All Things LGBTQ Interview Show: Avery Irons

[music] Hi, welcome to the All Things LGBTQ interview show where we interview LGBTQ guests who are making important contributions to our communities. All things LGBTQ is taped at Orca Media in Montpillar, Vermont, which we recognize as being unseated indigenous land. >> Thanks for joining us and enjoy the show. >> Hi everybody. I'm here with Avery Irons who is a very important writer who's new on the scene sort of, but you've been writing for a while. >> Yes. Um, and we're here to talk about your wonderful new novel, Belonging to the Air. >> Yes. >> Which I encourage everybody to pick up. Um, welcome, Avery. >> Thank you. And thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. >> Well, it's great to have you. >> And if it's agreeable with you, I'll read your bio now. >> Perfect. >> So, uh, the audience can get a little sense of what you've been up to. Avery Irons is the author of Belonging to the Air, a novel, winner of the 2025 Screen Door Press Prize. Her novela Glass Men won Big Fiction Magazine's Nobella Prize. Her short fiction has appeared in Sinister Wisdom, the AfricanAmerican Review, and Magazine CC. She holds an MFA in creative writing and a BA in political science from University of Illinois Urbana Champ Champagne. She also holds a jurist doctor from Colombia University School of Law. Very impressive in New York City. Avery is a Camilio fellow and we'll talk a little about that in a minute. Avery was born and mostly raised in central Illinois. She currently lives in upstate New York, which is Albany, right? >> Yes. Correct. >> Where she writes historical fiction about black families and queer identities during the Great Migration and in the Midwest. She also writes speculative fiction about the carceral systems impact on black America and black youth. That sounds really important. >> It's part of my life's work. So, I think so. So, let's uh get right down to it. Tell us about Belonging to the Air. How'd you happen to write it? I understand it took 20 years. That's the word on the street. I should have never admitted it. Um [laughter] yes. So, Belonging to the Air is a historical fiction novel set in the early 1900s in both the Midwest um starting off in like 1912 and then Harlem, New York during the Harlem Renaissance. And it's very much a coming of age story about a black lesbian who is growing up in what's called a freerman's town. So a town that was created by um black folks who managed to get free um before the end of the civil war during slavery. Um and so she's being raised to leave this town. She's like the granddaughter of the man or great-granddaughter of the man who started it. Um, but she falls in love with her best friend as an adolescent and that is another girl and it kind of throws all those plans into flux and creates this uh tension in the town. I'll phrase it that way. And so she ultimately when reaching adulthood moves to New York City um to find herself and her place in the world but is called back um to support her town um as uh kind of Jim Crow era tensions between black folks and white folks um result in the town being threatened. Um so I yes it did take 20 years maybe just shy of 20 years um to write. I got the inspiration in my early no mid20s um and kind of started to tinker around and then I knew it was a beautiful story. I was like this is just a story and I love this character and I didn't think I was a good enough writer to write it. So I was like um I came out of fiction or not out of fiction I came out of poetry and so I was like I don't know enough about fiction to take on this you know huge thing in my brain. So I spent some years um learning more about fiction. um went and got an MFA in creative writing, focused in fiction. Um and then a very dear uh late print to whom the book is ded dedicated, Greg Rogers, told me to pull my head out of my derriè to go write this book that um had been with me for so long. And so I'm just thankful that the story and the characters stayed with me um that [clears throat] long while I did the research, did the writing, and managed to push out a draft or many drafts, but a final draft that was publishable. >> Uhhuh. Uhhuh. Well, it's sticking with us, too, now that we're reading it. So, I don't I don't know if I will remember for 20 years. I certainly hope so. And I hope you continue writing maybe a sequel. Is there a sequel in your future? You know, people say that and for me I kind of like to leave it open like you know, Bird has reached this point in her life and so I think the reader can imagine where she goes after that. Um there is a prequel in the works more about the founding of the town and her grandmother Odilia. Um and so some of the things that led to the dynamics of that Bird walks into in the in the 20th century. But I don't know right right now a sequel has not come to me. We'll see. >> Well, the prequel sounds good. I'll read that in a minute. Um, thank you. >> Why historical fiction and why that time and place? >> Uh, I just I love historical fiction. I think it's an interesting