Your hold is ready! (9. 29. 26)

Hi everyone!

Wow, September really flew by, in no small part because my teaching and research have started up again, meaning that I’m back in a daily rhythm of going to campus, planning lessons, and writing when I have the chance. So far, things are going really well, and we’re just wrapping up one of the last summer weather days of 2026 here in Grand Rapids. It was gorgeous to walk in, but I’m definitely ready for chillier air –– especially for running in the morning.

As we get deeper into fall, a few exciting things are happening! I’ll be in Chicago for the American Studies Association conference from Oct. 22-25, presenting/workshopping with colleagues on Mad pedagogical practices. Then, two more conferences in quick succession in early-mid November. After a season off academic conferencing while at my residency last fall, I’m excited to get back to it, especially since Chicago is pretty close by.

Lastly, and very excitingly, I had a paper published with my friend and colleague Willa Smart that is now available in differences and free on my Academia account. It’s been many, many years in the making, and looks at (counter)community formation among people with eating disorders/disorderly eaters. Slowly but surely, we’re working disorderly eating into a broader conversation about Madness, antipsychiatry, and autonomy.

Housekeeping:

If you want to read about transMad queercrip nonsense as aesthetic and praxis and haven’t ordered a copy yet, check out Differential Diagnosis, which is now available on Northwestern University Press’s website and on Bookshop (or, in Canada, at Another Story or your local indie!) Be sure to request it from your favorite indie bookstore, and add it on Goodreads and Storygraph.

Likewise, you can find my debut experimental-sf- trans dyke body modification novel, Failure to Comply, at featherproof books, Bookshop (+ your local indie), Another Story, Goodreads, and Storygraph.

Also - manywor(l)ds’s third anniversary issue dropped 8/15, and we are open for submissions through 10/31!

Now, onto the recommendations.

Today’s Recs:

Books:

• Judith Katz, Running Fiercely Toward a High Thin Sound

• Siddharth Kara, The Zorg: A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery

• Nghi Vo, A Long and Speaking Silence

• Jamil Jan Kochai, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories

• Steven Hall, The Raw Shark Texts

Poetry & Prose & In-Between:

• Hilda Hilst, tr. Justin Greene, Poet-Pig Who Knows Me… (2026)

• Hansen Shi, Blood Boy (2026)

Essays and Articles:

• Al Landes, Cities Are Ditching Flock Safety Cameras – Then Hiring Axon to Do the Same Job

My Recent Work:

• Scenes of Indigestion: Alimentary Countercommunity as Disorderly Praxis with Willa Smart in differences.

• Before the Fuckers Catch Us: transMad Opacity & Epistemic Flight in Full-Stop.

• Truth Beyond Reason: Speculative Fictions and the Mad Imagination in Constellations.

• Interview: Cavar in conversation with M. K. Thekkumkattil in Fifth Wheel Press.

• The Inherent Poetry of Horror, Or Horror in the Poetic in the Northwestern University Press Blog.

• Speculative Syllabi: Imagining Pedagogies of Madness and Hope, with Helen Rottier, in the International Mad Studies Journal.

• Two pieces and Introduction in ANMLY, Autistic Protest Poetry.

• Okay…a little unfocused, but hopefully you can make something of this? in Disability Archives Lab.

• Access Fictions: Clarity, Violence, and the Promise of transMad Opacity in Transgender Studies Quarterly.

• You May Feel Odd or Different All Day in The Offing

• Every Trans Suicide is State-Sanctioned Murder in Protean Magazine

• Loving Renee Back in The Rumpus

• Find my chapbooks on my website and my Goodreads author page! Contact me for PDF requests.