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The author and journalist sits down with Hadley Stewart to discuss how his latest book provides a window into the experiences of queer people, and the importance of representation for the LGBTQ+ community.
When Daniel Harding was growing up in a small town in Essex, he says that everyone who was gay knew everyone else who was gay. The dating options, as he puts it, were somewhat limited. So it’s hardly surprising that when he moved to London, he made the most of what the capital’s queer scene had to offer. Now in his thirties (Harding skillfully dodging my question about his age, settling for a “I’m a bit older than you” response), he’s just as enthralled with dating as he was when he arrived in London.
Halfway through our interview, for instance, the award-winning journalist and author clicks open his phone and laughs. “I’ve literally just got a Hinge notification as you’ve said that. One. New. Match!” he beams, when I ask him about his dating life. People asking Harding about dating is something that he’s come to accept, in part thanks to his first book Gay Man Talking: All the Conversations We Never Had, which explores modern-day relationships (be that friendships, family or sex) from a gay man’s perspective. The honesty of his writing garnered him a reputation for cracking open the conversations that we’re sometimes too scared to have, even with those closest to us.
For Harding’s latest book, Letters to My Younger Queer Self he invites others from the queer community to hold up the mirror to their younger selves. With contributions from the likes of HIV activist Philip Baldwin, MP Nadia Whittome, and TV personality Ella Morgan, to name a few, the book is a collection of letters written from various people within the LGBTQ+ community. “I’d, for so long, had this notion of exploring what I would say to younger me,” he says of the idea behind the book. After talking it through with his new publisher, HarperCollins, Harding went away to write a draft of what would be the collection’s first letter. The response he got from the publishing house was unexpected – it had moved them. “It was that in itself, just one letter, that showed me that if someone else can get something from this, imagine what you can get from multiple, different letters,” he recalls.
Something that struck me from reading the book was the variety of experiences that it includes. It seems obvious to me that Harding thought prudently about publishing a broad range of personal journeys from across the queer community. “That was really hard,” he says when I bring this up. “Representation is so important, especially in our community, and especially now. No single book, or piece of content, is ever going to be inclusive of every single wonderful person, because there are so many different variations of us.” It’s this diversity of representation that Harding also thought carefully about when considering who to include in the book. He didn’t, for example, want this to be a book of only celebrities. Rather, he adds, he wanted to curate a collection of letters that touched upon a variety of experiences that challenged readers to think more broadly. “Things that people don’t always think about, but can relate to,” he says.
Some of the topics that are evoked in these letters are sensitive. How did he tread the fine line of being respectful of the people contributing to the book, all the while encouraging them to open up about their experiences? “Do you know what? That is hard,” he replies. “As a journalist, there are people that you really want to contribute, but you also don’t want to hound them. There’s a line and you don’t want to cross that.”
Harding tells me that he was conscious of the fact he was asking people to sit down and delve into their deepest and (at times) darkest moments of their lives. It’s something that he was all too aware of when he began reading the first drafts that were being submitted. “There were some really raw moments,” he says. “People’s first drafts were so powerful, because people didn’t water them down.” What’s more, Harding’s own emotional investment in the project became apparent. “I read the letters, whether they were funny or emotional, and each letter really took a lot out of me, because I wanted to absorb them. I wanted to understand their journey.”
Yet despite having read these letters on his laptop, nothing would prepare Harding for how he would feel when he needed to read them aloud as part of the recording of the audio book. “I needed to take breaks,” he admits, explaining that he burst into tears several times during the recording. The producer was equally moved. “We were both just so shocked,” he recalls. “The impact of reading the words out loud is such a different experience to reading them in your head. I think this book has been a real journey for me as well.”
So would he say that writing this latest book has been more challenging than the first, I venture. “Obviously, a lot of this book is curating and editing its content,” he replies. “But I would say this one was harder. It took a lot of emotional resource to actually fully put myself into their letters. I wanted to read these letters, and I wanted to have an experience and reaction from them.” In addition to carving out space and time to absorb the experiences of those who have contributed to the book, Harding tells me that the privilege of reading about other people’s lives was not lost on him either. “It’s so fascinating to get a glimpse into someone else’s life and their experience, and I think this book does that,” he reflects. “It gives you such a window into what people have been through.”
