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@gayletter · August 17, 2026

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Introducing #gayletter issue 23 featuring Sam Smith @samsmith collects art as a way of keeping time. A painting by Florian Krewer commemorates the period when Smith got naked onstage and shook their bum; David Wojnarowicz’s “Face in Dirt” marks a more anxious chapter, when survival itself felt like the subject. The art objects become evidence of former selves—proof that a life has passed through danger, pleasure, and change. Smith’s new album, “Hazel Eyes,” performs a similar function. Smith wrote “Everlasting Love” the night before their first date with Christian Cowan, when the relationship existed mostly as anticipation. Then the album’s final song arrived three years later. Between these bookends is a record preoccupied not simply with romance but with time: the way happiness produces its own melancholy because recognizing a perfect moment means recognizing that it cannot remain untouched. Smith presents queer love in the visual language of old-fashioned courtship—flowers, autumn leaves, a boyfriend’s jumper, the fantasy of an old movie—claiming traditions that once excluded people like them. There is a new confidence in the way Smith speaks about this work. After years of submitting their voice to the machinery surrounding a major pop career, they co-produced the album and learned to treat comfort as a creative instrument. Safety, for Smith, has not made the music safer. It has made the performances more intimate, and occasionally more dangerous. They now trust what they call their “own North Star.” Anyone who dislikes a song, they say, can go fuck themselves. For GAYLETTER, Smith discusses the queer artist who helped them write about lasting love, the Catholic school choir where music became a refuge, and the photographs they would have trusted no one but Collier Schorr to take. They also talk about moving to New York for love, dancing at Henrietta Hudson, singing with Alicia Keys at Julius’ (which we were lucky to see), the power of the pierogi, and the Italian sandwich that still haunts their dreams. Photography by @collierschorrstudio Interview by @tomjjackson #gayletterissue23 Pre-order your copy now! Shop.GAYLETTER.com