In a series of genre-blending essays, Entwined tells the story of Alex Alberto’s decade-long polyamorous journey towards a new kind of family.
In these essays, Alex attempts to build two committed relationships at once when no one involved has done it before; develops a powerful bond with the woman their partner loves; sits through a tense Thanksgiving Dinner with religious in-laws; questions the need for rules and hierarchy in their relationships; experiences the intensity of a triad; wrestles with the fragility baked into the nuclear family after their father’s stroke; and explores their queerness and gender identity in English, in New York, while struggling to reconcile their newfound self in their native French-Canadian language and culture.
Entwined explores the fuzzy lines between friendship, romance, and family with various essay forms, including a play, an advice column, and a love letter.
Released February 19, 2024.
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A word from the author
I’m a storyteller and educator. I grew up in Montreal and currently live in upstate New York, where I’m building a farm and retreat program.
My book is about my transition into an established polyamorous life. Yes, there are challenges, but rather than wallowing in the throes of jealousy, this collection celebrates the hard work of creating a love life that resists conventional narratives.
I called my book Entwined to highlight a focus on love and commitment among my partners and their partners, creating a network of significant others bound together to make up my family. I don’t dwell on why I chose polyamory or try to persuade readers that monogamy is flawed. Entwined shows what polyamory looks like for me.
by K.G. Strayer (they/them)
Stellar Nursery follows trans/nonbinary writer and artist K.G. Strayer’s struggle for bodily autonomy. From abortion to top surgery, colliding galaxies to cellular division, Strayer’s lyric prose explores what it means to move through the modern world in a contentious body.
The state-mandated “counseling” packet Strayer receives a week before their abortion in 2014 describes the embryo in relation to coins—the height of a nickel, the diameter of a dime. Meant to make them picture holding it in their hands. Instead, Strayer’s imagination conjures a whole galaxy in its place—a star being born.
Years later in 2022, Roe V. Wade is overturned. The decision is a catalyst that sets in motion explosive consequences in Strayer’s personal life, and their access to life-saving top surgery hangs in the balance.
Strayer’s memoir is a heartfelt account of the layered ways our struggles against fascism converge in the context of lived experience.
To meet the world fully embodied—is that a choice we can all make equally?
Released February 20, 2024.
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During Pride month of 2022, I decided I didn’t want to hide anymore.
I started saying I was non-binary more and more publicly. At the same time, my Republican parents became more and more radicalized. When Roe V. Wade was overturned, I feared I would lose access to much-needed medical care.
What I needed was top surgery. Top surgery–but also the removal of expired breast implants and a double mastectomy for a high risk of breast cancer. Suddenly, a surgery I’d anticipated for most of my life—one my mother received herself—took on a new meaning. I feared state interference, but toxic rhetoric had already done the job.
Stellar Nursery is the story of my abortion, and my road to top surgery. Simple choices that have taken on cultural significance much larger than themselves. The freedom to choose belongs to all of us. No one knows us better than ourselves.
by Caroline Shannon (she/her)
This memoir-in-fragments dives into Caroline's struggles with postpartum depression and anxiety, substance abuse, motherhood as an identity—and how it funneled through the generations of mothers who preceded her.
During pregnancy, a body quite literally opens and then empties for birth, and this is viewed as natural. But for Caroline, it unlocked a chasm between her former and postpartum identity.
Contrary to the romantic vision of parenthood as the most profound and fulfilling experience of pure love one can know, Caroline's experience felt isolating, overwhelming, inequitable, and consuming. When friends asked her how it felt to be a mother, she answered honestly—"I mean, I don't recommend it."
Told in Caroline's unrestrained, approachable tone, Mother-Eaten is a radical dive into the depths of her all-consuming early mothering years.
Releases fall 2024.
A word from the author.
I’m a queer mother, writer, and educator. I live in Pittsburgh, PA, with my daughter and three adopted cats.
I started Mother-Eaten when I was seven months postpartum. Initially, this book was no more than deliriously tired notes on my phone and anxiety-driven scribbles in a journal. I knew what I was experiencing was not only common but frighteningly unspoken.
The only type of motherhood I had witnessed required the devotion of a person's entire being, whether via my mother or carefully curated Instagram images from moms I barely knew (or would never know). I felt discarded.
Nature showed me animal mothers, like scorpions and worms, who willingly give their bodies to their young. Some encourage their children to eat their flesh. Others, like the crab spider, allow their young to drink nutrient-rich juice from their leg joints. Eventually, she is sucked dry and dies.
There is a name for it—matriphagy. Or mother-eating.