A+ Book Club Archives

The A+ Book Club Talked with Samantha Allen About the Symbolism of Sasquatches, “The Bachelor” Gossip and More!

On Wednesday, June 21, 2023, the A+ Book Club had the honor of chatting with Samantha Allen, author of Patricia Wants to Cuddle and all around lovely individual. Stay tuned for updates on the summer’s upcoming book clubs!

Nico: This is where we’ll be having the book club chat! That will start at like 5pm PST / 8pm EST. Thanks all for joining us!

While we wait, where’s everyone logging in from tonight?

Samantha: Seattle, Washington!

socks: I’m near Denver

Sadie: Hi y’all! Cambridge ma

Nico: Hello fellow east-coaster @Sadie – logging in from Pittsburgh over here!

Sadie: Yay Pittsburgh! I’ve blown glass there

Nico: Ooooh at the Glass Center?

Sadie: The very same, PGC, got to learn from the one & only Nancy Callan there

Samantha: Do you like the Netflix glassblowing competition show?

Nico: I’m always curious about what the people who actually do those crafts think of netflix shows like that (and the forged one, etc).

Sadie: I haven’t watched it, I enjoyed hearing some about it from friends who did, I’ve rubbed elbows with some of the peeps

Samantha: It’s Chihuly city over here. His fiefdom!

donnajaypgh: Also Pittsburgh

Carmen: Hi everyone!

autumn (they/any): oklahoma city!

Sadie: Tis indeed

Nico (they/them): Awesome to see a fellow Pittsburgher! @donnajaypgh

Hi @Carmen (she/her) !

Carmen (she/her): very excited to be here with everyone

Nico (they/them): We’ll just wait a couple more minutes for folks to arrive and then we can get started Thanks again to everyone for being here and huge thanks to @Samantha

Samantha: Thanks so much for having me — to be invited to hang out with Autostraddle peeps? The highest honor, truly

Nico (they/them): I also want to note that I made a bunch of Pride flag Sasquatch custom emojis for our chat, should anyone want to make use of those.

progress flag with a bigfoot on it trans pride flag with a bigfoot on it lesbian pride flag with a bigfoot on it nonbinary pride flag with a bigfoot on it genderfluid pride flag with a bigfoot on it pansexual pride flag with a bigfoot on it asexual pride flag with a bigfoot on it bisexual pride flag with a bigfoot on it

also a no flag bigfoot

Samantha: oh my goodness!!!!

Sadie: Oh y’all we had our first pride march since 2019 10 days ago,.so winnerful

autumn (they/any): love

donnajaypgh: Nico

Samantha: I’ll just react to everything with lesbian Sasquatch now

Nico (they/them): nothing would bring me more joy

donnajaypgh: We haven’t even started and this is the best thing on the internet

Samantha: you can’t spell bigfoot without bi

Nico (they/them): you canNOT

can Saphsquatch be a pun, does that work?

Samantha: it’s something!

we’ll workshop it

Nico (they/them): hahaa

it does not roll off the tongue

Carmen (she/her): I’m sorry but this is just so cute

progress flag with a bigfoot on it

Samantha:

Sasquatch GIFfrom Sasquatch GIFs

donnajaypgh: Is your phone just full of Sasquatch memes and GIFs?

Samantha: At this point, yes! Many, many people have sent me the strutting one above — I think this is an actual Sasquatch influencer of some sort?

librarian starr (she/they): omg “sasquatch influencer” is a thing?! i love this

Samantha: (https://www.instagram.com/bigfoot_bae/)

Nico (they/them): Okay everyone – though some folks may still drift in, I think this is a great time to get started. It’s an honor to welcome Samantha Allen author of “Patricia Wants to Cuddle” — the subject of tonight’s chat — as well as “Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States.” She’s also an editor with Them.us and a freelance writer, so you can find her work all over! How we usually do this is by staggering questions so that everyone can more easily follow the replies. So I’m going to ask for about 2 or 3 questions to start us off and then ask that folks feel free to also chime in while Samantha takes some time to answer, and then as those questions get answered, feel free to ask more! At the end, I usually ask the author if there’s anything they would like to ask the book club, which is a chance to get feedback or other insights. Finally, the transcript from this will be published for A+ members who couldn’t make it next week! This book was so twisty it gave me the distinct sensation that I was also running for my life in a dark forest, so I’m really looking forward to tonight’s discussion. I see that @donnajaypgh has started us off with a light one, but does anyone else have any questions you want to kick us off with? And thank you all again for being here!

Samantha: It’s an absolute delight to be here! My typing fingers are ready to answer any and all Patricia questions!

Nico (they/them): omg wait that isn’t just a one-off GIF that’s her whole thing??? there’s more bigfoot influencer content? incredible.

librarian starr (she/they): I thought the ending was so unexpected–as I read it, I kept thinking how unusual it is to read a book and have absolutely no idea where it will end up. Did you always have the ending in mind, or did you struggle at all with what that end point would be?

Samantha: Yeah, 1.5 million TikTok followers! Find the right niche and be richly rewarded, apparently!

Thanks @librarian starr (she/they)! I always knew the book would end with one of the contestants embracing the monster and living on Otters Island. The final image of Renee petting Patricia’s arm on the mountaintop crystallized about a third of the way through writing and then it was just a matter of getting there. The biggest struggle was making Renee’s “turn” believable, and for that I looked to plant a lot of things I deal with (depression, anxiety, yearning for nature and detachment from technology) into her arc as early as possible… (edited)

(I had Midsommar as one reference point. Where a horror movie like The Wicker Man ends with its outsider character rejecting the island and getting punished for it, I sort of love the way Midsommar subverted that trope and had its outsider character grimly embracing the new society. I tend to find that latter closing beat to be queerer.) (edited)

librarian starr (she/they): i love that subversion–thanks for the insight!

socks (she/her): I haven’t had a chance to finish the book yet but I wanted to say as someone who is newly working on sobriety I loved the inclusion of a sober character. The book might go into it more in depth later (sorry, planning to finish once life slows down after this week!) but I just wanted to say thank you for including that, and I’m wondering if you could speak more on that aspect of the character!

autumn (they/any): i’m super interested in the lineage of monsters being used to thematically convey queerness, etc. lady bigfoot feels kind of perfect to me for the center of a lesbian/queer cult… that said, was she always bigfoot? did you ever think about a werewolf, etc. or creating a new monster? what interests you about bigfoot in general? (lol sorry that’s more than one q)

Samantha: Absolutely! @socks (she/her) I’m not sober myself, but have friends who are, and my life is really fairly uncoupled from alcohol, I’d say? I was raised Mormon, left the Church, tried it for a while, and then had open-heart surgery so I largely don’t drink for health reasons anymore. I’ll have a glass of wine a few times a year, max. I thought making Renee sober was an interesting way to accentuate her outside-looking-in perspective, and to make her stick out even more from the (very much) alcohol-driven practices of reality TV production. Casey is plying everyone with champagne and Renee is clear-eyed through that entire Truth or Dare scene

Samantha: Thanks @autumn (they/any)! So originally, in very early conception stages, I thought the killer would be a human. I pictured it feeling more like a classic 80s slasher. Maybe a former contestant stalking the production? As the book evolved and the themes deepened, I felt like I needed something larger-than-life, so I started thinking about monsters!

A lady Sasquatch was the clear choice for me because she symbolized everything many cis straight white women on reality shows are afraid of being perceived as. She’s big, she’s hairy, she’s a little gross. A lot of queer and trans feelings definitely got poured into her. (edited)

socks (she/her): Thank you, love that! I agree that it adds a special nuance to her perspective.

autumn (they/any): yes!!! exactly

Nico (they/them): That’s incredible and is also like, really resonating for me in terms of Renee’s immediately being drawn to Patricia.

Samantha: That’s why Bachelor world fascinates me: all the Dyson air wraps, all of the hair extensions, all of the body waxing

Nico (they/them): A completely different question related to the Bachelor world: what did your research into the nature of reality shows / the behind-the-scenes of dating shows like The Bachelor entail? I’ve heard word of mouth that your book was actually pretty realistic in that regard!

Samantha: Why read Judith Butler when the Bachelor proves that gender is performative?

Thx @Nico (they/them) ! I am a longtime Bachelor viewer and have since watched a lot of the Netflix reality shows, and dipped my toes in the very deep pond that is Love Island.

I’ve listened to multiple Bachelor podcasts especially for several years, so that helped a lot with insights into production, and the way contestants feel like they’re treated/edited on the show! My world got very surreal after the release of this book because I went on Pilot Pete’s podcast and Connor (the cat man) B.’s IG Live and they were like, “How did you know what happens on this show?” And I was like, “From listening to you all!!!”

I’d definitely recommend UnReal in this regard, too! The show, in my opinion, jumps the shark pretty early on, but that first season does such a fantastic job of capturing the sort of manipulation tactics people talk about enduring.

Nico (they/them): I will have to check that out! Thank you

Who’s got another question? I saw some typing earlier

Samantha: Thanks for all of these so far. They’re all great.

librarian starr (she/they): Did you conceptualize the book first in terms of plot–you said an earlier version was more like a standard slasher, with a human killer–or did the idea start with more of a theme or idea you wanted to convey? I hear authors start from lots of different points, and I’m always interested to hear which parts came first, or were most fully realized early on.

I’m particularly interested in that when it comes to queer writers, because we don’t walways follow “standard” practice

Samantha: Concept definitely came first @librarian starr (she/they)! I think the first Google Doc said “Bachelor slasher.” The structure followed immediately from there: contestants getting killed one by one. Then I needed a “locked room,” and I’m enamored with the San Juan Islands, so Orcas (“Otters”) presented itself. Early on — and bear in mind this is my first fiction — I just wanted people to think it was clever and funny, I think. So there’s a version of the first 5,000 words out there that’s just very commercial satire. But I basically found that I couldn’t keep going if I didn’t have something deeper I wanted to convey, and that’s where Patricia as an avatar for queer/trans loneliness and Renee’s feelings of alienation (and of course the Maggie-Kathy backstory, which I sobbed writing) entered the picture. And that’s when the book really got started (edited)

At that point, my agent was like, “Yeah, I didn’t think you were capable of just writing the down-the-middle spoof,” meant as a compliment, she assured me.

autumn (they/any): which was your favorite perspective to write that wasn’t renee and maggie-kathy backstory?

Samantha: Amanda, definitely

It’s a grass is always greener on the other side situation, I’m sure, but I wish I could be Amanda

autumn (they/any): seriously she is just dancing thru life

Samantha: I’d say Casey was easiest to write from because she has all of my worst tendencies

Nico (they/them): Haha oh no

autumn (they/any): ooo that’s so interesting! one of my fave parts of the casey POV was her thinking “i am the little god of these people’s lives” and the contestants being like omg casey is so straightforwardly manipulating me

Samantha: She’s judgmental, she loves working more than anything else. I took bad things I recognized about myself and dialed them up for her.

autumn (they/any): relatable

Samantha: God they were all so fun to write in the end though. Lilah-Mae is like me if I had been born cis and never left the Church

It’s so easy to get in touch with her mindset if you were raised how I was!

Nico (they/them): Similarly, in terms of craft I guess, how did you develop everyone’s distinct voice? Like, idk I think I could have identified most people without being told.

librarian starr (she/they): Agreed, i was raised that way, and recognized all-too-much of Past Church Me in her

Nico (they/them): It sounds like you def were putting parts of yourself or your desires into each person tho from what you’re saying so far.

Samantha: My editor helped push me a lot there @Nico (they/them) . Earlier stabs at Vanessa didn’t sound Vanessa-y enough. And the tricky line throughout was with the closeness of the narration. Obviously I need to do pretty close third-person for emotional states but I also wanted liberty to pull out just a tiny bit for wry commentary or description of the action.

With Renee, I felt fairly unfiltered. Casey, like I said, was taking my inner honor roll high school nerd and turning off all feeling. Lilah-Mae, I just put myself in the familiar headspace of “Everything I encounter and perceive has to be filtered through a fairly rigid orthodoxy.” And then Vanessa, I was just trying to think “slinky, sexy, super direct.”

I tried to let the style and voice emerge from there, and in editing, would trim away stuff that didn’t feel like it was sticking true to those core character traits

.croe.: I was wondering if there was a concrete reasoning for Vanessa to be the one to get the intercom scoop of production stuff?

Nico (they/them): One of my favorite details, added bits of richness from the perspectives was the way each character had a different perception of the other characters — and especially when it came to Patricia’s eyes. Everyone described them differently and this is not a question I just noticed and loved it.

Samantha: So glad you noticed! Yes, it was important to me that Amanda was like “oh my God, YUCK!” whereas Renee’s terms of reference are much more respectful and awed. I think I tried to avoid “it” for Patricia in Renee’s final sections, for instance, whereas other characters were free to de-anthropomorphize her in that way

It was dizzying to keep track of, honestly! It’s a very short book, but it has in total something like seven different perspectives, plus the message boards, so the fact that it feels coherent at all I’m counting as a victory.

Samantha: Yeah @.croe.! At this point Casey knows that she’s setting up a Vanessa vs Amanda vs Lilah Mae showdown for the remaining slot in the final, so she’s trying to rev up everyone. Vanessa’s a little self-assured of victory (she didn’t know about Amanda and Jeremy’s near-tryst on the yacht) so Casey is deliberately doing this to get under her skin and make her feel insecure going into the evening date

Samantha: lol

Years of lurking on the Bachelor subreddit finally paid off

socks (she/her): Speaking of which, I got a real kick out of some of the usernames on the message boards!

Samantha: Yeah, even there, I developed mini personalities for each user

.croe.: I LOVED the message boards!!

librarian starr (she/they): they were so much fun and felt so TRUE

Samantha: Is there a Rick in there or something? He was my pedantic guy, and then there was the “Dex is my zaddy” girl so I had to track those too

Nico (they/them): I felt that!!

@librarian starr (she/they): they were so much fun and felt so TRUE

.croe.: Especially the addition of mods lol

.croe.: I thought it was so Internet for miss “dex is my zaddy” to be like RIP Dex but like are we getting a release date?

Samantha: lolol

she lives for the content

Martini: Was the length of the book a conscious choice? Publishing pressure? Just the way it worked out? The closing arc all happened so fast — was that a deliberate contrast with the earlier slow-build mystery? Rather than having a drawn-out stalk to the finish?

Samantha: There were pages on the cutting room floor @Martini! I had sections written from Dex and Jeremy’s perspective if you can believe it, and while I miss the Dex pages, I think no one will miss Jeremy’s POV. That said, I wanted the gory third act to feel blunt, jarring, and conclusive. I came from the horror movie philosophy of “everyone but the Final Girl is dead, credits roll, get out!” (Some more thoughts…)

I go back and forth on this, especially as some readers definitely have been vocal about wanting “100 more pages” or some such. I think if I gave “100 more pages,” a reader might not want them! And I’d rather err on the side of people wanting more than less. My editor and I tried to make sure it was very svelte and spartan, leaving enough mystery to chew on, and room for readers to form their own theories about how Otters Island functions, but while still answering some major plot questions (what happened to Live Journal girl, e.g.)

Nico (they/them): Also, like, speaking of, for example, Dex is my zaddy, what’s your process for making sure something you *think is funny is funny? Do you just trust yourself? Do you work with your editor? Do you bounce random ideas off friends?

.croe.: I was going to ask if you wrote from any other POVs that didn’t make it!! Even as I was reading I was like what’s Dex thinking or does he have no thoughts lol

Nico (they/them): I mean, I do want to know all those things, but also the way the book left me wanting that made it stick. So, not wrong! (Or I don’t think so)

Samantha: Thanks for asking this though @Martini — it’s the #1 thing I’ve thought about since release, easily. Definitely some deliberate horror choices here (don’t show more of the monster than you have to, don’t linger past the final kill, answer the big questions but leave some open) that I’ve had to learn to just… stick by!

oh my gosh there’s a Dex death scene from his POV @.croe. and it’s my number one “what if?” he’s fading in a pool of his own blood, and Maggie is standing over him, saying “Thank you” over and over again because he brought the production to Otters

Nico (they/them): THAT IS SO CREEPY

love, also

Samantha: Oh, and if anyone’s read the paperback, the material at the very end is new! It was my compromise for the “100 pages” readers! (It’s like three pages of the islanders chatting, so I drive a hard bargain, but still… it’s something!)

.croe.: Omg!!! That’s amazing! Love love love, sounds so creepy (complimentary)

Nico (they/them): “THAT IS SO CREEPY (complimentary)” is def what I should have said

autumn (they/any): this is not a question but the men in the book are so heinous and also compelling (besides mike who is… just mike). that chat in the woods with jeremy and renee is almost as horrific as the killings because it’s so true to life! like yes! this is how this dirtbag will treat you once he deems you unfuckable (edited)

Samantha: (Last thought on that! I definitely wanted it to be a single-sitting book for people who wanted to blow through it, and I think drawing out act three would have maybe pushed it just out of reach. My favorite thing is when someone sits down with it, and a few hours later, emerges, and is like, “WTF did I just read?” I think the brevity works in my favor in producing that sensation.)

aw thx @autumn (they/any) !!!!

Mike is the himbo who must, unfortunately, die. Sorry, Mike

Nico (they/them): I definitely felt like I was running for my life in a dark forest.

Samantha: But the Jeremy/Renee dynamic comes from years of listening to and observing how contestants of color have been treated on reality dating shows especially @autumn (they/any)

Samantha: That dynamic of “I desire you, but I would never be with you.”

autumn (they/any): i definitely felt that! also felt in the way contestants of color have to fight to be seen as human rather than “animal” as opposed to white contestants and how renee has to grapple with that, too in her connection with nature, etc. (edited)

.croe.: Omg is it wrong I was so sad that the crime was pinned on Mike? Like he’s just a guy doing his Himbo Best don’t be rude

Samantha: Someone’s gotta take the fall, and it’s not gonna be Maggie! She’s got sheep to tend to and pastries to make.

autumn (they/any): no it’s true… he’s just a guy!

Samantha: And when people like Jeremy are caught in that contradictory headspace, they lash out.

Nico (they/them): I was wondering how you pinned Jeremy down like that, but of course, you have consumed so much of the source material. Was there any more source material that influenced Jeremy?

