STORYTELLER SPOTLIGHTS
THE VOICES OF DRAG STORY HOUR NYC
Each month, a member of the DSH NYC team will be featured here to share their experiences, art, thoughts and passions with all of you! Check back here every month for a brand new story!
Reflecting on Chinese New Year with Yuhua Hamasaki
February 2025
Happy Chinese New Year!!!! I’m Yuhua. I’m Chinese and am proud to share what this holiday means to me and many of those that celebrate it!
The history of the festival can be traced as far back as 3,500 years and lasts for about two weeks: honoring our gods, ancestors, and gathering with our loved ones. When I was a kid in China, Chinese New Year was the biggest holiday. The gatherings are often filled with smells of delicious food, sounds of firecrackers, and the giving out of red envelopes from those that are married to those that aren't. Most importantly, it’s about reuniting with people we don’t get to see often.
I have kept the red envelopes from my parents throughout the years because they make them super special. Usually the givers just put their name on the outside to let the receiver know who it is from, but my parents cover the entire envelope in Chinese characters, sending their best wishes and acknowledging that I am growing up. To this day, I still receive them because I have remained unmarried, ha!
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One childhood memory I have from Chinese New Year in China was when I wanted congee for dinner. My dad started chuckling because, traditionally, congee is served as a meal when money is tight. He explained that Chinese New Year is supposed to be a celebration of "eating good." It's a funny story because at the time I was a picky eater that just didn't understand the dos and don'ts of the holiday.
To be honest, I can't believe I'm sharing my childhood and what Chinese New Year means to me as an adult. When I first moved to America at age 7, not many people were familiar with the holiday. It’s fantastic to see how many people are aware of the celebration nowadays and it brings me so much joy to shine more light on this festival and what it means to be Chinese!
Thinking Aloud with
Ash Blight
January 2025
As a drag artist and member of the queer community, I love when Drag Story Hour NYC's work is celebrated for championing gender diversity and creative self-expression. As a certified K-12 teacher, I am equally passionate about the role we get to play in young children's early literacy development.
Teachers, children's librarians, and other literacy-focused educators all have shiny toolboxes—or glittery purses—full of research-driven teaching strategies to help young people learn to read. One such strategy, which happens to be the core of our practice at DSH NYC, is the read-aloud. Hearing stories being read out loud supports children in becoming fluent readers by modeling prosody: the rhythm, tone, and expression with which text is read. As professional entertainers, we are especially well-equipped to coach a generation of fluent, dynamic (and maybe just a little dramatic) young readers!
Alongside the read-aloud, educators and storytellers often make use of the "think-aloud," where we model a range of techniques for accessing meaning from text. Reading comprehension skills such as making predictions or connecting ideas can be directly demonstrated: I might wonder out loud what a character should do next, and prompt my audience to do the same.
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One of the most popular books on the DSH NYC core curriculum list is Neither by Airlie Anderson. Neither is a delightfully illustrated story of a little green creature with bunny ears and a beak who is harassed by their community for being "neither" yellow nor blue, bird nor rabbit, this nor that. Rejected by the family they were born into, Neither flees to the Land of All, a diverse community in which a rainbow of beautifully odd creatures welcomes them with open arms-wings-paws.
To a seasoned reader, this is a clear allegory for the all-too-common human experience of being othered for differing from the norm or existing outside of binary expectations. I relate to the story as a gender-nonconforming person who has never felt uncomplicatedly masculine or feminine. Other readers might connect the narrative to their own experiences of being multiracial or neurodivergent, or other forms of marginalization.
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Many young readers—and even some adults—may struggle to connect such an abstract story to real world problems. That's where the think-aloud comes in. I open by offering context: I discuss how the most valuable thing about being a drag performer is the community I've found through it—lifelong friends and family who understand me and our shared place in a world that doesn't always see us for who we are. I then directly connect it to the text: this is a story about someone who also doesn't fit in, but who finds a new home where they are welcomed and celebrated.