portal into our past. And I mean, I was a student of history, so I have a political science degree, but I minored in history. I started as a history major. Um, and then ultimately switched. And, um, I think it's just a way to tell stories and to preserve our history in a way that it doesn't have to be a history book. Um, but you can have people feel like they're situated in understanding history through how we understand our own lives, through stories, the stories we tell each other, the stories that we live every day. Um, so I I love that. Um, the actual time period uh came from thinking about the great migration and my family's own experiences um and their own kind of love stories and travels from the south to the north. like, you know, we moved from Mississippi to Missouri to Illinois and Tennessee. Um, and so I think there's so much that's happening in that time period. Um, but that it's very subtle, at least if you're in like a rural part of the country. So, you know, maybe you get Chicago, Detroit, New York, everybody's always talking about it. But my, you know, family looked around and said, "These corn fields are for us. This is where we're staking our claim." Um, and so I wanted to explore that. And I also wanted to think about it from the lens of like a queer black person. Like we we existed back then. Um but what would life have been like for us during you know um this kind of industrial revolutionary time period? Um the agriculture like the switch from agriculture to urbanicity in lots of places and just we were regular people living our regular lives. And so how did we I wanted to imagine that. >> Did you have to do a lot of research? Was that part of the 20 years? >> That was [laughter] a part of the 20 years. That was definitely I mean I felt like my history minor gave me a pretty good grounding. Like I took when I was at the University of Illinois, I took every African-American history course I could get and you know um studied with a wonderful professor named Juliet K. Walker. Um and so I felt like I had a good grounding. But when you start to write it down in a book and you want to do justice, maybe because you do have you've written all these history papers over the years, you like I have to get this right. Um so it takes um just a lot of time and so I'm from central Illinois, which is um maybe about three hours north of where the book is actually set. Uh so I needed to go and learn a lot more about southern Illinois history. Um and that threw me some complete curveballs about East St. Louis history and the East St. massacre. Um, and then there's just, you know, inflation and how much did land cost? How much would all these acres of land cost a 100 years ago and change? And so trying to get that all right. Um, when I was in my writing program, I studied with Leanne How, who is a Chalkaw writer who writes historical fiction, and she really took me to task about my historical accuracy and anacronisms. Uh, so I knew that I could not let her down in this book. Did you go to archives and that sort of stuff? >> Yes. Um did a lot through libraries and actually it's really nice now to be doing this um in the modern world because so much is digitized that you can kind of be sitting in, you know, your desk in New York or Illinois and like zap into a library in East St. Louis or the St. Louis area or I was able to make one trip years ago to the lesbian her story archives in New York City. um and you just you just have so much access to more in newspapers and all those things. So I as a writer who was able to do this in the 21st century, I have deep respect for writers who had to do it, you know, many, many years ago when you couldn't just teleport yourself via computer into somebody's digital archives. >> So you grew up in Illinois. Are there autobiographical components of the novel besides that that you care about? Uh yeah, I mean I think there's a in two ways. I think the the broad strokes. So I grew up I'm a child of Illinois and I'm a child of rural like you know downstate Illinois. So not Chicago. I'm from a factory town that's surrounded by corn fields and my people are were you know my grandparents were sharecroppers who moved up from the south. Um, and I felt like growing up that I did live in this little black town because it was, you know, just you and your family and you're surrounded and you know everybody and I can still walk down the street today in Decator and people will say you're a Palmer because my my mom was a Palmer and my grandparents and so um and then I it does follow the trajectory of like I came out in my 20s and that created stuff. >> Oh yeah. [laughter] and I decided I didn't want to deal with all of that stuff and you know got into law school in New York City and uh moved there and um had actually ended up going back recently after 12 years. So there's these broad strokes and then there's also these kind of love story strokes in some ways of like um my father, you know, there's like stuff around my father's birth and my grandmother who had my father with a man who wasn't her