I’ve found that even in literature written by queer authors, there are seldom happy endings for the queer characters. The history of queer characters being buried for censorship or cheap affect has created a norm in media, a norm that all authors seem to feel the need to adhere to. Adding queerness is often treated like adding a terminal diagnosis that’ll drive the rest of their character arcs into the nearest lake. Straight characters, on the contrary, get closure at the end

In the humanities field, it’s pretty common for people to be multidisciplinary. I am no exception to this. This past weekend, April 17-18, I had the opportunity to present my own research poster that I’ve been constructing all semester to other colleagues and scholars of anthropology. For those who aren’t familiar, ethnography refers to a research method of anthropology that involves immersion and combines traditional field work with writing. Perfect for a writer like me. I h

Self-insert main characters in fiction have been around for ages. A certain stigma surrounds them that implies this method of writing is juvenile and amateur, when in reality this concept has historically been incredibly abundant in literature that we consider classic. Vonnegut, Salinger, and King have all created widely celebrated characters that directly reflect themselves. This poses the question: Where does this negative connotation stem from? When I hear other writers di

In an age where everyone is consuming the same media, individuality is more important now than ever. Writing acts as a powerful voice, and can be used to uplift those whose voices may be marginalized or prone to erasure. Just like voices in real life, someone’s writing voice can have its own distinguishing characteristics. Your voice in writing can include something of the linguistic nature, such as using vernacular language, or perhaps code switching in your words. Dis

Image by Colton Sturgeon via Unsplash I primarily write short speculative fiction and dabble in personal essays, but when I came across a quote from Ursula K. Le Guin's talk at P ortland Arts & Lectures program of Literary Arts on my Instagram feed, it made me pause: "Beneath memory and experience, beneath imagination and invention, beneath words, there are rhythm to which memory and imagination and words all move. The writer's job is to go down deep enough to feel that rhyth