The Queer & Trans Nonfiction Podcast

On a new LIVE episode of the QT Nonfiction Pod, I chat with Molly McCloy at Big Blue Marble Bookstore in Philly! Between our conversation and a thoughtful Q&A with the audience, Molly discusses topics such as: book proposals, turning down an agent who’s not the right fit, turning a one-woman-show into a creative nonfiction book, making meaning of the painful moments, considering chronological storytelling, balancing the good and bad in “characters,” developing narrative voice through live performance, writing childhood scenes from memory, being honest about the gaps in our stories we can’t quite remember, using direct address to be gentle with the reader, struggling with book endings, publishing as a master class in assertiveness, navigating writing about family members with very private lives, justifying abuse as discipline, humor as a defense of the powerless, learning to sit in the discomfort, how our relationships with folks we write about change over time, and finding agency when writing about grudges.
Writers/Books/Things to Check Out mentioned in this episode: Big Blue Marble Bookstore, The Quill Prose Award, Red Hen Press, Christen Clifford, A Christmas Story, The New School, Piper J. Daniels, HuffPost, the Judge Your Neighbor worksheet by Byron Katie
Links:
Molly's Website
Purchase Nine Grudges
Intro/Outro Music by Lin
Lin's Bandcamp
Lin's Spotify

Episode 22 features Neesha Powell-Ingabire, author of Come By Here: A Memoir in Essays from Georgia's Geechee Coast. We discuss a wide variety of topics such as: starting to write at a young age, learning to incorporate personal reflection into journalistic writing, journalism in solidarity with social justice movements, hybrid memoirs, trying different styles and forms of prose based on prompts, essay closings that call back to the opening, the importance of feedback from others when drafting, writing Black and Indigenous solidarity in a respectful way, sensitivity readers, the writerly instinct to include photos in a book, the space and opportunity to experiment with form, exploring the violence of white supremacy on the page, interrogating who gets to tell the story of a place, influential books about the South, making setting feel like a real place for readers, the helpful nature of affirmations when it comes to maintaining a writing career, and more!
Writers/Books/Things to Check Out mentioned in this episode: Bitch Media, Black Girl Dangerous Blog, Everyday Feminism, Autostraddle, Georgia College State University Creative Writing MFA, Katherine Webb, Scalawag Magazine, Hub City Press, Press On Media, Tanaya Winder, Pretty by KB Brookins, Cactus Country by Zoe Bossiere, AWP, A City in the Forest, Praying for Sheetrock by Melissa Faye Greene, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens by Alice Walker, The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom, Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place by Neema Avashia, Waging Nonviolence
Links:
Neesha's Website
Purchase Come By Here
Intro/Outro Music by Lin
Lin's Bandcamp
Lin's Spotify

Planning to travel or itching to book your next trip? Thinking about writing travel narrative? Tune into episode 21 where I chat with Lindsey Danis about their book (Out) On the Road and topics such as: weaving research and interviews into personal stories, Louisiana’s bathroom bills, Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay,” collecting and organizing a large volume of sources and information, the flaws of the LGBTQ+ travel listicle, defining the “best” travel places for queer and trans folks vs. defining “safe” travel places, respecting the culture of where you’re visiting, deciding which parts of your identity you’re willing to compromise to travel certain places, the ways in which vacation often ends up more expensive for queer and trans folks, frustration with the stereotypical cis male travel narrative, opening each chapter with a personal anecdote to give readers a protagonist to follow, dissecting interviews to find the pieces that fit, early chapters as “set up chapters,” writing and then promoting a book in a compressed period of time, best and worst travel experiences, and upcoming workshops.
Writers/Books/Things to Check Out mentioned in this episode: Gigi Griffis, Aisha Shaibu-Lenoir, Calen Otto, Real Queer America by Samantha Allen, Guest Privileges by Gaar Adams, Everywhere is Queer (app)
Links:
Lindsey's Travel Blog
Purchase (Out) On the Road
Intro/Outro Music by Lin
Lin's Bandcamp
Lin's Spotify

