NEW CHAPBOOK OUT NOW!
we cast shadows & other true stories is a deeply personal exploration of gender socialization & the pervasive othering & dehumanization that trans women experience. At its core, it is the story of aggressively challenging those ideals & actions. While primarily written for trans & gender-expansive audiences, the collection offers opportunities to bridge shared experiences.
The collection combines free verse & queer form with mixed media pieces. This queer form rejects & subverts the historical straight, white, male criteria of what makes valuable poetry. While the poems provide an anchor, the mixed media pieces present a more layered, intimate experience of emotion. Each piece is handmade from personal materials– three-dimensional poems representing the complex, & often conflicting, internal relationship between wanting to belong and finding the peace of trans euphoria.
Ultimately, we cast shadows & other true stories gathers up the incredible power & resilience of trans women & emphatically states “we are complex. we exist. & our existence is necessary.”
THE TACTILE: TOUCH YOUR WRITING
NO SPOTS LEFT
April 2nd 4-6pm PST
$24 Dollars
Scholarships Available
trans* & gender-expansive writers only
POET // PLAYWRIGHT // WRITER
I’m adding to the largely vacant landscape of trans-authored literature. The humanity of the daily trans experience needs to be made visible for other trans women and society at large, beyond the coming-out story. While that identification & narrative manifests in my content, my continued goal is to challenge cishet, white male norms from all angles: form, syntax, & diction– questioning why we write the way we do and how it’s rooted in a western patriarchal history.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Yellow Arrow Journal
Prayer to Trans Women
samfiftyfour
beneath the house
ARTIST
Currently creating tactile poetry: intimate work using personal documents, objects, & photos, along with charcoal, makeup, pastels, & lots of other random crap. The pieces are created in the moment as I seek to manifest the raw emotion of the creation process– exploring themes of sexual abuse, trans experience, & heritage. They are part of my recent hybrid manuscript raising brooklyn. Previous work explores the surrealism of childhood via digital photo editing, creating magic from mundane.
PHOTOGRAPHER
I photograph because I am compelled to freeze time; to capture the essence of fleeting moments often overlooked. Obsessed with the temporary nature of life, I collect moods, emotions, people, the overlooked, and sincere. We are all a culmination of moments – big & small. I use a mixture of digital, film, & collodian photography in the hopes of catching a few of them to share with others.
AVAILABLE WORKSHOPS
All Genres
The Tactile: Reconnect to Writing
In this workshop we explore physical writing and how tactile elements can help us not only reconnect with our writing, but also ourselves. We also think about three dimensional story telling– how layers can help manifest complex thoughts and emotions. We do not use digital writing in any part of this class.
Poetry & Hybrid
Poetic Purpose: Rejecting the Cishet
In this workshop, the goal is to consider how a dominant white, male, cishet literary tradition influences every area of writing. We’ll work to challenge the binary and cishet, male norms. In addition to reading a cross-section of queer and female poets, we’ll participate in writing exercises and question our own work.
Marketing
Online Marketing for Poets: 101
One of the most common comments I hear from writers is how overwhelming it is to try and market themselves online. How to setup a website, where to market. I have a 20 years of digital marketing experience (I’m that old), so I’m gonna help. In this workshop, we’ll cover the basics: an overview of possible marketing channels, developing a basic website strategy, and ways to plan for content, as well as some very basic SEO tips.
Custom
Want a Custom Workshop?
I’d love to discuss ideas you have for a custom workshop geared toward your audience and/or specific needs.