Nina West made history in 2019 as the first person to walk the Primetime Emmy Awards “purple carpet” in full drag, the same year her season of RuPaul’s Drag Race won multiple Emmys, including Outstanding Reality Competition Series.

Since then, she has used her platform as a drag queen and activist to raise more than $2.5 million for causes supporting LGBTQIA+ youth and families, HIV/AIDS treatment, education, and fundamental rights.

In this article, she reflects on her lifelong love of reading—how books offered escape and hope during a difficult childhood, helped her understand her identity, and shaped her drag persona. Literature gave her a sense of belonging and models of healthy, joyful queer lives when such images were missing from mainstream culture.

West also traces the roots of Drag Queen Story Hour, recalling her first event in Ohio in 2016, shortly after the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision. Despite resistance and protests, she was driven by a desire to normalize queer families, promote literacy, and create safe, joyful spaces of acceptance.

For West, Drag Queen Story Hour is not about provocation but about intention, emotional safety, and family joy. Through reading, crafts, and music, it delivers messages of inclusion and acceptance. Over time, the program has grown into mainstream spaces like Nickelodeon and Disney, showing that drag belongs everywhere—from late-night stages to morning storytimes in libraries.

"Eventually I came into my own queerness. I created and designed a drag character who represented the person I was and the person I could become. She was a little bit like some of my favorite characters I’d grown up reading about. Nina possessed a little bit of P.L. Travers’s Mary Poppins, some of Louisa May Alcott’s Jo March, and maybe a lot of Roald Dahl’s Grand High Witch. The point is that classic literature, memoirs, and stories have directly impacted my ability to have a successful life as a queer man. Books gave me the opportunity to redeem any hope that I had for a healthy relationship with not only myself but the outside world."

ARTICLE: Why Drag Queen Story Hour Matters

‍