I’ve been writing on the internet for six years and my portfolio is really hard to wade through as a result. Here’s what I consider to be the most representative of my writing work as a whole at this time.
And Then I Cursed This Motherfucker
–Paper Darts
Flash Fiction, Gender, Witches
And then my twelve-year-old. My twelve-year-old turned to me and said, “This bitch-ass motherfucker still has it wrong.”
And I was like, “Cool it, you are twelve.” But also that’s probably how everyone knows that’s my twelve-year-old. And then I felt guilty immediately because my twelve-year-old shouldn’t have to be tough; she shouldn’t already know that the only way to disrupt men like these is to slap one’s metaphorical cock on the table. She is twelve. This is not the way the world should work.
Sometimes Your Car Goes in the River
–drDoctor
Essay, Travel, Art Criticism
It should never have occurred to me to drive a car into a river on purpose. But I rounded a corner at the National Gallery and there they were: Cars in Rivers and the people who put them there. Axle-up submerged, their owners sitting on top, staring down at their folly. If you Google it, you do not get an accurate idea of its size. The photos span a wall. Over and over again, cars in rivers and the people who put them there. And in the hard-lined backgrounds was Iceland: cragged mountains, expanse of blue sky, the strange, Martian mixture of greenery and snow and steam that being this close to the arctic circle and the magma below produces on land.
I Am a Snow Whale
–Argot Magazine
Personal Essay, Travel
Alex skied up behind me. I turned to her and said, “I live here now. I’m a snow whale. Once beached, I can’t get up.” And then I started crying.
Masculinity Is Broken, But It Isn’t Hopeless
–Ms. Magazine Blog
Counterpoint, Cultural Criticism
Men have learned helplessness. Blaming masculinity itself seeks to absolve grown men of their agency in actively creating masculinity; it’s not an entity that lives without the decisions of people. Cis men have always had the power to expand the definition of what it means to be masculine. Men can actively make different choices about what masculinity means. I say this as a queer person who creates their own masculinity with active choices every day, who believes in the expansive constellation of masculinity; that there is so much more space in there than cis men believe there to be.
Brianna Wu Is Here, Queer and Running for Congress in Massachusetts
–Autostraddle
Interview, Technology, Politics
We cannot shoehorn much of modern technology into laws that were conceived in the 18th or 19th centuries because the authors of those laws had no concept of what we’d be able to do. If elected, how do you plan to bring your digital expertise to lawmaking?
You Need Help: You Don’t Agree With Your Best Friend’s Advice
–Autostraddle
Advice, Personal Essay
Being myself a Very Serious Person, everything must be heavy, mean something and either last forever or be a planned step that will help me on my march to Greatness and Happiness. It’s one of the reasons breaking up with my boyfriend was so hard: all those plans and all the times I said it was forever […]. It’s the reason that breaking up with acting was even harder: I trained and studied for years and I said I would never give up on my dream. It all comes from the same place within me—a place I see in you too, even from your brief letter. Very Serious People can spot each other miles off. So I’m here to tell you what I wish I’d known when I was planning my life with my high school boyfriend: everything counts. If you were to break up with your girlfriend tomorrow, the relationship would not have been a waste of time.
You Need Help: What’s a Reasonable Reason to Dump Someone?
–Autostraddle
Advice, The Gayest Thing I’ve Ever Written
I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that veganism isn’t really what came between you. I say this from experience—when the reason for the fight sounds silly, that’s not the reason for the fight.
Saucisson
–The Inquisitive Eater
Fiction, Food
I shrugged. “Nah,” I said. “I got this.” Because this was my new life. And I was determined to ignore how they didn’t have kale or spinach or anything green except iceberg lettuce at the grocery store and how I had to make my juice with fruit from cans in a barely functional blender in a trailer in a trailer park and I definitely had not thought this all through. Because I had had a vision. I was gonna look a way. Be a way. I was gonna teach some farmers’ kids some French. Rural.
The Republican Push to Gut Internet Privacy Rules (and What You Can Do About It) Explained
–Autostraddle
Explainer, Technology, Politics
Well, you can build a pretty complete profile of a person using metadata. They would be able to know if you just visited a webpage for an HIV clinic (which might even have a city abbreviation in the URL), a suicide prevention hotline or if you’ve filled out a survey form for LGBTQ folks. Nothing about visiting any of those websites is shameful, obviously, but these topics are often “best friend level” or at least “friend level” for a lot of people. Certainly not “faceless corporation” level.