Thank you to Golden Crown Literary Society

Today, my novel, “Everything Grows” published by Three Rooms Press won two awards presented by the Golden Crown Literary Society: Debut Novel and Young Adult.

Thank you for honoring me with two Goldie awards! Thank you to Three Rooms Press for believing in my words! This book is for all the queer ones who are still searching for the shape and language of their queerness, of their wild, of their magnificence. And thank you to the writers out there who inspire me to write: Audre Lorde, Kathy Acker, June Jordan, Lidia Yuknavitch, Carmen Maria Machado, and so many more who live on my bookshelf.

Some words, questions and (hopefully a bit of) hope

Thank you to Denise-Marie McIntosh from Fairy Tale Access at Nashua, New Hampshire Public Access for asking such thoughtful questions and for giving me space to speak about my novel, “Everything Grows”.

 

BOOG and BOOKS

Today, I get to celebrate poetic theatrics and Brooklyn’s Book Festival.

First, BOOG Poets Theatre Festival

@ Bowery Poetry Club / 308 Bowery NYC

12-3pm

*I will be performing alongside the magnetic Trae Durica in a poetic movement I wrote called “The Forgiveness of Lightening Bugs”, which explores the end of a friendship and a yearning for forgiveness.

AND THEN….

Meet me at the Brooklyn Book Festival 

I will be signing copies of my novel, Everything Grows, at 4pm.

Find me at Three Rooms Press’s booth 333.

Everything Grows

When I was younger, and someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I answered with:

veterinarian

hair stylist

pastry chef

poet

teacher

writer

There was a time I didn’t know how many words I had in me. (I still don’t)

There was a time I thought, tomorrow may never get to know me.

There was a time I thought, is this the last poem I will write?

For ten years, I worked on a story that turned into something longer and will soon be all folded and ISBN’d and (hopefully) on bookshelves. I’ve been reading novels for much of my life; I never thought I’d be able to say I wrote one!

Everything Grows is an epistolary story told all in letters written from the point of view of a teenager called Eleanor writing to her bully who has just committed suicide. But it’s not all darkness. In fact, there is quite a lot of light in this book. This is her coming out story (in more ways than one). Taking place in 1993 in New Jersey, Eleanor find friendship and love in interesting places, and starts to locate more places on the map of who she yearns to be.

I am so proud of these words and thankful to Three Rooms Press for publishing Everything Grows in April 2019. So……make some room on your bookshelf!!!