John Whittier Treat ’22 (Los Angeles, MFA) will publish his new novel, The Seventh City of Refuge, with Phylum Press on October 1, 2026. The novel follows two young gay men who leave Los Angeles for rural Washington in search of a new beginning, only to find their lives intersecting with the underground survivalist movement. Exploring addiction, recovery, risk, relationships, and new beginnings, the novel is Treat’s latest work of fiction.
Treat, who has lived in the Pacific Northwest for 40 years, is also the author of the novel The Rise and Fall of the Yellow House, a finalist for the 2016 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction; the AIDS-themed novella Maid Service; and the novel First Consonants. His short fiction has won the Christopher Hewitt Prize and received Pushcart Prize nominations, and his opinion writing has appeared in The New York Times, HuffPost, and LitHub.
