Since its inception at Into, the site formerly run by Grindr, Ola Poppy has become the community's

favorite advice column. And now, John Paul Brammer, the man behind Ola Poppy, has brought his trademark

wit and heart to a new essay collection of the same name.

I think that JP has such an interesting look into the inner minds of queer people and non-queer people as you'll hear.

People write to JP about their deepest worries and their innermost dreams for their lives.

It's the things we don't talk about with our friends because they seem too private, too

embarrassing or personal maybe, and yet as JP shows in his book, there is a common thread

between all of us. All of our anxieties, our hopes, our fears, they look pretty darn similar. That is what John Paul Brammer's work exposes and what we'll be talking about today,

so let's hear it.

From The Advocate magazine in partnership with Glad, I'm Jeffrey Masters,

and this is LGBTQ&A with John Paul Brammer, author of Ola Poppy.

Thank you. with John Paul Bramer, author of Ola Poppy. You know, many people know you from Ola Poppy, which you've been doing for almost four years now.

How has taking over this advice-giving role changed how you handle and think about things in your own life?

You know, interestingly enough, not that much just because the, you know, the column really

started out as a parody as a sort of satire. And I thought I was just going to do that the

whole way through. And then once I started receiving letters that were a little bit more serious

and hitting on issues that,

you know, really hit me in my heart. I was like, oh gosh, I have to start taking this call more seriously. So I think that that evolution for me was the biggest part, that idea that, like,

I could maybe be a mentor figure for someone out there and that I wanted to do more good than harm

in those situations. And yeah, it made me a

more ethical citizen of the internet for one and also kind of made me realize that we are all sort

of mentors to someone, whether we know it or not, and we have to be careful. I think, like, the dirty

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