Very excited to announce that Whisk(e)y Tit Press has published not one but TWO of my short stories in Issue 11 of the Whisk(ey) Tit Journal! WT is a fiesty independent press that publishes some truly — and I use this word lovingly — weird books, so it’s an honor to be recognized by them.

I have to give a huge thank you specifically to Philip Shelley, the Journal‘s co-editor, who had to resort to commenting on one of my Instagram posts to get my attention when for some reason his emails weren’t reaching my inbox (and I never check Insta DMs from people I don’t know lol). Thanks to his tenacity, I was able to accept WT’s publishing offer at the absolute last moment possible before the issue went to print.

The two stories chosen for publication seemed like distinct entities in my mind. I wrote Studiers of Stone back in 2020 and I finished Antenatal just three months ago, so I didn’t realize until just now that both explore similar themes: societal expectations of the female body as well as how a person’s identity is reflected (or not reflected) in their physical form. I’m not too surprised. All writers are haunted by a few tropes that they’ll never write out of their system, and for me, that’s the tension between society and identity, in particular how a person can feel simultaneously loved yet isolated.

These two stories had different journeys though. Studiers of Stone began as a mash-up of several unrelated scribbles. I wasn’t sure what I wanted it to be for a long time. It went through multiple drafts and workshops with editors, and then I tossed away all that work to do a near-total rewrite because I finally decided I wanted the ending to be hopeful instead of bleak.

Meanwhile, Antenatal came to me almost fully formed. I knew exactly what the story would be but it sat as an unfinished draft in my phone’s notes for a while. After I wrote it out and cleaned it up, the only person who reviewed it was my spouse, since I wanted a trans person to critique whether my trans character’s narrative rang true. 

I’m so grateful that Whisk(ey) Tit has given these two stories a chance to reach people. As always, I hope that my writing helps someone feel less alone and less unseen, and also helps someone else see the world in a new light.