June 13, 2019
Open Secrets: Alyssa’s Secret, Christina Rossetti, and the Closet
The challenge was to create a commercial for a new brand of perfume. Expectations were high: not only were the queens of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 5 expected to concoct, bottle, […]
April 28, 2019
“Can’t You Rest Now?”: Nightwood, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Madness
I have a theory: the ending of Season 7, Episode 2 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (“Beneath You”) was inspired by Djuna Barnes’s queer modernist novel Nightwood (1936). I know it sounds […]
May 7, 2018
Nepantla: An Anthology (Q&A with Editor Christopher Soto)
To celebrate the release of Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color, published by Nightboat Books, anthology editor Christopher Soto and I discussed both the editing process and […]
April 19, 2017
When Students Become Teachers
Recently an essay by a student at the school where I teach was named one of sixteen finalists in the Facing History and Ourselves essay contest. I had given him […]