As The Sapphic Sun prepares to print its first anniversary edition, staff of Tampa Bay’s monthly lesbian and queer newspaper got a big shoutout.
Tuesday’s “Late Night With Seth Meyers” included a segment called “Jokes Seth can’t tell.”
“A group of people in Florida started publishing a lesbian newspaper called The Sapphic Sun,” Meyers said before yielding to Jenny Hagel, and her fellow queer “Late Night” writer Amber Ruffin, who had some alternative names for the Sapphic Sun.
Hagel held up mock copies of “The Dildo Daily,” “The Lesbian Ledger,” “The Gold Star Gazette,” “The Butch Beacon,” “The Hers & Hers Herald” and “The Vageterian Voice,” joking that they were the names the St. Pete-based editors brainstormed before settling on The Sapphic Sun.
Meyers then got schooled in what a gold star lesbian actually is, which led to him asking Hagel what to call a lesbian who has slept with a man.
“Unimpressed,” she replied.
Editor-in-chief Valerie Smith told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay the bit “hilarious.”
“It actually looked a lot like our initial brainstorming sessions, though I wish they’d included our working title: ‘The Dyke Daily’,” Smith, added.
Both Smith and Sapphic Sun publisher Kelly Dunsmore told CL they’d like the show to mail them the gag newspapers from the segment, which the paper was not aware of.
“This was such an insane thing to wake up to, a friend sent the clip and I thought I was having a fever dream,” Dunsmoreโwho met the paper’s lead printer at a club called “Scissor Sirens”โadded.
They both don’t know how anyone hipped the show to the publication, but Smith said she recently attended a women’s journalism conference and that “it’s not impossible that somehow a show writer found out through a friend who was in attendance.”
The first anniversary edition of the Sapphic Sun won’t be available until next month, but there’s a chance to meet its creators on Friday, Sept. 19 when they take part in the closing after-hours party for Nina Yankowitz’s “In the Out/Out the In” exhibit.
“Weโll have a table in a ‘Reading Room’ for folks to browse our publication as well as multiple other feminist and lesbian publications from our archive,” Dunsmore said.
To get the Sapphic Sun’s anniversary edition on Oct. 1, subscribe for $10 by Sept. 30.
“We have had the joy of having hundreds of dedicated subscribers over the past year who have stuck with us as we’ve transitioned subscription platforms and delivery methods,” Smith, who has a byline on CL, said.
“We are looking forward to spending the next year archiving the daily lives of lesbians and sapphics in the Tampa Bay area. We will consider changing our name if Seth Meyers funds it.”
Nina Yankowitz | In the Out/Out the In closing party
Time Fri., Sept. 19, 7-10 p.m. 2025
Location Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg, 255 Beach Dr NE, St. Petersburg
Description An art party for the closing of Nina Yankowitz’s In the Out / Out the In. The artist will be on site along with community members like publishers of St. Pete’s monthly queer and lesbian newspaper The Sapphic Sun. Every ticket includes one signature cocktail.
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This article appears in Sept. 11-17 2025.