Samantha: LOL. Definitely The Social Network

Samantha: Just seeing how many spineless talentless creeps glom onto anything approaching a “good” (but actually amoral and deeply toubled) idea in Silicon Valley was very formative @Nico (they/them)

Like you have Zuck coding the thing, and then the money has to come from somewhere, and the money comes with a string attached (“please take care of my failson”)

This is a fun fact: Jeremy originally snuck in the car headed down to check on Dex instead of Mike (edited)

and got drowned in the lake instead of Casey

But yeah, my editor was like “Patricia has to kill Jeremy, how could you not see that, you absolute fool” (nicer)

.croe.: Lmao!! I was about to say I think the lady Bigfoot death is more cathartic for sure, but any Jeremy death will be appreciated

Samantha: And I liked Casey being the one marched to the lake in the end. She dies how I will die being like, “I should have worked more…”

Nico (they/them): it was truly devastating

.croe.: It hit that much harder bc it felt like a metaphorical drowning in her own overworking mentality (it’s me I’m Casey)

donnajaypgh: I was actually deeply sad when Casey died; she was such a great character and she reminded me of Rachel on Unreal. I don’t know if I’d call her unreliable, but as many have said, I found her deeply relatable, and I was very sympathetic.

Samantha: There’s a paragraph in there about how she likes to ask each of the contestants in pre-interviews what they care about, and how if she answered that question, it would be The Catch every time. It was maybe one of my top three favorite passages to write in the book!

Nico (they/them): Hey all as we are nearing our final 10-ish minutes, I wanted to open the floor for @Samantha to ask us any questions that you have for the book club / readers of your book!

Samantha: Absolutely! So I think my first question is a selfish one: what kinds of queer fiction are you most into right now? (vibe-wise, genre-wise). I’ve just sold my next novel (details TBA) but I’m very much wanting to know what you’re in the mood for

like… are we over Weird Women’s Fiction? are we into internetty things? what do people want to read?

librarian starr (she/they): Oooo, i am so excited to hear those details! Honestly, I read queer fiction (and almost exclusively queer fiction, or fiction by BIPOC authors) in many many genres… I’m loving that the lesbian/wlw romance genre is FINALLY getting filled with more quality books, but i’ll always read more… but i would love more things like thrillers, mysteries (think line Kathy Reich’s forensic science-y Bones series) and the like (edited)

Nico (they/them): Let’s see: I mean, I do think that of all the books I read that have stuck in my mind the most…they’ve all been some entry (though different) into the horror genre. I DO love it when there are elements of horror added to contemporary situations that I either feel a part of or feel familiar with. (Not queer, but think of the horror movie Superhost which is hilarious). I also think that I just really want a book to make me laugh sometimes, even and especially if the humor is very dry or even sinister. These are dark times so I need dark laughs.

autumn (they/any): i think i want more humor but humor with depth, would honestly just love to see queer fiction filled out the way everything else is. BUT more specifically, not over weird women’s fiction, i love weird women lmao, especially love weird gay women. also — to see queer characters in spaces that aren’t fantasy (tho i LOVE fantasy)

librarian starr (she/they): I’m glad there are now a lot of queer YA books, but y’all, i don’t think i ever again will need or want to read another coming-of-age/angsty book.

donnajaypgh: I’ve been loving smart, funny queer romance (like Alexis Hall) but my favorite book this year besides Patricia that I have been recommending endlessly is the Terraformers by Annalee Newitz. Sweeping sci-fi, queer, summed up with the elevator pitch of “what if we built planets for profit?”
@librarian starr (she/they)

I’m glad there are now a lot of queer YA books, but y’all, i don’t think i ever again will need or want to read another coming-of-age/angsty book.

Nico (they/them): Similarly, I don’t really read YA, very much in search of adult books.

Samantha: I avoid coming of age, personally! Growing up once was hard enough

.croe.: I’m going to add “these are dark times so I need dark laughs” into my daily lexicon thank youuuuu

Nico (they/them): Amazing. I love this.

librarian starr (she/they): And i love that there are a lot of very erudite collections of essays and stuff, but honestly i’m lookign for anything easy to consume (doesn’t have to be fluffy, altho that’s okay, but i love the fast pace of this book) and for the love of Dog, please HAVE HUMOR.

Samantha: This is all very helpful. Very important question: Would you cuddle Patricia?

librarian starr (she/they): in a heartbeat.

autumn (they/any): 100% would also give her a chaste kiss on the cheek

Nico (they/them): How does Patricia know whether I am a pro-Pratricia-cuddler or not?!? How does she sense it?

librarian starr (she/they): (disclaimer, i would be terrified doing it)

donnajaypgh: We Stan our Sasquatch queen

Nico (they/them): I’m afraid I would reach out a hand to stroke her hair / initiate cuddling her and like an unpredictable cat, things would go sideways and I’d lose my arm.

Carmen (she/her): Nico!!

Nico (they/them): Y’all have been great. If anyone else has anything to say @here, now’s the time!

Otherwise, thank you so, so much @Samantha for being here and chatting with us and for bringing us such an absolutely twisty ride of a book. I hope you all find some queer magic in the woods.

Samantha: Patricia doesn’t know her own strength sadly

Dismemberment is always a risk with her

librarian starr (she/they): thanks so much to @Samantha for doing this, and @Nico (they/them) & co. for setting this up! i have LONG planned to be On The AS Discords, and this is the first time i made it. Y’all are all amazeballs

.croe.: One last thing: I would love to see a Patricia Wants to Cuddle mini series or something (edited)

Samantha: This has been so so delightful for me. I feel so welcomed and so happy

You’re in luck @.croe. !!!

Nico (they/them): WHAT

.croe.: SAY MORE RIGHT NOW!!

Samantha: It has been optioned and is in early stages of development, and should pick back up once the WGA strike has ended

Nico (they/them): first of all, congratulations!!!

Carmen (she/her): Whoa! Breaking news at the end here!

Nico (they/them): second of all (selfishly) amazing, love this for me and my TV watching

Samantha: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cj3QzyOJBwf/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
neebess

Carmen (she/her): Thats amazing!!!

Nico (they/them): WOW

Samantha: Hopefully coming within a couple of years. I can’t say who yet but a really amazing writer is attached

Someone Autostraddle would love, I’m sure!

.croe.: This just made my week!!

Carmen (she/her): ABC Signature is a great match for this story.

autumn (they/any): congratulations and thank you so much!!!

donnajaypgh: Yay! Thank you so much for such a great book and for such a fun evening @Samantha and @Nico (they/them)

Samantha: Thank you everyone!!!!

Carmen (she/her): I also want to say thank you all for such a great conversation, and great night.

It’s been absolutely wonderful.

socks (she/her): Thank you!!

.croe.: Thank you!!

Nico (they/them): Thank you all so much. Server will disappear shortly, but it was so great to spend time with y’all.

RIGHT NOW! Log Onto Discord to Chat With Samantha Allen

This is happening right now, Wednesday, June 21st at 5pm PST / 8pm EST. If you can’t make it, or want to review the discussion, a transcript will be published under A+ next week!

**How do I read Patricia Wants to Cuddle?**

You can buy it now from Bookshop in hardcover, or order the paperback or get the audiobook via LibroFM, where all options support Autostraddle and indie bookstores! You can also request it from your local library!

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

It’s right here!

Here’s the invite link.

And below is a widget!

What if I can’t make it? The time doesn’t work for me :(

P.S. If you’re in Europe (truly being hit the hardest by the time zone situation here) or anywhere else where this is straight up in the middle of the night for you, and you have a question you’d love to see asked, you can email me at nico[at]autostraddle.com with the subject line BOOK CLUB QUESTION and I’ll collect them all and ask them on your behalf, and then the transcript will be available the following week for you to check out! I know it’s not a perfect solution, but when it comes to events with live humans who go to sleep at night within their respective time zones, it’s the best we can do right now.

What will the event be like?

Accessibility

We want Autostraddle events to be as accessible as possible and we opted to go with a text-based chatting format via Discord in large part because it was one of the most accessible ways to hold this virtual event, not just in terms of audio/visual accessibility, but also because we know it can be hard to ask a question out loud or know when to jump into a conversation. We hope this helps things go as smoothly as is possible for a virtual event. That said, if there are accommodations that would make it easier for you to attend this event, please reach out to me at nico[at]autostraddle.com to let me know. Also, here’s a link to a guide on using Discord with a screen reader.

TOMORROW! A+ Book Club Chats “Patricia Wants to Cuddle” with Samantha Allen

As a huge fan of horror, of reality TV, of queer people, of cryptids — I am in love with this book and canNOT wait for book club tomorrow. Are you coming?

If you read Kayla’s review “Did Somebody Say Lesbian Sasquatch Horror-Comedy “Bachelor” Parody?” about Patricia Wants to Cuddle, then surely you were either like a) I am reading this immediately or b) I shall have to read this as soon as I can. If you haven’t yet, there’s no better time to get in on this sapphic squatch novel because we’re talking to author Samantha Allen in June in celebration of the release of the paperback edition! The book club will happen on a pop-up discord server just for the book club meet, tomorrow, Wednesday, June 21st at 5pm PST / 8pm EST.

The details:

**How do I read Patricia Wants to Cuddle?**

You can buy it now from Bookshop in hardcover, or pre-order the paperback which ships May 30 or get the audiobook via LibroFM, where all options support Autostraddle and indie bookstores! You can also request it from your local library!

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

First, you’ll need to make sure you’re an A+ member! A+ members support everything Autostraddle does, and they get all kinds of bonus content as thanks — now including access to the A+ Read a Fucking Book Club!

A post will re-appear on the day of the event, behind the A+ paywall, with the link and join widget, about fifteen minutes before it starts at 4:45pm PST, so that A+ members can join. The discord will also already be open for Pride!

When is this again?

It’s taking place tomorrow on Wednesday, June 21st, so you have plenty of time to get caught up on the book / reality TV parody drama. It’s happening from 5pm PST to 6:30pm PST. Times in some other zones are as follows:

8 – 9:30pm, Eastern Standard Time
1am – 2:30am, London, UK
2am – 3:30am, Berlin, Germany
8am – 9:30am, Thursday, June 22nd, Hong Kong
9am – 10:30am, Thursday, June 22nd, Australian Central Time

What if I can’t make it? The time doesn’t work for me :(

What will the event be like?

Accessibility

The A+ Book Club Talked Tarot Reversals, Pop Culture Witches and More with Meg Jones Wall

On Wednesday May 3rd, A+ members and members of the Autostraddle team chatted with Meg Jones Wall about her new book, Finding the Fool: A Tarot Journey to Radical Transformation. Be sure to mark your calendars for the upcoming book club in June with Samantha Allen, author of Patricia Wants to Cuddle in honor of the release of the paperback edition.

Nico: Hi Everyone! And welcome!

We’re gonna let folks filter in for about 15-20 minutes before we kick things off, but I’d love to know where everyone is signing in from tonight. I’m here in rainy, gray Pittsburgh — which honestly feels like the perfect cozy mood for book club.

Heather Hogan: Hi, friends! Thank you for hosting, Nico! Thank you for writing this book and talking to us about it, Meg! I’m here in New York City where the rain can’t make up its mind and one of my cats just tried to steal a piece of salmon from INSIDE MY MOUTH.

Nico: That’s some god-tier cat mischief.

Also curious if anyone brought their Tarot cards and am totally welcoming folks to share what decks they have if that is a thing you wanna do while we wait to officially get started.

Meg: your cats are geniuses and terrors heather
and i’m in brooklyn! hi everyone!

sdc (she/her): I’m joining in from Sydney, Australia. I recently acquired two decks. Smith-Waite-Tarot (Centennial Edition) and the Unofficial Adventure Time by Katherine Hillier one. I’ve not looked at them in detail yet.

Nico: Hi Meg!! Huge thanks for being here tonight!

Heather Hogan: Unofficial Adventure Time sounds SO COOL!

Meg: omg yes it does! i didn’t realize they’d done an AT deck, that rules

smita (they/she): Hi Meg! Excited for this chat! Signing in from New York as well!

Meg: thank you for having me!!

Newgirlvenus: Joining from Philly, just recently got into tarot (1 card pull every 2 days) and some oracle decks

Meg: welcome everyone! thank you so much for being here!

i’ve got a big mug of tea, the muse tarot deck, and a fake fire roaring on my television

Heather Hogan: Oh I love the fake fire!

I also just ordered that Adventure Time tarot!

Meg: hell yes

Wren: Hi y’all! I’m joining from Pittsburgh as well! I also think it’s perfect weather for a cozy book club night, but my dog disagrees. He keeps playing with my feet trying to get me to play tug.

Nico: Okay! It looks like we’ve got enough folks to get started. Thank you to everyone who came out tonight to talk Tarot and Meg’s new book FINDING THE FOOL: A TAROT JOURNEY TO RADICAL TRANSFORMATION.

As you probably know, Meg is an Autostraddle writer who, among many other things, writes the Tarotscopes column.

This is, I believe, Meg’s first book, and so in addition to welcoming her, I also want to congratulate them on this accomplishment!!

Meg: i LOVE dogs so i’m glad he wants to be part of the chat lol
and it sure is my first book! thank you nico!

Carmen: (Hi everyone! My apologies for being a little late! I lost track of time working on a post for the site)

Lmao also that’s not me, it’s Angela Bassett one sec.

Nico: Carmen your photooo
haha

Meg: okay but i love it

Nico: ❤️
same

Carmen: Sorry! I’m being a disruption! This is so embarrassing I’m sorry, carry on

Meg: not at all, everybody’s doing great

Carmen: Ok great, I’m all settled. Sorry again!

Nico: Okay so! What I normally ask is that we kind of try to stagger questions, so if you see there are like, two unanswered questions already, it works well if you wait for those to be answered before hitting “send” on your question. For the first time we also have some questions some folks sent in via email, so I’m gonna save those for closer to the end. And, Meg, when we’re wrapping up, (like an hour and fifteen from now), I usually ask the author if they have any questions for the group, so I just wanted to give you a heads up!

OKAY! I love that you all are here. Thank you so much for gathering tonight in this queer, magical space. Who would like to ask the first question?

Meg: that all sounds good! i typed up some answers in advance to the email questions because of Who I Am As A Person so i can drop those in whenever you like 🖤 and yes, ask away!

Valerie Anne (she/they): Meg, what was your favorite part about writing this book?

Meg: ooh i love that question, thank you valerie! i really loved getting to weave numerology and astrology into every single card, and working to make sure that that information felt like it was actually useful. i love having correspondences for things but sometimes they just feel… random? it was so important to me to have them woven into the descriptions, and that little challenge actually turned into one of my favorite things

i also drew all the glyphs myself and that was so fun, even though i did them all WAY too many times lmao

Heather Hogan (she/her): I love that, Meg! I’m curious about how you are able to meet people and connect with them on every step of their journey. I took your Finding the Fool class, then read your book, then did your class all over again because I felt like I had even more to learn, and I was like, “How is she meeting me here in this even more knowing space, even though she met me exactly where I was in the my less knowing space? How is she DOING that?”

Nico: I think one of my favorite things about the book (and about getting to interview you about it) was the way you discussed incorporating sensory experiences of the cards. I was wondering if you would talk a little bit about your process for discovering what those are for you? Is it meditation? Looking at the card? Is it more intuitive, linked with your understanding of the correspondences associated with a card, a combination?

Meg: Heather, that’s so sweet! thank you! and honestly, i’m not actually sure that i have a clear answer to that beyond – i want everything to be as accessible as possible! so i try to write and speak and teach from a place of inclusivity and warmth, and i don’t believe in dividing beginners and intermediate students because i think everyone is going to bring different skills to the table, and have some things come more naturally than others. i want everything that i share to feel clear and easy to understand, but also to hold as much depth as possible for anyone who isn’t hearing this information for the first time. i hope that makes sense!

i don’t think i’ve ever tried to answer that question before but i love it!

Nico, i was so happy with those sensory descriptions, and i’m really glad you love them too! it felt really important to me to have descriptions of the cards and archetypes that weren’t just lists of keywords – sometimes those can feel so cold and distant, but i think that the archetypes are so layered and rich and complex in the most beautiful way, and i hoped to capture that as much as possible. so much of my daily life is in devotion to sensory things – i love to cook (and i have a degree in gastronomy/food studies), i’ve sold and made fragrances, i am a very hands-on learner, i love to sing and harmonize, i’m a photographer, i like to run… when i can experience sensory things it really helps me understand things, so it felt like a cool thing to be able to add into my card descriptions. and i hoped that they would resonate with others too

but to actually answer your question – for me, it’s very intuitive, and very based on my own experiences. i imagine (and i hope, honestly!) that others have sensory connections that feel totally different than mine!

Nico: thank you!!

Alicia5000: I am just getting into tarot and got the Queer Tarot deck for my birthday. I don’t have any questions really as I’ve just started using them but wanted to say hi and I look forward to reading your book.

Meg: oh i love that deck! happy late birthday and thank you for being here!

Wren: seconding to what @heather hogan (she/her) said! I’ve been following your Tarotscopes for a year or so at this point but wasn’t working with or learning tarot intentionally until your Finding the Fool class and then this book. It’s been transformational. Thank you so much for writing and sharing. This is opening up a world for me, and in talking with folks about tarot and doing more research, I’ve seen things about cards in reverse. What’s your take on that?

Meg: thank you so much, it’s so nice to see you here!

Nico: REVERSALS – can’t wait to see what Meg says

Meg: reversals are so fascinating to me – they’re something really personal, and i think it’s one of those things that readers really get to decide if they want to use or not. i personally don’t use them, and that’s mainly because when i first started reading, my understanding of reversals was that they were meant to be read as the opposite of the upright or given meaning – and as a newbie who was already struggling with memorization, that felt way too overwhelming!

i think that this opposite meaning is still one of the most popular ways to work with reversals, but i actually also really love a take that i first read from carrie mallon, who reads reversals more as exclamation points. she sees them as cards to pay special attention to, that might be a major theme or important angle to consider in the reading

but truly, it’s up to you whether or not you want to read with them or not! i’ve had amazing readings from people who use reversals in multiple ways, and other readings from people like me who don’t use them at all. i think the most important thing is just to be consistent!

(meaning – don’t only read reversals when it means you can adjust the card meaning to tell you what you want to hear lol)

smita (they/she): I love the intentions that you set with your tarot spreads, they’re so thoughtful and kind! What’s your approach to designing a spread that will be helpful for you and others?