husband, but I blame the man who was her husband for everything that went down. Although I'm glad to be here and I'm glad my father's here. Um >> and my father was married to another woman when you know he had me. Um, and that side of my family is very religious. So, there's definitely some processing that happens. >> I know. >> As I mentioned before the show, I have some of that kind of um processing I've done been doing for the last few years. >> Yeah. >> Because it's all very complex and interesting, isn't it? >> It is. It is. And it's it's an interesting writing gives you an interesting way to tease it out. my my therapist as I who I process with, you know, says, "Do do you journal? Do you write all this stuff down?" And I'm like, "Well, in fiction, I don't actually journal." [laughter] >> Well, actually, when I was reading it, I thought of the Scarlet Letter. [laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah, definitely. >> Why did you make uh the father figure man of the cloth? >> I mean, I think um tussling with some of like the religiosity of that side of my family. Um, and then also I think there are access points to power that black folks had in [clears throat] communities back in that day. And so that was very important to those were important positions. Like you were either, you know, you were a pastor, you were a teacher, like if you could get some type of advanced learning or training or you had money. like these were positions of power um and authority, but they also were positions of constraint. And so you had this man who clearly loved one woman, [laughter] >> but you know, in pursuit of authority and status in a community made a choice um to not pursue the woman [clears throat] that he loved. And also there's a parallel to the lesbian relationship >> between Bird and Bessie. >> Yes. >> I think Bessie [clears throat] clearly loves Bird but show chooses, you know, family and convention. >> Exactly. She's the child of the town's teachers and so there's status there and she has this opportunity for them and you know it's do you choose comfort [laughter] and status or or struggle? >> Right. Right. Well, you you studied at Kimilio and I didn't know anything about it, so please tell us. >> Yes. So, Kimilio is a black writer's community um started by um the writer David Haynes um who has a wonderful book out now called Martha's Daughter. um he wanted to create a space, you know, there at least I think there may be some kind of in the works, but you go to an MFA program if you decide to go that route. Um and it's, you know, you were largely one voice and one black voice amongst your other um students. Um, and that can be difficult in the sense of people don't have the same cultural limbs as you and you end up having to explain everything and defend things in your work and you know, so I think in response to that, but then also just to create a space for black writers in diaspora wherever and despite whether or not they chose to go an MFA route or not to create a space for literary growth and sharing and workshopping um and to um create a community of people who can pass on knowledge about publishing and um you know as you kind of go through I started out as a fellow and I did some summer retreats and then I got into the novel writing program which was like a year-long connection to a published writer who helped me with versions of this book. Um and now I'm on like a fellow's council. Um, so it's just it's really a space to create um kind of the access to information and knowledge and also just celebration and comfort for black writers. >> How interesting. >> Yeah. >> It reminds me a little which is not to equate it but I don't know if you know Meredith Tusen a trans writer >> who's work about MFA programs and how brutal they can be and the idea of having to explain everything and so forth. So it sounds really important and you found it a rewarding experience going >> Yes. I recommend that everyone check it out. There's, you know, the website has an amazing list of all the books that Kimilio fellows have written over the years. And so it's it's just a um amazing literary space. >> Apart from your experience there and your work with your publisher, do you have a writing group? >> No, I need a writing group, Ann. I need one. any volunteers. [laughter] I think it's uh I'm starting to realize well I'm starting to understand the experience of fiction writing in so many ways. You just have to you spend so many years potentially just putting your head down focused on a project and maybe you have a few people that you share it with but you don't at least I didn't have a consistent group around me. Um and then I looked up when I was finally done um and was like whoa what happened then. Um, you also it takes so long un unless you are somehow wealthy enough to not have to work and have somebody else raise your children. [laughter] You you have so so limited time to build that. So, it's something I'm trying to rectify in the writing writing process for the future because I definitely felt um kind of lonely at