S255. The New Speculative: Writing Between Labels, Identities, Borders, & Bodies

C124, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
Saturday, March 30, 2019
3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

 

Mainstream literary and poetic institutions struggle to fully conceptualize the trans/nonbinary protagonist or the significance of work that does not prioritize white bodies, even as calls for diversity in literature are expanding representation. Panelists push past tokenizing tropes and sidekicks to explore writing in between traditional margins. We discuss destabilizing literary convention, production, readership, form, and interpretation in order to tell more honest, nuanced stories.


Participants

Moderator:

Everett Maroon is a memoirist, humorist, and fiction writer. He is a member of the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association and was a finalist in their 2010 literary contest for memoir. Everett is the author of a memoir, Bumbling into Body Hair, and a young adult novel, The Unintentional Time Traveler.

Trace Peterson is a trans woman poet critic. Author of the poetry collection Since I Moved In, she is also founding editor/publisher of EOAGH Books, which has won two Lambda Literary Awards, and coeditor of the anthology Troubling the Line, which was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in 2014.

Amir Rabiyah is author of the poetry book Prayers for My 17th Chromosome, and coeditor of Writing the Walls Down: A Convergence of LGBTQ Voices. A VONA fellow, their writing appears in Mizna; The Asian American Literary Review and Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics.

Ashley Young is a Black, Queer and genderqueer, poet, writer, tarot reader, and witch. They are a contributor to GO Magazine and have been featured in three anthologies. They are currently working on their first novel, an Audre Lorde-inspired biomythography, as well as a collection of poetry.

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Kansas City, Missouri

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