Wren: This is super helpful! Thanks! I resonate with the “way too overwhelming” to incorporate into learning tarot. Like you say in the book? in an article? (I lose track…) it is like learning a new language. You do a great job making tarot approachable to newbies though 🙂

Meg: smita what a great question! i honestly hope to teach a class on writing spreads at some point, because i think it’s such a valuable skill and isn’t quite as complicated as we think! my approach is always rooted in simplicity – i almost exclusively write 3 and 4 card spreads, unless i’m doing a big custom spread for a private client. i like to think about what i’m really hoping to get out of reading – do i want insights and information? or do i want advice on what to do (or not do)? then i write positions that will help me understand what’s happening (usually something like “me, right now” or “what am i feeling?” or “the obstacle i’m facing”), something that needs clarity or explanation (“something i’m missing” or “something i’m avoiding”), and then usually something that i can do (“something to remember” or “something to try” or “something i can do right now”)

Meg: thank you so much! and yeah i frankly hate the memorization methods because it’s so intense – learning a language (which i really do say all the time lmao) takes time! and it’s more than just rattling off words, it’s about really understanding nuance and layers so that you can weave sentences together

Carmen (she/her): I love this comparison!

Meg: i think the language analogy really adjusts expectations accordingly – learning tarot isn’t something you can do in a few hours! i get into this a lot in the intro to my book but there are so many experts out there who talk about how tarot came really naturally to them, and i found that so alienating when i was struggling even after a year of trying to learn. languages take time and many people don’t have a natural aptitude for learning them quickly, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still figure it out and use this amazing tool at our own pace!

Nico: I’m also gonna bring the email questions down because they feel relevant to the overwhelm / memorization talk right now:

Hey everyone! We had 2 questions come in via email from folks who can’t make the chat, so I’m just going to put them here.

1. Is it necessary to learn the basic, traditional meanings of the cards prior to going through your book and following your suggestions? As I feel like your book is more of an intermediate guide. Would like to hear your thoughts.

2. If we are looking at one of the cards, and our interpretation of what this card is communicating is very different to the “default” interpretation as per the guidebook/manual, then what should we do?
Would we use our own meaning, or stick with the default?

Are there certain situations where it would be best to use the default meaning, e.g. when doing readings for others?

But y’all also please feel free to keep asking q’s!

Meg: perfect! i did write these in advance so please don’t freak out that i’m secretly this incredibly fast typer lmao

both of these questions feel similar to me, in that they are both asking about sets of meanings as distinct rather than integrated, so i’m going to answer them together and then I’m happy to share more on this topic if needed! i would encourage you both (and everyone else reading) to think of it less as multiple discreet categories of meanings and more as layers of meaning for each card. i think part of what made me want to write this book in the first place is this idea that the “default” or “traditional” RWS or thoth meanings are somehow the most legitimate ones, and wanting to push back against that. this doesn’t have to be true! there is no hierarchy of meaning for tarot. it’s just about what you see and feel. you don’t have to separate out these meanings or label them differently – instead, you can think of it as all of them existing simultaneously together, and different aspects coming out at different times.

i think that if it feels good to you to start first with meanings from the book that came with your tarot deck as a guide (or my book, or any other book), and then gradually layer in more meanings based on your own studies and experiences, that’s completely fine. but i think it’s more about what resonates for you personally, and being consistent with that. if you read about a meaning for a card and it doesn’t feel right to you, doesn’t make sense when you work with the card, i don’t think you need to force yourself to use that meaning anyway just because it’s old.

i like to use a food analogy: think about your favorite dish, and all of the different layers of flavor that you have in even a simple meal. if you’re eating lasagna, for example, you can taste the tomato and the cheese and the basil and the oregano all at the same time. and one ingredient might feel more forward in a particular bite, but that doesn’t mean that the other ingredients stop existing in the dish.
tarot is like that too – for example in a reading the empress might come up and make you think generally about abundance and expression, but that doesn’t mean that other meanings like fertility, community, messiness, connection, or generosity aren’t also present simultaneously. if that reading is about your job, you might think more about growth and creativity, whereas if that reading was about relationships, you might think more about the intimacy in communication, but you’re still always going to have these ideas of abundance and expression because it’s the empress. (you might use different keywords, i’m just using my own for this example.) if you pull multiple cards, there is often a theme to that reading that can help you clarify which idea feels the most prevalent, but that doesn’t have to be the only way you interpret the card.

having a default or standardized meaning for yourself can be helpful at first, but i think it quickly becomes really stifling, which is why i prefer to pay attention to layers. if you pull a card that doesn’t make sense to you, only having one meaning to use might just end up leaving you more confused! i hope that makes sense!

sorry for the WALL OF TEXT i am so much y’all

Valerie Anne (she/they): YOU’RE PERFECT

Carmen (she/her): Or just enough!!

Heather Hogan (she/her): One of the things I loved in the interview you did with Jeanna in her newsletter is that you said when you were sad and lonely between when you’d left church and found tarot, you kept seeing tarot show up in the books and movies and TV shows you were reading and watching. I thought that was so rad. I was wondering if you remember what any of those stories were, or if there are any TV shows or books you can think of that make you glad they included tarot in their stories. I just read Astrid Parker Doesn’t Care and it was full of tarot, a major underlying theme, and I was like, “I wonder if Meg would love or hate this? I wonder if they’d think it’s accurate.” And similarly, are there like tarot tropes in stories that make you bananas?

Carmen (she/her): Hahaa Valerie did it better. ❤️

Meg: omg there are SO MANY terrible tarot tropes! but i actually really loved the way they used tarot in astrid parker doesn’t care, i found it SO fucking charming

Heather Hogan (she/her): Yaaaaay!!!!!

Meg: i remember really specifically the night circus (which i haven’t read now in a few years) and this novel called the book of speculation used tarot in such a powerful way to move the story forward, and it felt like something that i might actually be able to use too!

Valerie Anne (she/they): I loooooved The Night Circus

Meg: so often tarot readers in media are also psychics or mediums or palm readers or something else that really sets them apart, but tarot on its own felt so grounded and accessible, like something i could actually do myself. and i really loved that!

i just read the starless sea and it made me want to go back and read the night circus, i loved it so much

Wren: I saw and loved this in your Finding the Fool course! How you encouraged folks to look through different versions of the Fool and look for differences and similarities, find things that resonate (or don’t)

Heather Hogan (she/her): AGREE WREN!

Meg: yes! there are some decks that have certain archetypes that just resonate SO hard, and i think the process of looking at the same card in many decks (or finding them in characters you love, or poetry/music that feels related, or so many other things) can be such a powerful practice. and it’s just SO useful for finding new language for each card!

back to my sensory obsession lol, it just feels so powerful and helpful to me!
how many times can i say the word powerful during this book club? let’s find out

Carmen (she/her): Again I say, just enough!

Heather Hogan (she/her): powerful is your stalker card!
Wren: I was trying to find an emoji to put on Heather Hogan (she/her)’s comment above and was like ,”hmmm which emoji is most like the Fool?” and then wanted to know what you think Meg

Nico: what’s a stalker card??

Meg: omg i am obsessed with this question let me figure that out!!

so i’ve been trying to use slightly different language around this after being gently corrected by some thoughtful instagram followers, but “stalker card” is the language often used to describe a card that keeps recurring in readings, popping up over and over

Nico: aaah
yes, those

Heather Hogan (she/her): oh shoot!

Meg: i have used that language myself! every time! and i’m trying to shift but it’s tricky!

Heather Hogan (she/her): scooby mystery card!

Meg: so much better lmao

Nico: the first card that was following me from reading to reading was THE DEVIL when I started at age 9. it was not disconcerting at all.

Meg: omg okay i think the fool is ❤️‍🔥 or maybe 👀

Heather Hogan (she/her): perfect

Meg: ah yes, the famously chill devil archetype lmao
what a time!!

Carmen (she/her): ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

Heather Hogan (she/her): meg what card would you be glad to see following you around

Nico: i’m also curious about what cards have been following folks (including you Meg!) around lately

Meg: i mean i love the death card but i’m a weirdo. the four of swords has been showing up a lot for me lately which i don’t like, MIND exactly, but it’s annoying (i usually interpret it as “take a fucking break”)

when the star shows up i’m always so glad to see it!

anybody else have a recurring card that keeps showing up?

Nico: yeah four of swords is a card that i go like “EXCUSE ME NO” at

Meg: it’s eclipse season so those lessons tend to get loud lmao

Heather Hogan (she/her): well the fool has been literally following me around because i took them out for your class to put on my fool altar and then kept forgetting to put them back in their box so they’re like on my desk, on my nightstand, somehow in the medicine cabinet

Meg: omg

so like, actually following you around the apartment lol

ladyblanchester (she/her): Question about getting my first deck: should I just go for it and get one? I think I’ve been waiting for a deck to come into my life in the “right” way but maybe I need to take action?

Wren: I don’t know if it’s necessarily a specific card that keeps showing up, but a suit! The suit of swords is everywhere for me right now.

P.s. I didn’t mean to exclude all of you from the fool emoji question! would also love to see your fool emoji associations

Meg: oh what a great question! i say go for it! that’s what i did and i’m so glad i did. i think there’s a lot of contradictory advice around needing to be given a deck or waiting for a sign or something, but tarot is something that you build a relationship with – so think of it as being bold and making the first move! or if that feels too intense, as making your interest clear. if there’s a deck that you feel particularly drawn to, or keep seeing come across your social media feeds, or can’t stop thinking about, it’s probably a good one to pick up! and if not, take some time to explore decks that might resonate and choose one that you want to spend more time with 🖤

omg swords! it can feel like such a loaded suit sometimes, but whew they really do cut through the bullshit sometimes in ways we really need

Nico: oh that’s interesting. i’m curious about how you feel about people who get certain suites a lot or who go through phases of getting a lot of a suite

🌈Nic: Knight of Pentacles for me!

Alicia5000: Do you collect decks or just have a few?

Meg: i think it definitely depends! often they’re fairly balanced in my readings, but i definitely go through phases sometimes where i’ll be pulling a lot of cards from the same suit. i’ve been studying the elements for the last few years so if i’m pulling a lot of water or something, i take that as a sign to go hang out by the ocean or something similar!

Meg: oh i love that knight! so steadfast!

🌈Nic: It’s actually also my fave card so I love when it comes up; I find it really encouraging.

Meg: i guess i do collect decks, although it definitely wasn’t my intention! when i started reading i just had one deck (the wild unknown by kim krans) for the first year or so, and then gradually started working with the fountain tarot. but as i met more people in the community i kept seeing new decks coming out, and i love to support indie creators and queer decks so it started to get out of hand. and now i’m in the wonderful/terrible position of having creators and publicists send me decks to review, which means i now i have WAY too many lol

Nico: that’s really interesting! what does the knight of pentacles mean to y’all?

Meg: ooh yes i would love to hear why they’re your fav, if it’s not too personal/you’re comfortable sharing! court cards are so fascinating

Nico: Is there a card you identify with right now Meg? (MAYBE it’s the Fool and I am being a fool but idk! Wanted to ask!)

Meg: i’ve been writing about the devil/tower for the last few months for my newsletter and it feels very apt! lots of change in my life, with certain things feeling stable and others getting totally disrupted. publishing a book is weird!

🌈Nic: So I’m an editor by trade and I have Mercury in Virgo, meaning I can take a while to get things done to my satisfaction and I’m very detail-oriented 🧐 To me the Knight of Pentacles is a reminder that it’s OK to get lost in the weeds and not make progress as fast as people with a faster pace. It always reminds me of the phrase “slow and steady wins the race.”

Meg: oh i absolutely love that!!

🌈Nic: Also my absolute favorite person in the whole wide world is Cher, and when I met her she took my hand in hers and told me “keep going on your journey” so that card always reminds me of that interaction too 🤩

Nico: aaah!

Meg: OMG

🌈Nic: (Am I over that interaction, no. Will I ever be, also no.)

Meg: nor should you be!!

Since: not so much a question, but appreciation for all the thoughtful journal prompts. As someone who really procrastinates any journaling, I like that you give a lot of opportunities for more personalized correspondences to form through birth chart positions and reflection

Meg: oh i am so glad! thank you for saying that! i love journal prompts, both writing them and using them 🖤

i am wretched at just open journaling so prompts actually help me write things lol

🌈Nic: Open journaling is SO hard for me too

Nico: When reading for someone, how much, if at all, do you take into account their astrological chart? Do you feel like someone’s chart / big 3 / what-have-you affect the way cards might be interpreted?

Also we totally have time for more q’s, y’all! Don’t be shyyyy

Wren: Oh! That does make me wonder about your journey from doing self readings to doing tarot readings for other people. What was that process like for you? How did that happen?

Meg: ooh great question! i am very much not an astrologer so i don’t ever ask for people’s charts or really take that into account, although it’s not unusual for people to tell me their charts or let me know about major transits they’re going through when i’m working with them one-on-one. if i know someone has a certain astrological fingerprint and it feels relevant to mention it (like if they have an aquarius stellium and the star comes up) i will, but i usually don’t incorporate it into my readings

y’all are asking such good questions, thank you!! and it happened very organically tbh – when i got my first deck i swore up and down that i would never do readings. and for awhile i didn’t, but then friends started asking me to pull them a card, and it was good practice, and then enough people were asking that i just made a quick little website, and it all really snowballed from there 😂 it’s not a huge part of my business or practice, but i do really enjoy getting to share that language with others, and pull cards for people in a way that supports them wherever they are.

Heather Hogan (she/her): Meg who are some fictional witches you identify with? And do you think Katrina in Animal Crossing is scamming me?

Meg: katrina is a witch and i wouldn’t cross her

Nico: I love this question.

Meg: i’ve only watched the first four seasons so this might be a bad call but i always really related with julia from the magicians! (the show specifically)

Wren: I did not mean to super react. I do not know what super react means lol

Nico: And then, also, Meg, do you have any questions for us? Sometimes authors have used this to get feedback on a certain thing about their book or to ask about interest in future projects — or honestly you can ask us anything!

Meg: and i know she’s not generally labeled as a witch but i felt so connected to matilda. she feels like a witch to me! i found that book when i was a kid and related so hard to just wanted to read and be left alone to do my weird shit lol

Nico: I was just like HECK YES look at that sparkly cat.

Carmen (she/her): Matilda is totally a witch tho, right?

Meg: she’s totally a witch

🌈Nic: If Matilda’s not a witch then she at least caucuses with witches.

Meg: exactly!

Heather Hogan (she/her): Witches Who Didn’t Know It, Ranked by Lesbianism

Meg: my last one is stockard channing’s character in practical magic, just a gay auntie making margaritas and scaring the neighborhood. it’s all i ever wanted

Carmen (she/her): This is so, so good

Heather Hogan (she/her): I think those are so perfect for you!

Meg: thank you!!

questions for y’all, what a cool thing! i have so many projects percolating in my head to do next, so i guess i’ll just keep it general – is there anything about tarot that still feels really confusing, that you would welcome a class or workshop or e-book on? (it’s okay if i cover it in my book and that wasn’t enough! i won’t be offended!)

Heather Hogan (she/her): I honestly wish there was a Finding the Fool for the entire Major Arcana. I would spend a whole year doing that!

Wren: YES HEATHER

Nico: ooooh

Meg: (i’m working on a big set of email courses tied to each archetype, they’re just taking awhile! but that is totally a thing!)

Since: like Finding the Magician, the Empress, .. that’d be neat : )

Meg: yes exactly!

publishing takes forever so i’ve been thinking about classes instead!

omg these fancy reactions are EVERYTHING

Heather Hogan (she/her): Yessss! Before Finding the Fool, I was like, “Check yourself before you wreck yourself, you absolute buffoon!” And now I’m like, “C’mere and get a hug you hopeful dweeb.”

Meg: heather hogan you are perfect

ladyblanchester (she/her): I was going to save the book for summer, when my brain is better (I am a teacher) but Heather’s comment makes me want to dive right in!

Meg: you could certainly just like, read it? but most people just read the first sections and then use the rest as a reference, if that makes it not seem quite so overwhelming!

Heather Hogan (she/her): I also think it would be cool to learn about “making your own rules.” I might never have the confidence, but the way you talk about it, especially w/r/t coming from a rules church, is so aspirational.

Meg: also bless you for being a teacher, y’all are amazing
ooh i LOVE that

“live the tower: a guide to burning your life down”

or something lol

Heather Hogan (she/her): !

🌈Nic: Yess I always need confidence/encouragement around trusting myself and decision-making

Meg: i think i just renamed jeanna’s book by accident lmao

Nico: Flipping the Hierophant: a guide to setting the rules on fire

Meg: it’s a really hard thing! and i’m certainly no expert but i think it’s a little easier to stumble around when you’re not alone 🖤

OMG

my working title for that hierophant course is “the hierophant’s breakthrough” but that might be better tbh

naming things is impossible and also the best, weirdly

Nico: So with only 5 minutes left, I just wanna say thank you so much for being here with us tonight Meg. If anyone has any burning thoughts, speak now!

I was wondering, should we close out with a card pull?

🌈Nic: Omg please!

Heather Hogan (she/her): Oh great idea!

Meg: this has been so wonderful! and yes, i would be happy to pull a card! i’ve got my muse tarot right here

Nico: AND ALSO thank you to everyone for being here and bringing your awesome selves to this space.

kathryn (she/her): i’ve just been reading along and i wanted to say thank you to meg and everyone in the chat for such interesting questions and answers!!

🌈Nic: Thank you for moderating, Nico

Wren: Thank you all so, so much.

Carmen (she/her): Thank you everyone!!

This has been so great.

It’s always a joy to be in community with you all. And thank you @meg and @nknhall for leading us in this conversation. ❤️

Meg: so while i was shuffling i asked the cards what all of us gathered here might need to hear in this moment, and after shuffling i pulled the page of inspiration, which in this deck (the muse tarot) is the page of wands/fire! i absolutely love this curious, passionate student – they are someone that isn’t afraid of their own desires, who is eager to try even if they fail, who believes in their vision wholeheartedly even if they can feel it still taking form. all pages are rule-breakers, but the page of wands in particular is driven by their sense of inspiration and enthusiasm – they let their desire lead them forward, and see what they find along the way.

here Meg drew the page of inspiration. it has a feminine person with rainbowy hair in a desert environment with a black cat behind her. above is a rainbow cloud.

heather hogan (she/her): That is so beautiful! Thank you, Meg!

Nico: how perfect!

Meg: if you’re reading this, don’t be afraid to go after what you want, even if you’re still in the process of learning what that thing is! what lights you up, and what doors are opening for you? what feels exciting, in a way that has you craving more? how can you let what you don’t know serve as inspiration, instead of something to fear?

Nico: Thank you so much Meg!!

