Jake Nevins included my story collection I Know You Know Who I Am alongside work by Garth Greenwell, James Baldwin, and James Gregor in his great piece on deception in queer literature at the New York Times.
Brandon Taylor kindly called the book “a contemporary classic” and plugged it in GQ and made it his recommendation it over at The Strategist.
R Eric Thomas generously recommended the collection on The TODAY Show. Confirmed, Hoda and Jenna saw the cover, got the pitch. If you don’t sit through the ad to watch the clip, here’s the proof, an image I risk someday getting tattooed on my face:
O, The Oprah Magazine asked me and other queer authors about the book that mattered most to them. It was basically an impossible and fabulous assignment.
Poets & Writers commissioned a series of short craft pieces; I wrote about creating queer characters who behave badly, the short-short story, braided narratives, and the massive Word file of “junk” I keep.
The Advocate named the collection an “absolute must-read” among some recent books I love.
them published my short story “How to Live Your Best Life,” written early in grad school and part of the book.
Some great writers generously took the time to interview me: Meredith Talusan at Slice, Lee Thomas at Fiction Writers Review, and Michael Colbert at Gulf Coast.
Electric Literature and Grindr named I Know You Know Who I Am a favorite book of the year. (While the Scruff marketing campaign for my book is over I have decided they’ve “woof”ed at it as well.)
them, Book Culture, and American Short Fiction asked for some story collection recommendations, which I am always good for.
I got to be in conversation with two of my favorite story writers whose debut collections knocked me flat, Mary South (You Will Never Be Forgotten/FSG) and Nicolette Polek (Imaginary Museums/Soft Skull), at BOMB Magazine. At the Brooklyn Book Festival, I was on a panel about humor in fiction with Deesha Philyaw, Marie-Helene Bertino, Sarah Gerard, moderated by Kendall Storey. (Pinch me.)
Indiana University named me a top “20 Under 40” college alum.
I’ll be teaching a fiction workshop online through Catapult next month. I taught this in the Flatiron building pre-pandemic and have enjoyed returning to the readings, very excited to get started. Conversation will orbit around the questions of what makes for a compelling narrative voice, both the unique limitations and near magical possibility of such a voice, and what voice even is.
I also had the recent honor of reading and blurbing some great books, recently released and soon forthcoming, including Celia Laskey’s So Happy for You (Hanover Square/HarperCollins), Massoud Hayoun’s Building 46 (Darf Publishers), Justin Bigos’s Double Clothesline (PANK), and Michael Koresky’s Films of Endearment (Hanover Square/HarperCollins). I was also in conversation for the launch of genius Micah Nemerever’s These Violent Delights (Harper Books/HarperCollins), a debut literary thriller I’d describe as combination queer love story and absolute, pitch-black nightmare–and will be soon for the paperback release of Zak Salih’s debut novel Let’s Get Back to the Party (Algonquin). Check them all out!
Novel to the agent. What a marathon, what a finish line.