would be horribly remiss if we did not mention the ever-inspiring Lil’ Nas X, who can rope and ride with the best of them. And really, pop culture’s obsession with the cowboy is not new, not even in its most recent iteration – back in 2019, Rolling Stone was already writing about the Yee-Haw Agenda. More recently, in 2024, National Anthem, a movie about the queer rodeo scene, debuted – read actress Eve Lindley’s thoughts about it here. Also note that the director of National Anthem, Luke Gilford, has been documenting queer cowboy culture via photographs for years.

Last but in no way least, no compilation of queer western inspiration would be complete without mentioning the transcendent art of Anthony Hurd, whose paintings definitely crossed our Tumblr dash, or the wonderful poems of queer western poet, May Swenson.

So saddle up and ride into the sunset with us! 🏜 May all your cattle be docile, your campfires warm, and remember – don’t sit on a cactus. 🌵