the end. like I had people I reached out to and was talking to and Cambilio folks, but um definitely missed that type of writing group I had when I was in the poetry world and kind of younger before life took over and I just writing was stealing minutes versus like this is my practice that I can do regularly and maintain those types of relationships with folks. >> What's your practice now? >> [laughter] >> I just said and I steal things. I steal time. I steal. >> It's so hard. You work full time. >> I do. I do. So I've got like a full-time career. I have a 9-year-old and married. So like the yard needs to be done. [laughter] >> Um so I mean I wish I could dedicate more to I try to do a little bit every day. Um, and I try to make sure that what I'm reading is related to that I have plenty of reading that's related to the projects that I'm working on. But, um, there are moments in life when I can like, you know, zip through and have like a good month of solid writing and then there are moments when it's like I wrote three times this week and it was just don't like to get in. >> Life does happen, doesn't it? >> Yes, it does fast. remember S I think I read that Sylvia PL used to get up at 5 in the morning, you know. >> Yeah, I tried that. That didn't work out for me. [laughter] >> I can't imagine it myself. But >> yeah. Yeah. Said um Tony Morrison they say used to do that too and because she was like a single mom and a publisher and I was just like I I can get up early but I'm not built for like sitting down. >> I know. I know. >> Well, let's turn to the novel if we could. Would you mind reading a selection for us? >> Absolutely. Um, so I'll read like a short monologue section. Um, so this is early in the novel. Um, and it's a scene that's between Maddie, who's the protagonist, Bird's mom, and they've just of been in town um, in a store, and it's, you know, very clear to Bird that not everybody in this town likes her mom. [clears throat] Um, and she has her own anxiety then about how they will like her and she's just decided that she's going to go to um the school for black children. Like she's going to go and help out and learn there, but she's been very kind of sheltered in her own home for a long time. On their return trip, Maddie drove the wagon with a pence of slowness. Her body was rigid and her attention chained to the road ahead of her. Bird kept to her side of the buckboard. She had aired somehow. The scene in the store had displeased her mother and soured her already difficult mood. When the town disappeared behind a curve in a cops of trees, Maddie pulled up on the rains and stopped the horse. She took Bird's chin in hand and studied her. You look like your father. You've got his nose and the sharp angle of his jaw. You even have his ears, but you've none of his spunk or steel. I must have marked you by calling you bird. She exhaled and released Bird's chin. Lots of folks in this town don't like me, including Joselyn and Diane. They probably say it's on account of my relationship with your father, but I'm not the first woman to ever have a baby outside of marriage. The truth is, they never liked me. Not even when we were all girls your age. Maybe it's my color or the house I live in or that I've never had to work like they have. I tried to make them like me. Odillia still throws money all around this town so folks will like me. And now she's doing the same for you. I've tried to protect you from this, but now I see was wrong. I was wrong and Granny's right. I had to learn when I was your age that it's okay for people to dislike you. That I shouldn't be afraid of their scowls, teeth sucking their words, and occasionally even their hits. That lesson freed me. Not from everything, but from them. from worrying about what they think, from trying to find the magic smile or words that would make people change their mind. I haven't done everything right in my life, but I've lived on my own terms the best a colored woman can in this world. I have regrets, but they are regrets about the decisions I've made and not about what others have imposed on me. She looked at her daughter. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Tears rose in bird's eyes that the other children are not going to like me. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. I'm saying that you just can't let it affect you either way. You've got to be your own person and live your own life. I'm scared now, said Bird. Manny pulled her close and kissed the part in her hair. The worst that could happen is it doesn't work out and Granny takes back over. Or you might make friends and find a different way in the world than I did. You won't know until you get there. >> That is such a fine passage. >> Thank you. >> I'm a little vertmped. [laughter] It's such it's such good training for a lesbian too. [laughter] >> The early lessons I think there is a question. Did Maddie know that [laughter] airplance of Vera? Speaking of who knows what I mean. >> Yes. Exactly. >> But let's uh move on to the next question. Um, you've said that one reason that you