DelawareScene: An Evening with Juda Bennett at Huxley and Hiro @ Huxley & Hiro Booksellers

An Evening with Juda Bennett at Huxley and Hiro

Join us for an engaging author talk with Juda Bennett as he shares insights about his newest book, followed by a Q&A and book signing.

Huxley and Hiro thrilled to host author and academic, Juda Bennett for an evening discussion of his newest book Qtopioa! Moderated by University of Delaware professor, Davy Knittle, it promises to be an evening of insight and inspiration!

Book Description:

In the 1970s, while communes bloomed like wildflowers across the land, most had no room for queer members. The so-called counterculture still clung to heterosexual norms, even as it preached freedom from traditional gender roles and the nuclear family. Juda Bennett’s engrossing memoir follows his escape from suburbia into the back-to-the-land movement—and chronicles the efforts it took for him to “drop back in” to mainstream society and the ways in which he and his compatriots continued to honor their communal vision.

After enduring the hollow promises of “progressive” communes, Bennett finally found what he didn’t know he was looking for at Lavender Hill, a rural queer commune of visionaries carving out a life beyond heteronormativity, beyond capitalism, beyond shame. They didn’t just survive; they built something messy, luminous, and defiantly alive. And when the commune began to unravel, they didn’t vanish. They evolved. Qtopia is a story of chosen family and radical transformation. It is a reminder that queer utopia isn’t behind us—it’s still out there on the horizon, singing its song of joy, defiance, and fabulousness.

About the Author:

Juda Bennett, a professor emeritus of English at the College of New Jersey, is the author of four academic books and numerous essays, short stories, and poems. He is a coauthor of the group memoir The Toni Morrison Book Club.

About the Moderator:

Davy Knittle is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Delaware, where he works at the intersection of queer and trans literature, the health humanities, and urban cultural history. His first book, Urbanist Desire: Queer and Trans Survival in the City, will be published by University of Minnesota Press in November 2026.

Books will be available for purchase at the event.

Free Entrance, Registration Required