Is America really as divided as we think it is?

Author Samantha Allen will visit Eagle Harbor Book Company at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 2 to discuss exactly that idea and her new book, “Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States.”

Ten years ago Allen was a suit-and-tie-wearing Mormon missionary. Now she’s a senior Daily Beast reporter happily married to another woman. A lot in her life has changed, but what hasn’t changed is her deep love of Red State America, and of queer people who stay in so-called “flyover country” rather than moving to the liberal coasts.

In her book, Allen takes readers on a cross-country road trip stretching all the way from Provo, Utah to the Rio Grande Valley, to the Bible Belt, to the Deep South.

Her motto for the trip: “Something gay every day.”

Making pit stops at drag shows, political rallies, and hubs of queer life across the heartland, she introduces readers to scores of extraordinary LGBT people working for change, from the first openly transgender mayor in Texas history to the manager of the only queer night club in Bloomington, Indiana, and many more.

Capturing profound cultural shifts underway in unexpected places and revealing a national network of chosen family fighting for a better world, “Real Queer America” is a treasure trove of uplifting stories and a much-needed source of hope and inspiration in these divided times.

Allen is a GLAAD Award-winning journalist and the author of “Love & Estrogen.” She is a senior reporter for The Daily Beast who covers LGBT issues, and a former “Sex + Life” reporter for Fusion.

She received her doctorate’s degree in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies from Emory University in 2015, and was the 2013 recipient of the Kinsey Institute’s John Money Fellowship for Scholars of Sexology, and has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, and NPR’s “On the Media.”