Meg: thank you all SO much for being here, and for asking so many thoughtful and generous questions! it’s been such a gift to do this 🖤

and thank you Nico for moderating so beautifully!

Nico: Alright, y’all are beautiful and awesome and I hope you take that Page of Wands / Inspiration with you into the night / day!

Heather Hogan (she/her): Thank you, Nico!

Nico: Server’s gonna poof out of existence soon, once I make sure the transcript is fully grabbed. That’ll publish on the site (in A+) likely next week!

Carmen (she/her): Poof!

🌈Nic: ✨

HAPPENING NOW: A+ Book Club for “Finding the Fool” with Meg Jones Wall

It is happening now!! Hop on the A+ pop-up discord server (details below) that is JUST here for the book club to chat with Meg Jones Wall about Tarot and her book, Finding the Fool!

Bring your questions about Tarot, about the book, about the importance of The Fool in Tarot’s journey, about writing about the Tarot — and spend some time with us in May!

The details:

**How do I read Finding the Fool?**

You can buy it from Bookshop or pre-order the audiobook via Libro.fm (out March 21), where both options support Autostraddle and indie bookstores! You can also request it from your local library!

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

You can get on right here.

Or you can use the widget below:

What will the event be like?

It will be a text-based Q&A within Discord. I (Nico) will be there to moderate / help with flow. Basically, read the book (or as much as you can), bring your questions for the author, and ask those questions in the chat! I think that you all will probably be able to come up with some really interesting ones for this book!

Accessibility

A+ Read a Fucking Book Club is Talking “Patricia Wants to Cuddle” with Samantha Allen

The details:

**How do I read Patricia Wants to Cuddle?**

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

When is this again?

It’s taking place on Wednesday, June 21st, so you have plenty of time to get caught up on the book / reality TV parody drama. It’s happening from 5pm PST to 6:30pm PST. Times in some other zones are as follows:

8 – 9:30pm, Eastern Standard Time
1am – 2:30am, London, UK
2am – 3:30am, Berlin, Germany
8am – 9:30am, Thursday, June 22nd, Hong Kong
9am – 10:30am, Thursday, June 22nd, Australian Central Time

AND this book club will take place within a longer Pride A+ popup Discord Server! Yay!

What if I can’t make it? The time doesn’t work for me :(

What will the event be like?

Accessibility

And don’t forget about our book club on May 3rd with Meg Jones Wall!

A+ Book Club for Finding the Fool: A Tarot Journey to Radical Transformation

Hey there both present and future tarot readers, I am here to announce our next A+ Read a Fucking Book Club with Meg Jones Wall, where we’ll be talking with her about their new book, Finding the Fool: A Tarot Journey to Radical Transformation, which you might recognize from Dani’s review! The book club will happen on a pop-up discord server just for the book club meet, on Wednesday, May 3rd at 5pm PST / 8pm EST.

Bring your questions about Tarot, about the book, about the importance of The Fool in Tarot’s journey, about writing about the Tarot — and spend some time with us in May!

The details:

**How do I read Finding the Fool?**

You can buy it from Bookshop or pre-order the audiobook via Libro.fm (out March 21), where both options support Autostraddle and indie bookstores! You can also request it from your local library!

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

A post will re-appear on the day of the event, behind the A+ paywall, with the link and join widget, about fifteen minutes before it starts at 4:45pm PST, so that A+ members can join.

When is this again?

It’s taking place on Wednesday, May 3rd, so you have plenty of time to dig into the book! It’s happening from 5pm PST to 6:30pm PST. Times in some other zones are as follows:

8 – 9:30pm, Eastern Standard Time
1am – 2:30am, London, UK
2am – 3:30am, Berlin, Germany
8am – 9:30am, Thursday, May 4th, Hong Kong
9am – 10:30am, Thursday, May 4th, Australian Central Time

The discord will close down after the book club finishes, but we’ll definitely have a general A+ book club in June…so get excited.

What if I can’t make it? The time doesn’t work for me :(

What will the event be like?

Accessibility

M. Crane Chatted with the A+ Book Club About Tragic Endings, Sports and Future Projects

On Monday, February 27th, the A+ Read a Fucking Book Club assembled to chat with author Mac Crane about their book, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself. They shared about how writing is their sport, and their future plans.

Transcript has been edited, and some conversational threads re-organized for clarity.

Editor’s Note: Part of the transcript got deleted by accident, so we will begin shortly after everyone introduced themselves and started talking about the weather and such where they were joining in from! First up, there is a discussion about “whose” story is it. Is it Kris’? It it ‘the kid’s’?

Mac Crane (they/them) [the Author]: I think I view it as Kris and the kid’s story, separately and together

but Kris, we see the most…change? growth? Realizations?

the kid is like…who she is from the start, she’s this sort of foil in many ways, she’s so self assured from a young age

but it’s maybe the story of how an “I” becomes a “we” in some ways

Gen: I love that so much

You mentioned plot being a large part of your revision process – did these characters evolve a fair bit as well?

Mac Crane (they/them): yeah they certainly deepened, which I think is typical of my revision process. I was racing to get the skeleton of the book down that people were more like sketches…a lot of my revision process was deepening these characters as well as holding my dialogue and lines accountable …for humor reasons, characterization reasons, relational reasons, surprise and richness

🙂 (she/her): Did you always have the same ending in mind?

Mac Crane (they/them): definitely not but I don’t even remember the initial ending! lol
I think it was really tragic!

and my agent was like what the fuck?

maybe not tragic but like…not the hopeful note that these characters need and deserve

🙂 (she/her): It felt like it could definitely go that way

And I was grateful it didnt!

Mac Crane (they/them): I’ve never considered myself to be very good at writing toward hope but writing this book made me feel like that’s something I can do…that not everything has to be despairing and tragic

Gen (she/her): fully ready to sob in my apartment

Mac Crane (they/them): I’m grateful it didn’t too

Gen (she/her): very happy to get that hope

🙂 (she/her): Especially since everything except maybe the shadow logistics feels so real, possible, and maybe inevitable at times

Nico (they/them): I have been holding onto this question but now everyone is all hopeful! But…What has it been like writing a super carcerally-focused dystopian novel in this political environment? To what extent did contemporary events affect the book as it was being written?

🙂 (she/her): Yes! I had this same question

Gen (she/her): I was also wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you see body and mind connected in both your creative process and in the space of the book. It’s a connection that’s always really interested me as a runner and a writer and one you describe so beautiful in various pieces

Mac Crane (they/them): Great questions! I, like so many people, was introduced to abolition in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and started reading as many abolitionist books as I could get my hands on—work by Angela Davis, Mariame Kaba, Andrea J. Ritchie, and Derecka Purnell. And was like yes, a better, healthier, happier, safer world is possible! It made me feel so hopeful to think about alternatives to the PIC…But when I’d started writing this book in 2018, I wasn’t necessarily thinking of it through an abolitionist lens, though of course there are no prisons in it, but my disdain for prisons, our country’s obsession with punishment and shame, was at the heart of what I was trying to write about…at the same time, I was exploring shame and punishment on a very personal and psychological level, trying to udnerstand the relationship between my own desire to punish and shame myself and that of our white supremacist cisheteropatriarchal society…

I think one thing that will always stick with me is that abolition isn’t just the removal of prisons but the building of something else..abolition as creative

Mac Crane (they/them): ahhhh

hmmmmmmmm

Gen (she/her): sorry big life question

Mac Crane (they/them): hahahahaha

no it’s awesome

sometimes I feel like I am floundering lol

🙂 (she/her): That message definitely came through–prison abolition on its own was not enough if the replacement was also awful

Mac Crane (they/them): it’s so funny, for years, I kept writing and sports so separate in my head, like convinced they were unrelated

Mac Crane (they/them) [to 🙂she/her]: yes!

Gen (she/her): You were actually one of the main reasons I started to think of those two things together!

Mac Crane (they/them): but I’ve come to learn that playing sports is one of the times I am at my most creative

Nico (they/them): yes! because there are other ways! and part of the fight for abolition is being like “hey, no, there are actually other solutions and methods if you would just consider them” love this. i love this as a seriously anti-carceral novel.

Mac Crane (they/them): like…sports are so creative, so poetic

Mac Crane (they/them) [to Nico]: thank you so so much ❤️ my heart

Idk, so like once I realized that when I’m playing basketball or soccer or rugby, I’m constantly playing with space, I’m collaborating with other people, I’m innovating, I’m responding to my teammates innovating…it’s this collaborative artwork that can never really be replicated again?

I guess part of my relationship between sports and writing is then that writing feels so lonely at times

as someone who always wants teammates around me

Gen (she/her): okay this question of writing in isolation is exactly what I’ve been thinking about

Mac Crane (they/them): and I crave that community and collaboration with writers, and I do feel fortunate enough to be in community with so many lovely writers but at the end of the day, they aren’t sitting at my computer with me

Nico (they/them): lmao thank you for clarifying that (former cross country runner here)

I do think that is something that is hard about writing.

Like my partner is a musician and she gets a great deal of motivation and validation from collaborating. But then…writing it’s just. Here you are. Just you. Enjoy.

Type type now.

(Or it can be.)

Mac Crane (they/them): yepppp

and really the only collaboration available if you aren’t literally co-writing is with editors, agents, etc

which can feel nice but I do think there’s nothing that really replicates that teamwork!

re writing

Nico (they/them): correct!

Carmen (she/her): Oh absolutely, I agree with all of this so much.

Gen (she/her): I think that’s a huge question for me that I also see in this book – like what does it mean to have your own work that you can only really do on your own but also be in community (which takes a lot of work)

🙂 (she/her): I’m going to use the transcript of this to explain to my partner why I still play team sports even though she worries about injuries

Mac Crane (they/them): lmaooooo yes

Gen (she/her): would you mind talking a little bit about how you’ve built your writing community?

Mac Crane (they/them): no not at all but honestly I haven’t done as much as I’d like to actively build community! I’ve met some wonderful people at Tin House, Bread Loaf, and Lighthouse workshops…which, really, is one of the reasons I was so eager to go. like, of course I want to learn from amazing teachers! but I also was really interested in meeting new people and forming meaningful relationships

I was fortunate enough to be invited into this memoir crit group that’s actually on discord by a writer who does an extraordinary job of building community on there…better than I could ever dream of

otherwise, it’s sort of just like…Dming people on Twitter!

Lol

putting myself out there, being like “will you be my friend” kindergarten style

Nico (they/them): Those were the days.

I literally remember doing that in kindergarten. Cannot imagine having the confidence to do so now.

Mac Crane (they/them): i don’t mean to make this an overly sport heavy convo BUT that is something that I struggled with when I graduated college and lost competitive basketball…i hadn’t realized that for my entire life, I’d been thrown on teams and those teams were my community, like they were just given to me

for better for worse

i didn’t have to do anything to form them, all i had to do was work to strengthen them

Nico (they/them): I apologize if this has been covered elsewhere, but how did you get started in writing and what role has it played in your life? How did you come to it?

Mac Crane (they/them): omg don’t apologize

it’s sort of weird because I always wrote as a kid

like sad bright eyes poetry in my notebook

about loving girls and being depressed and stuff

Nico (they/them): omg yes

Mac Crane (they/them): lololol

Nico (they/them): who among us

Mac Crane (they/them): but i didn’t take it seriously or even think that someone could BE a writer

i was also so focused on basketball, convinced I was gonna be a WNBA star

(like that’s more plausible)

Nico (they/them): ❤️

Gen (she/her): Love the queer energy of all of this

Mac Crane (they/them): lolol

basketball was basically my life growing up so I did that and writing was just a way to work out my chaotic adolescent emotions and in college, I majored in health sciences and thought I was gonna go to physical therapy school…still didn’t thikn anyone could be a writer, but I wrote like a sad weird, Less Than Zero inspired novel about a queer love triangle I was in which was THE WORST NOVEL EVER

and I wrote pining shit on tumblr

idk idk haha

Gen (she/her): that’s where it all starts

Nico (they/them): that’s important

Mac Crane (they/them): when I was like 25 or something, I discovered lit journals and was like oh

wow these exist and I can read them and send stuff to them

Nico (they/them): !!

Gen (she/her): queer love and tumblr

Mac Crane (they/them): and was like well i’m gonna write short stories and see what happens

i lost track of the thread already lmaooooo

but I guess that’s hwen I started taking it more seriously

it quickly sort of replaced sports

in the like

very myopic obsessive way

which I guess is just how I am, but I always need something that is overtaking my every thought and feeling and effort

so writing is my sport, and though writing can be competitive, I don’t…want it to be? so I’m trying to figure out how to wrestle with those feelings of jealousy and competitiveness that I think plague so many of us!

idk I think i’m gonna stop talking now lmao

🙂 (she/her): I noticed you still refer to “the kid” as Kris did in most of the novel. What was your thinking around that choice and the eventual name reveal?

Gen (she/her): I felt this – very obsessively goal orientated as a person and don’t always love how it plays out in my relationship with writing

Mac Crane (they/them): aha! it’s become such a habit

when I began writing this book, right out of the gate, that’s how Kris was referring to her, obv based on the first line, but I had to sit with why and interrogate that, why that was my instinct for her and what it was doing for her on a coping level…ultimately, it became this distancing for

Kris…if she just calls Bear “the kid” then she’s this sort of separate entity from her, the distance is safe

the eventual name reveal was meant to represent the closing of that distance

Kris’ fully giving herself over to Bear

🙂 (she/her): It definitely felt like it was a distancing technique in the beginning…and then the actual name plus Michelle’s whole story was both wild and so very gay

Mac Crane (they/them): hahah so very gay

in a way, not a twist at all!

🙂 (she/her): Do you imagine Kris ever addressed Zig Zag’s whole story with Bear? Do you think it would be pretty similar to how Kris described the origin of her own shadow–that the details arent as important

Mac Crane (they/them): omg what a lovely question

Gen (she/her): I was also really curious about how you imagine those conversations as Bear grows up and how their connection will change

Mac Crane (they/them): yeah I do think Kris told Bear Zig Zag’s whole story…especially as she gets older like a teenager, I think there’s more space for transparency and details there than when she’s really young

I like to imagine that Kris could show Bear that there is no such thing as a good person and bad person

that we are all just people floating around, hurting each other, figuring out how to do better next time, how to fix ourselves, how to treat each other with more compassion and forgiveness and empathy

AND maybe most importantly, that Siegfried’s story isn’t a story of personal responsibility so much as the story of a system that is designed to fail everyone

and then blame those people for failing

the overdose thread is so important to me and close to my heart

I’ve had many people close to me die of an OD and I’ve seen a lot of people react by trying to blame the dealers

and i get it, I really do

we all just want an outlet for all our pain

Nico (they/them): Yes ❤️

And, with 10-ish minutes left, @Mac Crane they/them do you have any questions for the group?

We have used this, often, as a chance for you to ask about things you wish people would touch on in reviews or interviews, or to get a read on something in the book — or whatever you want!
(also you all can still ask q’s if you want)

🙂 (she/her): Just wanted to say thank you. The book really made me rethink community building. And also my role in the system–since I work for a state agency that calls itself The Department 😶

Mac Crane (they/them): oh man, honestly I don’t know if I have any questions, people have asked me so many smart things in interviews and i’m so grateful for all that. i maybe have a sort of weird career question that I’ve been rattling around in my head for a while now, just in the sense of…thinking about future books of mine—if you read and liked Exoskeletons, would you assume I’d always be writing that type of book? basically speculative, social commentary? or like…if you heard my next book was completely different, would it turn you off or would you be invested enough, I guess, in my writing to take a chance on a vastly diff book?

I don’t think I really worded that clearly at all

but as you can, I’ve just been mulling over my next steps as far as being an author and audience expectation!

Mac Crane (they/them): ahhh!

Nico (they/them): No, I get it! I would be invested.

I can think of several authors who jump genres.

Gen (she/her): I’m so invested in your voice and what you have to say – would follow your next book to any genre

Carmen (she/her): I always think one of the best parts of being a writer is also the ability to write all kinds of things! So I don’t usually expect writers to keep writing the same things.

Nico (they/them): And it’s always more about the thoughtfulness I come to expect than anything else. But then, I’m a really multi-genre reader / consumer.

🙂 (she/her): I read everything Kacen Callender writes, and there have been all kinds of tones and genres!

Also, I was expecting basketball

m0lly (she/her): Agree with this

Mac Crane (they/them): that’s great to hear

thank you everyone

Nico (they/them): Yeah! I hope you won’t limit yourself ❤️

Gen (she/her): thank you so much for writing this book and sharing with us! Excited for whatever you choose to write next ❤️

Nico (they/them): And I hope that like, achieving something people really enjoyed with this book won’t be something that makes you feel restricted.

Gen (she/her): ^^^^^

Nico (they/them): Thank you so much @Mac Crane they/them for being here and for chatting with all of us!

Mac Crane (they/them): ugh thank you so much for reading it

and thank you everyone for sharing this space with me and for being the absolute best to chat with

I’m so grateful for you all

and thank you @Nico (they/them) for inviting me and facilitating this
this has been a really sweet start to my week

Gen (she/her): So grateful to you and also to Nico for all their work putting these together ❤️

Mac Crane (they/them): I’m excited to come to the next one!

Right Now – A+ Read a Fucking Book Club: I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself

Hello! Today’s book club will be happening shortly, in just about 15 minutes. We do the A+ Book Club on Discord, where it’s a text-based, chatroom-style discussion. Come with questions, book love, an all-consuming need to share about this dystopian novel. Thank you for being members and supporting queer and trans writers and writing. We can’t wait to see you there!

The details:

**How do I read I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself?**

You can buy it from Bookshop or purchase the audiobook via Libro.fm, where both options support Autostraddle and indie bookstores! You can also request it from your local library!

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

Here is the invite link, or you could use the widget below:

What if I can’t make it? The time doesn’t work for me :(

What will the event be like?

Accessibility

A+ Read a Fucking Book Club: I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself

Aaaaaaand we’re back! For the first A+ Read a Fucking Book Club of 2023! What’s the book? None other than the ravely reviewed I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself by M. Crane. The jacket copy deftly describes the book as “Dept. of Speculation meets Black Mirror in this lyrical, speculative debut about a queer mother raising her daughter in an unjust surveillance state.” And in her review, Yashwina told us “That’s why I’ll ride for this book forever. It’s not just that I want all of you to read it; it’s that I want all of you to have read it already, so that I’m not so alone with the enormity of my feelings about it and you’ll already know exactly what I mean.” So, what I am saying y’all, is that we should probably all go read this book.

