Your Hold is Ready! (06.25.23)

Hi everyone!

I can’t believe June is almost over already –– I’ve been pretty quiet on Substack and other social media this month, between recovering from qualifying exams and, even more importantly, traveling internationally for the first time since pre-COVID. Having been accepted to attend the Novi Sad, Serbia node of the Feminist No Borders Summer School, I decided to make a whole trip of it: I flew into Budapest, then went to Novi Sad, stayed overnight in Belgrade, and then ended my trip in Munich. This was my first fully solo travel adventure, and I adored it. Going at my own pace, dining alone, making every single choice by myself –– for me, this is THE way to travel, and I can’t wait to do it more often in the future. Not to mention, the people I met during the Summer School were truly fantastic, and the conversations we had over the course of four short days totally blew away my expectations. I had a great time.

Still, it’s nice to be back in my apartment, and have a bit of time to prepare to teach my first ever course as an adjunct instructor — summer session intro to gender studies. Being an adjunct is, of course, far from glamorous, but this is the first time I’ve had this level of control over syllabus, assignment, etc. content, and been able to design my own lectures, so I’m still excited.

In other exciting (literary this time) news, I have a nonfiction chapbook about to drop with GutSlut press! Called Co/notations, it’s the “director’s cut” version of two previously published essays of mine, now complete with footnotes, a new introduction, interlude, and notes drawn from my undergraduate thesis work on trans(/)butch subjectivity back in 2020. A lot about myself and my work have changed since then, and I’m excited to share this chapbook with the world as a kind of embodied/enwritten update to my relationship with butchness and transmasculinities. Plus, working with Ami and the GutSlut team has been wonderful –– everything I could ever want in a small press publishing experience. Pre-order a print copy here, a digital copy here, and add on Goodreads here!

Plus, don’t forget to check out my debut novel, Failure to Comply (goodreads link!), which is coming out next summer with featherproof books. The first excerpt of the novel is out with Travesties magazine.

Now, onto the recommendations!

Today’s Recs:

Books and Manga:

• Anthony Cody, Borderland Apocrypha .

• Ebine Yamaji, Love My Life.

• Joanna Penn Cooper, Wild Apples: A Flash Memoir Collection with Writing Prompts.

• Liat Ben-Moshe, Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition.

• Meiko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs.

• Robin Coste Lewis, Voyage of the Sable Venus and Other Poems.

Music (Gorge Music special, h/t Echo Sequence):

• Various Gorge Bootists, GORGE OUT "HERE" 2022 (2022).

• Hiroki Yamamura, ゆ​ー​こ​ロ​ー​タ​ス​の​Gorge & Juke​し​よ​う​よ (2015).

• Indus Bonze, 山​岳​信​仰 Mountain Worship (2019).

• Whatever Your Heart Desires, Cannonade (2017).

Poetry & Prose & In-Between:

• Gu Shi, tr. S. Qiouyi Lu, No One at the Wild Dock (2022)

• Nicole Callihan, Everything Is Temporary (2020).

• Lucy Hannah Ryan, The Fox Bride (2020).

• Cassie Mattheis, In the Sunrise Hour (2023).

• Elizabeth Metzger, With Each Bird Flying, Time is Passing (2023).

Essays and Articles:

• Erin Maglaque, I Feel Sorry for Sex (2023).

• Ching-In Chen, I’m a Nonbinary Chinese American Who Co-Parents With My Trans Partner (2023).

• Interview: Brandon Taylor by Jorge Cotte (2023).

My Recent Work:

• My fourth chapbook, bugbutter, is available from Gap Riot Press and up on Goodreads.

• My third chapbook, Out of Mind & Into Body, is available from Ethel Press and up on Goodreads.

• Four Poems in The Temz Review.

• mindmap qua elevator pitch in CUTBOW Quarterly.

• to they for whom I am in the passenger seat in ANMLY Lit.

• How to Know if You Are Trans Enough: a ten-step plan for transreal-ization in Sinister Wisdom 127: trans/feminisms.

• Master Doc: in Spoon Knife 7: Transitions.

• transfinite::a dialogue in Just Femme & Dandy

• Two Poems in Electric Lit: The Commuter

• The Queer Aut of Failure: Cripistemic Openings for Postgraduate Life in Lateral: The Journal of the Cultural Studies Association.

• Headcase! in The New Orleans Review.

• The Beholding & Beheld in Nat Brut.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!