july 2023
july 2023
it’s been almost 8 months since i updated this newsletter. it’s really weird to measure time in quantity rather than quality. duration is subjective when i have dissociative identity disorder, which is one of the many things i uncovered in this timeclump. i wanted to mention it to be transparent and also because it is something i’m been writing about all along.
speaking of writing, here’s what you missed (…on tommy)!
1/2 of 2023 wrap-up: books
space cowboy on a little, uh, space exploration? (Bottlecap Press, January 2023) discovers the narrator’s queerness in their early 20s. gay but in space!
JETTISONED by what glows when you’re in the closet again (self-published, June 2023) dives into queerness as a tween-to-teenager-to-adult with the fraught relationship of religious trauma and self-harming tendencies.
TAKE THIS QUIZ! 11 questions to see if you agree with courage as a metaphor (Ghost City Press, June 2023)
So, Who’s Courage? (Bullshit Lit, July 2023) is a story-in-verse abstractly inspired by Courage the Cowardly Dog. the speaker copes with trauma by "auditioning as Courage." the speaker's pets—real or imagined—do as well, as an additional means of desperately seeking safety.
TASEREDGED (watch out!) (Querencia Press, August 2023) is an intimate examination of coming into queerness while navigating the struggles of a transmasc identity and trauma-induced CPTSD. The author approaches the illimitable subject of social grief and deprecation with a fresh perspective and contemporary voice.
i’m about halfway through all the books i’ll have published this year, so stay tuned for more!
1/2 of 2023 wrap-up: poems
winter
“What Kind of Vampire Are You?” - Stone of Madness
“How to Read Auras” - Beaver Mag (design by nat raum)
“after finding queerness in an abandoned sandbox as a teen, after a breakup, after asking you anything” - Voicemail Poems
“Live-Streaming Your Mental Breakdown is Totally a Thing!” - eggplant tears
“4 Methods of Surveillance”, “Make Truth or Dare Sexy Again” - HORNS: issue 2
“the room / pathos in water”; “8 Ways You Can Escape Internet Rabbit Holes or Drowning in the Ocean”; “DEEPCREEK, MARYLAND VACATION” - fifth wheel press: come sail away
“wanted: dead or alive”, “party trick”, “scene 3B: little dance, little date” - COLORS: BLUE
spring
“trauma mapping + cptsd quiz or a letter to my last lover or an AI read trick mirror or your computer screen, and this is what it wrote” - Graphic Violence Lit
“how to break up with _____ HR-style, how to set boundaries, how to hope for a career change” - PLORKOLOGY
“at 16, most guys jack off in the woods / at 16, fucking me is almost like fucking a corpse” - travesties?!
“imagine a man with the trauma of a teenage girl [1]”, “it’s okay that you still think dead things are beautiful[?]”, “imagine a man with the trauma of a teenage girl [2]” - Passengers Journal
“graveyards as a transmasc setting” - the transjoy project
summer
“[The Computer]”, “carnage over rose (poke and stick tattoo era)”- COLORS: GREEN
“you replicate personalities like a shattered mirror” - moth eaten mag
“Want to Find Your WorkSona? Take This Quiz (2 Results Only!)” - Audience Askew Literary Journal
likewise with books, i’m about halfway through all poems i have set to be published this year!
recommendations! or what i’m hyperfixating on lately
music: Glass Animals’ dreamland, Magdalena Bay’s Mercurial World & mini mix vol. 3, Kim Petras’ album Feed the Beast, 100 gecs’ 10,000 gecs, “I Will” by Sky Ferreria, “atomic” by Aziya, “Oh No Darling!” by Sarah Kinsley, “heavun” by hemlocke springs, “Piggie” by Jazmin Bean, “Bathroom Floor” by Sophie Powers, “Speed Drive (From Barbie The Album)” by Charli XCX, “AMERICAN HORROR SHOW” by SNOW WIFE, “ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?” by Negative 25, & 3 songs by QUEEF JERKY (& friends): “PINEAPPLE UPSIDE DOWN”, “QUEEF STEW”, “CORPORATE SONG”
activities: extreme DIY bookbinding, music composition, messing around on Photoshop
watchable media: Last Night in Soho (movie; note the ending is Wrong), any YouTube lore or rabbit holes inspired by Majora’s Mask and Tears of the Kingdom, The Owl House (tv show), She-Ra and The Princess of Power (tv show), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (movie), The Good Place (tv show)
books: flower tongues by dre levant, nat raum burns in hell! by nat raum, Universal Red by Maria Gray, Dream With Teeth by Millie Tullis, All the Light in Here by Emily Murman, unpleasant residue / never wanted to hurt anybody by Sara Adams, Every Night I See My Grandfather’s Ghost by Candria Slamin, 5G Protection Spell by Jeremiah Moriarty, there is an earth after innocence by andrea lianne grabowski, Traum/A by JP Seabright, AUTHOR OF ALL ILL by charlie perseus, Pantoum Stress Disorder by MN James, THE WAYS OF THE MONSTER by Jay Besemer, FREEDOM HOUSE by kb brookins, Vampire Burrito by matt mitchell, MILK by Dorothea Lasky
cat picture:
(pictured is Peanut, a gray tabby cat with white-socked paws. Peanut is licking her toes.)