Then, once you’ve surfaced from plunging into this dystopian world, you can connect with your fellow A+ members and the author M. Crane during a 90-minute question and answer session on an A+ popup discord on February 27th at 5pm PST / 8pm EST! Anyone who’s come to one of our book clubs before can attest that they’re a lot of fun and pretty darn unintimidating because no one has to go on camera, no one has to speak up, we can all just sit together and type with the comforts of home or wherever we are nearby.

The details:

**How do I read I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself?**

You can buy it from Bookshop or purchase the audiobook via Libro.fm, where both options support Autostraddle and indie bookstores! You can also request it from your local library!

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

A post will re-appear on the day of the event, behind the A+ paywall, with the link and join widget, about fifteen minutes before it starts at 4:45pm PST, so that A+ members can join.

When is this again?

It’s taking place on Monday, February 27th, so you have plenty of time to dig into the book! It’s happening from 5pm PST to 6:30pm PST. Times in some other zones are as follows:

8 – 9:30pm, Eastern Standard Time
1am – 2:30am, London, UK
2am – 3:30am, Berlin, Germany
8am – 9:30am, Tuesday, February 28th, Hong Kong
9am – 10:30am, Tuesday, February 28th, Australian Central Time

The discord will close down after the book club finishes, but we’ll definitely have a general A+ popup discord in March…so get excited.

What if I can’t make it? The time doesn’t work for me :(

What will the event be like?

Accessibility

The A+ Book Club Talked with Kayla About Queer Monsters, Writing Craft and “Hot Horror”

During the 13 Days of A+, Kayla kicked off the A+ popup discord with a book club discussion about her recently published lesbian horror novelette, Helen House. The transcript of that discussion is below, minus, sadly, the custom :Helen House: and :Haunted Doll: emojis I created for the server.

Nico: Tis just 5 minutes shy of the A+ Read a Fucking Book Club Q&A with our own Managing Editor, @Kayla Kumari and I am delighted to invite @everyone to come join us!

Gina: ahhh hello nico!

Nico: We’ll start off by just getting situated, and then we will formally begin the question-asking.
Is everyone feeling spooky or spooky enough for a Helen House discussion?
hi gina!!!

Gen: Very hyped for this – big fan of Helen House and all of the queer ghost energy

Nico: yesss

Gina: i feel like living in louisiana means that low-key queer spooky is always an available vibe haha

Nico: oh that seems true

Kayla Kumari: Hi folks!! Looking forward to this!

Gina: kayla! thank you for writing this creepy and delightful book and thank you for being here to talk with us!

Kayla Kumari: Also please know that in addition to questions about the book itself I’m totally open to questions just about writing, books, craft, process, anything really! I’m an open book lol

Gen: Yes thank you so much – Helen House fucked with my head in the best way ❤️

Kayla Kumari: So even if you haven’t had a chance to read the book, feel free to ask questions!

Nico: I love that so much, thank you!

Carmen: Hello everyone! Glad to be here!

Riese: Helooooooooo so excited to talk about this hot creepy book

Kayla Kumari: Yayyyyy

Nico: YAY
Okay, so, I generally ask that folks try to stagger their questions so the author has time to keep up, just as a general note.
BUT does anyone want to kick us off with the very first question?
(and kicking off with 2 – 3 is generally totally chill)

Kayla Kumari: I’m a pretty fast typer so don’t worry about overwhelming me 🙂

Nico: THIS IS TRUE
loving the “several people are typing” energy

Carmen: Kayla said 🗣️ I was born in these internet streets

Kayla Kumari: facts

Serena: Kayla, I would love to know about your decision to go with a novelette length! How did you know that was the right length for this particular story, and did you have to resist any pressure to either expand it or compress it to a more common novella or short story length?

Riese: You write so so so beautifully and perfectly and bluntly about grieving a family member, what made you want to center grief thematically in ur book

Nico: y e s

Gen: I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind talking a little bit the “monstering” of queer people in
the horror genre. I was super interested the fact that our narrator is an academic who is looking at questions of queerness, the gothic, and horror within the space of this story. I’ve been writing a lot about the reclaiming of queer monstering for my thesis and would love to hear more of your thoughts

Nico: honestly excited about your thesis

Kayla Kumari (in reply to Serena): It was an ACCIDENT!!! I set out to write a short story about a ghost and a weird house after reading Bag Of Bones by Stephen King. I ended up writing about 10k words which was way too long to be a short story I could actually place in a journal. So I thought I had to choose between significantly shortening it or significantly lengthening it into novel length. OR SO I THOUGHT. Shortly after, I was approached by an editor at Burrow Press who told me about their books, which tend to be works that can’t find traditional homes. And he specifically used the words “short stories that are too long to actually be short stories” and I was like I HAVE EXACTLY THAT. It was perfect!

Gina: i have a question that relates to @Serena’s about form – did you always conceptualize this with the illustrations? if not, when did they come into the process? i loved them – but what prompted the choice to include them in this story? and how does working with an illustrator affect how you understand the piece itself?

Gen: Kira Gondeck-Silvia did an awesome job with the art

Kayla Kumari (in response to Riese): I knew I wanted to write a ghost story, and that automatically means grief. But I also really wanted to write a sister story. So even though there’s this romantic relationship at the center of the story I really wanted a lot of the emotional velocity of the narrative to come from family/sisterhood/etc. “Sister” is a strong part of my identity and I wanted to write about the strange intimacy between sisters who are close but almost like…the absence of it. Because we never get to be with these sisters in the present. It’s all memory. So it’s the absence of that

KaylaKumari (in reply to Gina): I didn’t! Because of my love for film and television and storytelling mediums, I do often think of visuals and images when it comes to my stories, but I’d never considered illustrations. It was my editor’s idea, and as soon as he said it I thought of Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark and was like YEP I’M IN

Kayla Kumari (in response to Gen): She’s so great! She’s a local artist here in Orlando and my girlfriend and I actually own an original painting of hers! It’s of a bunch of peacocks fighting lol

Carmen: I definitely also got Scary Stories To Tell In the Dark vibes, I’m so glad to hear I wasn’t alone haha

Nico: I hope I can ask a question 😄 I have a kind of craft question, which is, are there guiding principles you look to when crafting suspense or horror? There can be so much horror that is truly a let-down, or that does not seem to contain enough depth or enough layering, but as I told you, one of my favorite things about Helen House was what I discovered in the re-read. I guess, besides looking to other authors as influences, are there things you look for in the text as you write or as you revise? I suppose I am wondering about what you’re looking for as you write. Creating suspense intentionally can be so difficult.

Gen: That’s so cool! The art and your story went so well together

Kayla Kumari (in reply to Nico): It’s hard! Pacing is really hard with with horror, and sometimes intentionally trying to craft suspense just feels so forced. I do find a lot of those beats and rhythms in revision. As I’m writing, I try to think of what the characters know and don’t know, because so much of the horror is in the unknown and uncertainty. I try to write the first draft without thinking TOO much about like “is this scary” though. Then when I go back I add in some of those touches if they’re needed. I also just read and watch horror and learn a lot from that!

Kayla Kumari: The process of the illustrations coming together was really cool. She read an early draft of the book and asked really interesting, in-depth questions! It was neat

Nico: I love the idea of focusing on what the characters know and do not know. Thank you.

Joce: How did you decide to end the story where you did? Did you write drafts where it goes slightly longer or did you always plan on ending it semi-ambiguously

Kayla Kumari: The artist was one of the first people to point blank ask me who the narrator was addressing in the book. Because I use that second person/addressing the reader voice. I was surprised! I didn’t think anyone would ask that.

Andy: I don’t know if I’m going to phrase this well, but do you have any thoughts on the inherent queerness of horror?

Kayla Kumari (still in response to Nico): Even though the book definitely shifted in subsequent drafts, the final ending is really really close to the original ending. The only difference is that I ended up slowing it down a bit more. It used to end on kind of a punchier note and in revision I ended up turning it into a slightly drowsier moment, a little more dreamlike and ambiguous and slooooow. That goes back to the idea of pacing in horror being hard. I think I was going for a “jumpscare” when really it needed to be something softer. Soft can still be scary! A swallow rather than a bite, to use the extended mouth metaphors that show up a lot in the book

Nico: honestly, yes, that is so true?
you’ve reminded me of a lot of endings in the…like that really dystopian french cartoon? aeon flux? where the main character dies at the end of each episode? so many of those endings are so haunting.

Kayla Kumari (in response to Andy): HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU HAVE! Haha no seriously, I love this question. It’s something I think about all the time. I could probably write an entire book about it lol so I’ll try to keep this short/focused. But to be completely honest, there’s such a clear line that connects queerness and horror for me personally because I literally did not like horror until I came out. I could not engage with things that scared me when I was closeted. I refused to watch scary movies and claimed to hate them! Then once I came out it was like this switch flipped and I became OBSESSED with horror. It sounds too on-the-nose to be real, but it is haha. Queerness to me was something I felt I couldn’t look at straight on; horror was something I felt like I couldn’t look at straight on. And yet I desired both. Almost like this forbidden love situation, you know? So for me, it feels very personal, very connected.

Nico: i continue to be fascinated by this
whomst else has a question? (entering teacher mode)

Gen: Was your narrator always written as someone deeply self aware? I feel like we often see the grieving figure in horror, but don’t always see the grieving person who holds their grief while seemingly going through therapy

Gina: i’m also really interested in how you were thinking about femininity and domesticity in the story. thinking about things like the creepy dress, the dollhouse, the meet-the-parents setup – would you be able to say more about the relationship between these normative constructs and the horror components of the story, in your thinking?
(sorry for the convolutions! i hope it wasn’t too unclear)

Kayla Kumari (in response to Gen): Yes! I went into it wanting to write a horror protagonist who has been to therapy. And so she’s super self-aware, but just because she’s self-aware and knows a lot about grief doesn’t mean that she’s always RIGHT about herself. She has ingested a lot of narratives about herself, told herself a lot of narratives about herself. There’s almost too MUCH information, too much self-awareness, so it scrambles some of her intuition. But I think sometimes horror protagonists can lack emotional intelligence or otherwise be TOO divorced from their emotions, so I wanted to try something different.

Casey: I’ve never written fiction before, but when I read this story, I realized it is EXACTLY the type of fiction I would want to write if I had the skills and courage. Do you have any general advice for someone looking to dip their toes into fiction after mostly writing creative nonfiction?

Nico: I love this question so much.

Carmen: (I love this question)

Kayla Kumari (in response to Gina): Yes I’m so glad you picked up on some of this! So I was thinking a lot about the whole bringing someone home to meet the parents~ trope and how it’s always an especially layered and complicated experience for queer people. Even when parents ARE accepting, which is the case for Amber’s. They’re totally accepting of Amber’s queerness, so that’s not a conflict in and of itself, but there is this underlying tension of the narrator feeling that she needs to still perform in some way. She wants to prove to them that she can take care of Amber, and I think she probably also has some internalized biases about herself in terms of how driven by sex she is. She’s obsessed with this idea of being a “good girlfriend” and I think even if she doesn’t realize it or name it, her concept of a “good girlfriend” is totally shaped by heteronormative ideas of domesticity, and perhaps that is heightened because of how her otherwise “traditional” family structure was recently exploded by the death of her sister

Gina: this is really lovely – thank you!

Kayla Kumari: Ahhhhh this is like the nicest compliment honestly?! I’m so excited for you to pursue a fiction journey! Honestly, a lot of creative nonfiction craft functions similarly to fiction craft! As far as dipping your toes in, reading a lot of short fiction is something I like to recommend. You can learn so much from short stories. Also I wanna plug my friend Jami Attenberg’s newsletter Craft Talk, which I think is THEEEE best newsletter for writers, especially fiction writers, but really anyone!

Gina: when i think of gothic literature, i generally think of it being very, very cold. the heat was incredible in creating an oppressive atmosphere, and it seems so obvious yet i think this might be the first time i’ve seen it in this genre – could you talk more about that choice?

Kayla Kumari: Oh and read fiction in literary journals too!

Gina: and perhaps related to the question of gothic – socially-conscious gothic is having a ~moment~ right now. did you consume a lot of it for inspiration / finding your space in the conventions as you were writing, or did you try to avoid it? and what are your favorite gothic texts?

Casey: Thank you!! Love Craft Talk 🌟

Kayla Kumari: HOT HORROR! I call it hot horror lol! My girlfriend kinda introduced me to the concept of hot horror when she told me about a horror novel called The Elementals, which is set in a beach town in Alabama. And one of the most iconic hot horror scenes I think of is the beach scene in Jaws — so bright and sunny which is not how you usually think of horror movies, you know? And then there’s my all time favorite miniseries Sharp Objects (as well as the book which I love) and that show is just like…..SWEATY. It’s a sweaty, sweaty horror show. So yes I do think I was intentionally writing Hot Horror, which given the sexual nature of the book has a double meaning lololol

Gen: I think my earlier question might have gotten lost in the flood and relates back to topics of connection between queerness and horror, “I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind talking a little bit the “monstering” of queer people in the horror genre. I was super interested the fact that our narrator is an academic who is looking at questions of queerness, the gothic, and horror within the space of this story. I’ve been writing a lot about the reclaiming of queer monstering for my thesis and would love to hear more of your thoughts”

Kayla Kumari: I didn’t necessarily sit down thinking I was going to write a gothic horror story, but I had indeed been reading some things in that realm leading up to it. I’ve talked about this a few times, but Bag of Bones was definitely percolating in my mind when I wrote this draft, because I’d just read it while in a cabin and was just thinking a lot about haunted spaces, storytelling, grief, etc.

Kayla Kumari: Yes! That new Shudder documentary Queer for Fear touched on the idea of queer monsters/queering monsters/reclaiming monster narratives, etc. And I’m always interested in those kinds of conversations, which is also why I kind of meta-embedded it into the book by making the narrator’s dissertation related to it. There are really obvious lines to be drawn between the treatment of monsters in classic horror stories and the treatment of queer people, but it’s also deeper and more nuanced than that. Monsters are hard to define, don’t fit in boxes, represent difference. And that can be a source of power and joy for queer folks, to create something new that exists outside of the norm. It doesn’t have to be an othering. So it makes sense to me when some queer folks can relate to the monsters in stories.

Nico: I had also wondered about the decision to have a queer character be so complicit in the creation of the horror. And also how you both managed to lull me with her at first, and then make me believe she (the girlfriend) would be a part of the scheme by the end. Is it a question? I think I’m wondering about characterization and characters who are only filtered through the protagonist’s viewpoint and how you thought about that when creating suspense and adding credibility to the horror of it all.

Also if you all have q’s of any kind, craft, writing, what-have-you, Kayla has said she’d love em! So please ask away.

Kayla Kumari: Yes pls feel free to ask questions that aren’t specifically about the book if you have them!

Gen: Would you mind talking a bit about how you’ve built your writing community? I have so admiration for autostraddle, how you support each other, and the incredible work you all produce

🙂: Late to the party—I tried catching up but couldn’t tell if you’d already answered who the narrator was addressing the story to

Kayla Kumari (in response to Nico): Yeah I think it’s kind of open for interpretation what Amber’s motivations are, how complicit she is in her family’s behaviors, whether she’s protecting or using the narrator. I was thinking a lot about dolls and how people perform for others but also are manipulated by others. I think one thing that is for sure is that Amber is sometimes treated as a doll by her parents. So she doesn’t always have a ton of control in life, she has let her parents project a lot onto her because of the loss they’ve experienced

Nico: ok well that is wild

Kayla Kumari (in response to Gen): In my mind, it’s a new therapist

Nico: but wait! that implies she got out

🙂: Oh wow. Looking forward to a reread with all this in mind

Gina: that’s also interesting in light of the way the protagonist explicitly says she’s using amber at times as well.

Carmen: This is so interesting??

Nico: omg yes

Gina: ooh, and amber as fossilized (?) tree sap – something organic and preserved but no longer living and that serves to preserve something else

Nico: this just holds up so well to re-reads
🤯

Gen: My evening plans after this

🙂: Does it? Or would she use her time there for self therapy? Like journaling to a therapist?

Kayla Kumari (in response to Gen asking about building writing community): Some of the first writer friends I ever made I found on tumblr when I was like a teenager! Twitter has been a huge part of building my writing community as well. And yeah I “grew up” as a writer with Autostraddle lol. I’ve been part of Autostraddle for over SEVEN YEARS!!! Wild! I’m also lucky to be in a writer-for-writer relationship lol so it really does feel like so many of the people in my life are writers, and I love that

I also made a lot of writer friends from the Tin House summer workshop and the Lambda Literary fellowship! People who I text every day!

Gen: That’s really great! Grateful for all you and everyone over at autostraddle do

Kayla Kumari (in response to Nico): yep! i think in general the fact that she’s narrating the story means she got out 🙂 i suppose she could be talking to the doll lol

Nico: i just was not thinking like that tbh but YES

Gen: Was trying to describe this book to my cohort and used the word “dollification” at least three times

Nico: which honestly adds to the horror because it makes it maybe less supernatural

Kayla Kumari: everyone is a doll and everyone is someone playing with a doll 😉

Kayla Kumari (in response to Gen): omg love that

🙂: Well now I want to know how.

Kayla Kumari: great theory too, tbh

Kayla Kumari (in response to Gina): you’re the first person to pick up on this. i picked the name amber intentionally

Nico: Amber Award

🙂: With the book and writing in general, how does it feel to have such an intimate part of yourself out there where it may take on entirely different meanings for other folks? Is it a part of writing that you enjoy?

Carmen: Dollification!!

Gina: i think you mentioned writing this in a cabin above – what was it like writing about multiple creepy houses in that kind of environment?

Gina: helen is the perfect name for creepy dead girl, btw.

Kayla Kumari: i def scared myself haha. my gf and i were staying in a pretty remote area in north carolina, and i was reading a lot of scary books and writing scary stories. the thing about me is that i love horror but i also get really truly scared! i’m a scaredy cat but i also crave that sensation lol.

Nico: I love these questions, and also want to open up space for @Kayla Kumari to ask some of her own as we approach the close of this iteration of book club. Often, authors use this time to ask about things they wish they’d gotten feedback on, or, honestly, to ask about the experiences of the folks present for book club. Truly up to you.

Nico: but what do you do when you get scared???

