Mid July 2025

Turns out I took Pride Month off! Ha!

Well, we’re back to The People’s Valley after two glorious June weeks at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where I took a revelatory screenprinting class with Vicky Tomayko & then it was Queer Week & I taught a collaborative workshop with genius printmaker Miriam Klein Stahl, alongside all-time greats Alexander Chee, Cameron Awkward-Rich, Ilana Savdie, Celeste Lescene, & Cathy fucken Opie. Dreamtime by the sea! It’s good to take a break & make stuff with other people! I still have almost two months six weeks of summer before I have to admit my sabbatical is over

I made shirts!

Dudes, I continue to be up in arms¹ about AI² which is not where I thought I’d be at this moment in history. Imagine a half-hour dramedy—Young Lawlor, if you will—set in the 90s, featuring this guy (with much longer hair) pumping my fist in solidarity with various possessors of wetware, weeping over replicants, convinced of AI’s selfhood & labor rights. Who knew the evil corporate overlords were going to be so inept & corny. Okay, maybe Neil Stephenson did, in The Diamond Age. Book club, anyone?

In more earthly news, Andrea Gibson died this week, at 49. Here’s a poem of theirs that you should definitely read. What a beautiful human & what a loss for us all. The legend Fanny Howe has also left us. Read this Paris Review interview to feel like you knew her. Is that what’s pleasurable about reading interviews with artists? Hmm. Relatedly, read this great interview with Robert Glück who is very much alive & so maybe still befriendable? Why do I want to be friends with writers & artists whose work I love? Maybe you’re happy to just take the work on its own terms but I tend to fantasize about having a coffee with Joe Westmoreland, say, or Susan Choi. I did in fact have a coffee with Joe Westmoreland in Cambridge last month, and I am here to say he is an absolute delight. I met Susan Choi once at a book festival & I was exquisitely awkward in my fandom but she was very kind as well as boundaried. Speaking of Susan Choi, her new book is out! Is anything better than summer pleasure reading? Let’s refocus our thoughts on that.

Reading log (mid-May to mid-July)

• Alison Bechdel’s Spent (2025). The greatest return to form ever from the greatest cartoonist & greatest observer of queer life in our time. Aaaaah!!!!! I am unreformed & full of greed — I want this as a weekly serial forever. Sorry, thank you, deep bows to the GOAT.

• Susan Choi’s Flashlight (2025). Devastating. Susan Choi can do no wrong. Be prepared to call in sick to work & to break dates. I refuse to say more (spoilers) but would happily field texts when you have emerged.

• Nicola Dinan’s Disappoint Me (2025). Exciting to see this young novelist’s second book already! Couldn’t put it down! I enjoy reading about the millennials & also find them quite mysterious. I appreciate Dinan’s take on timeless questions about the relationship between setting & character. She’s quickly become one of those writers where I’ll just always be reading her new book.

• Charlie Porter’s Nova Scotia House (October 2025). I am having to edge-read this masterpiece of longing, going out, queer utopian dreaming, the then & now of AIDS, the pentimento of living in rooms marked by lust & loss. Is it weird to say that this book reminds me of All of Us Strangers, but sadder & also more hopeful? I never want it to end.

• Marie Rutkoski’s Ordinary Love (2025). Just started on Malinda Lo’s recommendation. Sweet sapphic summer romance with class critique, just the thing for days when it’s too hot to think. I also really do love literary realist novels from the POV of queer femmes & always want more!

• Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection (2024). Okay oh my god I don’t really even know what to say. I love the energy, I guess? I admire the author’s moxie? Have you read this? Tulathimutte is a hell of a sentence writer, super smart (did you know he went to Stanford?), obsessively observant of internet culture—I could not put the book down. And, and, and…. I feel very mixed but I think I will say this: if you want a wild voicey & provocative exploration of the manosphere, maybe read Jackie Ess’s Darryl, which is a first person cuck novel & maybe the transest book ever not that it’s a contest & also maybe less contorted by authorial ambivalence? or Jeanne Thornton’s A/S/L, which I have just started & maybe would scratch the old millennial internet itch? Oh that reminds me, I want to re-read Summer Fun, Jeanne Thornton’s Beach Boys novel. Have you read this fine sad book? You should.

