Mid April 2025
Oops I missed Aries szn!
Hello from Philly, place of my birth, home of pink-flowered trees & casually beautiful people on every sidewalk. What a delight to roam your streets, Philadelphia! I’m here for a reading at Kelly Writers House at Penn tomorrow night; if you’re around you should come! I just read at Rutgers-Camden’s Writers in Camden series & met the most lovely MFA students & writers on the cutest campus.
Also my recent-ish trip to Los Angeles was super fun! I saw so many friends & heroes read & stayed with my wonderful in-laws in Silverlake. I maintain my assertion that LA is the best location for AWP, with its fine weather & the charm of the local literati & the seductive brilliance of the Hollywood people. Also, I love a marathon reading! Nightboat’s 20th Anniversary reading at Poetic Research Bureau spanned four glorious hours & I could have taken four more. My favorite Brians (Teare & Blanchfield) read beautifully, Camille Roy completely seduced an unsuspecting new generation of fans & Samiya Bashir brought Assotto Saint into the room like a miracle. All praise to Steven Motika & Kazim Ali & everyone who makes the Nightboat dream real. Mac Crane’s “Horny Queer Poets” offsite slapped (do we still say that?), and Donika Kelly brought the heat, as usual. The Little Puss / Feminist Press offsite on Saturday went so hard. So hard! Trans fiction is having a moment, without question. I met & became instant best friends with Chana Porter, whose excellent First Contact/post-apocalyptic novel The Seep has been in my head for years now. If you need to get out of this timeline for a minute, pick it up. So good!
Reading log (mid-March to mid-April)
Cory Doctorow’s Picks & Shovels (2025). Could I love this man more. Rhetorical question. No! As per usual, Doctorow made me choke up multiple times, in that same way a person gets choked up thinking about the Wobblies or seeing old people march at Pride. I will say it again, if you are interested in anarchism & also want to learn about economics & tech & security culture, these Marty Hench books are the Very Best Mysteries!
Kemper Donovan’s Loose Lips (2025): Yes, I’m reading a bunch of Very Specific Mysteries. Must be sabbatical in the apocalypse. B turned me on to this delightful writer who really nails the post-MFA lit world scene & brings a little je ne sais quoi to the genre. Also, cruises now terrify, post-Covid, & I think that amplifies the tension as much as the “literary nemesis” plot. Fun! I also read his The Busy Body (2024) but I think he really hits his stride in the second.
Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation (2024): I’ve been skimming this one for a while & actually I think the interviews on Dr. Becky & Ezra Klein give you all you need. Yes, Haidt’s wildly dumb about trans stuff & likely many other aspects of the book are unsatisfactory but he’s got something important right—just listen to the interviews. I mean, even Democracy Now! is taking these questions seriously. I’m not here to argue the social science of a pop science book (because I will lose! lol) but I am here to say, to parent friends of younger kids, let’s all sign the Wait Until 8th pledge. Also, maybe get this one out of the library rather than buying it?
Tina Horn’s Why Are People Into That? (2024): Just as generous & inviting as the title suggests, a satisfying incursion into select sexual subcultures.
Naomi Kanakia’s The Default World (2025): I inhaled this on the very long plane ride home from LA. Not to brag but I have loved Naomi Kanakia’s work since We Are Totally Normal, a pleasingly messy YA novel that feels like real life. But The Default World is a whole new category of pleasure — messy trans adulthood meets San Francisco techbro Burning Man culture. I guess I am really missing SF these days. I would actually love to see a Kanakia/Doctorow Team-Up, Marvel style!
Hanif Kureishi’s Shattered (2025): Funny & charming, of course, because it’s Hanif Kureishi. But here the circumstance is devastating — Kureishi has become tetraplegic after a freak accident in 2022 & this memoir, like his excellent newsletter, addresses this transition. I read Shattered in a few gulps, forswearing all else to stay with Kureishi’s rangy & resonant insights on conversation, friendship, intimacy, bodies, sex, writing, collaboration, parenting, how we show up for each other & what it means to accept generosity.
Ellery Lloyd’s The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby (2024): The real mystery fiend in the house found this one & if you like Very Specific Mysteries, this one is a gem.
Perry Zurn’s How We Make Each Other (2025): This one just came in the mail & I’m excited to read a history of trans life in the Five Colleges!
Where to Get Books
You can buy (or pre-order) most of the books I’m recommending here at Bookshop.org or at your local independent bookstore!
Western Mass QT Lit Events
04/23: Joan Larkin & Jody Stewart, 7pm, Boutelle-Day Poetry Center, Smith College, Northampton
04/24: Meshell Ndegeocello: No More Water – The Gospel of James Baldwin, 8pm, UMass, Amherst
04/29: Angela Davis at Mount Holyoke, South Hadley
04/30: 9th Annual Queer + Trans Poetry & Prose Reading & Open Mic, 6:30pm., Art Museum, Mount Holyoke, South Hadley
05/02: Sim Kern with Hannah Moushabeck, 7pm, UMass, Mahar Auditorium, Amherst
05/03: Sim Kern with George Abraham, 5:30pm, SubRosa, Northampton
Some Online & In Person Workshops
Do you need help with an academic book proposal or re-booting your academic book? Craig Willse is your guy.