Kayla Kumari: sometimes i will no joke FURTHER SCARE MYSELF. if i watch a movie that’s too scary i’ll watch another one of my favorite scary movies that’s a little more familiar lol
ok i’m supposed to ask questions now (but also if anyone else has any last minute questions, feel free!)

Carmen: Kayla!!

Kayla Kumari: ok how about this

would people be interested in a prequel novelette from amber’s pov but set way before she and the narrator ever meet

just wondering

out of curiosity

Gina: um yes i would like that very much please

Gen: YES

🙂: I had a lot of questions about Amber (like how can you not warn your gf to bring a t-shirt?!) so I would quite enjoy that

Kayla Kumari: I do enjoy it! My girlfriend who is a novelist says this all the time: The book isn’t yours anymore once it’s published. It just isn’t. It belongs to other people now. And I think once you accept that, it’s actually really easy to just let go. I love nothing more than to see people’s interpretations. I wrote a very ambiguous book. People can take it however they like. They can dislike characters and even not like some of the writing choices I made! If I didn’t want people to have opinions I would have just left it as a document on my laptop

Kayla Kumari: Yeah that’s one of those moments where it’s like…was Amber intentionally punishing the narrator by not warning her about the heat or is Amber so used to the heat of the house that she doesn’t even remember to warn someone

🙂: Exactly what i wondered

Carmen: I’ll be thinking “she could’ve been talking to the doll” a lot now

Nico: “if I didn’t want people to have opinions I would have just left it as a document on my laptop” is so true

Kayla Kumari: To add to this a bit, I feel really lucky about my entire publishing experience. I love the micro press route, because there’s way less pressure on me. Of course I’d love to publish work at a big press one day, but also…would I? It comes with soooo much additional pressure and performance etc. I admire the people who do it. I won’t pretend like I don’t have those ambitions. But there’s something to be said of my first book experience and the fact that I literally just like…forgot Goodreads exists vs. obsessing over my ratings and whatnot.

Nico: they seem like they treated you really well
(Burrow)

Gina: i saw you get shouted out on themillions.com on release day, though, and had a little yelp of excitement!

🙂: Speaking of…if you ever want to pitch an AS article where you just ask your gf questions about With Teeth, I’d read that

It seems like you can get some pretty amazing creations when you don’t have to worry about keeping big corporations happy. Like Alice wu movies.

Kayla Kumari: That’s so funny because I remember briefly having a joke idea when With Teeth was coming out where I was going to interview her and only ask questions that I legitimately didn’t know the answers to which would have required some creativity since we had talked about the book a lot while she was writing it. And some of the questions weren’t even going to be about the book lol I was gonna ask “what’s the weirdest story you have about teeth”

Nico: incredible

Gen: would be down for roundtable teeth story content

Gina: i don’t have any last questions – just thanks so much for being here, and for this wonderful little book, kayla – i am now fully plotting how i might write an essay about it / even teach it someday ❤️

🙂: I was going to say questions you hadn’t asked about With Teeth, but I didn’t want to miss out on some you already had. So much talent in one relationship!

Nico: Seriously, thank you everyone for showing up tonight. Thank you Kayla for being so game to answer all our questions tonight. Thank you all for making this a space I love to be in that is somehow also haunted. 👻

Kayla Kumari: Thank you so so much!

Gen: Thank you all! Also soundout to Nico for all their work putting this together
shout out*

Nico: ❤️

Kayla Kumari: Yes thank you everyone!!! This was great!

Nico: Truly a treasure. PRECIOUS AS AMBER.

Kayla Kumari: lololol

Nico: You all are the best!

I believe that this concludes book club, but not the server!! I hope everyone goes forth and has a lot of fun ❤️ Thank you all, and especially, thank you Kayla, again!!

Kayla Kumari: Thanks all! Goodnight!

🙂: Thank you!

A+ Read a Fucking Book Club Q&A with Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

If it’s one thing we do well at Autostraddle, it’s holding spooky season in our hearts well after Halloween. There’s nothing like a ghost story in December to add layers to the chill in the air, to make you question whether that draft on the back of your neck is because you’re afraid to turn the heat up or something less sinister, like the deathly breath of a poltergeist.

And this December, we’re going to kick off the third year of The13 Days of A+ (as defined as “like the 12 days of Christmas + the Devil” by Riese, but which is 13 days of saying THANK YOU to our members) with an A+ Read a Fucking Book Club Discord Q&A with our very own resident published horror author, Managing Editor Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya! She wrote lesbian ghost novelette, Helen House, which I was honored to interview her about and which Stef reviewed and which we are all just really excited by! Want to get into Kayla’s head? Want to tell her that the book appeared in your dreams? This is your chance!

The details:

**How do I read Helen House?**

You can buy it from Bookshop to support Autostraddle and indie bookstores! If you want bonus points (that you can exchange for hauntings), this is far enough in advance that you can request your library get a couple copies!

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

A post will re-appear on the day of the event, behind the A+ paywall, with the link and join widget, about fifteen minutes before it starts at 4:45pm PST, so that A+ members can join.

When is this again?

It’s taking place on Tuesday, December 13, so you have plenty of time to dig into the book! It’s happening from 5pm PST to 6:30pm PST. Times in some other zones are as follows:

8 – 9:30pm, Eastern Standard Time
1am – 2:30am, London, UK
2am – 3:30am, Berlin, Germany
8am – 9:30am, Tuesday, December 14, Hong Kong
9am – 10:30am, Tuesday, December 14, Australian Central Time

What if I can’t make it? The time doesn’t work for me :(

I’m sorry (especially if this is in the middle of the night where you are)! This is always so hard. We have to host most events within times that are reasonable for the team working them and the author participating. However, I will publish the transcript the following week behind the A+ paywall, so you will still be able to catch up on the chat! AND ALSO this is on the A+ pop-up discord which I am telling you right now is going to be up and running for the whole 13 Days of A+, so you’ll be able to read back in the channel where the book club happens and Kayla may pop back in to answer further questions, too!

What will the event be like?

It will be a text-based Q&A within Discord. I (Nico) will be there to moderate / help with flow. Basically, read the book (or as much as you can), bring your questions for the author, and ask those questions in the chat! Kayla will be there to talk with everyone and can you tell I’m shaking with a combination of terror and excitement? I am shaking!

Accessibility

Sarah Thankam Mathews Chatted With Us About Collectivism, Spreadsheets, Queer Sex Scenes and More!

Feature photo credit: Dondre Stuetley

On Monday, September 26th at 5pm PST, the A+ Read a Fucking Book Club met for our second ever session on a super mini pop-up Discord Server. Sarah Thankam Mathews, author of All This Could Be Different, and National Book Award finalist, joined us for a conversation that covered everything from her construction of flawed but lovable characters, writing about the midwest and getting away from toxic individualism!

Thank you to everyone who came out and especially to everyone who asked questions! You all make these events so special! There’s info about our NEXT A+ Read a Fucking Book Club pick at the end of this post, too!

Transcript has been edited, and some conversational threads re-organized for clarity.

Sarah: hi cuties! so happy to be here 🥳 🥰
joining from Brooklyn, NY

Nico: Welcome Sarah!! We’re so glad you’re here!

Hello A+ Members!! @everyone

Thank you so much for coming to the SECOND EVER iteration of A+ Read a Fucking Book Club. Thank you, also for supporting everything we do at Autostraddle. We couldn’t be here without you!

Tonight, we have the honor of talking with Sarah Thankam Mathews, author of ALL THIS COULD BE DIFFERENT, which, in news surprising no one who’s read it, was nominated for a National Book Award! So, first, I think congratulations are in order to Sarah on her nom!

Sarah: thank youuuu y’all are so sweet. genuinely one of the more surreal moments of my life was finding out in real time about the nomination

*A flurry of congratulations and emojis!*

Nico: AND THEN just a couple of notes about how this can go: This is a Q&A, so I hope you brought your questions! Of course, it is also totally cool to gush a little if you like, but, don’t be shy to ask about the book, the process, etc! Sarah, I hope you’ll also feel free to ask our members questions, if you like! I am just going to ask everyone here to be mindful of the pace of the conversation. We want things to move, but not like, AVALANCHE, so if you see a couple questions pop up, just try and wait a moment before asking your next one so that things don’t get too overwhelming. We’re going to go until 6:30pm PST / 9:30pm PST, too, just so you know when this will be wrapping up. Thank you all again for being here. It’s really special to get to share space with you all like this. So LET US OFFICIALLY BEGIN!!! Whomst would like to ask the first question???

Ocean baby: Ok so, one thing (amongst many) that I loved about your book is that your characters have these relationships that are allowed to be really messy at times and there’s space for that messiness to kind of exist and breathe. And then there’s repair within them too. And they just feel so deeply human and flawed and redeemable and it’s really beautiful. So my question is this: what was the experience like of crafting these characters? And did it teach you anything about how to build & mend relationships or change your perspective on how to do that?

Queensie: I am curious how you decided to set the book in Milwaukee, and what your relationship is with that city? It was such an interesting and rich part of the book!

Sarah (in reply to Ocean Baby): damn that is such a good and beautiful question. have you ever grown coral or salt crystals? it’s slow and organic but there’s an organizing pattern to it too. creating these characters felt really similar. i started with sneha, and then with marina next, and then i was like wait i actually want this book to be about Big Friendship. next came Thom. and then i kept casting around, thinking about what this book needed. i felt like a foil to Sneha’s young-dumb-and-kinda-cautious-and-conservative energy was needed. I thought about two of my friends, including one who was a big part of my life in Milwaukee, and Tig waltzed onto the page

ugh my internet gave out and ate my follow up. but in short i think part of my process with characterization is: borrowing some from life, but also doing a kind of slow and boring acting. where i try to become each of the characters. so even if a scene was narrated by sneha, i tried to imagine myself as tig at least once, if they were in dialogue

gina (in reply): that’s so lovely! relatedly, which of the characters surprised you the most as you wrote?

Sarah (in reply to queensie): lol I think there are multiple ways in which I am not like Sneha buttttt I moved to Milwaukee after undergrad, lived there, worked there, fell in love. and then left because I felt like i had to leave.

so I have care for and respect for Milwaukee. I had a beautiful and often hard time there. it annoys me to see it, and other smaller cities and places disrespected. I think its history of worker rights and socialism is deeply moving. and i think its segregation etc is mad depressing

tldr Thee Midwest Is Complicated But Important

Sarah (In response to gina re:which character surprised you the most): mmmmm I felt consistently surprised by Thom, tbh. I really loved him and cared for him. I wanted to write a book where I could read a good man, who messes up sometimes but also acts admirably, and who has deep and meaningful relationships with the women and gay people in his life

Queensie: Love this. Honestly Thom felt like people I’ve known who I have not really seen represented in fiction before

_psi_fi_: I’d love to know more about how you conceived Tig’s vision of the Pink Mansion/Rion and why you think Sneha was ultimately so moved by it, after her initial hesitation. I loved that we got to see it realized, rough edges and all. (Please forgive me if I’m misremembering the name of the commune.)

Nico: I was very surprised by Thom as a reader. He actually had an arc of growth and one that was unexpected? That led him down a path of like…deepening himself? But it was like, yeah, like queensie said, unexpected maybe because I’m not used to seeing that type of character represented.

gina: well, and it bespeaks the generosity you have toward all your characters, sarah, even when they’re making the diciest of choices – it was such a compassionate read

Sarah: okay so something on this and also what @queensie said, and then i’ll address @_psi_fi_ on the Pink House / Rion (you remembered perfectly)

I think something that I have really struggled with is the political question of…..loving and organizing across difference, versus…a political separatism

and I know that, for myself, I came to the conclusion that in order to amass enough power to build the world we want to see, loving in coalition and loving across difference is what makes sense. at least for me. and one way in which love is shown is attention, and conferring a certain kind of full and deep humanness–the ability to desire, to fuck up, to change–on everyone. i’m still always going to be most interested and invested in queer people and people of color. but it is true in my life that i have had deep and meaningful friendships and relationships and community with men, and i thought, with Thom, that I would nod to that.

Carmen: “Loving in coalition and loving across difference” wow

Kayla: Yeah love that

Nico: That’s. Wow. Almost going to make me cry!!

Sarah (in response to _psi_fi_ on Rion / The Pink House): okay I love this question, in part because I had to think about it in a “wait what WAS the moment of inspiration”??? So basically I really wanted the movement of the novel to start with an I and end with a We, with something collective. That in part was because I was doing a lot of really collective-based organizing at the time, when I was like “fuck the I! fuck our individualizing society and art! what is happening rn is so beautiful!” so i thought of vehicles of the collective….and thought…okay: union, protest, commune, or non-traditional family. and frankly, i really longed, when I was writing the novel, to own a home and not pay rent. I mean I still long for that lol. But that’s how the pink house was born

Nico: “start with an I and end with a We” !!

Carmen: YES!!

Gina: and i am somehow now only connecting the pink house to the difficulties sneha faces with housing / amy, and the centrality of housing / living to the story more generally

i’m not sure there’s a question in there, but i’d love to hear more about the importance of housing / community building for you, and also – what was it like to write amy?

Nico: omg right, how the central antagonistic forces in so many cases are around giving / getting / witholding shelter or place or acceptance and belonging and security.

(in reply to Gina) would also love to know this

gina: i mean, that even connects to sneha’s work as an independent contractor, right?

Sarah: yeah so for a while i felt like i was just buzzing around and not sure what the novel was About besides coming of age, and i was feeling anxious about sort of what to do about the central romantic relationship, in terms of what i wanted to have happen — like i could have ended the book on the coming out scene, for eg, and at least one person in publishing world wanted me to end the book there. and there are ways in which marina is based on me and my ex so i wanted to be … thoughtful about it lol

and then it hit me that the centralizing force of the novel was about finding home — that’s what connected immigration and queerness and friendship and the socialist vibing and the antagonism from landlords and bosses

and once i sorted that I was like okay, we’re going to follow everything, like every section, that has to do with the idea of Home even nominally. i kept track in an …excel spreadsheet lmao. but i think that’s how i managed to create a coherence around it. i think i was like…okay this has to show up in some form at least every 15 pages.

Nico: that’s incredible! in a spreadsheet!

Sarah: i knowwww….real dork vibes

Carmen: I love this!!

Nico: um no it’s an inspiration truly
or dork as in heck yes

Kayla: I love the sex scenes in the book!!! There are only a few but they’re very memorable! Some classic advice I’ve read/heard about writing sex scenes is to just write them like any other scene but that seems, idk, kinda hetero to me? Lol. Your sex scenes really read as so distinctly queer!! Do you have any sex writing craft tips or like writers who do it well who you look to for inspiration?

Nico: Every time I came to a sex scene in the book I was mesmerized by how it was written? I think because there is a shift in the writing in some way, maybe? Is that more queer???

Casey: Also loved the sex scenes, very hot, very queer, very much an essential part of the story

Sarah: kayla!! what a compliment coming from you. and yeah “just write them” is mad hetero. i think my biggest thought is: what do we as writers want our sex scenes to do? so for me: i wanted the sex scenes to show character, aka show a different side of sneha. i wanted them to show a brown femme topping her little heart out…i think i was tired of reading a certain kind of straight sex scene where the skinny white girl just wants to be dommed in non-fun-seeming lite BDSM by some man.

and also i think sex scenes can read as embarrassing if you feel like the author is like…so horny for / in the scene that you can feel them rubbing one out as a sort of astral presence lol. trying to avoid this was one reason i tried to not focus too too much on describing marina’s body / boobs, or sneha’s for that matter, during the scene itself

oh and finally, i think, i was like, i want at least one scene that felt fun / inventive in some way…and ended up with the Kia soul

Gina: that’s an interesting distinction and it makes sense now that i’m thinking back – they’re not about the gaze but very much about the sensations and what they call up in the characters, if that makes sense.

Casey: I listened to the audiobook and the fact that it was in this format just clicked for me! Thank you for bringing this up

Kayla: Trulyyyy one of my favorite scenes I’ve read all year. I’ll never look at a Kia Soul the same way

Sarah: yeah i wanted the scenes to feel as embodied as possible, esp bc i think of sneha as someone who maybe feels best in / most in her body while having sex

Kayla: That totally comes across!

Nico: Can I ask about your process when writing a relationship based on you and an ex in fiction? What considerations did you take, — ethical, in service of the story, otherwise — when drawing from that inspiration? (said in the tone of “asking for a friend”)

Sarah (in response to Nico): okay so my move was to write as hard as I could and not think about real people at first, but to avoid…meanness or pettiness. it helps that i really love my ex, i think she’s wonderful, we are still friends though no longer very deeply integrated into each others lives. but i think i was like “i would like every person of mine who might see themselves in this to feel loved / cared for in some way, even if the characters behave badly etc”

but after i wrote the book, i showed it to my longterm / current partner and also to my ex and also to a couple of other close friends who might have seen themselves in the fiction. and i was just like, “look, it’s fiction and a ton is made up and changed and often for a purpose, i didn’t try to replicate life in a memoiristic way, but our time together inspired some of the things within it. i really hope you like it, but let’s talk about it whether you do or don’t”

tbh i didn’t show it to people i was no longer in relationship with. like my shitty former property manager tho. hope she doesn’t read it. or does! idk

Carmen: I love this, you can really feel all the care in your writing practice

Nico: I love this

Casey: I’ve seen some ppl calling your book “the millennial novel”. Aside from the fallacy that one book can represent everyone in a generation, how do you feel about that designation?

gina: I’ve seen some ppl calling your book “the millennial novel”. Aside from the fallacy that one book can represent everyone in a generation, how do you feel about that designation?

Sarah: oohh i think i’ve seen that less! i mean, it’s a mix up between honored / flattered, and wanting to hide. on one hand i’m like, “yessssss gas me.” and then equally think, “oh no” … my two wolves

Sarah: and the “oh no” comes from exactly what you mentioned at first, @Casey…the weight and pressure and impossibility of any one piece of art being generation-defining. personally i want a vast, diverse, rage-filled, beautiful howl of stories that shows among other things how failed we were as a generation–by the state, by neoliberalism, by so much else–and what the fuck we did in spite of it. i want so many stories. not “the millenial novel”

Serena (in reply to spreadsheet convo): This is amazing. I’m a big lover of spreadsheets too (your book is currently the most recent in my spreadsheet of books i read each year) and I was actually wondering about your chapter titling with the excel format, and your decision to break our of that for the last section.

discoj: Jumping off of Serena’s question, I LOVED the formatting of this book. How did you settle on the formatting for dialogue between characters? Particularly using indentation instead of quotation marks as a means of splitting up the conversations (hopefully this questions makes sense lol). Also thank you for being here!

