Publications

What's new?

My essay, "The Monster in My Front Yard," will appear in the spring 2024 edition of the online journal Peatsmoke (due out any day).

 

Also, I have a couple of poems coming out in the next couple of months. One is a piece I thought no one would want, but "Harry's Pix" was selected by the editors of The Central Dissent: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality (published by the New Plains Review) as "one of the leading submissions" for the journal's upcoming issue. The second is a poem that's near and dear to my heart that the Moonstone Arts Center in Philadelphia has accepted for their anthology S/He Speaks 2024.

 

The stories so far...

Most of these are available online.  Please check them out if you're interested.

 

Books

The Girl Who Wasn't and Is [poetry] (bd-studios, 2022)

 

Essays

"We just need to pee." (no preview)

So to Speak 2024 (Volume 33, Annual Print Issue 2)

This brief piece reflects on my experience with public restrooms as a transgender woman, and on their multivalent signification as public spaces—intimate and anonymous, leveling and politically contested, and ultimately carnivalesque in a way few if any other such spaces are.

 

"My Dark Continent (A Book Report)"

The Rambling Valentine 2022 

 

This essay examines the ways in which Joseph Conrad’s portrayal of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, and his racist, impressionistic use of Africa and its peoples as an analogue for Kurtz’s fall, informed both my decisions about my gender identity and my struggles to find my voice as a young writer.  The examination takes the form of two loosely interwoven strands, one literary-critical and historical, and the other autobiographical but also analytical. The published version in The Rambling is an excerpt from a longer piece.

 

"Selling My Record Collection"  

Shenandoah Spring 2020 (Volume 69, Number 2)

This autobiographical essay examines the ways in which my acquisition of a large collection of vinyl records between my teens and early 40s, and my recent decision to start selling it on eBay, can be seen as part of the long, painful process of coming to terms with my identity as a transgender woman.  The essay also connects my experience to those of other collectors, and offers general reflections on why for some a hobby can morph into “a life’s work,” even an “agony.”

 

"Memory's Disavowed Daughter" (preview only)

Fourth Genre Spring 2020 (Volume 22, Number 1) 

 

This piece meditates on my fraught relationship with the past as an older, recently out transgender woman, and on the role that the transformative power of both myth and language itself has played in my ongoing quest to come to terms with that past.

Poetry (since 2015)

"re:birth" (new words: a trans poetry & hybrid journal issue three, 2024)

 

 

"Erasure" (Wild Roof Journal 25, March 2024)

   [An ekphrastic piece based on one of my brother Bill's drawings, which is also included.]

 

 

 "Delta Blues" (new words: a trans poetry & hybrid journal issue two, 2023)

"Androgyne" (Vagabond City Issue 81, March 2023)

"A Blue Sky Big with Memory, Desire," "Body Temple" (The Light Ekphrastic Issue 52, November 2022)

"If I'm Home After Dark These Days" (Gyroscope Review 22-4, "Crone Power Issue," Fall 2022)

"Both/And" (Medium September 10, 2022)

"There Are No Mermaids," "'Biological Male'" (Midwest Quarterly Review Issue 63.4, Summer 2022)

"American Nihilism" (Medium May 31, 2022)

"i, scattered" (Ekphrastic Review June 22, 2021)

"9:29 Is Long Enough" (Medium June 8, 2020)

"The Hole," "The Girl with Eyes of the Sea," "Love Song (Aversion)," "AJ’s Arms," "Love Song (Dad)," "Dancing with Nicky," "'You Have Two Sons'" (BlazeVOX 20, Spring 2020)

"Night Songs," "For Muhlaysia" (S/tick Issue 4.3, Fall 2019)

"The Length of an Arm" (Lavender Review Issue 19, June 2019)

"Philomela," "Medusa" (Scrivener Creative Review Issue 44, April 2019)

"Lily n the Street Queens," "To All the Beautyfull Weeds That Won't Grow Straight" (S/tick Special Issue 13: Repeat Defenders, Winter 2018)

"The Girl Who Wants to Be a Girl," "Remembrance (January 2013)" (S/tick Volume 2, Issue 4: OUTreach, Summer 2015)

"Sounding Lines," "The Girl Who Loves Marilyn Monroe" (Outrider Review Volume Two, Issue Three: Transcendence, 2015)

"Eleusis" (Adanna Literary Journal Issue #5, 2015)

Women's March, DC, 2017

Blog articles

Medium

[Author page link]

"When Hate Comes to Your Town" (April 19, 2023)

"The Future Is Trans..." (March 4, 2023)

"When They Go Low, We Get Hurt" (April 25, 2022)

"No More Lip Service: It's Time for the Biden Administration to Stand up for Trans Rights" (April 29, 2021)

"Reductio ad stupid: On Trolls, Cancel Culture, and the GOP's Minority Insurgency" (April 1, 2021)

"The Right's Profoundly Insulting Assault on Trans Women and Girls" (March 19, 2021)

"FWIW: An Open Letter to Senator Pat Toomey on the Upcoming SCOTUS Confirmation" (September 30, 2020)

"The Tragedies of the Stay-at-home Protests" (May 8, 2020)

"Trump and the Flag" (March 5, 2020)

"Echoes in the Gaslit Chamber" (August 13, 2019)

