DC: In the chapter “Backroom” you describe reciting W.S. Merwin’s “For a Coming Extinction” to two lovers. In the poem, Merwin says to the whale, “We who follow you invented forgiveness / And forgive nothing” (5-6). So given your upbringing and its challenges, where are you on forgiveness? AC: That’s a beautiful segue. It’s a… Continue reading Interview: Alex Cheves for Lambda Lit
Category: sex work
Memoir Excerpts in Emerge Antho 2021
Emerge is an anthology from Lambda Literary with contributions from the ’21 Emerging Fellows in nonfiction, fiction, YA, poetry, and playwrighting. The anthology was edited by Michael Chang. There are two excepts from my memoir-in-progress, My Colonizer: A Kept Boy and his Afterlife. In the living room, Andrés and I sat on matching chairs, gilt… Continue reading Memoir Excerpts in Emerge Antho 2021
Lambda Lit Fellows Reading at NYC’s LGBT Center
Lambda Literary 2021 Emerging Fellows–Poets, Fiction, and Nonfiction writers–gathered in person and virtually to read their works in progress at the LGBT Center. The event was funded by NYC City Arts Corps, a grant program which “supports artists who live and work in NYC, while giving New Yorkers opportunities to experience cultural programming across the… Continue reading Lambda Lit Fellows Reading at NYC’s LGBT Center
Chapter in The Routledge Handbook of Male Sex Work, Society, & Culture.
Originally planned as the follow-up to 2014’s Male Sex Work & Society from Harrington Park Press (left), this academic text book was eventually picked up by UK-based Routledge Press after Bill Cohen, Harrington Park’s founder, passed away. It was Bill Cohen who first approached me to contribute to this project, and encouraged me along the… Continue reading Chapter in The Routledge Handbook of Male Sex Work, Society, & Culture.
Queer Slam Podcast
I appear on episode 33 of the Queer Slam Podcast along with LA-based writer Molly Thornton, who read a touching poetic tribute to queer LA. A memorable line: “the half-naked sparkle princes would gallop out of the lot and around the corner towards us/’You’re almost there, keep going!’ we would tell them….” I read excepts… Continue reading Queer Slam Podcast
“Breaking into…” on the Whorticulturalist
The Whorticulturalist is a new-ish sex worker site with goals: “…reclaiming to redefine the term ‘whore’ as a woman who takes ownership of her sexuality, and can profit off of it as she chooses to, and ‘horticulture,’ the practice of cultivating and managing a living entity with the purpose of seeing it thrive.” As a… Continue reading “Breaking into…” on the Whorticulturalist
10/10 Launch at SculptureCenter
(I really had to compete with the horns in the final moments…) For the launch event of Matt Keegan: 1996, contributors gathered at SculptureCenter in Long Island City in a distanced manner in their outdoor courtyard. The event also had a remote audience via Zoom.Thanks to Matt Keegan, New York Consolidated, Inventory Press, SculptureCenter, and… Continue reading 10/10 Launch at SculptureCenter
“Do what you love…” and other canards.
Catapult is a platform founded in 2015 by Elizabeth Koch, with the mission of publishing “stories that celebrate life…Stories that reveal all the layers—the sinews and hairy knuckles, the iron and meat of history and influence…stories that land us squarely, concretely, in someone else’s shoes.” My first essay for the platform was a chance to… Continue reading “Do what you love…” and other canards.
“You’ve Got Male” in 1996
“You’ve Got Male” is a reflection on my earliest interactions with the internet (dating back to 1996), and chronicles the rise and demise of our online sexual freedom, from the wild frontier of the Naughts to the passage of SESTA/FOSTA, legislation that encodes a moral panic about trafficking innocents (innocence?). It appears in the visual… Continue reading “You’ve Got Male” in 1996
Raunch Daddy on ASMQ Podcast
“Raunch Daddy,” is story #2 from Worker Names, and I read it in its entirety for ASMQ. It’s epistolary in sections, with diary entries and chat room exchanges. Nick’s been kicked out by his lover for being ’emotionally unavailable’ and has lost his job in the recession. He sublets a studio around the corner from… Continue reading Raunch Daddy on ASMQ Podcast