wrote the book was to showcase queer black joy. Would you mind talking a little about that? >> Absolutely. I, you know, I think there is, well, there's already limited fiction about queer folks, even less about queer black folks. Um, and so much of it I think tells important stories, very like valuable stories that need to be heard, but also sometimes really fixates on the hardest of stories. Um, and I think that that is fine, but I wanted to tell a story I wanted to tell multiple stories that can kind of convey different moments and points and different ways that lesbians especially have like navigated the world. And so there are moments definitely of pain and rejection and all those things but there are moments of joy and there are moments in which we find our people um and we make community and you know we manage to stay friends with old lovers and [laughter] we we become best friends with their partner and all the things and I think there are um I wanted to tell more of those stories too um and how they've happened historically. I I love when you know you're able either on social media or TV or something, you get to see like a lesbian couple that has been a couple for forever and before you know you know that that relationship dates back to um long before it was okay for two women to be together even if it's okay now [laughter] um in some places. Um and so I wanted to think about what were those relationships like way back when. And yes, there I'm sure there were moments of pain, but also just moments of joy and love and embracing the fact that I found my person and we're managing to be together despite the world around us. >> You know what that reminds me of? Remember the women of Brewster Place. >> Yes. Yes. >> Controversy said, you know, I wouldn't teach I wouldn't promote this because of the depiction. I mean, I think that's a wonderful novel, but your novel balances it. >> Yeah. I I want It's actually It's one of my we talked about literary influences before we hopped on, so I'm going to launch into one of your questions and of just that was very much in my mind in writing this. And The Color Purple was another influence um of kind of the celely trajectory. Um and and such that book has and I love the color purple does such a heavy lean into patriarchy and like oppression and like so so much of Celely is controlled by others and that is very true for the time period. Um but also there were other stories and there are other ways that I think things might have happened for folks and so I wanted to try to paint some of those other things. Um, and there's a great collection of poetry called The Bulgene Stories written by Sharon Bridgefor um that it's like narrative poetry and she um I think really did a great job in capturing that balance between um or the experiences of a more masculine presenting um black lesbian in the south in you know the early 20th century. Um, and so there are moments of like pain, but also moments of self-declaration and moments of joy. And you end with this moment of peace um, for the protagonist. And so I was very much inspired by that too of like, how do I find this balance um, in these [clears throat] stories? >> Um, I love some of the secondary characters. I liked Charmaine. I liked Leah. I liked Maisie. I love that crowd and they exemplify what you were just talking about, you know, [clears throat] and lovers and friends and everybody sort of >> going along. >> Uh would you mind talking about how their interaction supports some of the key themes of the novel? >> Yeah, I mean I think there's a huge um key theme of self-acceptance and also of survival. Um, and I think you that was one of the other things I wanted to really the book to focus on. It's not just I think a lot of other books historically, you know, there's a focus on like sexual behavior and like characters are, you know, lesbian and that's like that's all it's about versus like the full round character of a person's life. And so I wanted this book to be about not just Bird as a woman who is in love with another woman or fell in love with another girl, but Bird is a woman who understands her identity as a lesbian or as someone with same gender attraction. Um, and so I wanted um that to be about self-acceptance. And so I wanted to place her in a community where she could show that. I think it's really hard to show that if you if she would have stayed in her hometown because they were clearly trying to like tamp her down. um and say, "Let's not talk about that. Let's not just don't we're going to act like that didn't happen or that's not you." Um >> says that you're in Vera. >> Exactly. [laughter] We're going to send you away. Um and so she finds in New York City people where she can really be herself and selfac self-accept. And then also I think there is, you know, in the queer community and the black community and the black queer community like this idea we have to survive with each other. um even as the world tells us you know we don't belong there or too belong we can't be who we are um and so I they I think those