Your hold is ready! (05.19.24)

Hello all! I write to you from the Portland airport, on my way back to Davis after a wonderful two-year anniversary visit with my partner, Gwen. It was an amazing, much-needed break from the combination of schoolwork, teaching, and Palestine work happening back in Davis, the latter of which I won’t discuss in any detail for security reasons. I do, however, encourage you to continue supporting local encampment efforts, bail funds, and other events local to you, in pursuit of a Free Palestine.

Notable from this past weekend was Gwen’s and my visit to Beacon Rock State Park, pictures of which I posted on Instagram. Climbing to the top of the eponymous rock was pretty easy as hikes go, with a massive payoff: this view that was far beyond what any picture or postcard could ever approximate.

One of the myriad benefits of going to visit Gwen is that it gives me a time and place both to relax and read/write for pleasure (and indeed, over the course of hours of both between Thursday and yesterday, I read a ton of stuff, some of which made this month’s rec list). I’ve been chipping away at my crowdsourced recommendation list while also doing my usual vibes-based reading routine. Not sure I’ll make it through all of the crowdsourced recommendations this year, but I’d like to keep soliciting recs, so I’ll let the ones I don’t finish simply roll over into 2025 and beyond!

Usual updates from me: preorder Failure to Comply, get an arc on Edelweiss, contact me if you’re interested in a review/interview, add it on Goodreads and Storygraph, and tell your friends. Check out some early reviews: Briar and Guadalupe on GR, and Alex Carrigan for Harbor Review. My most recent ~publicity thing~ for the book was an incredibly generous interview with SG Huerta for their newsletter, trans poetica; I also got a shoutout in Davey Davis’s newsletter. Thank you all for sharing and supporting!

(Speaking of which, I updated my website theming a little. I think it looks pretty sleek, but let me know your thoughts!)

Lit mag news: manywor(l)ds issue 4 just dropped! I feel like every successive issue is my favorite so far, and am honored to share so much great work with you all. General submissions are closed until June, but are open to manywor(l)ds for MENA/SWANA writers year-round, as well as those interested in submitting writing about their time at pro-Palestine encampments. Mad dykes and friends are welcome to submit my guest-edited issue of Sinister Wisdom called Mad Dykes, Queer Worlds, open through June 2024.

Now, onto the recommendations.

Today’s Recs:

Books:

• Rashid I. Khadi, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.

• Martha Wells, Exit Strategy.

• Erin Elizabeth Smith, Down.

• Jeff VanderMeer, This World is Full of Monsters [read].

• V.E. Schwab, A Darker Shade of Magic.

• Colson Whitehead, Sag Harbor.

• Jorgenrique Adoum, tr. Katherine Hedeen and Víctor Rodríquez Nuñez, Prepoems in Postspanish.

• Claire Oshetsky, Poor Deer.

• Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot.

Audio & Visual Media

• Disability After Dark

• Childish Gambino, Atavista (2024)

• M.B. Goffstein, Brookie and Her Lamb [picture book]

Poetry & Prose & In-Between:

• Julia Marquez-Uppman, An Abrupt Break in Thought (2024)

• Jared Hanson, My Life in the Streets (2024).

• Brian Watson, Desire, Desiring, Desired (2024)

• Esther Alter, Tisha b’Av (2024).

• Julie Mannell, Iatrophobia (2023).

• Brian Evenson, The Shimmering Wall (2021).

• E. De Zulueta, Landscape Suicide (2024).

• Emily Zhou, a little flesh, a little breath (2024)

Essays and Articles:

• R.O. Kwon, The Parents Who Regret Having Children (2024).

• Alex Cocotas, How German Isn’t It (2024)

• Amelia K., Certainly (2024).

My Recent Work:

• dyke (genealogy) / alt: a letter to my grandfather in this first year of silence in Canthius *Priscilla Uppal Memorial Prize for Poetry honorable mention*

• :Master Doc in Fusion Fragment.

• Mad Studies in khōréō.

• Two Poems in The Institutionalized Review.

• Burrito Texts: Mel Baggs and the Language of Crip Life in Review of Disability Studies (academic).

• port-man-toes: the aroace - queercrip - transmad - neuroqueer erotics of digital collaboration with ulysses/constance bougie in Kairos (academic?!?)

• a complete family / hstry in Honey Literary, *nominated for Best of the Net*!

• Embodying Otherwise: Nonhuman Criptopias in Salt Fish Girl in the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies (academic).

• Loving trans into possible: t4t as transpollinatory praxis in APA Studies in LGBTQ Philosophy (academic).

• Skim in Astrolabe *nominated for Best Small Fictions*!

• Refuse! in Elliott Lloyd’s Psych Survivor Zine (Vol. 1)

• Diagnostician's Note, lovingly reprinted in Protean Magazine.

• Find my chapbooks on my website and my Goodreads author page! Contact me for PDF requests.That’s all for now! Again, feel free to let me know what you think, what you’d like to see more of, and if you have any recommendations of your own!ShareSubscribe now