As we move through the story, I pause at points to further elaborate on these connections. Depending on the age range and attention span of the audience, I might speak more specifically to the parallels to gender-nonconformity, wonder out loud about characters' feelings and motivations, or ask participants to join me in predicting what might happen next.
We are storytellers when we read books and we are storytellers when we talk about our lived experiences. The performers of Drag Story Hour NYC are uniquely positioned to use strategies like the think-aloud to connect our twin missions of fostering literacy and gender liberation.
Drag Philosophy with Double
December 2024
When I first started doing drag at age sixteen, I knew very little about it. Most of what I knew seemed both magical and inaccessible, but I had an intense need to be a part of it. Of course, there were no drag spaces for sixteen-year-old trans kids, so my solution was to start putting on little shows in the park with my friends on weekends. Since then, it has grown into a thriving, all-ages, trans run and trans centered community drag show, art workshop, and vendor market series. Lil Park Drag Show has been running in parks and gardens around NYC for a few years now.
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I’ve learned everything I know about drag from Lil Park. The performers I’ve met are nothing like what I’ve seen on TV. They’ve expanded my thinking and inspired me more than I could have ever imagined. I’ve learned that drag can be anything, can look like anything, and there is truly no wrong way to do it. This has not only changed my perception of drag, but also my very definition of what it means to me to be a person.
In life, there's generally not a lot of room to experiment with who we are. We’re assigned an identity and are expected to stick with it; with very little room for fluidity or experimentation. As a trans person who came out at a very young age, I felt so much pressure to know exactly who I was at all times and often had my identity disregarded. But nobody is the same person their whole life.
Drag has given me room for self-exploration which allows me to grow. It shows me that it’s okay to play, to experiment with different ways of being, and reminds me not to take myself too seriously. When we get to try on different faces, styles, genders, and ways of moving through the world, it can allow us to discover different sides of ourselves we never even knew existed and the grace to get it wrong every once in a while. When we are able to break down these barriers and explore who we are with loving and playful curiosity, we can connect to ourselves and each other with an authenticity so rare and special that it scares people.
To me, drag exists to express that there are infinite ways to be human, to feel, to express; and that all of our variations are not simply worthy of acceptance, but are also deserving of love, care, and celebration.​​​
Book-Spiration
with Bella Noche
November 2024
Hi guppies! I’m Bella Noche, The Mermaid of New York. Ever since I discovered reading and the magic books can bring, I’ve added many fabulous stories to my library that remind me to stay creative, use my imagination and be the most unique version of myself. I’d like to share with you a few that really speak to me and my drag.
One of my all-time favorite books is Julian Is a Mermaid by Jessica Love, a book about a little Latin boy who loves mermaids and dreams of becoming one. With a bit of imagination and some help from his abuela, Julian gets to become a mermaid like he’s always dreamed of becoming. (Sound familiar?) He even gets to join in the legendary Mermaid Parade at Coney Island, celebrating along with others in fabulous nautical costumes.
Another book I truly adore is Just Add Glitter by Angela DiTerlizzi. From its rhyming storytelling, to its message of using what you have to make your world sparkle, to having some pages with ACTUAL glitter on it, this book is a joy from beginning to end. The heart of it reminds us that you shine the brightest when you use your creativity to invite beauty into the world.
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There are times in life when you feel like you don’t belong, like you haven’t found your place yet. Neither by Airlie Anderson invites you into a world of colorful animals that seem to all have their place…. Until Neither shows up. Though Neither feels lost and pushed away at first, they venture out and find a land where all are equal and their differences are celebrated. There’s even a moment of forgiveness that shows people can learn and change if they open their minds.
These three books have spoken not just to my drag, but to me as a person. They continue to inspire me to live a more authentic and colorful life, no matter where I am. The individuality that comes from imagination, the inspiration to find your sparkle and the reminder that being different is a good thing are three of the core beliefs that I try to bring to my life every day, whether I’m in drag or not. Never underestimate the power that a single book can have on your life. Now go out and find your own book-spiration!
