My heart is heavy all the time lately. This humble newsletter at least gives me something to look forward to on a semi-regular basis. This week’s edition is on the longer side, for good reason, so let’s get into it!
Solidarity with Palestine:
The ICJ did not say the word ceasefire in their ruling, but they did say that israel must halt all genocidal actions, which sounds a lot like a ceasefire. zionists are already spinning this as a “win”— DO NOT fall for this and other zionist propaganda
Defense for Children International - Palestine took biden to court for aiding in genocide last Friday. The evidence, obviously, is heartbreaking and damning
I started pitching an article about israel’s war on journalists to local venues just before christmas, and things have only gotten worse since then
If you’re in the usa, keep calling your reps. Keep boycotting. Flood biden’s phone lines every Tuesday and Thursday.
USCPR is a great resource for getting started. Find out who in your community is organizing!
If you’re in Texas and want to get involved, start here
Keep boycotting. Check out the BDS site for more info.
Donate to get a ton of free Palestine stickers here
Words Without Borders has put together a list of Palestinian literature here
As a writer, I think it’s important to revisit “Notes on Craft: Writing in the Hour of Genocide” by Fargo Nissim Tbakhi in Protean
Opportunities:
Printed Matter is seeking artists books, zines, etc on Decolonization, Resistance & Solidarity
fifth wheel press’ GARLAND issue 1 - queer spirituality - closes 1/31
TWO MORE DAYS to send all your gay shit to me & C. M. Green
think “J CHRIST” and “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)” by Lil Nas X, Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H, that scene in Ladybird (2017) with the priest that makes me cry every time1
regular subs - closes 1/31
BIPOC/trans/disabled people in/from Canada 2/1-2/14
Tin House Summer Workshops - closes 1/31
tons of scholarships available! Including for BIPOC and trans writers
ANMLY - all genres - closes 2/1
Trans Play Anthology Volume II: Plays and Playwrights Submissions - will start reviewing submissions 2/1
The Gay & Lesbian Review’s Writer’s and Artist’s Grant - $7500 for graduate students across disciplines that make a contribution to LGBTQ+ scholarship or the arts - closes 2/2
new words {press} - open to poetry or hybrid-poetry chapbooks by trans* and/or gender-expansive poets - closes 2/5
Sundress Summer 2024 Residencies - fellowships available for Palestinian writers, Black writers, Indigenous writers, and writers of color - closes 2/15
Lambda Literary - Special Awards - closes 2/16
New Voices Filmmaker Grant for LGBTQ+ filmmakers - closes 2/22
Sundress Publications 2024 Prose Contest - closes 2/28
Start A Riot! Poetry Chapbook Prize - open to QTBIPOC+ literary artists in the San Francisco Bay Area - closes 3/1
Grubstreet Novel Immersive for LGBTQ+ Writers - scholarships available - closes 3/26
Sinister Wisdom - Mad Dykes, Queer Worlds - closes 6/30
the call for subs in itself is poetry imo
From around the internet:
“Nobody Can Identify Their Own Remains, and I Am Unable to Identify My Own” by Omar Ziyadeh, tr. Alice S. Yousef in Words Without Borders
“How “When Language Broke Open” Gives Voice to Queer and Trans Black Latinx Writers: A Review” by Diamond Braxton in ANMLY
“Gender Shape” by Cloud Delfina Cardona in The Boiler
“Sometimes One Half Is Bigger Than The Other” by Flávia Monteiro in HAD
“Poem To The Person Making The Case For Empire As Harm Reduction” by Guérin
Another DRIVER excerpt from sterling-elizabeth arcadia in Prose Online
“Keep Sweet” by Ina Cariño in Split Lip’s January issue
“I, Ghost” by Youssef Rakha in Guernica
“Make Me Feel: A Masterclass in Writing Bodies from Queer and Trans Authors”
by Flórián Dracula in Write or Die
so many writers and books I love are in this piece! it also includes prompts based off these works
“Golden’s Revolutionary Portraits of Black Family Life,” interview with Golden and Colleen Hamilton in them
A Dead Name That Learned How to Live was one of my absolute favorite reads of 2023
Cover reveal of […] by Fady Joudah in Electric Lit
And a cover reveal for Cavar’s Failure to Comply in Chicago Review of Books!!!