On episode 20 of the QT Nonfiction Podcast, I chat with Lynette D'Amico about a variety of topics such as: passport gender markers, the role of the trans person’s partner during transition, examining self-assigned labels during moments of major life change, embracing an “off-putting” title, resisting a chronological structure, incorporating quotes or verses or lyrics in creative nonfiction, exploring the theme of masculinity through men’s relationships to dogs, addressing the larger political context when narrating the personal, attempting to understand one’s own anger through writing, switching to the third person point of view for some distance, exercising our ghosts by putting them on the page, preferring ambiguity in stories, learning to lead with curiosity, other books and writers influencing the forms we choose to write in, ways we consider changing the story after it’s been published, and graveyards.
Writers/Books/Things to Check Out mentioned in this episode: Ohio University Press, Mad Creek Books, The Carpenters, Becoming a Man by P. Carl, So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell, Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, Girlhood by Melissa Febos, White Magic by Elissa Washuta, Stag Dance and Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters, Judy Garland, Linda Ronstadt, AWP, New Hampshire Book Festival, Michael Lowenthal
Links:
Lynette's Website
Purchas Men I Hate
Intro/Outro Music by Lin
Lin's Bandcamp
Lin's Spotify

On this episode of the QT Nonfiction Podcast, I'm in conversation with author and artist Komail Aijazuddin on a variety of topics such as: recording an audiobook, a narrator’s consistent tone, balancing childhood experiences with adult reflection on the page, specificity leading to universality, characterizing real people by their relation to us, writing about sexuality as a Pakastani without centering trauma or victimhood, legal aspects of publishing memoir overriding commitment to veracity, honesty as black magic, the nuances of “the queer experience” especially beyond whiteness, America’s devotion to division, writing about fasting in the style of Bridget Jones’s Diary, choosing a book title, body dysmorphia, the body as political when it comes to people of color, the way people are treated as a result of beauty standards, the declarative nature of writing vs. visual arts, the overwhelming whiteness of the publishing world, the differences in marketing a book in different countries, and more.
Writers/Books/Things to Check Out mentioned in this episode: James Frey, Gore Vidal, Roy Cohn, Helen Fielding, Douglas Adams, Boyslut by Zachary Zane, Heavy by Kiese Laymon, Hunger by Roxane Gay, San Francisco MOMA, David Sedaris, Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders, Bill Bryson, KJ Charles, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
Links:
Komail's Website
Komail's Instagram
Intro/Outro Music by Lin
Lin's Bandcamp
Lin's Spotify

On episode 18 of the QT Nonfiction Podcast, I chat with Denne Michele Norris about a wide range of topics such as: leading a major literary outlet/nonprofit, what kind of work Electric Lit is looking to publish, the need for more trans people of color’s voices in the literary/publishing world, organizing an anthology into thematic sections, naturally choosing the final essay of an anthology, trans literature which “looks forward,” the bravery of working in a new art form, representation of trans people of color in pop culture, “heart-forward” work, changing the understanding of binaries within the trans experience, the ways in which books can change people’s perspectives even when it wasn’t necessarily the author or editor’s goal, the directness of nonfiction, considering how nonfiction functions in the world as the writer, writing the romance and tenderness of love, the differences in writing process when approaching fiction vs. nonfiction, and choosing genres or art forms that make you feel free rather than restricted.
Writers/Books/Things to Check Out mentioned in this episode: Electric Literature, Halimah Marcus, Ploughshares, Salon, Horse Girls: Recovering, Aspiring, and Devoted Riders Redefine the Iconic Bond, Akwaeke Emezi, Tanaïs, Meredith Talusan, Gabrielle Bellot, Zeyn Joukhadar, Kaia Ball, Jonah Wu, A.L. Major, Homosexual Intifada edited by George Abraham and Hannah Moushabeck, Edgar Gomez, Autumn Fourkiller, Kaia Ball, Best American Essays, Addie Tsai, Caro de Robertis, Peppermint, Ru Paul’s Drag Race, Zaya Wade, Pose, Paris is Burning, To Wong Foo: Thanks for Everything, So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color, When the Harvest Comes, Joseph Osmundson, Michelle Kwan, McCormack Writing Center, Alexander Chee
Links:
Denne's Website
Purchase Both/And
Intro/Outro Music by Lin
Lin's Bandcamp
Lin's Spotify

