Stories are a bit like magic. Don’t you think?

I’ve been a magician since I was seven years old – if I recall correctly, my first public performances at a neighbor’s house where my costume was, inexplicably, a Chicago Bulls sweatshirt and I performed in front of a neon green Tasmanian Devil blanket as backdrop. In that way, I suppose, I’ve been telling stories since I was a very young human (hopefully the magic shows got better with age, who knows, ask my folks).

And so when I went to find stories to read about people like me, and I couldn’t – not quite – I decided to tell them myself. As a printed extension, I suppose, of my decades-long performance art.

I began writing stories for me, and for people like me.

Bacon Grief, first published in 2021, is more or less about me and was written in teeny, tiny bits and pieces over something like six or seven years. It was an exercise of sorts, not necessarily meant to be published at all. And then a teenager read it and cried, said they were so happy to see themselves reflected in the story.

Silas on Sundays, published in 2024 by Wildling Press, is not (exactly) about me and didn’t take nearly as long to write. And then, at a pride event, someone smiled ear to ear saying they’ve never seen themselves on the cover of a book. Thriving.

Most of the stories I choose to tell today, at least the ones not about teeth, aim to affirm faiths, genders and sexualities. Because all readers, and indeed all people, deserve happiness on this planet and beyond, no matter who we are or what we believe in. Don’t you think?

That sounds pretty magical to me.