In reply to discoj: it’s so lovely to be here! i think mine will be a boring answer here. i just…didn’t want to use quotes. i wanted the book to feel “voicey” and i thought dialogue mixing with narration would be a good way to do that. at the point i sold the book i had the excel cell formatting for chapters….which i liked for formal reasons but also simply bc it made me feel like a clever little guy. 😉

Casey: Yes I hear this! Also at the same time generation novels are always by and about white men so it was v cool to see a queer brown immigrant book being called this!

gina: and related to what we were saying about the communal / we superseding the individual / me, it seems like another way to read sneha’s arc is her acceptance of receiving help / being honest and vulnerable, to be in community rather than striving after unattainable individual success. it was fascinating to see her juxtaposed with tig, who is so consummately open and relational, and (mostly) unashamed to be so.

i suppose the question is, was it difficult to write sneha earlier in the novel, when she makes so many deeply understandable yet deeply isolating decisions; or, conversely, how did you conceive of tig, who is just such a fantastic character?

Sarah (in reply to gina): so something i wished i had been better about is signalling more clearly which year the novel begins in, which is 2013. the recession was still felt, esp in smaller cities like Milwaukee, but it was in no way as dire as it was in 2008, which was a very weird and specific time. i was in high school in 2008, and in 2013, i was….twenty two and entering the workforce 😉 and i just wanted to make my own life easier by choosing a time period i could remember well

gina: clearly i need to be a more careful reader! and i was also 22 and living in the midwest in 2013 and WOW do i feel this.

Nico: I had VISCERAL memories of the job market in 2013 *while reading this, so I don’t know, the year markers stood out for me.

gina: but instead i went to six years of grad school and pretended the workforce didn’t exist 😆

Kayla: I can’t tell if this question is mean but what was the HARDEST part of the revision process?

Sarah (to gina): god, what a lovely and thoughtful question. i think writing sneha made me forgive and have compassion for my younger self for stupid decisions i made: staying with the wrong people, for example. like i started to think of her as something between a close friend and … don’t laugh… my kid.

gina: that’s lovely!

N.: Related to Gina’s question a bit – there’s a moment in the book where Amit first brings up Em and how they use they/them pronouns, and Sneha reacts in a way that made me think “sounds like you have some introspection to do!”. Did you write Sneha as a trans character who just hasn’t had the time to delve into all that yet? Or is that more just her getting reactive, like she sometimes does in other situations too?

ocean baby: ooo very curious about this too

Sarah (in reply to Kayla): Kayla….lol. not mean. but also i had a moment of 😵‍💫 . honestly, the hardest part about revision for me is ego calibration. you have to believe you are a good writer and also know that you are fallible. and also it’s like renovating a house. you move a kitchen wall far enough and then its like oh fuck gotta mess with the plumbing too. the causality of revision is what is hardest alongside the ego shit, i would say

Kayla: damn yes love this metaphor

Nico: So I think we have the question from N. and also just 14 minutes left! Just time for a couple more 😉

Sarah: great question. I did have some talks with my trans friends where both I and the friend were like…”is this binch just an egg lol.” but overall the reason i included the scene was i wanted to like…have multiple moments throughout of the main character acting in ways that were not contained, moral, or elegant. i wanted that, first to create intimacy. i don’t know if it worked universally to create intimacy, honestly. my reasoning was that, you the reader, are a person who makes mistakes, and here is this young immigrant in 2013, making a mistake in how she’s talking about this other queer person. but i don’t always know if that’s how all people think–of themselves as full and fallible and mistake-making beings. I really wish for readers to think about what different life experiences make people susceptible, or not, to different schools of politics.

i have some…thoughts on what Sneha in her like, 40s or late 30s becomes more like in terms of gendery stuff, but i think my decision was basically like…it’s not the world of the novel, let me not inadvertently try to pull a R*wling, in the sense of announcing Dumbledore was gay or whatever

ocean baby: ok but also would love to get to dip into a universe of sneha later in life

Sarah: but yeah, sometimes in organizing I run into people who have…regressive beliefs, and I often have tried to engage them by being like, okay, why do you feel so strongly about this. I really care about trying to build a culture on the left where we don’t dispose of people for making mistakes or believing heterodox things (within reason ofc, hateful shit is hateful shit)

Queensie: This was honestly something I LOVED about this book. The characters were allowed to mess up and to grow, and they were still portrayed with compassion. The idea that everyone will do and say exactly the right thing at every moment just… isnt real

Kayla: ^^Yeah this book really is a triumph on that front

Deep empathy, deep realness about fuck-uppery

Nico: It’s really interesting that you mention organizing as a context for your understanding of this moment because — yeah, when you are working with people on the ground and attempting cooperation and coalition forming, you are not running into people who align with your views at every turn — there is the whole gamut of humanness.

Lee: I don’t have a question, just wanted to say I really loved the book, and especially how you gave such visceral/physical descriptions of a lot of the emotions–like with attraction/sex, as you were talking about before, but also with fear, care, etc.

Sarah: this is so lovely to read. thank you so much

gina: as we get to the end, is there a question you WISH we’d asked that you’d like to answer?

(and also, thank you for your beautiful book and generosity with your time and thoughts this evening)

Sarah: ooh goodness. i think one thing that i wonder about is what people thought of (like in a making of meaning sense, i’m not asking for compliments) on the ending? both smashing amy’s window and the actual closing page. i suppose i wonder because it has come up less so far in my conversations with people / interviewers

Casey: Sneaking in here too that this book is truly one of the best I’ve ever read and that’s coming from a lesbrarian who has read a lot of books!

Nico: 3 minutes to go folks! I would love if we could take this final moment to answer Sarah’s question above @everyone

gina: well after this conversation, i’m thinking there was such rich symbolism in smashing the representative of privatized white neoliberalism

but mostly my response was cathartic glee

Casey: Cathartic glee that’s a good way to put it

I was thrilled by the ending

jesaka: The final page felt like growth: sneha asked for help instead of trying to suffer through things alone

Carmen: Personally, I’m still chomping on what you said earlier in the chat, “starting out with an I and ending with a We”

jesaka: (also LOVED this book! Thank you for being here!)

N. I was very stressed when they smashed the window! My face was 😬 waiting for something bad to happen as a result, so when they got away, I was happy for their catharsis – felt like a small win.

Sarah: this is all so so so lovely to read

discoj: LOVED THE ENDING! It hit so hard in just the right way (particularly as someone in their late 20s).

Kayla: Yeah there was the right balance between like closure and a question mark ending like it felt like it exists somewhere in the middle in a way I appreciate

Nico: I felt like the catharsis was well-earned by the rest of the story.

Serena: Sometimes books feel like they get to an inevitable ending and sometimes I think “i would keep reading this forever” but the ending is at an appropriate point, and yours was the second for me! (To be clear i love both types)

queensie: Yes I looooved the ending. It felt cathartic and real. Satisfying without being too tidy. I literally said “wow” when I read the last page. Immediately started texting people to recommend it!

Lee: With smashing the window, you gave such care in what you wrote to acknowledging that “Amy’s” aren’t necessarily the only ones at fault or the ones most at fault. But there are people who choose to dig in their heels, stay complacent, and make the world so much harder to live in. So I’m with others here who are saying how it felt cathartic.

Carmen: Before Nico closes the server, I just wanted to thank Sarah for joining us and to all of you for being members, I sincerely look forward to book club nights for the opportunity to hang with all of you thoughtful, kind nerds. And I mean that in all the best ways. Thank you! 💜

I hope you all have a great night!

discoj: Thank you Sarah! And thank you to the Autostraddle team! I’ve been looking forward to this and it has been such a blast!!

Many thank you’s follow and the server closes!

The next A+ Read a Fucking Book Club will take place during the 13 Days of A+ in December and will be with our very own managing editor, Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya where we’ll discuss her forthcoming book, Helen House. December is still a spooky month so get ready to talk all things lesbian ghost stories and horror with Kayla!

Today’s A+ Read a Fucking Book Club Starts In 20 Minutes!

feature photo by Dondre Stuetley

Book club starts so soon, at 5pm PST, but you can feel free to hop into the discord now to get comfortable!

Tonight, we’re talking with Sarah Thankam Mathews, author of All This Could Be Different and also a 2022 National Book Award Nominee! I for one could not be more jazzed!!

Okay so how do you get in the discord?

Follow this link, right here. If you’ve never used Discord before, you’ll have to set up an account. You can also login using this helpful widget:

A Note About the Transcript

The transcript is scheduled to be posted next week! While the Discord will close down, the conversation will be available for you to read next week behind A+.

What will the event be like?

It will be a text-based Q&A within Discord. I (Nico) will be there to moderate / help with flow. Basically, read the book (or as much as you can), bring your questions for the author, and ask those questions in the chat! Sarah will be there to talk with everyone and can you tell I’m excited? I’m excited!

Accessibility

A+ Read a Fucking Book Club Q&A with Sarah Thankam Mathews

feature photo by Dondre Stuetley

Hello book wyrms, book dragons and all manner of book serpents! Welcome to September and the SECOND iteration of A+ Read a Fucking Book Club. Are you thrilled? I’m thrilled!

This time, we’re reading All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews, a book our Managing Editor Kayla called “so good I dreaded finishing it.” So, I’m hopeful that knowing we’ll have a Q&A with the author will help comfort us as we turn the final pages.

The details:

**How do I read All This Could Be Different?**

You can buy it from Bookshop to support Autostraddle and indie bookstores, or plan to get a copy from your local library! It’s also available as an audiobook on libro.fm, which also supports indie bookstores.

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

This post will re-appear on the day of the event, behind the A+ paywall, with the link and join widget, about fifteen minutes before it starts at 4:45pm PST, so that A+ members can join.

When is this again?

It’s taking place on Monday, September 26, so you have several weeks to dig into the book! It’s happening from 5pm PST to 6:30pm PST. Times in some other zones are as follows:

8 – 9:30pm, Eastern Standard Time
1am – 2:30am, London, UK
2am – 3:30am, Berlin, Germany
8am – 9:30am, Tuesday, September 27, Hong Kong
9am – 10:30am, Tuesday, September 27, Australian Central Time

What if I can’t make it? The time doesn’t work for me :(

What will the event be like?

It will be a text-based Q&A within Discord. I (Nico) will be there to moderate / help with flow. Basically, read the book (or as much as you can), bring your questions for the author, and ask those questions in the chat! Sarah will be there to talk with everyone and can you tell I’m excited? I’m excited!

Accessibility

Chris Belcher Talked With the A+ Book Club About Academia, Memory and More!

On Tuesday, July 26th at 5pm PST, the A+ Read a Fucking Book Club met for our inaugural session on a super mini pop-up Discord Server. Chris Belcher, author of Pretty Baby: A Memoir, joined us for a Q&A that was honestly, just really fucking riveting, okay?

Thank you to everyone who came out and especially to the folks who asked such smart and engaging questions. And if you’re hoping we’ll announce the next A+ Book Club book and meet soon…stay tuned!

Nicole: So in terms of how things are going tonight, I think people are still joining us, so it would be great if we could wait a couple minutes, but in the meantime I want to introduce Chris!

Chris Belcher is the author of Pretty Baby: A Memoir, which is our first ever A+ Read a Fucking Book Club Book! And honestly, if you haven’t read Drew’s interview with Chris, I’d recommend it (after the meet though here it is).

Thank you so much for joining us tonight Chris. I devoured Pretty Baby and I’m really excited for this!

So, I’m going to do just one little thing so that I can turn @ChrisBelcher ‘s name a different color from everyone else’s so that you can see her in the chat more easily, and then we can get started! Until then, 90’s chatroom vibes.

[There is some small talk, including references to 90’s chatrooms.]

Alright, I’m back! I really appreciate that this is some folks’ first time on Discord — this is also our first attempt at hosting a chatroom-based book club!! So thank you for bearing with as we learn as we go. Basically, I think the best way for this to go is if we take turns asking questions so that everyone can follow along at a reasonable pace. So I’m going to ask that you feel free to jump in with a question when we ask for questions, and then once the q’s are asked, we give the chat some breathing room for discussion, and move along in that way, if that makes sense. (Please tell me if this does not make sense.)

So, is there anyone who has a question they’d like to open this book club meet, with?

Or @ChrisBelcher I don’t know if you have any questions for us!

Chris: This is great, I’m so happy to be here, thanks for having me! I will let y’all start, and then maybe yes, jump in with some questions of my own. I would really love to hear about what parts of the story resonate with other queer folks, how people’s experiences growing up, coming of age, diverged from mine. Lots! But y’all first!

[several people are typing]

Nicole: the tension of watching people typing!! ❤️

[several people respond with laughing emojis]

gina: i was particularly interested in the intersections of your lived experience in sex work and then your theoretical academic work – i would just love to hear more about the ways in which those experiences and frameworks butted against one another, and / or the resonances between them ?

LaFlaneuse: As a recovering academic (I left 10 years ago), I really enjoyed the description and orientation towards labor in both sex work and academic work. How does this book being published change how you navigate your own labor moving forward?

gina: loving our shared energy here!

Chris: Yes, totally. In terms of theory/what I was studying during the time I was in graduate school, it was mostly in the realm of queer theory, so I was engaging in the classroom with a lot of material that WAS about queer sex, power, BDSM even sometimes. But even though the scholars I was reading were all theoretically interested in these topics, there was always this remove. Like they might engage with sex on the page, but there was a divide – they wrote about sex, but we never saw them talk about their own experiences. So I really did feel at odds, often, with my lived experience and my studies, even if my studies were progressive and feminist

Nic: tbh i haven’t read your memoir yet bc i’ve been absorbed into cinnanon smart’s 2nd book, but it’s next on my virtual list! i grew up thinking i was faking my life as mostly straight, which i didn’t realize until i turned 40. now (at 41) i’m loving my life and happy to embrace being a lesbian. can one come of age twice??

I am really interested in this idea that there can be a “life of the mind” that doesn’t account for the lived reality of the body. I think that’s bullshit, and it circulates a lot in academia, in my experience. Like, forget your body, forget your material needs, flourish in the mind.

gina: that makes a lot of sense. as an academic myself, this is something i’m always negotiating. (not to turn this into a book recommendation thing, but aaron kunin’s “love three” does an incredible reading of renaissance poetry through his identity as a sub)

MetalQuin: I’m impatiently waiting for my library copy!

Chris: This book being published changes a lot for me in terms of my labor. I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable advertising for new sex work clients, because it’s too easy to find my legal name, etc. It’s a safety concern. There’s also the concern that I’ll go back to campus and have to deal with folks (students, colleagues, administrators) who know some pretty intimate things about me based on the story I’ve chosen to tell. All of that was ultimately worth it to me, when I did the risk calculus on whether or not to publish this work.

Chris [in reply to Nic]: My book is about coming of age twice! And coming out twice! And figuring out my gender and sexuality over and over and over again (it’s ongoing haha). I don’t think we ever stop coming of age. Especially not queer folks. We have room to keep exploring the possibilities of our sexuality and gender. They’re not as proscribed. We don’t “reach” the end.

Carmen [Autostraddle EIC]: (i just wanted to say that I really felt this, and even though I left academia it’s a conditioning that I still struggle to unlearn)

Nicole: That’s really interesting. I was definitely interested in the decision-making process around publishing your story / going public with the book itself, especially because that’s such a major source of tension in the memoir.

Camwise1: I am curious about the timing of writing your book (as in the year 2022). Do you think your book would be received differently if you had published it even just 5 years ago?

Btw, i loved your book and didn’t want it to end

Chris [in reply to Nicole]: Yea, part of my reason for pursuing this book was material. I wasn’t making much money as an adjunct and I wanted to find other ways to write. At the same time, it was symbolic of breaking free from the constraints academia put on me in ways other than material. I was like… am I really not going to write the kinds of work I want to write for THIS job. Because I’m afraid of losing THIS? At the end of the day, I wrote into the fear of losing the job.

[several people are typing]

JD2: I think this idea within academia and broader society that one could “forgot ones body” is very much tied to a certain framework of viewing the body and mind as separate with the body inherently lesser. What is interesting is how research into glial cells and the immune system illustrate that the body mind is united and can’t be split apart. So that whole mind body divide is just biologically inaccurate. Theres a scishow video on glial cells and Ben Barres on youtube if people want more information on both a cool scientist and glial cells.

Chris [in reply to Camwise1]: I love this question. The sex workers rights movement has made serious strides in the public consciousness over the past five years, I think. Unfortunately, some of that is related to laws that really harmed sex workers (FOSTA/SESTA) that galvanized a movement and pulled non-sex workers into the conversation. I know from speaking with my students that things are changing. Five years ago, my students wanted to debate whether or not sex work should even exist, or if it should be criminalized to the point of making the work disappear (which… isn’t ever going to be a thing, it can just be made more and more unsafe). Now, they want to talk about how to mitigate risk. It’s a different environment, at least on a fairly progressive college campus.

But I needed Me Too to write this book as well. I had a lot of realizations about the things I’d experienced as a sex worker when I saw others come forward with their own stories of abuse. I recognized my story in the stories of others.

LaFlaneuse: (I love that you chose memoir as a way to break free from academic constraints on writing btw. In the book it’s so clear how you’re grappling with mapping theory onto lived experience and back and finding endless contradictions. I don’t know if that would have been possible in fiction.)

Chris [in response to JD2]: Oh, this is such an interesting framework to think through this duality!

gina: perhaps related to that, @LaFlaneuse , I’d be interested in hearing if and how writing the memoir, narrativizing your experiences in this way, changed (or didn’t change) how you view those experiences –

Chris [in response to LaFlaneuse]: Yes, absolutely. I heard another writer talk about this once (T Kira Madden, whose book Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls is incredible) – that once you take a memory and make it into a story, it will never function for you as a memory again. You’ve made the story, and the story will stick. Then I think about further: you take that story and circulate it to readers, they interpret it and talk with you about it. What do you have then? It’s probably something pretty far from what once only lived inside you.

Carmen: Oh wow.

