Hey there and welcome to this week’s Lez Liberty Lit!
At the Rumpus, Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby, discusses writing for a trans audience, process, humor and more:
“[A]fter I transitioned, I read some books by trans women who were all friends with each other—Imogen Binnie, Casey Plett, and Sybil Lamb—and the books felt so true. I saw it happened because they were writing for each other, and by extension, for other trans women. When they imagined writing for a trans audience, their stories became one hundred percent story, instead of like ninety percent Trans 101 and ten percent story. It is honestly so much harder to impress a trans person when you talk about trans stuff. Cis people get so excited about hormones or whatever, but trans people yawn. So, the bar is really high. But the great thing is: if you clear that bar, and impress trans people, it turns out that cis people can keep up! Cis people like ambitious work written at a flat-out sprint, too! It’s something that I see in other minority or marginalized writing. Toni Morrison famously wrote for other Black women, and it turns out, everyone else feels her words, too.”
Autostraddle alum and former Nylon editor-in-chief Gabrielle Korn’s fantastic Everybody (Else) Is Perfect came out this week and is, indeed, perfect. Check out this excerpt. At Bitch, Korn discusses burnout, media, privilege, financial transparency, ageism and more.
How do screenshots function as an extension of memory?
“Predictive text apps aim to bring our text in line with an algorithmic norm. They define ‘good’ writing as efficient writing.” (It’s not.)
The way we work is broken. Anyway your dream job is dead.
There’s a new award for emerging queer crime fiction. Here’s how to apply.
Stop comparing things to 1984.
“I just want to hang out in the wardrobe.”
Is privacy dead?
How can language capture scent?
Read these queer books out this year and these poetry books. Read these books by Latinx authors. Read these books about chronic illness. Read these books when you’re drawn to rabbit holes. Read these 10 climate change novels about endangered and extinct species. Read these eight books about reckless decisions.