This article is from 2022, but check out “Three Recent Books about Trans Latinx Lives” by Marcos Gonsalez
I just finished reading Tombsweeping by Alexandra Chang. These short stories are so inventive and heartbreaking and smart. I am happy to report that my favorite story, “Li Fan,” is online at 3AM
“I had made my way” by Jos Charles and “Texas” by Naomi Shihab Nye in Places
Brevity’s Trans Experience Special Issue featuring so many incredible writers
Kristen Arnett has a new AITLA column at LitHub
Abode Press has announced our 2024-2025 catalog! You don’t wanna miss these INCREDIBLE books!
Trans/nonbinary books I’m looking forward to:
Love the World Or Get Killed Trying by Alvina Chamberland, out March 2024
Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects, also out March 2024
Pretty: A Memoir by KB, out May 2024
AWP!
I am quite excited to hang out with all the writers I only get to see once a year! I also mostly just hope there are no earth-shattering revelations to be dealt with this time around.
For the most part, you can find me at the Abode x Defunkt table. Otherwise, find me at the following:
Thursday
12pm to 1pm: I’ll be signing my chapbook Last Stop with Defunkt! (I will also have tons of zines and trans poetica stickers on me!)
6-8pm: I’ll be reading at T4T: A Trans BIPOC Reading. This event is hybrid, so please join us online if you can!
Friday
11-1: Find me at Split Lip Magazine’s table!
Saturday
9am: join us bright an early for the panel (Trans)cend: Trans Poetics in the Age of Anti-Transness
7:30-8:30pm I’ll be reading at We Outlast Empire: A Periplus x ANMLY Off-site AWP Reading
I also wanted to share Transas: Your Guide to a Very Trans AWP! curated by KB Brookins! Wish I could be everywhere at once.
Other SG Updates:
I have another workshop with Abode coming up! Join me for The Art of Writing… About Writing on February 20th. We’re gonna talk about all things ars and anti poetica. Not a poet? I promise you’ll still find some value in this session!
Baby’s First Fiction Publication.2 Seriously! Check out “El Primo” in Barrelhouse’s Latine Monsters issue, edited by the amazing Ofelia Montelongo
Still in shock that my debut nonfiction chapbook GOOD GRIEF will be published by fifth wheel press in 2025!
I did the foolish thing of looking through my undergrad poems while working on my current nonfiction project. I found one that actually was not so bad, considering a 19 year old wrote it. It’s about my cat Lorca, and anxiety, but it’s also sort of a love poem to her and the person who went with me to pick her up from an old prof’s backyard, where she had been abandoned.
Whenever I read my poems from before my dad died, I feel so much grief for my past self, not just him. In fact, this was written a couple months after his last brush with death.
But yknow what, Lorca and I are still here. Despite.
Thank you for reading this far! If you enjoy the work I do here, or generally wanna support a disabled trans Xicano while he figures out freelancing under hellish capitalism, tips are greatly appreciated! I have three pay-what-you-want zines available here. I am available for editing, readings, workshops, and more through my site.
Til next time!
<3
okay fine I’m not sure if that priest is queer, but I’m queer and that scene makes me bawl!
I’m realizing that my fiction is a lot more… gruesome than my poetry or nonfic. I’m gonna pretend that pattern means nothing for now!
This was a tonic to read today, your poem and that Protean piece, straight to the gut. I was just chatting with a friend over lunch about how, of all my multiple lives, theatre of the oppressed is the one thing I have not found room for in my writing. It was so necessary to read that piece on Craft and so wonderful to come across Boal in that context, when his work has been so important to me. Thank you for this! Meow <3
baby lorca poem fucking PRECIOUS 💗