An equally funny and insightful conversation with writer and actor Jesse James Rose, in which we discuss topics such as: the inclusion of content warnings, the ways in which sexual violence is portrayed in media, developing a style of prose that mimics the feeling of PTSD, humor as hope, EMDR therapy, braiding together themes or topics that are not necessarily related outside the narrative, who gets to decide which kind of violence is acceptable or not, fictionalized conversations in creative nonfiction, the concept of “emotional chronology,” the non-linear nature of trauma and healing, writing “what-ifs,” creating a literary version of the inside of your brain as an author, using “internet speak” to convey the time period, loveable trans masc tropes, writing a book for our community and not for commercial success, composite characters, the intersectionality of gender-marginalized people’s experiences, different takeaways from different readers, and lots of 9/11.
Writers/Books/Things to Check Out mentioned in this episode: Game of Thrones, Promising Young Woman, The Me Too Movement, Toni Morrison, Tumblr, Literally Show Me a Healthy Person by Darcie Wilder, Open Secrets Magazine/Live, Patricia Lockwood, Mollie Glick, In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, The Invite, StoryGraph, Rebecca Solnit, KB Brookins, Heart the Lover by Lily King, The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, Publisher's Weekly, Publisher's Marketplace, My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
Links:
Jesse's Website
Intro/Outro Music by Lin
Lin's Bandcamp
Lin's Spotify

Listen in on my conversation with Lamya H, the brilliant author of Hijab Butch Blues, as we discuss topics such as: writing as a means of placing our rage somewhere, first book timelines vs. second book timelines, the power (and complicated history) of the word “dyke,” paying homage to queer and trans writing ancestors, the intimacy of the present tense, the concept of “jinn” in Islam, feeling simultaneously invisible and hyper-visible, working through real life questions and issues on the page, empathy for our younger selves through writing, religion as an explorative tool, “perhapsing” as a means of hope, the overtly abusive nature of the US immigration system, ending a queer memoir without a “coming out” to family, and pseudonym as healthy boundary-setting.
Writers/Books/Things to Check Out mentioned in this episode: Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg, The Dyke March, Audre Lorde, Happiest Season
Links:
Purchase Hijab Butch Blues
Lamya's Instagram
Intro/Outro Music by Lin
Lin's Bandcamp
Lin's Spotify

On the first ever live episode of the QT Nonfiction Podcast, writer J Brooke and I chat at Philly's own Giovanni's Room bookstore about their new poetry collection, I Can Tell You the Version that Will Make You Take My Side. Topics discussed include: deciding how to section a book of poetry, arriving at a different title than the original, listening to editors, normalizing the concept of gender as more than just body parts or hormones, choosing when to write something as poetry rather than prose, last minute edits, poetic form mirroring the content, the importance of line endings, experimental work in poetry vs. experimental work in creative nonfiction, gatekeepers, art as a conversation, reaching the straight cis audience who still have much to learn, publishing with a supportive small press, living your politic, finding time and space to write, the surprising and unexpected themes readers hone in on, and being honest on the page vs. being literal.
Writers/Books/Things to Check Out mentioned in this episode: Room Magazine, The Rumpus, Driftwood Press, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Charles Bukowski, Trans Poetic Archive, Stone Coast Review, Ann Patchett, Kelz Smoot, Lena Dunham, Tin House Workshop (now McCormack Writing Center), A Year Without a Name by Cyrus Dunham
Links:
Purchase I Can Tell You the Version that Will Make You Take My Side
J Brooke's Website
Intro/Outro Music by Lin
Lin's Bandcamp
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On the first ever "Now That's What I Call an Ally!" episode of the QT Nonfiction Podcast, I chat with author and ally Heather McCalden on a myriad of topics such as: instinctual creative output, getting sick of your own work during the editing process, viewing the threads of a text as forming a “DNA strand,” using extended metaphor to describe the things we can’t otherwise explain, writing a fragmented book, striking a balance between the personal and the researched, respecting our own boundaries when writing about the personal, the internet as a photographic negative of our world, the transmission of knowledge, teaching a class called “Writing the Internet,” handwriting vs. typing, researching HIV AIDS, the role of AIDS in LGBTQ+ history, the AIDS walk as a day of resilience, queer and trans writing influences, exploring “covering” books the way we cover albums, and the concept of alchemy.
Writers/Books/Things to Check Out mentioned in this episode: Sex with a Brain Injury by D/Annie Liontas, The Situation and the Story by Vivienna Gornick, How Far the Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler, Merve Emre, write-the-internet.org, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Elizabeth Winkler, GMHC (Gay Men’s Health Crisis), Lucy Sante, Rachel Pollack, Doom Patrol, Grace Byron, Susan Sontag, Cyrus Dunham
Links:
Purchase The Observable Universe (US Edition)
Purchase The Observable Universe (UK Edition)
Intro/Outro Music by Lin
Lin's Bandcamp
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