another 2023 round-up (plus book news!)
owning my accomplishments !
I usually have a few resolutions going into the new year, most of which are just “be better at being alive lolz.” I’m often not very kind to myself, which I didn’t even realize until this year, until leaving academia finally, until actually finding a therapist who can help me decolonize my mind and dismantle myself from white supremacist thinking.
So this year! I have three resolutions that all feed into each other. Be kind to myself, let myself be mediocre,1 and be mindful in my activism— ie, don’t burn out so I can continue to show up for myself and others.
In the spirit of being kind to myself, let me just say, I did a lot of great things this year! I learned a lot! I read a lot! I learned way too much about ATX politics and I am ready to come out swinging next year!
Now before I get into this very long round-up, some book news…
My debut nonfiction chapbook GOOD GRIEF will be published by fifth wheel press in 2025!!!!!! What the heck!!!!! More updates pronto, amores. Goddamn I am grateful.
Here are the milestones and publications I am proud to say happened in 2023, plus some recommended reading from other authors:
I started the year off attending the Roots. Wounds. Words. Retreat for Storytellers of Color. Truly a lifechanging week. This workshop helped start to chip away at all the bullshit I experienced during my MFA and undergrad (and, well, childhood!). I came out of it with a chapbook manuscript and lifelong friends and comrades.
Recommended reading: Children of the Land by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo. “The Obeah Man” by Camille Adams in ANMLY.
I published two pieces I am very proud of in just femme & dandy: “Unraveling Latine Tender Transness: Behind Dali Valentino’s Viral Vaquero Costume” & “crowded closet: crawling towards self love.” And then I joined the team as fat + furious editor!
My second chapbook, Last Stop, was published with Defunkt Magazine. What an amazing team of people. I’m so grateful to be able to create art from what was the worst day of my life in 2020. My university’s newspaper even ran a feature <3
Rec: my father’s favorite song, “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd. QEPD, papi
I had two personal essays published in Delicate Friend
Rec: Heaven, Ekphrasis by sterling-elizabeth arcadia
My microreview of Javier O. Huerta’s American Copia: An Immigrant Epic was published in Revolute
it’s a good day to be trans was published in ANMLY. Editing this folio on trans joy is one of the best projects I have worked on.
Rec: There Are Trans People Here by H. Melt
For National Poetry Month, I was blessed to participate in Under One Roof: A Celebration of Central Texas Poetry. Being on tv was surreal!! Eternal shout outs and love to Torch Literary.
Rec: Another Way to Say Enter by Amanda Johnston
I learned how to use my voice, and I learned when to walk away.2 Relatedly, my poem “Named” was published in The Offing.
I got to read at the book launch for Bianca Alyssa Pérez’s Gemini Gospel! I also got to read at the launch for KB Brookins’ Freedom House in my hometown (and had a 5 year NYC queer bookseller mystery resolved afterward (iykyk!))
I graduated with my freaking MFA!!! And, I made the very difficult decision to leave the career path I was working towards for five years.
Recs: Community as Rebellion: A Syllabus for Surviving Academia as a Woman of Color by Lorgia García Peña, A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt
Along with Bri Gonzalez, CD Eskilson, and Diamond Braxton, I hosted a Pride Reading and Open Mic, ultimately raising $205 for Trans Education Network of Texas.
My work was featured in a queer Latinx poetry exhibit created by Raspa Magazine and César Ramos in Houston City Hall, Aquí and Now.
I have a gay little poem in the Moss Puppy/Minison Pride Pop-Up
My freelancing horizons began expanding! I wrote 10 Poetry Collections to Celebrate Transness Beyond June for Chicago Review of Books
Jenni Milton/Lambda’s Embodying Queer Stories workshop was a weekly joy over the summer.
Rec: Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
I watched my best friend create a gorgeous nonprofit and press with love and justice from the ground up.
Rec: Diamond Braxton’s prose microchap and my interview with them below
August was incredible pub month for me. The first poem in my full-length manuscript, “Puberty II,” was published in Honey Literary. One of my Texan sonnets appeared with so many of my faves in the Mid/South Sonnets anthology from Belle Point Press. My personal essay/review of Samantha Irby’s work was published in fifth wheel press.
I started releasing my zines (for free!) online. Check out my latest one, aptly named LATELY
I led my Writing Queer & Trans Joy workshop for the first time through Abode. I’ll be leading this session again in Boston next spring.
Rec: A History of My Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt
I got en(gay)ged to my best friend <3
Rec: How the Frogs Get Married by Kimberly Wolf
I went to my first residency! Knoxville and SAFTA and Shelby and Alexa and Erin (and of course Simon the barn cat) were such incredible and inspiring company.
I went to New England for the first time, too! I got to meet a friend irl and see the mf Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum irl!
Rec: The Art Thief by Michael Finkel
I wrote fiction for the first time???
Rec: Valleyesque: Stories by Fernando Flores
I celebrated my one-year anniversary of joining Split Lip Magazine and ANMLY as memoir/nonfiction reader, respectively. I’ve since become SLM’s Social Media and Marketing Co-Director, and ANMLY’s nonfiction co-editor!
I celebrated— yes, celebrated— a ten-year traumaversary. I published an essay about it in Bodega: “Candy People Explode When They Get Scared.” I survived, and I am not going anywhere.
I also celebrated one year of trans poetica! And now there are almost 200 of you!! (I know, this website sucks, I am weighing my options.) But let me just say again, MUCHÍSIMAS THANK YOUS.
I had two virtual interviews, with Cindy Huyser and Bleah Patterson
My poem about deer and living in Hill Country is in VIBE’s anthropoetics folio
I reviewed Sophia Tonnessen’s Ecologia for manywor(l)ds and zines by Andrea Grabowski and Bonnie Cisneros in Broken Pencil’s hundredth issue
Infrarrealista Review published my collage poem in ESCRITORIO PURGATORIO
My lil chapbook Origin was named a finalist for the Alta California Chapbook Prize
I began using what academia taught me to put all of my excess energy into fighting for Palestinian liberation as well as the safety of my loved ones here in Texas.
I didn’t realize how much I did this year until compiling this post, honestly. Words can’t describe how grateful I am to be writing, loving, breathing, rebelling.
If you’ve read or skimmed to the end, thank you. From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free ojalá, comrades. On to 2024!
<3
this one was indeed my therapist’s suggestion
I do not miss you. I am happy I left you in 2022. you deserve every consequence of your behavior towards young women and femmes. you deserve accountability and then irrelevance.