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Queer Rock Love

A Family Memoir

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Queer Rock Chicago on January 20

I’ll be reading from Queer Rock Love in Chicago next Wednesday. I’m thrilled to be speaking at the iconic feminist bookstore Women and Children First. By most counts, there are only about 12 feminist bookstores left in North America, and I hope to visit and support them all. You should too! Trying to get mainstream bookstores to carry Queer Rock Love has reminded me, once again, that queer and feminist bookstores are vital in helping new voices to be heard.

I’ve always loved Chicago, and I love it even more now that my sister lives there. If you haven’t read her book Just One of the Guys? Transgender Men and the Persistence of Gender Inequality, I recommend it. You’ll never think of all the mundane gendered interactions of the workplace in quite the same way.

In the spirit of #tbt, here’s a picture of two future feminists in pink polyester pantsuits. You’ll have to come out to the reading on Wednesday at 7:30 to see if we still dress alike.

matchingoutfits

I’ll be in Chicago all week next week for the Creating Change conference. Will you be attending? Transgress Press will have a booth, so come say hello.

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Queer Rock Love to Launch at Gender Odyssey 2015

paigejune2015If all goes according to plan, I’ll get to see and touch my book for the first time this Friday, August 21, at Gender Odyssey in Seattle. We’ve had our share of last-minute publishing trials and tribulations, so I’m not 100% sure that this baby will show up on her due date–but I do know I’ll be reading a selection at a free public event that evening. Here are the details:

Transgress Press – Meet the Authors
7:30PM | Washington State Convention Center – Rm 611
Come and schmooze with our 2015 authors, Rex Butt, Seth Jamison Rainess, Paige Schilt, and Dr. Michael Brownstein, and celebrate their recently published and forthcoming books. Get discounted copies of their books personally autographed for you. Light refreshments will be provided.

I’m thrilled to be part of Gender Odyssey this year. When I set out to write Queer Rock Love, my goal was to write a trans family/partner memoir that wasn’t focused on discovery, coming out, or surgery. I knew Katy was trans from the moment I first laid eyes on her. Her transness was an integral part of the person I fell in love with, and I wanted to write a story that focused on the ups and downs of our everyday life. I’m hopeful that lots of folks at Gender Odyssey will be able to identify with our unorthodox, not-a-poster-family family.

Throughout the conference, I’ll be facilitating workshops on higher education, parenting (with Katy Koonce) and the “rules of attraction.” Check out the schedule here, and come say hi if you can.

In the meantime, I’ll be updating this website to be more of a book-related website. Stay tuned for reviews, bonus photos, and information on how to order Queer Rock Love: A Family Memoir from Transgress Press.

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We’re Expecting! And It Looks Like Twins!


Dear Reader, you may have noticed that I haven’t been posting to Queer Rock Love lately.

It’s not that I’ve run out of stories about our queer family life—far from it—It’s just that I’ve been needing to conserve my energies. Now, after months of intensive gestation, I’m thrilled to announce that I’m expecting a baby…a book baby!

The book version of Queer Rock Love will feature tons of never-before-released material, and it will be published by Transgress Press—an independent, trans-led press based in Oakland. Their current titles include Letters for My Brothers: Transitional Wisdom in Retrospect, which was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and Hung Jury: Testimonies of Genital Surgery by Transsexual Men, which features a foreward by Shannon Minter.

This book pushed me to question some of the received ideas I'd taken as truth. I like that in a book.
This book pushed me to question some of the received ideas I’d taken as truth. I like that in a book.

We were in San Francisco earlier in the summer and were lucky enough to attend a reading for another Transgress Press book, Manning Up: Transsexual Men on Finding Brotherhood, Family and Themselves. It was exhilarating to hear many different stories from diverse transmasculine experiences and perspectives. As an added bonus, I got to meet face-to-face with my editor, Max Wolf Valerio.

Transgress Press donates 40% of book sale profits to social justice organizations that work to empower marginalized communities and save our planet. They also ask authors to donate part of their royalties to social justice organizations. Stay tuned for more on that front!

But Wait, That’s Not All
When I said “we’re expecting,” I wasn’t just being sloppy with my pronouns. Katy’s been incubating a project too. Her band, Butch County, has been writing a whole bunch of new material, and they’re getting ready to record their next album.

In the meantime, if you have a hankering for muscle-rock-meets-genderqueer-swagger, you can listen to a couple of their greatest hits on bandcamp. You can also see them perform live. This weekend they’re performing on Sunday at 4:30 as part of Stargayzer Fest. And next weekend, on September 20, they’ll be melting faces at 1pm at Austin Pride.

Total hottie.
Check out Butch County at Stargayzer Fest.
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