Diary of a Drag Queen

Bridget Jones meets Diary of a Call Girl: an intimate, hilarious, revelatory adventure with a drag queen

A riotous portrayal of the contemporary queer experience

Truthful, revealing and obscenely hilarious […] Strident and unapologetic but really sweet, too.

A proud voice for the non-binary community

This book honestly changed my life. Tom’s honesty, vulnerability and fearlessness jumps out of every page and every word. It is the queer bible I’ve always needed and I don’t remember life BT (before Tom)

Diary of a Drag Queen is a heartfelt memoir of queerness and non-conformity

The book on everyone's desk at Glamour HQ right now ... hilarious...  [It is] a unique portrayal of the queer experience and we're so here for it

Love, LOVE this book. It is so human and sweet and SO RUDE

So refreshingly honest […] a real, hilarious, deeply moving, look at what it’s really like to be non-binary, queer, and a drag queen

One of London’s most compelling queens presents a unique perspective on the queer experience […] It really makes our own daily diaries seem pretty mundane

i-D magazine cultural highlight of the week

A trove of glittering delights, a bushel of winkingly luscious fruit! Crystal Rasmussen is a goddess, a witch, an angel; and her enchanting diaries have replaced my own journals as the greatest memoirs ever committed to paper. A riotous carnival, a midnight burlesque, a glorious battle cry, all in one.

On the outside it’s deceptively pink and sparkly, but on the inside it’s a crackling, screaming fabulous whirlwind of dysfunction. It’s the Nikki Grahame of books.

So funny, warm, loving, beautifully written. A complete page-turner.

Hilarious, deeply moving, uplifting, daring, and unflinchingly honest

Amrou Al-Kadhi, author of Unicorn and member of Denim

Crystal 
 
Look up the term ‘Global Phenomenon’ in the dictionary and you will simply find a picture of Crystal's face. She's beautiful. She's a model. She looks like a block of cheap Edam that's been left out in the sun. She's known for always having a cigarette in her mouth, while shouting at people for smoking in her face. She also coined the term ‘money’ and has been living in her overdraft since the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Crystal forms one fifth of DENIM, the drag supergroup, and is adored by fans for her lazy demeanour and her powerful falsetto. 
 
 
Tom 
 
Tom Rasmussen is a Northerner based in London. When out of drag, they are a regular contributor to the Independent,Dazed &amp; Confused,i-D, LOVE Magazine and Refinery29. Their work has also been featured in Vice, Broadly, Tank and The Gay Times. 
 
 
In 2018 they were named an LGBT trailblazer by The Dots and one of the voices of now fori-D. 
 
 
Tom also forms half of the radical queer punk band ACM.

Longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize 2020 
 
Life's a drag... Why not be a queen? 
 
'Stories like the one where you shagged a 79-year-old builder and knocked over his sister's ashes while feeding him a Viagra. Or the time you crashed your car because you were giving a hand job in barely moving traffic and took your eye off the car in front. That's the kind of dinner-party ice-breaker I'm talking about.' 
 
Northern, working-class and shagging men three times her age, Crystal writes candidly about her search for 'the one'; sleeping with a VIP in an attempt to become a world famous journalist; getting hired and fired by a well-known fashion magazine; being torn between losing weight and gorging on KFC; and her need for constant sexual satisfaction (and where that takes her). 
 
Charting her day-to-day adventures over the course of a year, we encounter tucks, twists and sucks, heinous overspending and endless nights spent sprinting from problem to problem in a full face of make-up. 
 
This is a place where the previously unspeakable becomes the commendable - a unique portrayal of the queer experience. 
 
(c) 2019, Crystal Rasmussen (P) 2019 Penguin Audio

Ivo Graham

Sofie Hagen

Lou Sanders

Dane Baptiste

Jessie Cave & Bebe Cave

Jordan Brookes

Sheeps

Fern Brady

Amrou Al-Kadhi

Crystal Rasmussen

Giants

Jen Brister

Mo Omar

Chloe Petts

Leo Reich

Yuriko Kotani

Shelf

Anna & Helen

Michelle De Swarte

Jake Farrell

Kemah Bob

John Kearns

Christopher Bliss

Over 20 Comedy Acts From the Fringe that Never Was

'Penguin's fine pandemic audio festival delivers hours of laughs from comedy's most creative talents.' - The Observer 
 
'An absolutely cracking lineup' - The Guardian 
 
'A marvellous wheeze, almost like attending a private stand-up gig' - The I 
 
Brought to you by Penguin. 
 
The show has been called off. The show must go on.... 
 
Penguin is proud to bring you its very own audio comedy festival, featuring acts who would have performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2020, developed in association with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society. 
 
Containing nearly eight hours of hilarious original material from some of the finest comedians on the circuit, listeners can laugh along as Jordan Brookes (Winner of Edinburgh Comedy Awards 2019) takes you on a disastrous guided meditation session, Sofie Hagen (Comedy Central, Live from the BBC) lifts the lid on her Westlife fan fiction days, and just as Shakespeare did during the plague, Ivo Graham (Have I Got News for You, Mock the Week) tucks into his version of King Lear during the lockdown. 
 
Featuring household names, through to debut acts, as well as being compered by Scotland's very own Fern Brady (8 Out of 10 Cats, The News Quiz), Edinburgh Unlocked is the unmissable comedy festival that you can attend without leaving your living room. 
 
Full Cast: Ivo Graham, Sofie Hagen, Fern Brady, Dane Baptiste, Jessie &amp; Bebe Cave, Jordan Brookes, Lou Sanders, John Kearns, Jen Brister, Christopher Bliss, Michelle de Swarte, Sheeps, Glamrou, Giants (Fjord), Crystal Rasmussen, Jen Brister, Chloe Petts, Anna &amp; Helen, Kemah Bob, Leo Reich, Jake Farrell, Yuriko Kotani, SHELF, Mo Omar. 
 
Please note this contains adult themes and content. 
 
©2020 Penguin Audio (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Crystal Rasmussen

Books by Crystal Rasmussen

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