i've been accepted into Lambda Literary's Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices

+ updates on prisoner's alamanc & research notes

Illustration by Alissa Levy.

Dear Beloved,

While flying from the Salish Coast to the Great Plains, i received good news:
i have been accepted into my first writing retreat.

This summer, at the height of tomato season, i’ll be at Lambda Literary’s annual Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices. I join a group of queer and trans writers in the Speculative Fiction cohort which this year will be led by novelist, playwright, and Afrofuturist Andrea Hairston.

Cue me bursting into tears at SeaTac Airport.

It’s the goddamn win i needed, a vote of confidence, a nod that confirms i’m heading in the right direction. It is as shocking as it is affirming.

What makes this even more important to me is that for the application’s work sample, i shared the short story “prisoner’s almanac,” the same short story that is the root of the working manuscript about before. Additionally, i shared my goal of utilizing the writer’s retreat to workshop this manuscript and lean on the faculty member’s mentorship to nurture this story into something that bears fruit. The fact that these details pushed the envelope, that me and this story will be at a writer’s retreat together, means the world.

Artwork by Chi Nwosu

Manuscript Updates

As i described in my last update, the story’s expanded to include new character and a wider plot. I’m balancing out actual writing time with increased research.

So far, the full bibliography has extended past 15 pages. At this rate, it will likely triple by the time the manuscript is ready for querying.

Because of travel and an intensive work event this week, i was unable to spend much time drafting. However, stolen moments with a notebook helped generate more ideas that solidified where the story’s going and developed some plot points to tighten up some more nebulous areas i struggled with.

Research Notes

The deeper i go into this research, the more i find myself needing mental health breaks to fully wrap my mind around some of these stories, the conditions humans are forced to live in.

There are layers of injustice.

But even in horrific conditions, humans are still humans. Incarcerated cook for each other, fall in love, send Mother’s Day cards, crochet, and tend to plants in cells. Some incarcerated people, like Justin Slavinski, are detailed food critics. Many continue (or start) their education behind bars, some going as far as a Ph.D. Dr. Eric Shawn Burnham, using his research in psychology and counseling, drives innovative new peer support programming to help people deal with trauma. “Though I remain incarcerated, he said, “I have found meaning in my mistakes and purpose in my pain.

They also grieve for theirs peers on death row and hold vigils after executions. In his essay reflecting on the execution of a Gulf War veteran, Eugene Landers writes:

“In 1998, Hutchinson killed his girlfriend and her three children, a horrific crime whose severity I will not downplay. I understand that many people are still suffering due to his actions. But something doesn’t sit right when I think of Hutchinson’s death at the hands of the state. I think he deserved another chance.

“The Roman Catholic community here holds a prayer vigil before every execution. It was at one of these vigils that I had a spiritual awakening about the death penalty. Our volunteer was talking about another man being put to death: ‘He’s 69 and probably would never hurt anybody again.’ At that moment, everything put itself in perfect logical order in my mind. We have a saying: ‘I don’t care what you did. I care about who you are now.’”

Just as i have with Landers’ essay and accounts from many people incarcerated, whatever their crime, i have found a great deal of compassion, sincerity, and grace. More than i’ve heard at most pulpits and certainly more than from any politician.

Likewise, i have found great humor, self-reflection, frustrations, laughter, care, horror, longing, and love in my research.

Beloved, i confess: there are times where i wonder if i’m extraordinarily naive for believing that there should be no prisons. Then i read something like Landers’ essay and am reminded that disappearing people is not a solution. Every single body thrown into a jail cell is a puncture in the fabric of our community. Prison robs us of fathers, mothers, children, faith leaders, counselors, human beings with something to offer the world. It also steals opportunities for genuine closure in cases of harm, of actual repair and reconciliation.

It’s not naive to believe in a world without prisons. It’s short-sighted to think tossing someone in a cage and throwing away the key is justice.

In love and struggle,

a

P.S. - A few highlights from this week’s research:

• A Hummingbird Visits My Prison Cell.

• A mother’s calling: Inside the fight to make prison phone calls free

• How I Smuggled a Plant Into My Prison Cell

• An Extraordinary Friend: What Edward Wright has taught me

• The Gauntlet: Fight Night in a Texas Prison

• The Succession Battle for a Prison Empire

• Voices from Solitary: Fighting for Everyone’s Liberation

Artwork by Corvid Crossing Studio.

Seeds for Change

• Find alternatives for community safety at Don’t Call the Police.

• Read Voices Beyond Bars: A Collection of Poetry by Incarcerated Writers edited by Kashawn Taylor.

• Learn about Deescalation and Intervention.

• Check out the Creative Interventions Toolkit - a practical guide to stop interpersonal violence.

• Share the The Prison Industry: Corporate Database and organize.