relationships really bring home um her ability to survive because she doesn't survive in New York City alone she survives with um these friends lovers and people this family chosen family she collects over her years there >> are there any other secondary are there who are your favorites secondary and third grade. >> Yes. Um I love Uncle Vernon. Uncle Vernon is a composite of my uncles and I think I just was, you know, the world has treated me so well and gave me the best uncles on the planet. Um and so these kind of these >> cuddly men [laughter] all put together. Um [clears throat] and I really like Vera. Maisie is one of my favorites. It was always nice interacting with Maisie on the page. Um, I really loved the angel Gabriel. Um, he was one of my faves. I loved them all. I I think that's probably also why I spent 20 years on this book because you just these people live with you and you you just fall in love with them and it's it's a sad moment when you kind when it kind of ends of like, okay, everybody's like, we're done. That's a wrap. [laughter] >> I know. It was kind of an unfair question because they're all great. Thank you. >> I think so. Um, let me ask you, I ask you any more literary influences. Yeah. Um, so we talked about Glorian Naylor. Um, I am definitely a daughter of James Baldwin. Um, I just love love love his fiction, his writing. Just I've tried to read everything I can by him and finding the obscure things even. Um I just um was so impacted. I think he has he was grappling with so much of the same things that I was grappling with um even more intensely I think as someone who was a child preacher, not just a child of religious folks. Um and so I think also trying to deal with that in his works, the the navigation of the world um and as a black queer person. Um and so definitely him. Um I I think oh now I'm like confusing what did we talk about when um Maya Angelou um I have always tried to um like I said I was a poet and so I think that comes a lot across in my books um and I just you know was always floored and lumixed and um amazed by her work and Nikki Giovani's work. Um, so yeah, I think I just I feel like I'm a mish mash of all these amazing >> Never say that. >> Oh, no. I mean, I think in a good way of like >> composite. >> Yeah. So, like they've all touched so much and inspired so much >> and I noticed in your narrative the fire next time appears. >> Yes. Yes. [laughter] There are some lines in there that are are just really ticklers for me that I'm like, "Oh, the fire next time." And then there's like kind of a response to Audrey Lord about, you know, we weren't meant to survive, but we were meant to survive. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. >> Yes. Let me ask you, this is um do you think Sula is a lesbian novel? >> That's a good question, Ann. [laughter] If it's not, it should be. Um, I reread it later in the drafting of this um to just kind of go back to those friendship elements and like that closeness. Um, >> I just love that novel. >> Yeah, it's really good. I I I don't know if I think it was in the end or if it was more of a maybe in the way of like if the world had been different. [laughter] >> Uhhuh. then maybe a different relationship >> would have emerged. Um, yeah, that's a really good question. I I often try to look for themes in Tony Morrison's work of >> I know there is no answer, but I kind of approach it that way, but you know, of course there's >> um All right. Contemporary writers whose work you would recommend. I know you mentioned Martha's Daughter. >> Yes. Yes. David Haynes. Um, and he's got he's a black gay writer. Um, who's got amazing like a host of amazing books. I think you can't pick up anything by David and um, be disappointed in it. His latest book is called Martha's Daughter. Um, I, you know, some of the things that I was reading, I was, it was kind of a weird thing when you're writing queer black historical fiction, you can't I couldn't read some of it, like other people writing it. So once I was done, I was able to pick up all these books finally and read them. Um, and so the prophets by Robert Jones Jr. I think is really really powerful. Um, and explores I think really goes to a hard place and exploring like >> gay love in like during slavery um, and amongst black men. Um, if you're if folks are more interested in kind of something a little bit more contemporary but also brings in kind of querness and race. Um, kind of Britt Bennett's work is interesting. Um, if you want to like step out and like not do historical fiction but more speculative, I love the work of Enk Json. Um, she's got a series that I will remember the name of. It's her latest series um about New York City and she's got some really awesome kind of lesbian and black gay male representation in there. Um and some excellent social commentary about the world. Um if you like speculative stuff, um I really like I have a kind of a pressmate whose book was published by um Screen Door Press at the same time. Her name um is Tony Anne Johnson and her book But where's Home um is set in