"Reclaiming the Big House: Trump, Lying, Racism, and Power" (July 20, 2019)

"Trump 4EVA, or Jokes, Trolls, and Coups" (July 5, 2019)

"Out/ed: On Shame, Survival, and Inclusivity" (April 15, 2019)

"Erased in Plain Sight (A political meme, far-right animus, and trans visibility)" (April 3, 2019)

Huffington Post

[Author page link]

"Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer: A Queer Appreciation" (December 15, 2017)

"Cleveland State and the Degradation of 'Free' Speech in Trump's America" (November 29, 2017)

"The GOP Pushback Against Trump's Trans Ban: A Potential Turning Point for Trans Rights" (August 7, 2017)

"The Eyes of the Texas GOP Are Upon You: Far Right Animus, the Alt-Reality Media, and the GOP's 'Gay Agenda' Games" (July 28, 2017)

"Refugees at Life's Door: Learning About Transgender Trauma from Joy Ladin" (July 1, 2017)

"Empathy and Spectacle in the Transgender Killing Fields: On Media Coverage of Anti-trans Violence" (April 15, 2017) [aka "Here's How Media Coverage of Anti-trans Violence Needs to Change"]

"Demonize and Divide: Trans Rights and the Far-right Assault on Civil Liberties" (March 10, 2017)

"From the A-bomb to ISIL, or Duck and Cover, Here Come the Trannies" (February 24, 2017)

"Human*: Why the Struggle for Trans Rights Matters Now More Than Ever" (February 6, 2017)

"'Common Sense' Arguments Against Trans Rights: Keepin' It Simple and Stoopid in Post-truth America" (January 26, 2017)

"Texas Judge Signs Anti-trans Injunction: A Dramatic Reenactment (Prologue to 'Trans Under the Trump Régime')" (January 11, 2017)

"Wonderfull Lives: My Complicated Relationship with a Holiday Classic" (December 9, 2016)

"Who's Your Dada?: Public Deplorable #1 and the Future of LGBTQ Rights" (October 20, 2016)

"A Truth of One's Own: Un/telling Our Stories" (October 6, 2016)

"Genital Fundamentalism: Exploring the Un-Christian Roots of a 'Christian' Belief" (August 26, 2016)

"The Word ‘Cisgender’: An Unlikely Semantic Revolutionary" (July 10, 2016) 

"Embracing Caitlyn Jenner (Bad, Ugly, and Good)" (June 5, 2016)

"The Ongoing Battle Over Transgender Bathroom Access: The ‘Problem’ in Lieu of the Problem" (May 14, 2016)

"Policing the ‘Tranny Whoosh’: A Trans Citizen’s Open Letter to the Governor of North Carolina About HB2" (May 1, 2016)

 

Reviews

"A very inside eurythmy dance:” A Review of firegarden/jardín-de-fuego: poems by Gail Langstroth" (Coal Hill Review Issue 29, Spring 2022)

Goodreads book reviews

 

Louisa May Alcott, Little Women: Alcott review

Susan Heuck Allen, Finding the Walls of Troy: Frank Calvert and Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlık: Allen review

 

Artemidorus, The Interpretation of Dreams (Oneirocritica): Artemidorus review

 

Neema Avashia, Another Appalachia: Coming up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place: Avashia review

 

Peter S. Beagle, The Garden of Earthly Delights: Beagle review

 

J.M. Berger, Extremism: Berger review

 

Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Brontë review

 

John Feffer, Frostlands: Feffer review #1 

 

John Feffer, Songlands: Feffer review #2

 

Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Volume 1: Preludes & Nocturnes: Gaiman review 

 

Julian Gill-Peterson, Histories of the Transgender Child: Gill-Peterson review

 

Albert Giraud, Pierrot Lunaire: Rondels Bergamasques (trans. Alejandro Rodríguez): Giraud review

 

Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind: Harari review

 

Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms: Hemingway review

 

Wil Huygen, Gnomes: Huygen review

 

Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World: Kurlansky review

 

Alfred Lansing, Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage: Lansing review

 

Denise Levertov, Poems 1960-1967: Levertov review

 

Mant¿s, The Rootwork Stretched: Mant¿s review

 

J. Niimi, Murmur: Murmur review

 

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar: Plath review

 

Lynette Reini-Grandell, Approaching the Gate: Reini-Grandell review

 

Jared Yates Sexton, The Man They Wanted Me to Be: Sexton review

 

Roger Shattuck, The Forbidden Experiment: Shattuck review 

John Vine, A Parkinson's Primer: An Indispensable Guide to Parkinson's Disease for Patients and Their Families: Vine review

Stanisław Witkiewicz, The Witkiewicz Reader: Witkiewicz review

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own: Woolf review

Panels and speaking

Panelist, "Panel Discussion with Community Leaders," Exploring Transgender Lives and Issues, Tenth Annual Assembly of the Unitarian Universalists of Greater Pittsburgh Cluster (November 11, 2023)

Panelist, LGBTQ+ Session for Centre County SAP, Pennsylvania Association of Student Assistance Professionals (PASAP) Virtual Conference 2021 (November 10, 2021)

Panelist, GSA meeting, Jericho (NY) Middle School (October 29, 2021)

Panelist, Pride Panel, MFS Investment Management (June 24, 2021)