I attended the Tin House Summer Workshop as a 2019 Scholar in Nonfiction!
As a scholar, I got to arrive in Portland, Oregon, a day early and was thrilled to see so many friends there as scholars and faculty: Alex McElroy, Moeko Fujii, Francisco Marquez, Garth Greenwell, Jamel Brinkley, etc. By the end of the week, the other scholars had cracked me up & inspired me countless times. Still thinking about lectures and readings I heard from Garth, Laura van den Berg, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Danielle Evans, Terese Marie Mailhot, Samiya Bashir, and Michelle Tea.
I got to study with feminist/queer/punk hero Michelle Tea — and she even did tarot readings for everyone in the workshop. And the workshop group! Holy smokes. It was the most cohesive, effusive, hilarious workshop I’ve ever been part of. By lunch on the first day, we had a group chat going, and folks were editing one another’s dating profiles. We took a field trip to Pok Pok and a femme-pos sex shop and helped some lovers in a sticky situation and discussed the value of thoughtful platonic nudes. And the writing talent! I remain obsessed with all of them.
Children of the Tea, Tin House Summer Workshop 2019.
Plus there were surprise visits from beloveds Cate Lycurgus and Alexander Lumans! As ever, it’s about the literary work, sure, but it’s really about the people.
Tin House with a special delivery of novelist/story-writer Alexander Lumans!