Nicole: YES I remember this! But I can’t remember where T Kira talked about this. It reminds me of this little Alison Bechdel drawing I saw once, too, of her showing her mother her book and her mother saying “you got the wallpaper wrong” which just points to how tricky memory can be to deal with in writing, and how mutable and open to suggestion our memories are.

gina [in response to Chris]: that is FASCINATING (and i loved the madden) – i had thought a bit about how the imposition of a teleological narrative might change how things mean, but hadn’t at all considered the…inherent collectivity of the memoir genre (which seems like a contradiction in terms but also makes perfect sense)

Chris: I actually think that writing the book also, in some ways, changed my self-perception. I noticed things about myself reading the audio book that I didn’t even know when I was writing it! Sort of terrifying haha but that’s for my therapist, not book club

gina: i teach a good deal of poetry, and i love how every work of aural performance is a work of interpretation in and of itself – that speaks a lot to me

Chris: Yep, I’m lucky I had my mom to “fact-check” some of the book, but she also didn’t challenge me on my perceptions of our lives when I was growing up. I know, for instance, that my sister and I remember many things differently, because we are very different people with different identities and frameworks for understanding the ways we grew up. That’s why my epigraph is her, saying I only remember the bad stuff haha. She loves the book though.

Nicole: Oh my gosh I did love that epigraph.

ambr: I really resonated with the feeling of having a public and private persona that was analyzed throughout the book. I’m in medicine and it feels like there are two parts of me, one I present to my patients, attendings and colleagues and one I present to my family, friends, lovers etc. When I was online dating I would rarely “come out” as a doctor until we had went on at least one date. I just started integrating my queer identity into my career (talking about my partner, wearing pride pins etc) because I want others to feel more comfortable doing the same. Part of me didn’t want to deal with old white men. But I think a deeper part of me felt that I already occupied enough marginalized identities in the work place that I didn’t want any more reason for people to discriminate against me. Do you think going forward you will continue to integrate different parts of your life in your work?

Chris [in response to gina]: I think that memoir as genre can impose meaning, or conclusion, upon lived experiences where those things don’t really exist (the purpose of a story and the purpose of a life are usually not the same!) It was important to me to translate memory into story without imposing my interpretations. I hope the book allows the reader to do that, to close the circle. I don’t know if that makes sense, but I think it has something to do with what T Kira says about story and memory!

gina: that’s really beautiful, and what a gift of trust to the reader –

Chris [in reply to ambr]: I hear that, and have definitely (as you know from the book!) kept parts of myself secret for day-to-day comfort, survival, etc. And all of that is and was totally valid. Now, I am happy that I can move into a new chapter of my life as a teacher having these parts of myself visible to my students. Partially because many students are sex workers or have done sex work, or even just had sex they felt shame about, or didn’t feel right to them, or are survivors of sexual assault. All of that’s there in my story. But it was a choice I made to make it visible, and I don’t think it was the only “right” choice. It was right for me to be closeted when I was, and it’s right for me to be visible now.

I also make it a point on day 1 of any class I teach to be out. Because when I was growing up and in college, knowing I had queer professors meant a lot to me. I came of age in a time when people thought that being queer was a recipe for a lonely life. Or a failed life. And a few years ago I may have thought we weren’t there anymore, and now we are living in a “don’t say gay” world. It’s fucking scary.

gina: teaching in the south, this resonates with me a great deal.

in that vein, has anything about the book’s reception particularly surprised you, or did you (try to or successfully) avoid having those expectations?

Chris: On the reception point, I am not sure yet! I’ve had a lot of positive feedback from queer community, and that’s beautiful. I am really interested in what my sex worker community will say about the book, and am looking forward to those convos. The book, I hope, is honest in its depiction of sex work as ambiguous, not some sex-positive expression of feminism haha, nor a wholesale bad experience or dangerous one in my life. That can be hard when we have movement work to do.

LaFlaneuse: I’ve been stuck on Pretty Baby and The Dream House as examples of what queer memoir can do in really different ways about making a record of how we live in our brains and our bodies. How did you think about representation, both of queerness and of sex work, as you were writing? Does it feel different now that the book is out and, to your earlier point, the stories exist in a space that isn’t yours alone?

Chris [in response to LaFlaneuse]: Absolutely. I wondered if I was the “right person” to write about sex work, wondered if my story would be used against sex workers (bc, again, it’s not a “happy hooker myth” as we call them). I think that in Deam House, Carmen [Maria Machado] does a great job of showing that her story is basically being thrown into a void, because stories about abuse in lesbian relationships aren’t readily available to us. There are many reasons for that (stigma, shame, lack of archive) that parallel the reasons that there aren’t complicated stories about sex work.

Nic: on your “don’t say gay” world point, i’m in academia in Eugene, which is gay enough that I feel out of touch with the rest of the country. like it’s weird here to not be gay. on the other hand, sex work is pretty quiet around here… highly suspect! would love to exist in a space where both are safe.

Nicole: That’s really interesting, especially when you talk about presenting personal stories / truths in relation to movement work. I wonder, and I think this is also in line with LaFlaneuse’s question maybe: What kind of self-talk or self-coaching or drafting/editing work you engage in when it comes to being honest, and emotionally honest in your writing and telling messy truths and writing complex narratives?

gina: yes! and what was it like working with an editor, as well as at an imprint of a big five publisher, in the framing of and final forms these conversations took in the book?

Chris: I was very much inspired by the idea that the work can’t get safer if we don’t acknowledge the ways it can be unsafe. I believe that, my politics account for it, and so I got ok with the honesty. There are definitely things that happened to me, growing up and in the dungeon, that I decided not to include in the book.

Nic: i’m so looking forward to reading your book ❤️

Chris: I also teach in a bit of a bubble, in California, at a private institution. But I think the last few years really show that those who would silence us are not slowing down, and they aren’t ceding ground, and they are finding ways to do more harm than we ever thought they could.

Ms Skippy: I grew up in Eugene and that’s incredibly accurate, going back decades. Though even in the Bay Area now “coming out” as a sex worker is still terrifying in many settings

Chris: My editor was incredible. I originally wanted this book to be a collection of essays, and she is the one who helped me see the ways that chronology could provide the reader with the lessons I wanted the essays to impart. Some of that probably is Big 5 energy, in the sense that it’s not as experimental and it wants to reach a wider audience than an indie press or non-profit press would expect or need

Nicole: I think, too, with a half hour left, this is a good time to bring Chris’s question back up: “I would really love to hear about what parts of the story resonate with other queer folks, how people’s experiences growing up, coming of age, diverged from mine.” In case anyone wants to share!

Chris [in reply to Ms Skippy]: Yeah, I mean I’ve been afraid to come out as a sex worker even within many parts of the gay community. There’s a real conservatism in much lesbian discourse, like the “gold star” hierarchy, and the ways bisexuals can be shamed, etc. etc.

[several people are typing]

Ms Skippy: The passage on guilt v shame in an academic space hit me so hard. I was almost tempted to skip ahead to that time period but the childhood chapters sucked me in and I’m glad I didn’t

Chris: Yeah, y’all tell me: what resonated? What felt totally divergent from your experiences growing up queer or coming out, etc?

La Flaneuse: I grew up in Texas and didn’t even understand my own queerness so I was wildly impressed at the way you navigated yours at such a young age. The passages about the church and expectations of femininity really resonated.

The image of the cheerleading hair bow definitely stuck in my mind!

Chris: It’s interesting writing about one’s childhood in such a way as to preserve the unknowing on the page from the perspective of an adult who’s had decades to reflect!

gina: also, as someone who presents as very femme but is queer af, i found your negotiation (apparently my word of the evening) of…the phenomenological experience of inhabiting differently gendered, roles so illuminating

Nicole: You captured the fumbling, nervous, inexperienced aspects of teenage sexuality so well that it was both riveting and EXTREMELY UNCOMFORTABLE in a way I am absolutely in love with.

JD2: I found the description of your high school years to be interesting. I was sent to a small all girls boarding school in the middle of the Massachusetts woods for high school and so I never attended parties or other things often described by people who went to “regular” high schools. One of the parts that resonated with me was on page 88 and the comments your father made about your changing appearance. It reminded of both my own experiences as well as a panel from Fun Home.

Ms Skippy: I’m the same age as Chris, and growing up in a liberal college town was radically different for me. I know this wasn’t the default for my peers but my parents never assumed I was straight. When I came out to my parents as polyamorous in my 20s my mom said that she always thought I’d settle down with a man or a woman and she’d need some time to adjust to the both option. I still haven’t explicitly come out as a sex worker though.

Chris [in reply to gina]: Yeah, I’ve realized over the course of this book coming out and really reflecting on gender, that gender presentation to me always kind of just ends up being a tool for the job at hand. I know that’s certainly not the way that everyone inhabits gender or feels their gender, but for me, it’s sort of utilitarian? It can make money in certain ways, can attract gendered partners in certain ways. None of that feels inauthentic to me, somehow?

Ms Skippy [in reply to gina]: Yes! Especially contrasted with how Jess was percived

nic: i love this! feel like most everything i do is utilitarian

Chris: So uncomfortable haha! I did an event with Chloe Cooper Jones last week (her book Easy Beauty on disability and pain is incredible) and she described my book as a litany of embarassments haha

MetalQuin: I am definitely reading that!

gina: my library hold on that came in today!

Chris: Yeah, parental judgment was a big fear for me. I think particularly my dad’s, and I wonder how much of that has to do simply with living under patriarchy and feeling as a girl that my job was to look the ways that boys and men expected me to look

I still haven’t spoken to my father about my sex work. I told him about the book, that it’s about sex and sexuality and I don’t think it would help our relationship if he read it, and I asked him not to! If he chooses to break that boundary it’s up to him, but I’ve given him my preferences. So, even if you write a memoir about it, you can still take spaces for your own privacy and comfort if that’s right for you

Nicole: We’re just about 15 minutes away from the end here! Thank you ALL for what may be the best book club meeting I’ve ever been to @here this is your chance to ask any last questions, or Chris, if you have a final question for the group, I would also love that!

Metalquin: This has been awesome!

Chris: Yes, thank yall so much for the conversation. I guess if I had a final question, I would love to know what moments you thought were funny!

The jacket copy describes it as darkly-funny lol, so… is it?

Ms Skippy: I loved the story of your mom’s “lesbian” bitch haricut

ambr: wanted to save this for the end! A photo of my cat wondering why I’m not paying attention to him. Your book was really hard to put down. Thank you for your time today! [includes photo of a cat]

gina: thank you so much for faciliating, nicole, and thank YOU so much for both the book and for answering all of our questions, chris – this has been wonderful.

EFalcon: I loved the parts about which of your friends were going to get the strap on from Spencers, lol

Chris: LOL yeah, I lusted for those spencers sex toys so bad

Nicole: WHO DID NOT

LaFlaneuse: Also the part about your mom buying you a dildo of solidarity

Ea_p: Moms haircut for sure, and also any of the moments in True Colours because it just felt so painfully familiar I had to laugh

Nicole: oh that KILLED ME

and the note

Mumble-rampage: Yes! This part make me cackle but also smile because how sweet but also good lord how mortifying

Chris: Basically yall are saying my mom is the comedian here haha (I wouldn’t argue with that)

True Colors was one of the most special places. I really learned to be queer there. My fashion probably hasn’t recovered haha

LaFlaneuse: Also, how have we not talked about Catherine?!

Chris: How have we not haha?

LaFlaneuse: So curious about her reaction to the book!

nic: … who’s catherine? (i’m sorrrrrry!)

LaFlaneuse: It was a very nuanced portrayal of an ex!

Nicole: Yes! What’s it like to write a memoir knowing your ex plays a significant role in the book?
Sorry! Really coming in at the end here with these ❤️

Chris: It took a lot of care, that’s for sure.

I had to ask myself at all junctures if the parts with Catherine were really MY story (mine to tell)

I also had to be as kind as I could. I wanted to write her generously. I wanted to capture why I loved her, which can be hard to do when you feel pretty far from the falling

And I was also the asshole in some of the major Catherine moments, which makes it easier!

gina: this reminds me a great deal of what you said about the representation of sex work – and the care really showed in the extraordinarily nuanced presentation of catherine / the relationship more generally

Chris: Writing about the ways you hurt someone, or lied to them, or kept them in the dark can be hard, but if you don’t go there, you won’t have work that anyone can relate to, because we all hurt and are hurt.

Nicole: Wow. That’s real.

Chris [in response to gina]: Hasn’t yet had one! I’m also curious haha

gina: thank you again for such a wonderful conversation – hope y’all have beautiful evenings!

Metalquin: Thank you so, so much! This rocked!

Chris: Yes, thanks everyone! Such an honor to be part of this. I adore Autostraddle and y’all were great convo partners!

Ea_p: Thank you! I enjoyed your memoir so much, and it’s been such a cool experience to chat with you!

Nicole: Thank you so much Chris. This was really a rare treat!! And thank you all for joining in tonight! Your questions were so smart! And interesting!!!

nic: ty everyone! @nknhall [they/them] for hosting, @ChrisBelcher for attending!! y’all are beautiful. this was great!

Chris: Alright, bye everyone! Have a nice eve and I hope to join you here again as a reader next time!

Carmen: I just want to say how much I loved this opportunity, thank you to @ChrisBelcher and to all of you!

We have such special members, and getting to watch you all be brilliant together has been a real joy and highlight for me!

A+ Read a Fucking Book Club Q&A With Chris Belcher, Happening Now!

The event is over, but [as said in the original post] an edited transcript of the conversation will publish next week for A+ members who missed the event!

The live Q&A with Chris Belcher is happening in 15 minutes (from when this post was published). Scroll down for the invite link to the A+ Read a Fucking Book Club meeting which is happening right now!

A+ Read a Fucking Book Club, Live virtual Q&A with Chris Belcher, Tuesday July 26, 5-6:30[m PST A+ Pop-Up discord. This graphic has a palm tree in the background and also features the A+ logo and the cover of Pretty Baby: a Memoir by Chris Belcher

Join right here!

The details:

**How do I read Pretty Baby: A Memoir?**

You can buy it from Bookshop to support Autostraddle and indie bookstores, or plan to get a copy from your local library! It’s on pre-order until July 12. I recommend pre-ordering if you can because pre-orders are helpful for authors and also ensure that you’re getting the book as soon as it’s available.

What will the event be like?

It will be a text-based Q&A within Discord. I (Nicole) will be there to moderate / help with flow. Basically, read the book (or as much as you can), bring your questions for the author, and ask those questions in the chat! Chris will be there to talk with everyone and it will be a truly great time.

See you there!

WHAT?? There’s an A+ Book Club?!

Hey there, beautiful book worms! (In a good way, like, in the way where yes, I would absolutely still love you just as much if you were a worm, especially if you were a book worm.)

long time. But, because time is one of our most precious and limited resources, I wasn’t able to get this together until now, but there’s no time like the present is there, so on we go!

Firstly, the Most Important news is that our inaugural book club book is Pretty Baby: A Memoir by Chris Belcher. On top of this being a book I’m thrilled about, Chris has kindly agreed to join us for a live Q&A on a special A+ Pop-Up Discord on Tuesday, July 26 from 5-6:30 pm PST which is really fucking exciting you all! That’s an hour and a half of being able to bring your questions and chat with her. Plus, it all takes place in a nice comfy environment that many of you all are likely familiar with by now — Discord.

The details:

**How do I read Pretty Baby: A Memoir?**

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

This post will re-appear on the day of the event, behind the A+ paywall, with the link and join widget, about fifteen minutes before it starts at 4:45pm PST, so that A+ members can join.

When is this again?

It’s taking place on Tuesday, July 26, so you have two weeks to dig into the book! It’s happening from 5pm PST to 6:30pm PST. Times in some other zones are as follows:

8-9:30pm, Eastern Standard Time
1am-2:30am, London, UK
2am-3:30am, Berlin, Germany
8am-9:30am, Wednesday, July 27, Hong Kong
9am-10:30am, Wednesday, July 27, Australian Central Time

What if I can’t make it? The time doesn’t work for me :(

P.S. If you’re in Europe (truly being hit the hardest by the time zone situation here) or anywhere else where this is straight up in the middle of the night for you, and you have a question you’d love to see asked, you can email me at nicole[at]autostraddle.com with the subject line PRETTY BABY QUESTION and I’ll collect them all and ask them on your behalf. I know it’s not a perfect solution, but thank you to the member, KatieRainyDay, who suggested it!

What will the event be like?

Accessibility

We want Autostraddle events to be as accessible as possible and we opted to go with a text-based chatting format via Discord in large part because it was one of the most accessible ways to hold this virtual event, not just in terms of audio/visual accessibility, but also because we know it can be hard to ask a question out loud or know when to jump into a conversation. We hope this helps things go as smoothly as is possible for a virtual event. That said, if there are accommodations that would make it easier for you to attend this event, please reach out to me at nicole[at]autostraddle.com to let me know. Also, here’s a link to a guide on using Discord with a screen reader.

How do I read Patricia Wants to Cuddle?

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

What if I can’t make it? The time doesn’t work for me :(

Accessibility

How do I read Patricia Wants to Cuddle?

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

What if I can’t make it? The time doesn’t work for me :(

Accessibility

How do I read Finding the Fool?

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

Accessibility

How do I read Patricia Wants to Cuddle?

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

AND this book club will take place within a longer Pride A+ popup Discord Server! Yay!

What if I can’t make it? The time doesn’t work for me :(

Accessibility

How do I read Finding the Fool?

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

What if I can’t make it? The time doesn’t work for me :(

Accessibility

How do I read I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself?

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

What if I can’t make it? The time doesn’t work for me :(

Accessibility

How do I read I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself?

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

What if I can’t make it? The time doesn’t work for me :(

Accessibility

How do I read Helen House?

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

What if I can’t make it? The time doesn’t work for me :(

Accessibility

Accessibility

How do I read All This Could Be Different?

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

What if I can’t make it? The time doesn’t work for me :(

Accessibility

***The event is over, but [as said in the original post] an edited transcript of the conversation will publish next week for A+ members who missed the event!***

Join right here!

The details:

How do I read Pretty Baby: A Memoir?

What will the event be like?

The details:

How do I read Pretty Baby: A Memoir?

How do I get on the pop-up Discord?

What if I can’t make it? The time doesn’t work for me :(

What will the event be like?

Accessibility

**How do I read Patricia Wants to Cuddle?**

**How do I read Patricia Wants to Cuddle?**

**How do I read Finding the Fool?**

**How do I read Patricia Wants to Cuddle?**

**How do I read Finding the Fool?**

**How do I read I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself?**

**How do I read I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself?**

**How do I read Helen House?**

**How do I read All This Could Be Different?**

The event is over, but [as said in the original post] an edited transcript of the conversation will publish next week for A+ members who missed the event!

**How do I read Pretty Baby: A Memoir?**

**How do I read Pretty Baby: A Memoir?**