Cole Nicole LeFavour's IN THE ARMS OF MOUNTAINS In-Store Event and Signing

Idaho’s first openly LGBTQ+ lawmaker shares their powerful story of hope, resilience, and political resistance

Join us at Mrs. Dalloway's on Saturday, June 6 at 7:00 PM when Cole Nicole LeFavour comes to the store to share their new book In the Arms of Mountains: A Memoir of Land, Love, and Queer Resistance in Red America. Cole will be joined in conversation by Sophia Raday and will sign copies of their book after the presentation.

Click here to preorder a copy of In the Arms of Mountains.

Cole LeFavour was 11 years old when their hippie parents moved the family to a guest ranch in Idaho. Hours to the north, as the LeFavours unpacked pots and pans, Richard Butler dreamed of establishing a white separatist nation. It’s here, in one of the reddest states on the map, where Cole learned to raise ducklings, hike the wilderness alone, and build political resistance where you'd least expect it.

This is the story rural America deserves to tell—and that the rest of the country needs to hear. Follow LeFavour’s journey from their 2-mile walk to the school bus along a dirt road to their monumental election as Idaho’s first openly queer state senator. Cole recounts anti-apartheid protests at Berkeley, the solitary life of a fire lookout, and the gravitational pull of unexpected romance and loss. In the Arms of Mountains is a memoir with dirt under its nails and heart on its sleeve. It shatters the carefully constructed “monolithic heartland” myth and rewrites Hillbilly Elegy’s bleak epitaph.

Haunting, hopeful, and full of fight, Cole’s story reminds us of what’s possible when we look beyond red and blue, right and left, to meet each other at the edge of the wild.

COLE NICOLE LEFAVOUR is an activist, award-winning journalist, and writer whose stories and essays have appeared in The North American Review, Idaho Wilderness Considered, Sawtooth-White Cloud, among others. In 2004, LeFavour became the first openly LGBTQ+ member of the Idaho Legislature, elected four times, serving as an Idaho State Senator and eventually leading hundreds of people in acts of civil disobedience at the State Capitol. Cole lives in rural Idaho with their spouse, Carol, where the two raise vegetables and use their pickup to extract neighbors of all political persuasions from of ditches in winter.

SOPHIA RADAY lives in Berkeley, with her retired soldier/police officer husband, a bipartisan dog, and assorted firearms. Like LeFavour, Raday was arrested in the late 80s for civil disobedience in protest of South African Apartheid, and in various other causes. Her book, Love in Condition Yellow: a Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage, was also published by Beacon Press. Currently Sophia is working on a mystery about a secret society of women gathering compromising information on powerful men to hold them accountable for sexual assault. Connect with her on Instagram at @SheFlexxer.

THIS EVENT is free but registration is requested. Registration ends at 6:00 pm on June 6.

BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.

DUE TO SPACE limitations, we may not be able to accommodate every person at an event, so early registration is encouraged.

WALK-INS will be accommodated only if space allows.

WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM for the event.

PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.

OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, please plan accordingly.