Queering the Personal Essay
Queer people rarely have the privilege of getting to tell our own stories and, when we do, we are often pressured to put the aesthetic preferences of straight readers first. Not here. In this generative nonfiction workshop, students will be provided a safe space to dissect personal essays by queer writers such as T Kira Madden, Brontez Purnell, and Janet Mock. Students will then write their own personal essays and workshop them in a supportive environment.
Edgar Gomez
Edgar Gomez is a Florida-born writer with roots in Nicaragua and Puerto Rico. A graduate of University of California, Riverside’s MFA program, he is a recipient of the 2019 Marcia McQuern Award for nonfiction. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in This American Life, POPSUGAR, Narratively, Longreads, Catapult, Ploughshares, The Rumpus, Lamda Literary, and elsewhere online and in print. His first book, a memoir titled High-Risk Homosexual, is forthcoming in January 2022 with Soft Skull Press. He currently lives in New York, where he is saving up for good lotion. For more, visit EdgarGomez.net.
