I love how prose lets me take an experimental angle into weighty, intellectual subjects. I think very theoretically about my writing, and this is the space where I can be most open with that - fusing conceptual and sensual language. I write a lot with & about erasure, history, and the possibilities for trans life. As ever, form is a crucial tool that I use to express an idea as an aesthetic, livin thing.
All of these books are available to buy on my bandcamp.
A story about transhistory, erasure, and J.K. Rowling.
Jess/ has been a fan of Harry Potter their whole life. So when J.K. Rowling starts speaking out against the trans rights movement, they are devastated. Not only do they feel betrayed, their copies of the Harry Potter books have all been erased.
Following the advice of their friend Roland Barthes, Jess/ decides to find J.K. Rowling and seek out some kind of justice. Their journey takes them through a transhistorical South London, where multiple timelines coexist and trans opera singers clash with 19th Century French authors.
An insurgent experiment, an attempt at reclamation, The Undying Author explores first-hand what marginalised readers can do in the face of oppressive authors.
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Illustration by Sam Petherbridge
Published by Second Spine Press
A pamphlet of essays on manhood.
Blending critical fiction, theory, and interview, "A Masculinity in Three Forms" looks for what is possible. It starts from the push for men to act as allies in feminist struggle and asks: what does this kind of change really require? What does it produce?
Together, the essays in this pamphlet poke at the aesthetic limits of masculinity, the embodied realities that keep men bound to patriarchy, and the sensual possibilities that await those who break free.
If men want to help dismantly the master's house, they will have to leave it first.
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Cover art by Sam Petherbridge
In 2020, J.K. Rowling speaks out publicly against trans people.
In 1967, Roland Barthes resurrects a ghost and changes the course of literary theory.
In 1830, Honoré de Balzac describes a gender bending singer.
here, translucently takes a trans lens on these people and events, asking what trans/non-binary people can do in the face of our erasure. What does it mean for transness to write itself, when our voices are so readily collapsed, retold, erased?
This book is a fantasy quest to reclaim my dignity and inheritance; it's an essay in search of a history and ancestry that is uniquely trans (trancestry); it's a poem from the depth of a voice whose power and presence only grows with each erasure.
here, translucently is a collaboration with Bok Bindery. Each book is printed and bound by hand, with a 3 stitch binding of coloured thread. Each softback cover is a unique piece of marbling by Sam Petherbridge.
Essays and Articles:
- Enby Zenby; Or, Zen Wisdom and Non-Binary Gender, Lion's Roar 2023
- Collecting Is Connecting: Trans Liberation Through the Archive, Shado 2023
- "How Did We Get Here?" Etiology and Erasure in Trans History, Excursions Journal 2023
- Tracing The Systemic Roots of Transphobia, Oestrogeneration 2022
- Trans Liberation Will Take More Than Getting Our Pronouns Right, Oestrogeneration 2022
- The Men's Movement Is Failing Trans People, Shado Mag 2021
- How Sexual Violence Reinforces Patriarchal Power, Promundo Global 2021
- The Progressive Frontiersman, Promundo Global 2021
- The Master Leaving His House, Promundo Global 2020
- The Man With Hammers for Hands, Promundo Global 2020
- Coming Out of Lockdown, Salty Magazine 2020
- For the Eyes: Towards a Poetry of Materials, Lonely Table 2019
- For the Word: Poetry as Plastic, Lonely Table 2018