Whilst the experience of putting the book together might have been an emotional rollercoaster, Harding is keen to stress the positive impact the book can have on both those from within the LGBTQ+ community and beyond. In the same breath, he retells a story that was shared with him from one of the book’s contributors. Their former school got in touch with them, Harding tells me, saying that they had added the book to the school’s library, such was the impact it had on the school’s librarian. “An ally,” adds Harding. “It’s obviously for our community, for people that might feel alone. But it’s also for people who want to understand, who want to be an ally, who want to be a great parent to their queer child. I hope this book will help people to learn just a little bit about our experiences, which will go a long way to pave that gap.”
Speaking of school, I’m curious to learn more about Harding’s relationship with the word ‘queer’. It’s something that he explains has evolved over time, with the word being used as an insult during his school days. “I was scared to use it myself,” he shares, adding that even seeing the series ‘Queer as Folk’ on TV made him want to hide away from who he was. “I just thought, why would you put that in the title of a TV show?” Today, however, he now views the word as an inclusive way to describe our community; although he reasons that not everyone is prepared to reclaim a word that was once used to weaponise. “I feel like we’ve taken it back, we’ve reclaimed it. And I think that’s such a nice feeling for the community to be able to embrace ‘queer’ again.”
Alongside embracing the evolution of language, Harding is unapologetically navigating the sometimes choppy and unpredictable waters of London’s dating pool. Just prior to my interview with Harding, he appeared on the podcast ‘A Gay and a Non Gay’, co-hosted by James Barr (who also happens to be one of the contributors to the book). During the podcast recording, Harding shared that he went on 100 dates in a year and the negative reaction he received from some people as a result. Having received a Hinge notification as I begin to ask him about the topic of dating, he puts his phone to one side and smiles. “I’m a hopeless romantic,” he shrugs. “I’d love to meet someone and have a relationship, whatever that might look like.” The problem, he argues, is that he keeps going on terrible dates. “There have been some great ones!” he stresses, before continuing. “But I’ve been catfished, I’ve been ghosted, I’ve been stood up.” Dating is something that he admits to finding exhausting, yet on the other hand, he says he’s not giving up yet. “I am hopeful and that’s the thing that drives me the most.”
On a broader note, he believes that dating as a queer person sometimes relieves the pressure from needing to conform to a certain societal expectation – something that his heterosexual friends sometimes experience. “As a queer community, we’re very fortunate that we sort of get to bypass some of those rules and those norms of society,” he argues. “We have almost rewritten our rules.”
I’d argue that it’s surprising and impressive in equal measure that Harding finds the time to date at all: he seems to be constantly working. Perhaps this is best exemplified when he tells me he’s already working on his next book (as well as some other projects that he’s not yet willing to talk about openly). He admits he struggles to live in the moment, because he’s always thinking about the next thing. As for what we can expect from the next book? “I’m moving away from what I’ve done previously,” he replies. “I’ll just say that for now.”
When it came to writing his letter, I wonder how Harding’s letter to his younger self may differ in ten or twenty years’ time. “We’re always evolving,” he says. “We’re changing our opinions, changing our advice.” For Harding, that change of opinion would come when he decided to start PrEP. “I write about it in my letter and how angry I was at myself for not doing it sooner.”
That said, Harding has also gleaned some advice that he is hoping to follow himself: “The one thing that I get from all these letters is just how hard we were on ourselves when we were younger,” he says. “Maybe we just need to be less hard on ourselves.” Advice we should all take note of.
Daniel Harding is an award-winning journalist, presenter and news producer. Author of Gay Man Talking: All The Conversations We Never Had (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2022), his latest book Letters to My Younger Queer Self: Inspiring, influential voices from the LGBTQIA+ community (HarperCollins) is out now.
