Throughout Chicagoland, LGBTQ Pride Month is widely celebrated with parades and other types of vibrant performances and large community celebrations. 

But at the Forest Park Public Library, staff and patrons are looking forward to commemorating the month on a more intimate, literary-focused scale. 

All June, the library will feature a special Teen Pride Virtual Art Gallery, a teen-focused digital display in the Young Adult Lounge. 

With artwork submitted by locals, the youth-centric exhibition will highlight personal themes of pride, from identity and resilience to healing and serenity.

“We wanted to encourage self-expression and creativity by providing a safe environment for display and give teens an outlet to share their art with other teens,” said Martha Sullivan, Young Adult Services manager at the library. “Teens can submit digital art, short prose or poetry, or digital photos of 3D media.”

Works, which will be both credited and anonymously displayed, will later be collected to create a print zine that teens can browse in the YA Lounge. 

And on Saturday, June 14, Forest Park residents will take center stage at BABS Comedy Club (7316 Madison St.) as they participate in the library’s first-ever Pride Book Buzz from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Designed to celebrate the library’s diverse print and digital offerings highlighting LGBTQ themes, sensibilities or creators, the event will feature rapid-fire two- to three-minute-long recommendations, or “buzzes.” Adult Services librarian Dennis Raleigh, who describes themselves as a “queer glam clown,” will serve as emcee for the program.

“Forest Park Public Library is proud to help foster a space that embraces the full spectrum of its residents,” Raleigh said. “Programs like this serve as an important reminder that no one is alone, and that support, understanding and acceptance can always be found.”

All adults are welcome at the Pride Book Buzz, regardless of whether they are Forest Park residents. 

According to Skye Lavin, adult services manager, the library’s collaboration with the comedy club stems from owner Emily Ramirez’s continued support since opening her business two years ago.

“BABS Comedy Club has been a funky and wonderful library partner for many improv workshops,” Lavin said. “She was the first to volunteer to ‘buzz’ about her favorite book by David Sedaris (a prominent figure in LGBTQ literature).”

Lavin says the Book Buzz is an event in which guests will revel in the appreciation of all-things pride and experience appreciation for the library’s many offerings in the genre.

“What makes the act of reading so great is the opportunity to encounter and appreciate the manifold sensibilities within the human experience,” she said. “Reading deeply supports thinking deeply, and connecting deeply with empathy for others and for ourselves. Reading, thinking and caring are needed for a community to truly flourish and carry on sustainably into the future.”

Overall, Lavin highlights the library’s Pride Month programming as an effort to inspire joy and enrich Forest Park’s deep-rooted community spirit and support of Pride traditions.

“Programs create opportunities for neighbors to become new friends, and feel authentically represented, respected and uplifted by the special sense of belonging alive in Forest Park,” Lavin said. “When we celebrate together, whether as part of the LGBTQ community or as an ally, friend or neighbor, we celebrate the beauty of a united and kind Forest Park.”