Hotly Anticipated! Pre-order these babies!

• Miranda Mellis’s Crocosmia (August 2025). After many brilliant & acclaimed books of prose, Mellis has now published her first novel! Jordy says it’s “a novel of revolutionary transition that achieves the impossible: not only charting the transformation of the mechanics of society, but the liberation of consciousness itself.” I’m going to be in conversation with Miranda in September at Unnameable Books in Western Mass so stay tuned for that!

• Max Delsohn’s Crawl (October 2025). I already told you to pre-order this baby, did you?

• Sara Jaffe’s Hurricane Envy (October 2025). Companionable, illuminating, sharply observant, Sara Jaffe’s lovely sentences & stories & characters make me less lonely. I am so psyched for everybody to read this collection & I’m so thrilled that Rescue’s putting it out. Pre-order, willya?

• Roddy Bottum’s The Royal We (November 2025). I love a punk rock memoir dudes. If you also like your memoirs decently dirty, a little dishy, lyrically reflective, with just enough recovery so you know you’re in good hands but still rough & tumble, follow our hero from his wild queer adolescence in Los Angeles to the punk scene in SF to international touring to coming out in an interview with Lance freaking Loud! This is all of our history! An extremely moving portrait of the San Francisco scene from which the iconic bro band Faith No More emerged. I mean bro in a gay way! Turns out everything has always been queer! I love this book! I love Roddy Bottum! I can’t believe I know somebody who was legitimately friends with Kurt. What is this life.

• Jordy Rosenberg’s Night Night Fawn (March 2026). Jordy’s new “novel” is coming! Get in on the ground floor, my dudes.

Western Mass QT Lit Events

• 08/13: Shoshana Von Blanckensee, 7pm, Odyssey Bookshop, South Hadley

• 09/20: Read & Resist Fest, 10am-4pm, Interlink, Northampton

Workshops & Writing Coaches & Editorial, Mostly Online:

• Refresh this link for spots that might still open up for workshops this summer at FAWC!

• Do you need a writing coach? Sascha Rice is fantastic & also my sister-in-law!

• John Cameron Mitchell is doing a Workroom masterclass: “Is This My Story to Tell?” this August, via Zoom. So cool! I love listening to JCM talk about making work. The high energy inspo we all need!

• Do you need help with an academic book proposal or re-booting your academic book? Craig Willse is your guy.

• Check out whatever’s being offered at Workshops for Gaza, Shipman Workroom, 24 Pearl Street, & Grub Street. These make good gifts too.

• Small Press Traffic benefit auction has lots of cool opportunities!

• The Body Chronicles: "Trans/Forms," with Miller Oberman, b ferguson, luna rey hall, and friends. September 2025!

What I’m Watching

• Big Bang Theory S8-10 (Max). These mofos are aging. What I really appreciate about this show is watching (supposedly) straight people prioritize their friendships & watching dudes take care of each other. It takes them a few years but the cumulative effect of going from raunchy to sweet is interesting.

• Billionaire Island S1 (Netflix). This is pitched as the Norwegian Succession. We watched a couple of episodes but I had a hard time staying interested. Is this satire? I think I mostly don’t like satire if I’m honest.

• Death Valley S1 (Britbox). We realized we still had a month of Britbox & then found this sweet Welsh cozy with its little metafictional flair & excellent acting. Highly recommended if you need a break or also love the Welsh. Starring Peter Pettigrew & a young Welsh Isabella Rossellini.

• Department Q S1 (Netflix). Fantastic actors. Gets kind of gnarly in a Room sort of way but we persevered, largely because of Alexej Manvelov, but also because Matthew Goode makes a good curmudgeon. Lots of cute background queers looking too stylish to work at a cop shop but that’s late Western capitalism for you.

• English Teacher S1 (Hulu). I finally finished this adorable series despite Vulture’s exposé of/hit piece on BJA. I don’t know what to think, largely because the Vulture piece felt more like gossipy vendetta than journalism but maybe that’s an aesthetic. Here’s a fun alternative to the BJA vids if you want to have your cake & eat it too!