Equity Within Drag Story Hour NYC
with Oliver ThePlace
October 2024
For many who have been coming to Drag Story Hour NYC for years, or have supported our organization since our start, you may remember that we started under a slightly different name, “Drag Queen Story Hour NYC.”
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A few years ago we decided to make the switch over to “Drag Story Hour NYC” because it’s a better representation of the drag scene as a whole. Drag is an art form that anyone can participate in regardless of gender, age or style. Your drag persona can be an original character and may have a different name, gender or expression than you do outside of drag!
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My drag character’s name is Oliver ThePlace (‘Cause I’m a little all over the place) and is a man. I call myself a Drag king! In drag I use the pronouns He and They and I love to wear a lot of color and spike my hair to the sky!
Out of drag, my name is Angel. I am non-binary, use They/He pronouns and like to wear a lot of black and wear my hair curly!
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Drag, like people, is not binary! There are infinite ways to be a drag artist. I am grateful to live in NYC where this diversity in the scene is very evident. Drag Story Hour NYC changed our name to include Drag things, kings, fairies, mermaids and everyone in between! It is important to say things like “Drag artists” or “Drag performers” instead of just “Drag queens” or even “Drag kings” to show how beautiful and expansive Drag can be through how we speak.
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Drag things and kings have been here since the beginning, but are often left out of the mainstream idea of what drag is and that means lack of opportunities and pay. Not seeing artists like us represented in history, media and local scenes can be discouraging to many who don’t identify as a queen. Drag things and kings are often cast to the side and treated like diversity hires, when in reality we have been here since the beginning. It was actually a Drag king who threw the first punch at the Stonewall riots! Stormé Delarverie was a Black lesbian Drag king who encouraged onlookers to do something and played a key role in the uprising!
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I have been fighting for the thing and king scene for as long as I have been a Drag performer. I don’t have the privilege not to. Drag is at the heart of who I am as a person, and I work incredibly hard to carve out spaces for non-queens in this scene. It’s humiliating to be mass misgendered by the media in conversations around Drag Story Hour NYC. It’s heartbreaking to be misgendered and overlooked by a huge part of my own community. The joy and family I find in the thing and king community makes the fight worth it!
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Drag things and kings have always been on the frontlines of queer activism and deserve recognition, respect and to be uplifted. Language is a huge part of this. This is a big reason why Drag Story Hour NYC changed our name. Thank you for your continued support throughout our shifts and changes!
Burning Bright with Flame
Turning Pain Into Creative Fire
Setpember 2024
Flame (they/them) has been a storyteller with Drag Story Hour NYC since 2018, but has enjoyed the art of drag their entire life. As a self-aware, nonbinary adolescent they began to do drag to express their gender identity.
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When they reached adulthood, they were asked by a friend to host a drag show at Stonewall to help raise money for homeless LGBTQ+ youth. That’s when Flame realized they wanted to use drag to bring awareness to and help stigmatized members of the community.
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Twenty years later, when DSH NYC was born, Flame knew they had to be a part of it! What better way to spread the message of love, joy, respect, and to raise awareness of gender non-conforming people, while also healing from their own rocky journey towards acceptance?
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Aside from their work with Drag Story Hour NYC, Flame has also spent the last ten years working with a Queens-based organization whose goal is to help people living with HIV by providing free healthcare and other services. Flame also does volunteer work with Love Wins Food Pantry, an LGBTQ+ run food pantry, and founded Free Clothing Queens where they go out in drag, distributing free clothing to people who need it.
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Recently, they have spent some time working with LGBTQ+ seniors and would love to pursue that further. Flame is always looking for ways to help better the community and are on a constant mission to be the change they want to see in life.
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Outside of their drag life, Flame is also a professional hair colorist and stylist in the state of New York. Their love for hair, makeup, and fashion stems from early childhood and coexisted with their desire to express their own fluid gender identity. Their talent for hair coloring and cutting also serves as a form of affirming self-care, which they are happy to share with others. For the last twenty years they have used their creativity to help make people look and feel beautiful; making New York City more fashionable one person at a time!