The Body Chronicles (online trans writing workshop) with Miller Oberman & friends!
A few spots have opened up in these Fine Arts Work Center Queer Week workshops! Grab your spot & join us on the cape this summer!
Queer Week: Ilan Savdie’s The Monstrous Body (visual arts) & Celeste Lecesne’s Queering Story (storytelling) !!!
Other weeks, of queer/trans interest: Michelle Tea’s Writing for Witches (!!!!), Paloma Barhaugh-Bordas’ RISO: Proof to Publication (printing), Kyle Lukoff’s Writing (and Reading) Picture Books, Liz Collins’ Trash Lab/Trash Textiles, Samiya Bashir’s Beyond the Page: Experimenting with Multimedia Poetries, Brenda Shaughnessy’s Writing By Hand, Meaning from Memory: A Poetry Workshop, Abeer Hoque’s Writing Personal Statements & Applying for Grants and Residencies, Porsha Olayiwola’s Making a Manuscript: Craft, Sequence, and Revision for Poets, and more!
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s hard femme poetics in a time of genocide and yet survival (online)
What I’m Watching
Adolescence (Netflix). I shall call this genre Parenting Horror & it also includes stuff like We Need to Talk About Kevin & Conner Habib’s devastating novel Hawk Mountain & Emma Donoghue’s Room & omg Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers, which hits different if you are a parent. Right? One might argue that Adolescence is Go Ask Alice for the smartphone generation but from the parenting trenches, I will say, Adolescence is chilling because kids are legitimately exposed to some gnarly shit & it’s like nothing any of us experienced & I’m glad people are talking about this scary show that I do not recommend you watch but if you have & want to discuss I am here for that.
Big Bang Theory S5-7 (Max). Still going. Wolowitz is slowly becoming bearable (the Neil Diamond car karaoke & the DM impressions did the trick). My favorite moment was the small reveal that Penny (in Streetcar) is a good actor. It’s such a relief when a narrative doesn’t make a joke out of artistic ambition.
Kneecap (watched on the plane). Revolutionary love is so hot! Set in the North of Ireland, this feature about the Irish-language hip hop group Kneecap stars the actual band members as themselves & they can really act, so it’s powerful, hilarious & catchy as fuck. Here’s a taste:
The Last of Us S1 (Max). TBQH Jordy is kind of making me watch this & I have to fast-forward a LOT so I actually watched six episodes in two hours. I think I got the gist. Why can’t we just see Pedro Pascal & Bella Ramsey in a utopian future? It’s good, okay? Fine. Moving. Whatever.
Ludvig (Britbox). Did you know you can get Britbox without using Amazon? Perhaps you need a non-stressful British cozy that’s well-written with good acting? Here you go.
The Residence (Netflix). I love shows about co-workers. Uzo Aduba is the GOAT & so is Randall Park. I can’t stop thinking about Sheila’s little monologue about having a job. Also a fun mystery!
Sweethearts (Max). The kid from Mad Men is grown up & Nico Hiraga is the most winsome! Very sweet Gen Z clapback to When Harry Met Sally, with a Joel Kim Booster cameo among other fun surprises. Good plane movie!
White Lotus S3 (Max). We stopped after the first episode which excellent decision I stand by entirely but then I went back & fast-forwarded most of the season to find out roughly what happened & stopped only for my boy Sam Rockwell’s character’s recovery monologue which I think can technically be described as “extra” but which I found poignant, when he talks about wondering if we’re all something else on the inside. I love Mike White & wanted to follow him & his brilliant actors all the way but wasn’t in the headspace this time.
Tidbits
Did you know you can send a message of solidarity to the Refusers in Israel? Have you seen this kid, Ella Greenberg? This is the stuff. Refusal, all around.
Cool Stuff Happening in Western Mass, As Per Usual
May 3 is our bizarrely early Northampton Pride!
May 4 - MAKING GROUND: DIALOGUES: a creative, collective learning series
Drop-in classes at Spirit of the Heart. This queer/trans/feminist/inclusive martial arts studio offers self-defense classes & martial arts training & more for kids & adults. First class is free! Sometimes people need a safe place to hit things & also learn self-defense.
Saturday Sangha at Insight Western Mass. Queer/trans/family/inclusive/recovery/beginner-friendly weekly Insight Meditation space. Co-led by Bernadine Mellis & Sarah Malzone. Drop in or come every week! Kids very welcome & don’t have to be quiet. Donuts provided! 9-10am, Saturdays at Eastworks!
Trans Relocation Support WMass. If you need help relocating to Western Massachusetts from a hostile environment, check this out. Also, if you’re in Western Mass & can help, check this out. We are the ones who will help us!
Relatedly, do you know about these Move to Thrive loans?
Okay! That’s it for now. I’m definitely forgetting something important but all emails have to end some time.
Sending love to you & yours,
AL
Thanks so much for this. Especially the article linked to the intrepid Ella Greenberg. 🙏
I love that you and Chana Porter are pals - you’ve written 3 of my favourite books of the last few years between you!