• Fall Guy (2024). The pure charm of Gosling & Blunt! I want to see them in other match-ups, our Hepburn & Tracy. Great banter, non-boring action motivated by the plot & also metafictional. Something for everyone, the Téa Leone of action movies.

• Free Guy (2021). Ryan Reynolds plays a Fortnite-type NPC who develops consciousness & Jodie Comer plays a cool hacker. Adorable, fun for the tween, maybe a good intro to questions about AI? The rom-com ending seems (chastely) heteronormative at first blush but on reflection it also seems like an argument that internet relationships are different from in person. I use these terms loosely.

• Gosford Park (2001). I had forgotten this was Altman. So good! Every single performance, every bit of dialogue, the blistering class analysis. Set in 1932, the ultimate upstairs/downstairs mystery. We figured out that my grandmother was “in service” at the same time (in New Haven, at a Yale prof’s house) & I will say that Kelly MacDonald’s performance hit a bit harder through that lens. Wild to think that Altman also made The Player.

• Hacks S3 (Max). Can we talk about the penultimate episode? I had a fun exchange with Emma Copley Eisenberg about this show—almost like having a water-cooler work friend, which I miss. Anyway, I found Deborah Vance’s big move so relaxing! Like the show wants us to give us something nice & knows what something nice is.

• The Last of Us S2 (Max). Can we talk about the season finale? I mean, we’ll have to talk about it over text because obviously some people have not yet watched it but wow. Feelings.

• Men in Black (1997). Holds up! Fun for tweens! Will Smith! Is it me or does Tommy Lee Jones look quite young in this? Ha ha. But no really.

• Mountainhead (Max). Too real. Ramy Youssef is so charming & wholesome I almost forgot that his character was terrible precisely because he was in touch with his interconnectedness to all things & still did what he did. I hope the guy who played Venis is an incredible actor. Steve Carrell definitely nailed down a particular type of older white man. There’s nothing new here if you’ve been reading SFF for the past few decades (Neal Stephenson, Cory Doctorow, etc) but it’s topical & that itself is compelling. Capitalism = horror, what else is new.

• Murderbot S1 (Apple TV+). I watched two episodes & was hooked but we’re rotating the crops of our streaming subscriptions right now so I can’t finish for a while. I will apologize to the decade of Mount Holyoke students who recommended the source material (Murderbot Diaries) to me. You were right, I was wrong.

• Overcompensating S1 (Max). Loved! Loved so much! Benito is so charming.

• Sinners (2025). I’m still re-playing that long shot of the music at the juke joint in my head & have many thoughts about Ryan Coogler’s utopian visions. Pro-tip: stay for the credits; he’s a Marvel guy.

• The Wedding Banquet (2025). DNF, so take this with a grain of salt. I love Bowen Yang & appreciated his more butch performance & the other lovely actors here but I don’t think the new context translates. Just re-watch Ang Lee’s original! Sorry Bowen & co!

Tidbits

• T Fleischmann has a newsletter called Little Gay Stories where they’re reading trans literature from days of yore!

• Western Mass music lovers, you probably already know about the Freak Scene newsletter? I just found out!

• Tom Cho says, will you support the Sidewalk Project, a trans mutual aid collective that spans people in Canada & the US? I say, hell yes!

Cool Stuff Happening in The People’s Valley, As Per Usual

• 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.

• Support immigrant teens in the People’s Valley to get their licenses!

• 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 & The Rainbow Railroad?

• Just found this short video which accurately represents life in Western Mass.

Okay! That’s it. Oh, wait one more thing! French Paul is coming! Check out the cover!

Cover art by Fredster!

Okay now that’s really it. Stay cool!

Sending love to you & yours,

AL

1. See Hua Hsu’s What Happens After A.I. Destroys College Writing? if you want a good basic introduction to concerns I share. Also see Teachers Are Not OK at 404 Media. Also this.

2. Or, more technically, “large language models” or “generative AI” but whatever.