Your hold is ready! (7.29.24)

July 29, 2024

Hi everyone!

I write this (from my very green and plushie-filled childhood bedroom) on the eve of a lot of things. Failure to Comply drops August 6, and there has been so much happening –– in the world, in my life, everywhere –– that it’s hard to know what to do with the excitement-anxiety-hope-terror I feel at publishing my first novel, my first full-length book of any kind.

In some (selfish, deluded) ways, I wish I could release my first book in “normal times.” But there are no normal times, and this book was not written under normal conditions –– in fact, the period I spent on its first draft map precisely onto the years of the trump administration. Art is worthless without social, cultural, and political context, from up- and down-stream possibilities entangled with them. Not long ago, we saw that in the New York Times’s milquetoast-at-best list of this century’s most influential books, and in indie lit’s fierce and (to me) flattering response. We will continue to see it as u.s. librarians focus only on book bans “at home” and not systemic scholastocide, and as literary festivals continue to lose support over their silence on Palestine. I could be releasing my book into “easier” times, but then again, Failure at once recognizes and remands the noncompliant conditions of its emergence.

I don’t have some grand vision of Failure upending empire (though if it somehow does, fuck yes), but I am thinking consciously about what, for lack of a better word, vibes I want to bring to my very-quickly-approaching events. So far, we’ve raised over $100 each for al-Qaws and the Wildflower Alliance (we will keep donating a % of proceeds here for pre-orders through the 31!), but charity is not change. What I hope is that the platform(s) I’m going to be given for the next few months –– via events, via published pieces, and via the connections that this book affords me –– afford me the opportunity to speak capaciously about many forms of noncompliance:

Noncompliance with global empire, with demands to conform to white, cisheterosexist standards of sanity. Certainly, too, noncompliance with the expectation that I celebrate this book at the expense of other phenomena I care about. Noncompliant memory, a refusal to let Palestine fade in the face of a u.s. election, a new and memeable candidate, a fresh Olympics with its concomittant waves of recreational nationalism.

I worked hard on this book. For a long time. I’m ready to celebrate, but never alone.

Where will I be celebrating? Well, my August is pretty packed, and all of my dates so far are listed on my website. In the next few days, I’ll be reading at Emerge Literary Journal’s Be Well series (08/01) (free and online!) and at Unnameable Books in Turners Falls, MA (08/02).

In the middle of the month, I have three exciting southern stops:

And at the end, I’ll be a guest on the World Transsexual Forum on August 26, in NYC! (WTF, amirite?)

So, if you’re someplace on the east coast next month, come find me and buy a book! I’ll be the nervous sweaty tattooed one in the keffiyeh. No, the other one.

Anyway, those are the main updates I’ve got as we head into one of the most anxiety-provoking seasons of my twenty-five years thus far! Keep reading and reviewing on Goodreads and Storygraph and (at your libraries/indie stories especially) requesting copies of Failure to Comply. Also, contact me if you’re interested in a review/interview.

ICYMI: manywor(l)ds issue 4 dropped on May 15, and issue 5 –– our one-year anniversary issue! –– drops August 15. The deadline for this reading period is July 31. Submissions remain open year-round MENA/SWANA writers, other writers from communities experiencing genocide, and those interested in submitting writing about their time at pro-Palestine encampments.

Now, onto the recommendations.

Today’s Recs:

Books:

Graphic Novels/Manga:

Albums & Podcasts

Poetry & Prose & In-Between:

Essays and Articles:

My Recent Work: