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Hello and welcome to another episode of gender stories. As always, I'm elated to be here with another fabulous guest. And today I'm here with Miah Jeffra is author of The Fabulous Ekphrastic Fantastic! (Sibling Rivalry 2020), The Violence Almanac (Black Lawrence 2021), the chapbook The First Church of What’s Happening (Nomadic 2017), and co-editor, with Arisa White and Monique Mero, of the anthology Home is Where You Queer Your Heart (Foglifter 2021). Awards include the New Millennium Prize, the Sidney Lanier Fiction Prize, The Atticus Review Creative Nonfiction Prize, the Alice Judson Hayes Fellowship, Lambda Literary Fellowship, and 2019 finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Outstanding Anthology.
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Most recent work can be seen in StoryQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, The North American Review, The Pinch, The Greensboro Review, DIAGRAM, jubilat and Barrelhouse.
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Miah is a founding editor of Whiting Award-winning queer literary collaborative, Foglifter Press, and teaches writing and antiracist studies at Santa Clara University. So welcome. And thank you for making time for gender source today. I really appreciate you being here.
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Thank you for inviting me.
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Yeah, so let's get right into it. And I don't want to give reader spoilers of course of your latest book American gospel. And I've already shown that, like I said, The Haunting cover, I think, but there are lots of really wonderful themes, I think, in your book around home grief transformation plays. And so I guess I'm wondering, what do you hope the readers will get from your latest book? Like, what's the feeling or message that you're hoping to communicate to readers in your latest book?
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Well, I certainly I encoded some messages that I think I was discovering, as I wrote the book. And, you know, I definitely have certain feelings about some of the issues in the novel, particularly the way that real estate is, is managed in America, how it perpetuates class disparity, how we relegate certain spaces of poverty, to coincide with spaces of violence and, and depravity, despite the fact that the people who live there, you know, are 100% flesh and blood with hopes and dreams and flaws and virtues like everyone else. But we, we discard them. Because we have almost the almost this kind of moral relationship to wealth.
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And so that certainly was encoded, whether whether the readers get that or not, of course, is up to them. But it's also I hope that readers get that there is redemption. And in the not only the challenges of, of being a woman being a queer teenager, but there's also redemptions. And being someone who had no interest in social justice, really, and then it ignites. Because, you know, they are, they're faced with it. So me maybe ultimately, the message I would like readers to get is that we all are capable of awful and wonderful things. I think maybe, ultimately, at the end of the day, that and urban renewal is a bad idea.
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I love all of that. I was like, Oh, my brain is going into three different directions. I kind of want to talk about urban renewal in the in the US and gentrification and what it does to different cities and different neighborhoods, but also, and we can definitely go there in a moment. But I want to pause for a little bit longer on this idea of characters that are fully human, right that are capable of beauty and connection and love and also violence and awful things right just like any human and and that's one of the things I really loved the actual in the book, I think that's the thing I love the most is just how human your characters are in a lot of ways and how kind of you know what anti white supremacy that This right there characters are aspirational.
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They're not like two dimensional, they are kind of fully human, which means they're fully flood, as well as fully beautiful, right. And in some ways that almost feels countercultural. Sometimes, at the moment in reading, I don't know if you felt like that when you were writing, because there is almost this push to package everything nowadays, into kind of neat boxes. And that's what I loved about your book that actually was in that way. Am I making sense? I don't know if that resonates with you at all.
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Yes,
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and thank you, and I'm glad you picked up on that I have no interest in characters being representatives of particular virtue, or vice. None of us are entirely evil, none of us are entirely good. And that's what makes us gorgeous. And it's very, very important to me that all characters get the service of the light and the dark within them. And that we can relate to that because we are that way.
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Absolutely. And I think that that pressure representation can be turned up so high, I think for minoritized characters and or writers or both, right in terms of like, oh, there's sometimes there's so much pushback, oh, this queer character is flawed, or even though it's not fully representative of everything, or why are bad, you know, we don't want to represent your characters in certain ways. And I wonder if you struggle with that at all, when you were writing the book, if you felt this pressure, especially now that there is also so much social media, input noise, whatever we want to call it, definitely, as a writer, notice differences, somebody who was old and over 50 of like, what's it like to write before a lot of social media, and with a lot of social media noise about what writing should be about and we are representation should be about?
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Yeah, so I mean, this is a very, very important part of my writing practice to render queer characters so that they are not one or two dimensional. You know, we've we've had so much literature written where the queer characters are, you know, drug addicts, or prostitutes have suicidal ideation, you know, our stylish confidence to love Lauren women. What have you, you know, these archetypes and there's, I don't oppose those representations, because some of it is relevant. But a lot of times, especially for presumable presumes straight audiences, the queer character needs to be a unicorn, it needs to be a victim, or it needs to be, you know, this kind of bright, shiny fairy, what have you, right? It becomes a stock character that somehow is used, in contrast to the straight character. And I definitely am not interested in that. For example, Peter in the novel, is a queer teenager. And I didn't want him struggling with his sexuality. I didn't want his story to be a coming out story. And I, I asked myself, What kind of queer teenage representation could be terrific and complicating the landscape for potential queer readers. And that's when I decided that he was going to be a sexually confident individual, he was going to be sexually active. He wasn't going to be concerned about that aspect. He was just going to be looking for love. And, you know, in all the wrong places like most of us do.
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But you know, not to be this cowering, you know, simpering victim of, you know, his, his burgeoning queerness. He owns it. Yeah. And I think that could be nice. That could be nice for for queer readers now.
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Absolutely. I love that about Peter. And also because there are so many young people wear that is much more similar to where they're at, rather than maybe the more kind of really struggling or I'm not very confident, right. It's like, like you said, there's just one portrayal by as somebody who works with young people, and definitely at that moment of like, Yes, Peter is the character that we don't see very often, but that does represent some of the folks in our community if that makes sense. And so I really did love that Talk about this character in particular, in and there are so many stories that you could have picked, right? So many different stories, so many different representation. What was it about Peter in particular, or any of the other characters that kind of hold to you? Because there's kind of, yes. I'm just curious about, like the choice of the central characters, so to speak. But now, it's so it's hard to talk about book without spoiling it for people who haven't read it.
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But you know, let's see, let's see what we can do here.
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Sure. I mean, there's three central characters to the novel, all written in their, their perspectives woven throughout, and the structure and Peter being one of them this, you know, this queer teenager who lives in the neighborhood, that is scheduled for demolition. His mother, Ruth Ann, who is estranged from her, her husband, and then this religious cleric and the Catholic Church, Thomas the, the choice of the characters. Very, firstly, Ruthanne is a redemption song, for my own mother, Ruth Ann is not my mother, at all. But my mother did go through domestic violence. And it was pretty severe to the point where it impeded her social mobility as well as her economic mobility, and mostly her emotional growth.
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And I always wanted to give my mother a redemption story. So this fictionalized account, that's where the novel truly began. Peter comes in as kind of like, of a fantasy version of what I wish I could have been.
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Right. What I aspired, you know, I was unfortunately, that kid that, you know, struggled with the shame of, of their queerness. And, and I wanted, I wanted to see a young person not I wanted them to not possess shame, and to be concerned about other things, because how, how wonderful would that be, and the cleric, Thomas is more, it's a larger kind of social commentary about Baltimore, which has a very Catholic tradition to it.
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And the Catholic Church has not been very mobilized and defending and championing for those who are struggling most.
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They, they definitely have outreach programs, but they, they don't work to protect spaces and housing. And, you know, after my research about Baltimore, in the kind of gentrification issues, the being one of the leaders of the community, the Catholic Church, I wanted to give, I wanted to give one of the members, that agency to become what I feel Baltimore needs, which is more of an activated Catholic church, because it is so influential.
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And so, Thomas represents that.
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And I love that because it's also rare, I think, in my experience, and maybe I'm reading the wrong books, but to find two characters like Peter and Thomas in the same novel, right to fight light, and yet something else I loved about your book. Oh, and again, I feel like I could go in so many different directions. I do want to talk about Baltimore and place because place is very important in this book. I want to kind of step back for a moment to what the beautiful things that you said about the character of Irfan, right that that redemption song, I think that's one of the as somebody who has survived domestic violence, both as a child and then as a young adult, that definitely it was hard to read the book at times. And it was also amazing to read the book, you know, at the same time, because I thought it was just really insightfully written again, I'm kind of walking the line of not giving readers any spoilers, but there was a lot of insight there and and I love that you talked about this being like a kind of a redemption song in some ways, right of that impact and that in intergenerational impact as well that domestic violence can have, right? Unless there's really active engagement in breaking that cycle, because often domestic violence in my experiences goes back generations. And another note, yeah. And I see you nodding. So I was wondering if any of that resonates for you that kind of intergenerational thread as well.
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Absolutely. It, we see that in families, you know, I can speak personally that that did exist. And my mother's family, she broke that tradition. Good for her. But very much, you know, the, it passes on on this, like, a genetic predisposition. And that coupled with poverty, especially the very particular brand of urban American poverty, yes.
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Those it's, it's like a perfect storm that perpetuates that intergenerational struggle and trauma. And so it makes sense that we see that in this neighborhood, you know, visa vie Ruthanne.
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Let's talk about gender as well, because right, there's class, the socio economics is plays. And there's also a gender dynamic, often, right, and the gender dynamic can also be complex, right? That is not just necessarily, you know, women are more likely to experience domestic violence, because I think also, in queer community, there's often a lot of intimate partner violence, because there's a lot of trauma, you know, people are trying to relate to each other. And they're not always having work for their trauma, or not having the tools or not having the, even just the capacity just through trying to survive under capitalism. And so, yeah, let's talk about gender in the novel, or even just generally, in your writing, if you like, and kind of how it intersects with all of those themes that we've been talking about so far. Oh, yeah.
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It's like, where do you begin?
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Just an easy question.
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Yeah. I mean, all my all my books, talk, discuss gender, explore gender. My, my nonfiction explores it very explicitly. The Fabulous thick plastic fantastic, has a thread of, of gender identity throughout, you know, identify as non binary. And that term wasn't even in my purview. You know, when I was in college with where I was already demonstrating that kind of sensibility. And when the when I discovered that term, one, I love anything that that pushes against binary opposition's first, right. I like I like spectrum oriented, identities and dispositions overall. So conceptually, I thought it was a very valuable term. But personally, I was able to inhabit that. And it liberated me, not just from trying to adopt a cis sensibility and presentation in my own life, but that it wasn't even about being cis or not being cis it was, it was, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to assert various aspects of my identity on that spectrum.
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That now I feel like I have permission to do in an interesting way, right? There's sadly labels are part of our day to day and you know, even us non binary folks are, we feel this propensity to apply a label because that to be more legible, to the outside world. And what I love about non binary pneus gender fluid are the fact that we we constantly change and you know, my essays my nonfiction really explores that my short fiction even has characters that are all along those gender lines, without explanation that's very important to me as well, that they just live in the world because they are human beings and you don't need to explain their quote unquote difference because that others them and I'm very uninterested in exploring a They're nervous I, I want to kind of shatter it by having the readers just accept exactly these human beings who happen to have gender fluidity in some way. So I have trans characters I have what appear to be cis, characters, and then everything in between.
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And I love that too, because I'm always like, well, like how do you draw the line between like, Where Where does trans end and cis begins and non binary ends and something else begins, right?
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It's like, it's such a, those lines are so artificial, in some ways, right? And that's, that's a lot of my work. It's definitely focused on kind of on that and our gender liberation is really for the benefit of everyone. Right. And then often people are kind of looking for permission to be expensive, or their reacts. So in ways they're so policing and constrictive because they feel so policed and constricted, themselves, you know, not to be too too kind to folks who are transphobic or queer phobic, but there is definitely a element of like restriction and constriction, I think in that kind of gender policing that can go on and so I love that you're like, people don't need I don't need to explain those characters. I'm like, Absolutely, people can
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You know, and you mentioned gender policing. Yeah.
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just exist.
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I, where I'm most concerned about that. is actually not with the cishet community. It's within the queer community. The fact that the queer community performs that kind of gender policing is really upsetting to me. Because we should be the ones that are you know, perpetuating this liberation that eventually also affects cis het folks because honestly, no one is no one is fully cis het.
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I really believe that deep in my heart, and if we can somehow be the be the kind of the the avenue for that liberation for everybody, then we're going to have a much more peaceable world. Right? Because we start shattering these notions of like, I must fit in this box, I must fit in this box. Right? We all need to get rid of that.
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Absolutely.
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100% the heart of the multiverse is clear. I truly believe that I don't think it was an accident. Even as a young teenager when I had no idea about queerness or gender. I didn't have a language. Yeah, in the early 80s, for any of that.
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It is in Italy. But for example, I knew that like certain kind of, like even geopolitical borders or like geopolitical borders are fake and wrong. In people like you're young and like you'll change your mind.
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You'll see that's not a pro abolitionism it's not a practical stance. When it comes to geopolitical borders. I'm like, 52, I've now changed my mind. And, in fact, let's abolish even more borders, let's abolish even more things, right, let's like it was like, if anything else, I think that my desire to kind of break down some of those borders and barriers is only become more intense rather than less intense. As I've gotten older.
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There's a queerness to that, right? It's just it's about queering kind of our dominant understanding that being imposed on us and so many, for so many different systems of oppression.
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I think, Alex,
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I truly believe that. If we want to eradicate the notion of borders politically, we have to start spiritually. And that an identity is where it begins, right? That that body world relationship. I mean, our political systems and new typologies that we have created, has everything to do with the way that we identify ourselves.
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So if we begin to transform that, I really feel like that could have a reverberation that moves way beyond the personal and into, you know, the political, the social, even the economic. I really do believe that. I don't know if we're just optimistic, but I prefer to be in that space.
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I don't know about that. I have been called the relentless optimist by my oldest child and she's always like, you are relentless optimist, and it's great. And sometimes there's a low margin.
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I was like, okay, I can hear that feedback. You know, it's like, it's like, me too. I was like, I am a little much I'm going to the older I get it the more I own them like I am a lot of match. And that's okay. But I love what you said about having to start spiritually and from identity because even as separating ourselves so much from Nietzsche, because of the impact of colonialism, for example, that's, you know, seeing ourselves as separate, don't even get me started on the doctrine of discovery. And now I think that's also connected to our view gender. Anyway, I've written about it other enough to go on about it during your interview. But let's talk about relationship to place as well as gender right, because place is like another, it's almost like Baltimore as another main character in your novel to and and also my, I don't know, if that's your experience, my my experience is also that my gender and my queerness changes from place to place, right, the way that I feel like I express it. Like in my country of origin, in Italy, it's different. And it's even different if I'm in Rome, where I was brought up or in Sicily, when I spent a lot of time, you know, more rural. In Minnesota, it's different in the Twin Cities, they might be in rural areas. When I travel again, I feel almost like a chameleon sometimes depending on where I'm traveling. And so I'm curious about the relationship to plays and gender and that I see you nodding. Hopefully, I'm making some sense in my ramblings.
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Absolutely. I mean, first off, it really resonates with me what you were saying earlier, your interest in kind of colonial structures, the, you know, the Doctrine of Discovery, this kind of, Judeo Christian Islamic kind of, brand of colonialism. That is, you know, this assertion, this domination of nature, you know, removing us from the biocentric relationship that we, you know, also have, you know, the Judeo Christian Islamic structure is anthropocentric. It puts human beings at the top of the chain, which of course, creates an arrogance, right, yeah. And we see that in capitalism, we see it in colonialization. Right?
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And I would by no means suggest, what is the right way to be because I've existed entirely within this construct, even though I feel intuitively to push against it, because it removes us too far from our nature. So with that, I just want to acknowledge that I love that you're doing that great work. That's amazing. And it relates to why place becomes character in my novels, because a city, a place is a combination of human beings and nature. And we are nature. And we create these, these agglomerations that are kind of like a macrocosmic entity, like a human being, you know, they are beings. And they operate like beings, their complexity, their structures, naturally, because we created them, and they're extensions of us. So yeah, I'm, you know, there's no, there's there's no doubt why. We, we even gender cities and states and right, we, we kind of personify them. You know, we we think of Boston as kind of a masculine city, we think of San Francisco as a very feminine city. Right, New York is masculine. Right. And then there's variations within that I feel. I feel that our, our propensity to personify extends itself into the way that I that I render place, I do feel like it is indeed a character. I don't know. Did I answer all your questions? I feel like I left something out. No,
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we will figure it out. We'll probably circle back to it again. But I am curious about why Baltimore for American last fall, like why why Baltimore specifically, I mean, yes, like I can guess from reading your book, but I'm interested in your motivation for choosing Baltimore as the place character, let's call them
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Yeah, Baltimore is one I have a connection to it. I did spend my high school years in Baltimore. Even though I did not conceive of this novel, in Baltimore, it was actually observing, living in Los Angeles. And this kind of overhauling of spaces I was, I was blown away by how Los Angeles erases space and history and rebuilds and then erases it again and rebuilds and There, there was something so unique about that, I wouldn't say it's bad or good. But the negative aspects of it are they're constantly engaging in an urban renewal that relegates its residents, like it just tosses them into almost a diaspora, despite the fact that they are still in Los Angeles. They just la moves people around. And usually at their detriment, you know, I think of things like Chavez Ravine, you know, to build Dodger Stadium just ousted an entire dynamic community. And many cities do it, of course, but it was my observations in Los Angeles. And the, the gross erasure that that city engages in, that made me look back on my time, you know, living in low income Baltimore, and seeing a city that is obsessed with its history, so much, that it doesn't move forward. So it's almost like an antithesis to Los Angeles. So I wanted, I wanted to place the phenomenon that I observed in LA, into Baltimore, to make it more of an American story. And Baltimore in particular, has really struggled since the the industrial, dying, you know, that that occurred, you know, the Rust Belt diminishing, and they never got their footing. Even though cities around them did, like New York, Pittsburgh, right? They, they definitely have more of a story like Detroit, or Memphis, or St. Louis. So my affinity for the city already and my knowledge of the city, you know, knowing its streets, may made me think it was a good place to set the book. And it's also a very forgotten city. It's kind of in the shadow of New York and DC.
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So I thought I thought it'd be because I love the city so deeply. I thought it'd be great to render that character because it's not written about very much in literature.
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That makes a lot of sense. And I love the this beautiful fusion of personal experience and knowledge of Baltimore, and plays and what's happening in LA, and kind of, kind of almost bringing it together. And let's talk about this idea of urban renewal, which is so American, I would say as a, I mean, I am an American. Now, actually, as of last year, it took 15 years, and I have the citizenship. So I can't say anymore like Americans, like there's somebody else who was like, oh, no, I couldn't vote now. I'm a citizen. So, but this idea of urban renewal is so fascinating to me, right? Because it's actually not a renewal. It's it's an often it's a distraction, it's a distraction of communities, and distraction of relationship. Like you said, like, you know, and farther marginalizing, often those that have the least resources, and yet it gets branded as renewal.
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And that's why I think it's very North American, I should say, actually, because I feel like in North America, that's a lot of rebranding that happens, right.
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It's it's like the, you know, we I don't want to get too political. I know who am I kidding. I'm always political on this podcast. But you know, it's like pro life people. It's like, this is not pro life. It was like, right, it's like an urban renewal. Right? Like, let's make it sound nice. And like it's positive, while we're actually taking something away. Does that make sense? And so? Yeah, absolutely.
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Urban Renewal is governmental, racial control.
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Yes,
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that's definition.
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I mean, if you look at the urban renewal projects that existed across the United States, what was deemed, you know, this is a movement that really gets going in the late 30s, but mostly in the 50s. And into the 60s and 70s, as we know, it almost always was black and brown communities, despite the fact that there were poor white communities as well. But it was it was almost always black and brown communities that they deemed slums and the association to slum had to do less with the Quality of housing and the way the neighborhoods looked or operated it, it had more to do with this relativity of property value. And in America, the fact that we speculate real estate the way we do, and how it still are is so racialized. The fact that people who are black or brown living in a community can actually reduce the speculated value of a home even today 2023 Is asinine, and it still is a reality. We it is, we, we put valuation based on perception. So, urban renewal, is taking that to this scope, bronze level. And, again, erasing community relocating and, and kind of dissipating any sense of kind of core identity.
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That's what it it effort. No, it's effort was to do that. I, I'm sure that someone rationalized and maybe even believed that the urban renewal projects and the latter half of the 20th century, were trying to do good, but I think there was also very clear intent to, to racially dominate through a government program, very similar to redlining, which was happening in these neighborhoods. And, and very, I mean, there is no, there's no surprise that a lot of the redlined neighborhoods were the ones that eventually became targets for urban renewal. So it just made it easy to control.
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Black and brown folks, and in particular, black folks. You know, and, and very much Baltimore being, you know, a black majority city. It was was subjected to that.
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Absolutely. And I think that's one of the pieces, right, it's like, calling it the perpetuation of racial segregation is not going to be real popular. But hey, if we call it urban renewal, then we're putting this positive spin. And that, to me does feel like it's this legacy of colonialism, right? It's this legacy of anti blackness is this legacy, that shoe, it's kind of getting repackage. And I totally believe that some people might buy the repackaging of that as something positive and renewing, right, refreshing and redeeming, but actually, behind that it's this long legacy, of colonialism of anti blackness of racial segregation, that I think still deeply impacts. I think every city in the US I know, my experience in South Minneapolis was definitely you could you could almost tell like, if you mapped like the redlining, you know, those maps on to what was happening even in terms of gentrification, where Fiber Internet goes, or doesn't go right house prices, all of that, you can see it is so clear. And yeah, it's almost like the smokes and mirrors, right. Which then, and there's so much more to say. And I think that's one of the things that writing can do sometimes is kind of open up the curtains a little bit or try to clear the smoking mirror. And I think that that is one of the themes in the book, too, right?
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It's like really kind of, let's open this up a little bit more.
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And let's kind of see what's behind the carton or whichever metaphor we want to use. I'm mixing my metaphor between cartons and smoke mirrors. But you know what I'm trying to say here?
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Very much. Yes. I'm
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like, I'm very bad. I'm mixing my metaphors. So forgive me. I feel like I could have this conversation for a long time. And I was like, Alex, look at your questions, because I want to be respectful of your time. But I feel like there are so many more conversations I could have about any of the topics that we can have opened up more. But is there anything one of the questions I always ask towards the end of interviews is, is there anything we haven't talked about yet that you were hoping we will talk about in this conversation?
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Well, that's such an interesting question to ask.
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I feel I'm in this this moment, this kind of impasse with, with my writing. Because a lot of my a lot of my work, you know, all four of my previous books have been so focused on creating complicated characters that exist around issues that I think a lot of readers feel they are above, for example, you know, in the violence Almanac, all of the characters in, that are in these stories are both recipients and perpetrators of violence. And I think a lot of times, especially a reader, they feel that they are more enlightened, to the, to the degree that they are above, you know, the, the degradation of being violent, that they somehow have been exonerated because of their, their education or the choices that they've made. And I've always been very interested in demonstrating multi-dimensional characters, but also to indict the reader. And to remind them that they are capable of justice as devastating choices and actions as anyone that they would vilify on social media, that we can all be pushed into a place of reprehensible behavior.
00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:43.310
And so that was what I have been doing so much either examining my own reprehensible behavior, or creating fictionalized characters that surprise you with theirs. But I need to take a break. From that I'm getting it was very difficult work.
00:42:43.310 --> 00:43:01.070
Yeah, yeah, it was very difficult to write the almanac, it was very difficult to write American gospel. Even though hopefully, we see, you know, see, we see some glimmers of hope and redemption in there.
00:42:55.160 --> 00:44:28.880
But now I'm, I'm working on a story very consciously. that conveys queer joy. And I'm wanting to write about two young boys who may or may not be queer, they're, they're 12 years old. And it's just about a deep, soulful friendship that they possess. And I'm leaving it ambiguous, you know, what their, what their sexual identity is largely because I'm tired of those identifiers, right. And just trying to recreate and capture how soulful we are even as a 12 year old, how romantic we can be, how, how full of tenderness we are, and how we become socialized, especially within contemporary American masculinity, you begin to lose that tenderness to somehow conform. But I'm focusing on the beauty of it. So I hope that you would read that story because I feel like I'm exploring gender in a, in a more pure way, in a less political way, in a more spiritual way. And I'm excited to finish that novel.
00:44:29.960 --> 00:44:31.820
That's beautiful.
00:44:29.960 --> 00:45:09.260
I'm excited for you to finish that novel. So I can read it absolutely. 100%. I think, you know, sometimes when I look at like younger people, or children, like just the way that they can express things is so different than adults. And so I also love that those characters are 12 that you're writing, right? When I look back, and I think about just the pure, like, I didn't know anything about queerness and there wasn't anything sexual, but just the pure kind of friendships and closeness. I remember, like, as a teenager getting this, what I now realized was a love poem from a neighbor. When I was the same gender as me at the time.
00:45:09.289 --> 00:45:27.050
That's the best way I can put it. You know, we had the same gender assigned at birth, let's put it that way. And that but I didn't see it as sexual at the time, right or anything to do with sexuality was just this expression of pure friendship and closeness and, and admiration and connection.
00:45:27.050 --> 00:45:30.320
Right. And I think that we need so much more of that in the world.
00:45:31.240 --> 00:45:39.670
Due to I think we need more romance. And the romance doesn't need to be relegated to a sexual partner.
00:45:40.060 --> 00:45:54.670
We, we can be romantic with so many people. And I think we have that inherently in us. And it gets buffed out by what is considered proper and acceptable,
00:45:54.910 --> 00:45:58.030
right?
00:45:54.910 --> 00:46:54.160
Absolutely. I mean, I'm all about like, being just loving and romantic like, with your friends, and but also with your community, I have so much love for my communities, right. And I think I love that you mentioned hope, actually, I was going to talk to you about hope. And then I forgot, because we were talking about so many other beautiful things, that maybe that's a good place to kind of end on, which is like, you know, I love that you feel called to tell this different story. I'm focused on queer joy. And I think there is hope in American gospel as well. And but how do you find hope and joy in your own life in this particular moment, which feels really hard to a lot of people in a lot of different ways. And so I've been asking a lot, actually, in the last couple of months, to all of my guests like, how are you finding hope and joy and connection in your life at the moment? Okay.
00:46:55.300 --> 00:47:10.900
I think that's twofold. So I've laid the groundwork, in case I get lost, you can say there was a second thing. First off, I'm a teacher.
00:47:01.690 --> 00:48:46.630
And, you know, I teach, I teach creative writing, and decolonial studies, and I love teaching, I love facilitating a classroom, I love learning from my students, I love that engagement is full of joy and love, we want to be there. We love sharing the space with one another. And I mean, I can't I can't say anything about teaching. That even remotely gets close to negative. I love what I do for a living. I'm so grateful for that. And, you know, the students keep me abreast about where they are and the way they operate in the world. So I don't get siloed in my own age and experience, because the students constantly come and go, and, you know, I'm, I'm working with them, and I'm seeing the changes and the perspective. You know, that's local, but maybe also reflects more of a national kind of trend, right. And I learned so much from that. It's, it keeps me open. So that's one way, I have a lot of hope with that. I think the other way I cultivate Joy and Hope is just despite some of these, I mean, terrible happenings around the world.
00:48:40.750 --> 00:49:58.750
And, I mean, I don't even need to list them, we know them and they weigh on us so much. But I think they weigh on us, Alex, because we are actually moving in the right direction. I really believe that humanity is beginning to get exhausted by its own colonial tendency, and, and the harm and the violence and the degradation that we exact upon one another. I think we have a long way to go, but we're getting closer to it, which is why we feel the despair so much more. You know, we have always been a warring culture. I mean, I'll just speak for America and maybe the West, by extension, we have always been a warring culture, there has always been conflict and violence. But we used to as a, as a society, we endorsed it more. Yeah. And I feel like we just don't as much anymore.
00:49:55.240 --> 00:50:26.590
There. Obviously there are exceptions to that. But I think generally, you know, if we really hold back and look, more and more people are tired of it, that the violence is not worth whatever resourceful gain that we get, or nationalistic need, you know, quote unquote need. I feel like that exhaustion is actually a compassion that is emerging, and I do believe probably not in our lifetime.
00:50:27.070 --> 00:50:49.120
But I do believe that we are finally going to get to a place where we understand that equity Is is going to create peace. And people will be willing to sacrifice their goddamn picket fences. So that we can coexist.
00:50:42.100 --> 00:50:54.880
I do believe that we're moving in that direction with a lot of with a lot of hiccups along the way.
00:50:55.750 --> 00:51:20.440
It's never easy, right? That I felt pretty teary when you talked about exhaustion, exhaustion being the sign of emerging compassion. And I think I really needed to hear that, because this year has been so exhausting. And all I hear from people, whether it's clients, whether it's supervisees, as a therapist, I supervise a lot of younger clinicians as they exhaustion.
00:51:15.880 --> 00:51:31.450
But I love that framing and reframing as we would say, in therapy, World of exhaustion as emerging compassion. And I agree, I think that people are more tired than they used to be of violence and power over.
00:51:32.620 --> 00:51:52.000
I think we have to believe that anyway, if we're going to, if we are going to progress into a more kind and compassionate society, right? We have to if we, if we just revel in the despair, we'll give up.
00:51:48.280 --> 00:51:54.730
And then we're certainly not making changes, right?
00:51:55.330 --> 00:52:06.160
Yeah, my friend, Donald Engstrom- Reese says that, you know, when most of us can't afford despair, despair is just for the bourgeois, and most of us cannot afford to despair.
00:52:06.160 --> 00:52:42.100
And so we have to embrace joy, and where joy and connection and so I love, I love that we are ending on this note of exhaustion, as emerging compassion is so beautiful. Like I said, I could keep having this conversation, but I want to be respectful of your time. And maybe we'll just have to have another conversation about queer joy when your new book comes out. I would love that. I love repeat guests. So just planting this seed. But if people for now want to find American gospel or your other writing, where should the Find your work?
00:52:43.700 --> 00:53:02.539
You could go to local bookstores. But if if you got to do it in the internet way, go to book shop.org. It is basically the Amazon for independent bookstores. And it puts money back into the bookstores hands. Stay away from Amazon.
00:53:05.480 --> 00:53:08.030
I love ending on the anti capitalist message.
00:53:08.060 --> 00:53:30.740
Yes, go to bookshop.org you can even pick like your local independent bookstore or your or whichever independent bookstore you want in the country. Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's a UK version too, because I know I've got some listeners in the UK. So bookshop that are getting dizzy, both the US and the UK store, I believe so absolutely.
00:53:26.810 --> 00:53:33.920
Stay away from Amazon. Do you have a website or any social media that you want to put out there?
00:53:34.640 --> 00:53:39.019
Sure. It's not a very good one. But it's there.
00:53:39.590 --> 00:53:43.400
It's www.miahjeffra.com.
00:53:45.920 --> 00:54:12.620
That's great. I will make sure that's also all in the episode description. With thank you so much for this wonderful conversation about so many things. I feel like we could have kept talking for four hours. Maybe it's just me, but I will not do that to you or the listeners. So I look forward to talking more about pure joy next time maybe. And thank you so much for being on Tinder stories today. My so appreciate that.
00:54:12.650 --> 00:54:14.600
Thank you Alex, you made my afternoon.
00:54:15.080 --> 00:54:18.230
Oh, that's great.
00:54:15.080 --> 00:54:32.420
And to you gender stories listeners, as always my immense gratitude for listening to our podcast and or watching it on YouTube. Now the some of the episodes are on YouTube as well.
00:54:28.370 --> 00:54:35.840
And please let me know what you would like to listen to in 2024.
00:54:32.420 --> 00:54:50.990
I'm getting ready for the next season. So if you want to drop me an email and let me know who you'd like me to interview or which of your topics you'd like me to cover. Until next time, I hope you can find some ways to embrace joy and compassion and
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Hello and welcome to another episode of gender stories. As always, I'm elated to be here with another fabulous guest. And today I'm here with Miah Jeffra is author of The Fabulous Ekphrastic Fantastic! (Sibling Rivalry 2020), The Violence Almanac (Black Lawrence 2021), the chapbook The First Church of What’s Happening (Nomadic 2017), and co-editor, with Arisa White and Monique Mero, of the anthology Home is Where You Queer Your Heart (Foglifter 2021). Awards include the New Millennium Prize, the Sidney Lanier Fiction Prize, The Atticus Review Creative Nonfiction Prize, the Alice Judson Hayes Fellowship, Lambda Literary Fellowship, and 2019 finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Outstanding Anthology.
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Most recent work can be seen in StoryQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, The North American Review, The Pinch, The Greensboro Review, DIAGRAM, jubilat and Barrelhouse.
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Miah is a founding editor of Whiting Award-winning queer literary collaborative, Foglifter Press, and teaches writing and antiracist studies at Santa Clara University. So welcome. And thank you for making time for gender source today. I really appreciate you being here.
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Thank you for inviting me.
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Yeah, so let's get right into it. And I don't want to give reader spoilers of course of your latest book American gospel. And I've already shown that, like I said, The Haunting cover, I think, but there are lots of really wonderful themes, I think, in your book around home grief transformation plays. And so I guess I'm wondering, what do you hope the readers will get from your latest book? Like, what's the feeling or message that you're hoping to communicate to readers in your latest book?
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Well, I certainly I encoded some messages that I think I was discovering, as I wrote the book. And, you know, I definitely have certain feelings about some of the issues in the novel, particularly the way that real estate is, is managed in America, how it perpetuates class disparity, how we relegate certain spaces of poverty, to coincide with spaces of violence and, and depravity, despite the fact that the people who live there, you know, are 100% flesh and blood with hopes and dreams and flaws and virtues like everyone else. But we, we discard them. Because we have almost the almost this kind of moral relationship to wealth.
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And so that certainly was encoded, whether whether the readers get that or not, of course, is up to them. But it's also I hope that readers get that there is redemption. And in the not only the challenges of, of being a woman being a queer teenager, but there's also redemptions. And being someone who had no interest in social justice, really, and then it ignites. Because, you know, they are, they're faced with it. So me maybe ultimately, the message I would like readers to get is that we all are capable of awful and wonderful things. I think maybe, ultimately, at the end of the day, that and urban renewal is a bad idea.
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I love all of that. I was like, Oh, my brain is going into three different directions. I kind of want to talk about urban renewal in the in the US and gentrification and what it does to different cities and different neighborhoods, but also, and we can definitely go there in a moment. But I want to pause for a little bit longer on this idea of characters that are fully human, right that are capable of beauty and connection and love and also violence and awful things right just like any human and and that's one of the things I really loved the actual in the book, I think that's the thing I love the most is just how human your characters are in a lot of ways and how kind of you know what anti white supremacy that This right there characters are aspirational.
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They're not like two dimensional, they are kind of fully human, which means they're fully flood, as well as fully beautiful, right. And in some ways that almost feels countercultural. Sometimes, at the moment in reading, I don't know if you felt like that when you were writing, because there is almost this push to package everything nowadays, into kind of neat boxes. And that's what I loved about your book that actually was in that way. Am I making sense? I don't know if that resonates with you at all.
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Yes,
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and thank you, and I'm glad you picked up on that I have no interest in characters being representatives of particular virtue, or vice. None of us are entirely evil, none of us are entirely good. And that's what makes us gorgeous. And it's very, very important to me that all characters get the service of the light and the dark within them. And that we can relate to that because we are that way.
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Absolutely. And I think that that pressure representation can be turned up so high, I think for minoritized characters and or writers or both, right in terms of like, oh, there's sometimes there's so much pushback, oh, this queer character is flawed, or even though it's not fully representative of everything, or why are bad, you know, we don't want to represent your characters in certain ways. And I wonder if you struggle with that at all, when you were writing the book, if you felt this pressure, especially now that there is also so much social media, input noise, whatever we want to call it, definitely, as a writer, notice differences, somebody who was old and over 50 of like, what's it like to write before a lot of social media, and with a lot of social media noise about what writing should be about and we are representation should be about?
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Yeah, so I mean, this is a very, very important part of my writing practice to render queer characters so that they are not one or two dimensional. You know, we've we've had so much literature written where the queer characters are, you know, drug addicts, or prostitutes have suicidal ideation, you know, our stylish confidence to love Lauren women. What have you, you know, these archetypes and there's, I don't oppose those representations, because some of it is relevant. But a lot of times, especially for presumable presumes straight audiences, the queer character needs to be a unicorn, it needs to be a victim, or it needs to be, you know, this kind of bright, shiny fairy, what have you, right? It becomes a stock character that somehow is used, in contrast to the straight character. And I definitely am not interested in that. For example, Peter in the novel, is a queer teenager. And I didn't want him struggling with his sexuality. I didn't want his story to be a coming out story. And I, I asked myself, What kind of queer teenage representation could be terrific and complicating the landscape for potential queer readers. And that's when I decided that he was going to be a sexually confident individual, he was going to be sexually active. He wasn't going to be concerned about that aspect. He was just going to be looking for love. And, you know, in all the wrong places like most of us do.
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But you know, not to be this cowering, you know, simpering victim of, you know, his, his burgeoning queerness. He owns it. Yeah. And I think that could be nice. That could be nice for for queer readers now.
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Absolutely. I love that about Peter. And also because there are so many young people wear that is much more similar to where they're at, rather than maybe the more kind of really struggling or I'm not very confident, right. It's like, like you said, there's just one portrayal by as somebody who works with young people, and definitely at that moment of like, Yes, Peter is the character that we don't see very often, but that does represent some of the folks in our community if that makes sense. And so I really did love that Talk about this character in particular, in and there are so many stories that you could have picked, right? So many different stories, so many different representation. What was it about Peter in particular, or any of the other characters that kind of hold to you? Because there's kind of, yes. I'm just curious about, like the choice of the central characters, so to speak. But now, it's so it's hard to talk about book without spoiling it for people who haven't read it.
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But you know, let's see, let's see what we can do here.
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Sure. I mean, there's three central characters to the novel, all written in their, their perspectives woven throughout, and the structure and Peter being one of them this, you know, this queer teenager who lives in the neighborhood, that is scheduled for demolition. His mother, Ruth Ann, who is estranged from her, her husband, and then this religious cleric and the Catholic Church, Thomas the, the choice of the characters. Very, firstly, Ruthanne is a redemption song, for my own mother, Ruth Ann is not my mother, at all. But my mother did go through domestic violence. And it was pretty severe to the point where it impeded her social mobility as well as her economic mobility, and mostly her emotional growth.
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And I always wanted to give my mother a redemption story. So this fictionalized account, that's where the novel truly began. Peter comes in as kind of like, of a fantasy version of what I wish I could have been.
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Right. What I aspired, you know, I was unfortunately, that kid that, you know, struggled with the shame of, of their queerness. And, and I wanted, I wanted to see a young person not I wanted them to not possess shame, and to be concerned about other things, because how, how wonderful would that be, and the cleric, Thomas is more, it's a larger kind of social commentary about Baltimore, which has a very Catholic tradition to it.
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And the Catholic Church has not been very mobilized and defending and championing for those who are struggling most.
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They, they definitely have outreach programs, but they, they don't work to protect spaces and housing. And, you know, after my research about Baltimore, in the kind of gentrification issues, the being one of the leaders of the community, the Catholic Church, I wanted to give, I wanted to give one of the members, that agency to become what I feel Baltimore needs, which is more of an activated Catholic church, because it is so influential.
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And so, Thomas represents that.
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And I love that because it's also rare, I think, in my experience, and maybe I'm reading the wrong books, but to find two characters like Peter and Thomas in the same novel, right to fight light, and yet something else I loved about your book. Oh, and again, I feel like I could go in so many different directions. I do want to talk about Baltimore and place because place is very important in this book. I want to kind of step back for a moment to what the beautiful things that you said about the character of Irfan, right that that redemption song, I think that's one of the as somebody who has survived domestic violence, both as a child and then as a young adult, that definitely it was hard to read the book at times. And it was also amazing to read the book, you know, at the same time, because I thought it was just really insightfully written again, I'm kind of walking the line of not giving readers any spoilers, but there was a lot of insight there and and I love that you talked about this being like a kind of a redemption song in some ways, right of that impact and that in intergenerational impact as well that domestic violence can have, right? Unless there's really active engagement in breaking that cycle, because often domestic violence in my experiences goes back generations. And another note, yeah. And I see you nodding. So I was wondering if any of that resonates for you that kind of intergenerational thread as well.
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Absolutely. It, we see that in families, you know, I can speak personally that that did exist. And my mother's family, she broke that tradition. Good for her. But very much, you know, the, it passes on on this, like, a genetic predisposition. And that coupled with poverty, especially the very particular brand of urban American poverty, yes.
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Those it's, it's like a perfect storm that perpetuates that intergenerational struggle and trauma. And so it makes sense that we see that in this neighborhood, you know, visa vie Ruthanne.
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Let's talk about gender as well, because right, there's class, the socio economics is plays. And there's also a gender dynamic, often, right, and the gender dynamic can also be complex, right? That is not just necessarily, you know, women are more likely to experience domestic violence, because I think also, in queer community, there's often a lot of intimate partner violence, because there's a lot of trauma, you know, people are trying to relate to each other. And they're not always having work for their trauma, or not having the tools or not having the, even just the capacity just through trying to survive under capitalism. And so, yeah, let's talk about gender in the novel, or even just generally, in your writing, if you like, and kind of how it intersects with all of those themes that we've been talking about so far. Oh, yeah.
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It's like, where do you begin?
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Just an easy question.
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Yeah. I mean, all my all my books, talk, discuss gender, explore gender. My, my nonfiction explores it very explicitly. The Fabulous thick plastic fantastic, has a thread of, of gender identity throughout, you know, identify as non binary. And that term wasn't even in my purview. You know, when I was in college with where I was already demonstrating that kind of sensibility. And when the when I discovered that term, one, I love anything that that pushes against binary opposition's first, right. I like I like spectrum oriented, identities and dispositions overall. So conceptually, I thought it was a very valuable term. But personally, I was able to inhabit that. And it liberated me, not just from trying to adopt a cis sensibility and presentation in my own life, but that it wasn't even about being cis or not being cis it was, it was, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to assert various aspects of my identity on that spectrum.
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That now I feel like I have permission to do in an interesting way, right? There's sadly labels are part of our day to day and you know, even us non binary folks are, we feel this propensity to apply a label because that to be more legible, to the outside world. And what I love about non binary pneus gender fluid are the fact that we we constantly change and you know, my essays my nonfiction really explores that my short fiction even has characters that are all along those gender lines, without explanation that's very important to me as well, that they just live in the world because they are human beings and you don't need to explain their quote unquote difference because that others them and I'm very uninterested in exploring a They're nervous I, I want to kind of shatter it by having the readers just accept exactly these human beings who happen to have gender fluidity in some way. So I have trans characters I have what appear to be cis, characters, and then everything in between.
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And I love that too, because I'm always like, well, like how do you draw the line between like, Where Where does trans end and cis begins and non binary ends and something else begins, right?
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It's like, it's such a, those lines are so artificial, in some ways, right? And that's, that's a lot of my work. It's definitely focused on kind of on that and our gender liberation is really for the benefit of everyone. Right. And then often people are kind of looking for permission to be expensive, or their reacts. So in ways they're so policing and constrictive because they feel so policed and constricted, themselves, you know, not to be too too kind to folks who are transphobic or queer phobic, but there is definitely a element of like restriction and constriction, I think in that kind of gender policing that can go on and so I love that you're like, people don't need I don't need to explain those characters. I'm like, Absolutely, people can
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You know, and you mentioned gender policing. Yeah.
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just exist.
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I, where I'm most concerned about that. is actually not with the cishet community. It's within the queer community. The fact that the queer community performs that kind of gender policing is really upsetting to me. Because we should be the ones that are you know, perpetuating this liberation that eventually also affects cis het folks because honestly, no one is no one is fully cis het.
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I really believe that deep in my heart, and if we can somehow be the be the kind of the the avenue for that liberation for everybody, then we're going to have a much more peaceable world. Right? Because we start shattering these notions of like, I must fit in this box, I must fit in this box. Right? We all need to get rid of that.
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Absolutely.
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100% the heart of the multiverse is clear. I truly believe that I don't think it was an accident. Even as a young teenager when I had no idea about queerness or gender. I didn't have a language. Yeah, in the early 80s, for any of that.
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It is in Italy. But for example, I knew that like certain kind of, like even geopolitical borders or like geopolitical borders are fake and wrong. In people like you're young and like you'll change your mind.
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You'll see that's not a pro abolitionism it's not a practical stance. When it comes to geopolitical borders. I'm like, 52, I've now changed my mind. And, in fact, let's abolish even more borders, let's abolish even more things, right, let's like it was like, if anything else, I think that my desire to kind of break down some of those borders and barriers is only become more intense rather than less intense. As I've gotten older.
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There's a queerness to that, right? It's just it's about queering kind of our dominant understanding that being imposed on us and so many, for so many different systems of oppression.
00:24:18.048 --> 00:24:19.249
I think, Alex,
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I truly believe that. If we want to eradicate the notion of borders politically, we have to start spiritually. And that an identity is where it begins, right? That that body world relationship. I mean, our political systems and new typologies that we have created, has everything to do with the way that we identify ourselves.
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So if we begin to transform that, I really feel like that could have a reverberation that moves way beyond the personal and into, you know, the political, the social, even the economic. I really do believe that. I don't know if we're just optimistic, but I prefer to be in that space.
00:25:12.519 --> 00:25:24.250
I don't know about that. I have been called the relentless optimist by my oldest child and she's always like, you are relentless optimist, and it's great. And sometimes there's a low margin.
00:25:21.970 --> 00:26:52.899
I was like, okay, I can hear that feedback. You know, it's like, it's like, me too. I was like, I am a little much I'm going to the older I get it the more I own them like I am a lot of match. And that's okay. But I love what you said about having to start spiritually and from identity because even as separating ourselves so much from Nietzsche, because of the impact of colonialism, for example, that's, you know, seeing ourselves as separate, don't even get me started on the doctrine of discovery. And now I think that's also connected to our view gender. Anyway, I've written about it other enough to go on about it during your interview. But let's talk about relationship to place as well as gender right, because place is like another, it's almost like Baltimore as another main character in your novel to and and also my, I don't know, if that's your experience, my my experience is also that my gender and my queerness changes from place to place, right, the way that I feel like I express it. Like in my country of origin, in Italy, it's different. And it's even different if I'm in Rome, where I was brought up or in Sicily, when I spent a lot of time, you know, more rural. In Minnesota, it's different in the Twin Cities, they might be in rural areas. When I travel again, I feel almost like a chameleon sometimes depending on where I'm traveling. And so I'm curious about the relationship to plays and gender and that I see you nodding. Hopefully, I'm making some sense in my ramblings.
00:26:53.720 --> 00:27:49.970
Absolutely. I mean, first off, it really resonates with me what you were saying earlier, your interest in kind of colonial structures, the, you know, the Doctrine of Discovery, this kind of, Judeo Christian Islamic kind of, brand of colonialism. That is, you know, this assertion, this domination of nature, you know, removing us from the biocentric relationship that we, you know, also have, you know, the Judeo Christian Islamic structure is anthropocentric. It puts human beings at the top of the chain, which of course, creates an arrogance, right, yeah. And we see that in capitalism, we see it in colonialization. Right?
00:27:44.000 --> 00:29:39.829
And I would by no means suggest, what is the right way to be because I've existed entirely within this construct, even though I feel intuitively to push against it, because it removes us too far from our nature. So with that, I just want to acknowledge that I love that you're doing that great work. That's amazing. And it relates to why place becomes character in my novels, because a city, a place is a combination of human beings and nature. And we are nature. And we create these, these agglomerations that are kind of like a macrocosmic entity, like a human being, you know, they are beings. And they operate like beings, their complexity, their structures, naturally, because we created them, and they're extensions of us. So yeah, I'm, you know, there's no, there's there's no doubt why. We, we even gender cities and states and right, we, we kind of personify them. You know, we we think of Boston as kind of a masculine city, we think of San Francisco as a very feminine city. Right, New York is masculine. Right. And then there's variations within that I feel. I feel that our, our propensity to personify extends itself into the way that I that I render place, I do feel like it is indeed a character. I don't know. Did I answer all your questions? I feel like I left something out. No,
00:29:39.889 --> 00:30:00.259
we will figure it out. We'll probably circle back to it again. But I am curious about why Baltimore for American last fall, like why why Baltimore specifically, I mean, yes, like I can guess from reading your book, but I'm interested in your motivation for choosing Baltimore as the place character, let's call them
00:30:00.379 --> 00:32:55.430
Yeah, Baltimore is one I have a connection to it. I did spend my high school years in Baltimore. Even though I did not conceive of this novel, in Baltimore, it was actually observing, living in Los Angeles. And this kind of overhauling of spaces I was, I was blown away by how Los Angeles erases space and history and rebuilds and then erases it again and rebuilds and There, there was something so unique about that, I wouldn't say it's bad or good. But the negative aspects of it are they're constantly engaging in an urban renewal that relegates its residents, like it just tosses them into almost a diaspora, despite the fact that they are still in Los Angeles. They just la moves people around. And usually at their detriment, you know, I think of things like Chavez Ravine, you know, to build Dodger Stadium just ousted an entire dynamic community. And many cities do it, of course, but it was my observations in Los Angeles. And the, the gross erasure that that city engages in, that made me look back on my time, you know, living in low income Baltimore, and seeing a city that is obsessed with its history, so much, that it doesn't move forward. So it's almost like an antithesis to Los Angeles. So I wanted, I wanted to place the phenomenon that I observed in LA, into Baltimore, to make it more of an American story. And Baltimore in particular, has really struggled since the the industrial, dying, you know, that that occurred, you know, the Rust Belt diminishing, and they never got their footing. Even though cities around them did, like New York, Pittsburgh, right? They, they definitely have more of a story like Detroit, or Memphis, or St. Louis. So my affinity for the city already and my knowledge of the city, you know, knowing its streets, may made me think it was a good place to set the book. And it's also a very forgotten city. It's kind of in the shadow of New York and DC.
00:32:48.680 --> 00:33:03.619
So I thought I thought it'd be because I love the city so deeply. I thought it'd be great to render that character because it's not written about very much in literature.
00:33:04.578 --> 00:34:04.608
That makes a lot of sense. And I love the this beautiful fusion of personal experience and knowledge of Baltimore, and plays and what's happening in LA, and kind of, kind of almost bringing it together. And let's talk about this idea of urban renewal, which is so American, I would say as a, I mean, I am an American. Now, actually, as of last year, it took 15 years, and I have the citizenship. So I can't say anymore like Americans, like there's somebody else who was like, oh, no, I couldn't vote now. I'm a citizen. So, but this idea of urban renewal is so fascinating to me, right? Because it's actually not a renewal. It's it's an often it's a distraction, it's a distraction of communities, and distraction of relationship. Like you said, like, you know, and farther marginalizing, often those that have the least resources, and yet it gets branded as renewal.
00:34:04.788 --> 00:34:18.438
And that's why I think it's very North American, I should say, actually, because I feel like in North America, that's a lot of rebranding that happens, right.
00:34:11.688 --> 00:34:39.918
It's it's like the, you know, we I don't want to get too political. I know who am I kidding. I'm always political on this podcast. But you know, it's like pro life people. It's like, this is not pro life. It was like, right, it's like an urban renewal. Right? Like, let's make it sound nice. And like it's positive, while we're actually taking something away. Does that make sense? And so? Yeah, absolutely.
00:34:40.940 --> 00:34:46.190
Urban Renewal is governmental, racial control.
00:34:46.370 --> 00:34:46.940
Yes,
00:34:46.970 --> 00:34:48.500
that's definition.
00:34:49.010 --> 00:36:54.590
I mean, if you look at the urban renewal projects that existed across the United States, what was deemed, you know, this is a movement that really gets going in the late 30s, but mostly in the 50s. And into the 60s and 70s, as we know, it almost always was black and brown communities, despite the fact that there were poor white communities as well. But it was it was almost always black and brown communities that they deemed slums and the association to slum had to do less with the Quality of housing and the way the neighborhoods looked or operated it, it had more to do with this relativity of property value. And in America, the fact that we speculate real estate the way we do, and how it still are is so racialized. The fact that people who are black or brown living in a community can actually reduce the speculated value of a home even today 2023 Is asinine, and it still is a reality. We it is, we, we put valuation based on perception. So, urban renewal, is taking that to this scope, bronze level. And, again, erasing community relocating and, and kind of dissipating any sense of kind of core identity.
00:36:46.280 --> 00:37:47.360
That's what it it effort. No, it's effort was to do that. I, I'm sure that someone rationalized and maybe even believed that the urban renewal projects and the latter half of the 20th century, were trying to do good, but I think there was also very clear intent to, to racially dominate through a government program, very similar to redlining, which was happening in these neighborhoods. And, and very, I mean, there is no, there's no surprise that a lot of the redlined neighborhoods were the ones that eventually became targets for urban renewal. So it just made it easy to control.
00:37:42.080 --> 00:37:59.810
Black and brown folks, and in particular, black folks. You know, and, and very much Baltimore being, you know, a black majority city. It was was subjected to that.
00:38:01.010 --> 00:39:28.160
Absolutely. And I think that's one of the pieces, right, it's like, calling it the perpetuation of racial segregation is not going to be real popular. But hey, if we call it urban renewal, then we're putting this positive spin. And that, to me does feel like it's this legacy of colonialism, right? It's this legacy of anti blackness is this legacy, that shoe, it's kind of getting repackage. And I totally believe that some people might buy the repackaging of that as something positive and renewing, right, refreshing and redeeming, but actually, behind that it's this long legacy, of colonialism of anti blackness of racial segregation, that I think still deeply impacts. I think every city in the US I know, my experience in South Minneapolis was definitely you could you could almost tell like, if you mapped like the redlining, you know, those maps on to what was happening even in terms of gentrification, where Fiber Internet goes, or doesn't go right house prices, all of that, you can see it is so clear. And yeah, it's almost like the smokes and mirrors, right. Which then, and there's so much more to say. And I think that's one of the things that writing can do sometimes is kind of open up the curtains a little bit or try to clear the smoking mirror. And I think that that is one of the themes in the book, too, right?
00:39:28.160 --> 00:39:32.810
It's like really kind of, let's open this up a little bit more.
00:39:32.810 --> 00:39:42.019
And let's kind of see what's behind the carton or whichever metaphor we want to use. I'm mixing my metaphor between cartons and smoke mirrors. But you know what I'm trying to say here?
00:39:43.190 --> 00:39:45.140
Very much. Yes. I'm
00:39:45.140 --> 00:40:21.140
like, I'm very bad. I'm mixing my metaphors. So forgive me. I feel like I could have this conversation for a long time. And I was like, Alex, look at your questions, because I want to be respectful of your time. But I feel like there are so many more conversations I could have about any of the topics that we can have opened up more. But is there anything one of the questions I always ask towards the end of interviews is, is there anything we haven't talked about yet that you were hoping we will talk about in this conversation?
00:40:22.730 --> 00:40:26.810
Well, that's such an interesting question to ask.
00:40:29.990 --> 00:42:19.370
I feel I'm in this this moment, this kind of impasse with, with my writing. Because a lot of my a lot of my work, you know, all four of my previous books have been so focused on creating complicated characters that exist around issues that I think a lot of readers feel they are above, for example, you know, in the violence Almanac, all of the characters in, that are in these stories are both recipients and perpetrators of violence. And I think a lot of times, especially a reader, they feel that they are more enlightened, to the, to the degree that they are above, you know, the, the degradation of being violent, that they somehow have been exonerated because of their, their education or the choices that they've made. And I've always been very interested in demonstrating multi-dimensional characters, but also to indict the reader. And to remind them that they are capable of justice as devastating choices and actions as anyone that they would vilify on social media, that we can all be pushed into a place of reprehensible behavior.
00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:43.310
And so that was what I have been doing so much either examining my own reprehensible behavior, or creating fictionalized characters that surprise you with theirs. But I need to take a break. From that I'm getting it was very difficult work.
00:42:43.310 --> 00:43:01.070
Yeah, yeah, it was very difficult to write the almanac, it was very difficult to write American gospel. Even though hopefully, we see, you know, see, we see some glimmers of hope and redemption in there.
00:42:55.160 --> 00:44:28.880
But now I'm, I'm working on a story very consciously. that conveys queer joy. And I'm wanting to write about two young boys who may or may not be queer, they're, they're 12 years old. And it's just about a deep, soulful friendship that they possess. And I'm leaving it ambiguous, you know, what their, what their sexual identity is largely because I'm tired of those identifiers, right. And just trying to recreate and capture how soulful we are even as a 12 year old, how romantic we can be, how, how full of tenderness we are, and how we become socialized, especially within contemporary American masculinity, you begin to lose that tenderness to somehow conform. But I'm focusing on the beauty of it. So I hope that you would read that story because I feel like I'm exploring gender in a, in a more pure way, in a less political way, in a more spiritual way. And I'm excited to finish that novel.
00:44:29.960 --> 00:44:31.820
That's beautiful.
00:44:29.960 --> 00:45:09.260
I'm excited for you to finish that novel. So I can read it absolutely. 100%. I think, you know, sometimes when I look at like younger people, or children, like just the way that they can express things is so different than adults. And so I also love that those characters are 12 that you're writing, right? When I look back, and I think about just the pure, like, I didn't know anything about queerness and there wasn't anything sexual, but just the pure kind of friendships and closeness. I remember, like, as a teenager getting this, what I now realized was a love poem from a neighbor. When I was the same gender as me at the time.
00:45:09.289 --> 00:45:27.050
That's the best way I can put it. You know, we had the same gender assigned at birth, let's put it that way. And that but I didn't see it as sexual at the time, right or anything to do with sexuality was just this expression of pure friendship and closeness and, and admiration and connection.
00:45:27.050 --> 00:45:30.320
Right. And I think that we need so much more of that in the world.
00:45:31.240 --> 00:45:39.670
Due to I think we need more romance. And the romance doesn't need to be relegated to a sexual partner.
00:45:40.060 --> 00:45:54.670
We, we can be romantic with so many people. And I think we have that inherently in us. And it gets buffed out by what is considered proper and acceptable,
00:45:54.910 --> 00:45:58.030
right?
00:45:54.910 --> 00:46:54.160
Absolutely. I mean, I'm all about like, being just loving and romantic like, with your friends, and but also with your community, I have so much love for my communities, right. And I think I love that you mentioned hope, actually, I was going to talk to you about hope. And then I forgot, because we were talking about so many other beautiful things, that maybe that's a good place to kind of end on, which is like, you know, I love that you feel called to tell this different story. I'm focused on queer joy. And I think there is hope in American gospel as well. And but how do you find hope and joy in your own life in this particular moment, which feels really hard to a lot of people in a lot of different ways. And so I've been asking a lot, actually, in the last couple of months, to all of my guests like, how are you finding hope and joy and connection in your life at the moment? Okay.
00:46:55.300 --> 00:47:10.900
I think that's twofold. So I've laid the groundwork, in case I get lost, you can say there was a second thing. First off, I'm a teacher.
00:47:01.690 --> 00:48:46.630
And, you know, I teach, I teach creative writing, and decolonial studies, and I love teaching, I love facilitating a classroom, I love learning from my students, I love that engagement is full of joy and love, we want to be there. We love sharing the space with one another. And I mean, I can't I can't say anything about teaching. That even remotely gets close to negative. I love what I do for a living. I'm so grateful for that. And, you know, the students keep me abreast about where they are and the way they operate in the world. So I don't get siloed in my own age and experience, because the students constantly come and go, and, you know, I'm, I'm working with them, and I'm seeing the changes and the perspective. You know, that's local, but maybe also reflects more of a national kind of trend, right. And I learned so much from that. It's, it keeps me open. So that's one way, I have a lot of hope with that. I think the other way I cultivate Joy and Hope is just despite some of these, I mean, terrible happenings around the world.
00:48:40.750 --> 00:49:58.750
And, I mean, I don't even need to list them, we know them and they weigh on us so much. But I think they weigh on us, Alex, because we are actually moving in the right direction. I really believe that humanity is beginning to get exhausted by its own colonial tendency, and, and the harm and the violence and the degradation that we exact upon one another. I think we have a long way to go, but we're getting closer to it, which is why we feel the despair so much more. You know, we have always been a warring culture. I mean, I'll just speak for America and maybe the West, by extension, we have always been a warring culture, there has always been conflict and violence. But we used to as a, as a society, we endorsed it more. Yeah. And I feel like we just don't as much anymore.
00:49:55.240 --> 00:50:26.590
There. Obviously there are exceptions to that. But I think generally, you know, if we really hold back and look, more and more people are tired of it, that the violence is not worth whatever resourceful gain that we get, or nationalistic need, you know, quote unquote need. I feel like that exhaustion is actually a compassion that is emerging, and I do believe probably not in our lifetime.
00:50:27.070 --> 00:50:49.120
But I do believe that we are finally going to get to a place where we understand that equity Is is going to create peace. And people will be willing to sacrifice their goddamn picket fences. So that we can coexist.
00:50:42.100 --> 00:50:54.880
I do believe that we're moving in that direction with a lot of with a lot of hiccups along the way.
00:50:55.750 --> 00:51:20.440
It's never easy, right? That I felt pretty teary when you talked about exhaustion, exhaustion being the sign of emerging compassion. And I think I really needed to hear that, because this year has been so exhausting. And all I hear from people, whether it's clients, whether it's supervisees, as a therapist, I supervise a lot of younger clinicians as they exhaustion.
00:51:15.880 --> 00:51:31.450
But I love that framing and reframing as we would say, in therapy, World of exhaustion as emerging compassion. And I agree, I think that people are more tired than they used to be of violence and power over.
00:51:32.620 --> 00:51:52.000
I think we have to believe that anyway, if we're going to, if we are going to progress into a more kind and compassionate society, right? We have to if we, if we just revel in the despair, we'll give up.
00:51:48.280 --> 00:51:54.730
And then we're certainly not making changes, right?
00:51:55.330 --> 00:52:06.160
Yeah, my friend, Donald Engstrom- Reese says that, you know, when most of us can't afford despair, despair is just for the bourgeois, and most of us cannot afford to despair.
00:52:06.160 --> 00:52:42.100
And so we have to embrace joy, and where joy and connection and so I love, I love that we are ending on this note of exhaustion, as emerging compassion is so beautiful. Like I said, I could keep having this conversation, but I want to be respectful of your time. And maybe we'll just have to have another conversation about queer joy when your new book comes out. I would love that. I love repeat guests. So just planting this seed. But if people for now want to find American gospel or your other writing, where should the Find your work?
00:52:43.700 --> 00:53:02.539
You could go to local bookstores. But if if you got to do it in the internet way, go to book shop.org. It is basically the Amazon for independent bookstores. And it puts money back into the bookstores hands. Stay away from Amazon.
00:53:05.480 --> 00:53:08.030
I love ending on the anti capitalist message.
00:53:08.060 --> 00:53:30.740
Yes, go to bookshop.org you can even pick like your local independent bookstore or your or whichever independent bookstore you want in the country. Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's a UK version too, because I know I've got some listeners in the UK. So bookshop that are getting dizzy, both the US and the UK store, I believe so absolutely.
00:53:26.810 --> 00:53:33.920
Stay away from Amazon. Do you have a website or any social media that you want to put out there?
00:53:34.640 --> 00:53:39.019
Sure. It's not a very good one. But it's there.
00:53:39.590 --> 00:53:43.400
It's www.miahjeffra.com.
00:53:45.920 --> 00:54:12.620
That's great. I will make sure that's also all in the episode description. With thank you so much for this wonderful conversation about so many things. I feel like we could have kept talking for four hours. Maybe it's just me, but I will not do that to you or the listeners. So I look forward to talking more about pure joy next time maybe. And thank you so much for being on Tinder stories today. My so appreciate that.
00:54:12.650 --> 00:54:14.600
Thank you Alex, you made my afternoon.
00:54:15.080 --> 00:54:18.230
Oh, that's great.
00:54:15.080 --> 00:54:32.420
And to you gender stories listeners, as always my immense gratitude for listening to our podcast and or watching it on YouTube. Now the some of the episodes are on YouTube as well.
00:54:28.370 --> 00:54:35.840
And please let me know what you would like to listen to in 2024.
00:54:32.420 --> 00:54:50.990
I'm getting ready for the next season. So if you want to drop me an email and let me know who you'd like me to interview or which of your topics you'd like me to cover. Until next time, I hope you can find some ways to embrace joy and compassion and
