learning to write outward at lambda

It's been hard to write about the Lambda Literary Writers’ Retreat after the fact. Part of this is simply down to jetlag; I'm pretty sure I lost the Tuesday after my return somewhere in the muddle of daytime naps and biochemical time travel. The remainder is my own inability to get sincere about something that brought me so much joy without, like, crying? On internet? We do not cry on internet, guys; this only invites opprobrium and bullshit.

That said, I want to say this: I spent my time in California exactly where I was meant to be. The stars aligned. I don't know how else to explain it. I had a brief encounter with my friend Cat in West Hollywood, halfway through the week, on the night I read from my manuscript in public; I got all tearful and soft-focus at her because the universe simply felt right. Of course, then a strange man tried to tell us at length about his upcoming reality TV show with Madonna 'Madonna' Ciccone and we had to flee to sample some frozen yoghurt, but this only added to the authenticity of that Los Angeles experience (I have already written a short story about it).

The YA Fiction cohort, featuring the author’s irrepressible moon face.

More than once during the course of the retreat, I tried to explain why I'm not typically a “community” sort of person. I am cagey and ornery and I love nuance more than the adrenaline hit of In vs Out; I'm allergic to earnestness that can't back itself up and I basically just love to lurk by myself 90% of the time. This is not me saying I retract that stance. This is me saying that there's “community” and there's community, and I found a community that genuinely cared about me at Lambda. More to the point, I found a community that I genuinely cared about, and didn't feel afraid to be seen by. I talked to strangers, you guys. I went up to people who read some of the most devastating, searingly brilliant work I've ever encountered, and I told them I thought they were cool. And then people did the same back to me, which is objectively insane and I'm still fairly sure the accent had a lot to do with it -- but then, these are people I admire, and I am trying to trust their judgement, even when it entails thinking I am worth their time.

And workshop! Oh my god, workshop. Benjamin Alire Saenz read my words back to me approvingly and I nearly died in my chair. We talked about queerness and transness and apocalypse and hope in the face of the merciless, abnegating reality we inhabit. Hannah showed up with a perfect ten-page short story about intergenerational care and support between queer people like it was nothing! Jazlyn and Joseph dropped some of the tenderest babygay love stories in the world! Charlie Prime's self-proclaimed mythic bitch protagonist Cecil pretty much owned us all! Naseem undertook history's most powerful notetaking exercise (there were gifs) (there were subfolders) and kept us all in line! I would shout out all of you if I could but the length of this post is making my browser lag! I have never ever ever been in a space that felt so kind and so in tune with itself. We were speaking the same language. Until you're there, until you're speaking it together, you don't understand how rare and special that feels.

So: if you helped to get me to Lambda then thank you, again. If you were part of my Lambda adventure then thank you forever. And this isn't me crying, okay, I'm just allergic to goodbye, keep your opprobrium far away from me.