The Joys of an Unpaid Part-Time Job

March 2025 Supporter Post

Welcome to the Supporter Post! This is where we tell you what else we’ve been reading (on and off Substack) and let you know what’s going on behind the scenes in Queerthology HQ.

Here’s what we have for you today:

• Recent Reads: Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda, Rage: On Being Queer Black, Brilliant, and Completely Over It by Lester Fabian Brathwaite

• Behind the Scenes: New Sticker, On Janice Joining Queerthology & Janice’s Thoughts

• Personal Life Stuff: Wedding Plans

If you're interested in being a Queerthology Book Club Supporter then you can do that through my ko-fi. You can leave me a one-time donation or you can become a monthly member in order to support the book club PLUS you get to have a couple of sweet perks. You can also just become a paid subscriber right here on Substack by hitting that one button that says Upgrade.

ICYMI 👀 Check out the poetry pick for March, You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World by Ada Limon 🦌

Touching Grass via Poetry

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Substack

• “Oppressive language…is violence.” - Ad Astra “And the number of authors, readers, bookstores, etc., who have framed themselves as trans allies, but have conveniently chosen to “forget” this history of transphobia, is no different, and in many ways, worse. (Was it really a project “ten years in the making,” or was it delayed to try and sweep her comments under the rug?”

• The Nonfiction Files 2: How to Pick Nonfiction You'll Like - Unstacked “First, and this cannot be overstated, you need to know your taste. If you read a lot of nonfiction, this is likely easy for you to articulate. If you’re newer into sourcing your own nonfiction, you will have some trial and error to help you hone your thinking.”

• Blueprints for Survival: Zines, Self-Publishing, and Community Building - Queer Archive Fever “Zines have the ability to spread like dandelion seeds (I love dandelions), spreading without interference from corporate stakeholders or manipulative algorithms, just the wind guiding them where they must go, where they are most needed. I truly believe that zines are tools for resistance, truth-telling, and survival.”

• Carceral academia - Radical Books Collective “This ubiquitous yet charged genre can range from student reviews of faculty or a dean’s review of faculty or a report about an academic unit’s performance or a report of research and teaching activities or punitive compliance reports about various breaches of policies — you name it, the university will “report” the hell out of it. More and more, police reports have come to fit nicely with the university’s obsession with snitching, surveillance and detention as universities now rely heavily on their police force and on the criminal justice system for all kinds of small and large issues.”

• 25 Playful Date Ideas That'll Make You Feel Alive Again - NoomaLooma with Piera Luisa Gelardi “Some of life's most electric moments happen when we make space for play, whether we're deepening a romance, celebrating friendship, or taking ourselves on a solo adventure.”

❤️ Now would be a good time to like this post! ❤️

Recent Reads

Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda

I absolutely loved this collection of short stories. The stories center on the voices of women: rich, poor, privileged, bruja, trans, religious, sex workers to show how no one is untouched by the cancer that is machismo. Each story renders an exploration of the myriad of ways women are affected and the nuances of their emotional depth ranging from grief, rage, guilt, fear, disgust, and determination. A couple of stories had me cheering for the “good for her” moments, others filled me with the kind of anger that make my eyes sting, some made me feel the weights of the world, all were great. I will for sure be looking out for anything Dahlia de la Cerda publishes.

-Janice

Rage: On Being Queer Black, Brilliant, and Completely Over It by Lester Fabian Brathwaite

Rage is fast and furious collection of essays about queerness, Blackness, and pop culture. It's part memoir, and part pop culture and societal review. Lester is hilarious and insightful, at times sad, but most times quite fearless. I loved reading his musings on being Black, being gay, bodybuilding, his unfortunate attraction to white men, moving to the States from a young age and feeling like outsider in the gay community.

It turned out to be the perfect choice to read just before giving a workshop recently with the theme of Rage & Release. I chose the excerpt from the essay "I Hate the Gays”, which felt very much like a conversation that I’ve had with my partner about queer spaces in the Bay Area countless times. Overall a great pick, perhaps not for everyone, but definitely for me.

-Kris