New York in kind of the 1950s on um and it's a very interesting look at kind of black community and like um not black wealth but kind of black upper class folks and um struggles that people don't think they have. So that's what I'll have been thinking about lately. Do you know Mecca Jamila Sullivan's work? >> Yes. Not well, but yes. >> Yes. I read her novel and she's got a wonderful short story. I mean, >> my um so let me ask you a couple more questions if that's agreeable. Um >> absolutely. >> What are your current projects? parent projects, the prequel [laughter] >> to going back and looking at the founding of Bennettville and this family and how they how the grandfather great-grandfather who founded the town, you know, escaped from slavery while managing to also be able to um get enough land to start a freedman's town. So that's very much in both the kind of drafting and his like historical research phase. I had thought of it all as like a big like this was all like part of belonging to the air but you can't publish you know 500,000 words in one book so >> I mean although people are doing it but I don't read it really I mean you know >> longer I get the less long fewer long novels I tackle but go ahead >> yeah um so really wanting to explore that and make that the next major project Um there's at least one short story that I want to write um in the world of belonging to the air with bird um that I it was kind of tinkering with as a part of the book but couldn't decided to pull it out. Um but it's just I think would be a fun story for folks to understand how Bird and Louise her landlord reconcile after their falling out. Um, so that and I'm trying to do >> that would be great because I wondered about that all of a sudden. >> Yeah, >> she's an ally from being a homophobe. >> So good. That's good. >> I will send it to you when I'm done with it. [laughter] Um, and I'm working like I have a newsletter like a substack and I really >> yeah I've been trying to um the thing I realized when I started doing book talks after the book came out was that everybody loves to talk about like family migration and family stories and all those things and were interested in the like historical research points that I thought that everybody would be bored about outside of [clears throat] fiction. Um, so just as I like find things, I like type it up for folks and just send it out of like, oh, this I went to this event about church hats. [laughter] >> I wasn't enough. What a te hat was. >> Exactly. >> Um, so that's been really good at helping me kind of organize my thoughts and like put a little more direction on things and also to create the conversation as opposed to just waiting for the book to come out um to have the conversation. Um, so yeah, I'm trying to write a few poems. It's like, you know, I need more hours, Ann. I need more hours. >> No, I know that that nineto-five job is really draining [laughter] was my experience. But let me ask you um about the Substack. If we go to your website, can we find the Substack? >> Yes. Yes, you can. Um there's like I think a tab it's called short form short and you can go there. You can just type in your email address and it will sign you up. I don't spam you. It's like two things a month because that's all I have time to write. >> Oh, I know. I know. And is it different non-fiction than fiction? Probably. Huh. >> Um, yeah, it's mostly non-fiction. Um, I do plan on dropping a little bit of the fiction in as I like I want to connect for folks to show how the research translates directly into a written passage, but I haven't gotten there yet. So, right now it's more about the kind of non-fiction of what I'm finding or thinking about. >> You have a lot going on. >> I do. I do. >> Now that you [laughter] say it, >> let me ask you uh since we're drawing to a close, it's been really great talking with you. I hope you come back again. >> Absolutely. We'd love to >> talk about future accomplishments, but um what are your validator remarks? What final words would you like to leave our audience with? >> Oh, that's such a good question. >> Or, you know, daytoday whatever. >> Yeah. I mean, >> leave us. I think for me this project has been both a kind of a love letter to the queer community, to black folks, to black queer folks, to lesbians, just to say our stories are worthwhile um and deserve to be stole told and are all the things. They're hard and beautiful and soft and um just they are the things of life. Um, and so I I would just leave with folks to, you know, read widely and read broadly and read books that tell your story and read books that tell other stories because I think that's really how we connect in a time and space when it's hard to connect with each other. And you know, so this book, all books, any book, um, I think writers write them and give them to the world as points of connection. So, please take up those points of connection. >> Avery Irons, thank you for joining us. >> Thank you, Ann. It was a pleasure. Thank you for joining us and until next time, remember, resist. >> [music] [music]