It is almost that time of year again. Long time readers might remember that a regular feature of the OutStories Bristol AGM is a talk by an academic on a subject from LGBT+ History. This year we are delighted to welcome Amber Regis who is probably the UK’s leading expert on John Addington Symonds, who in turn is probably Bristol’s most famous queer inhabitant.

As usual, the meeting will be in the Wills Memorial Building at the University of Bristol, thanks to our friends at the Institute of Greece, Rome, and the Classical Tradition. The IGRCT, of course, owes a significant debt to Symonds who was a noted Classicist as well as a leading Renaissance scholar, and the reason we have the AGM in conjunction with them, in early October, is to celebrate Symonds’ birthday (Oct. 5th). We can’t always hit the exact date, and this year we are on October 13th. I trust Mr. Symonds will forgive us for being a week late, and we promise to be extra queer to make it up to him.

Oh, and for those of you not interested in all of the queer stuff, Symonds’ other claim to fame is that Edward Lear wrote “The Owl and the Pussycat” for one of his daughters.

Full event details are available via our website. For those of you who can’t make it, we will be recording Amber’s talk and postcasting it in due course.