Author: Joseph Dante

writer, editor, instructor.

2025: The Retrospective

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If we applied the Goodreads rating system to years, this one was a solid 2 out of 5 stars. Not especially great, I must say. There were moments of reprieve, but a lot of frustration, stress, disruption, and existential crises. A lot of: why am I doing this? Why are WE doing this? Why are we here?

Outside of, you know, everything (gesturing at the country, the world; so many have written about so much this year that it’s exhausting), teaching in particular was quite a challenge due to the rampant use of AI by students. If you aren’t aware, in higher education, AI use has gotten much worse and is massively underreported, and professors have really had to reevaluate how they teach, particularly when it comes to writing instruction. Some choose to ignore what is happening for the sake of their own mental wellbeing, while others seem to be going full Luddite, where all writing is done with a pen and paper in the classroom, blue books, and/or requiring oral defenses. We are so desperate to just get students to do their own work, to come up with an original thought of their own. When I see a student actually writing about something they care about in their own words, I could cry out of sheer delight and relief. This is where we’re at now. I have stressed in the past how I cannot help them become better writers and more nuanced critical thinkers if it isn’t their own work, but this simply isn’t enough. I’ve considered what I’m going to do moving forward and currently will be implementing more in-class writing and peer reviews during the drafting process. It’s not ideal, but I do think students need to be capable of writing independently outside of the classroom as well. I’m a writer, and all the best writing I’ve done has happened outside of the classroom, in my own time, with some kind of feedback involved.

“Slop” was declared the word of the year by Merriam-Webster, which I think encapsulates everything really well.  Outside of writing, we have to be extra vigilant with what we are seeing and consuming online now, as more content becomes AI produced. I remember growing up in the nineties and being very excited about the advent of the internet, how everything was opening up and expanding in terms of creativity and expression, how we suddenly had access to even the most esoteric information at our fingertips, how introverts like me could more easily connect with each other and find/found communities around their strange, niche hobbies. This age we’re living in now feels like the exact opposite of that. It’s not democratizing, it’s homogenizing. Not very punk at all.

In addition to these new challenges we face as educators and humans, I’ve had to juggle another new role: coordinating learning assistants in the first-year composition classes and at the writing center at my university. As part of this, I attended the ILAC conference at the University of Colorado and co-presented with some colleagues on how learning assistants can help with peer review and building a writer’s confidence in the classroom. This was a bright spot in the year, as it was very motivating and encouraging to be around hundreds of instructors from around the world who also care about what you care about, listening to and learning from their own challenges and how they have faced them at their own institutions, how we can better serve our students with these additional resources. The conference took place in November, so I briefly got to experience fall as a season–surrounded by the mountains, the cool wind nipping your cheeks, the yellow and red leaves falling off the trees, the bikers yelling at you to stay out of the bike lane or be run over.

During the summer, in a more quiet heat, there was a memorial for my husband’s stepmother. We traveled to Texas to attend it. As I listened to the tributes given by the family, I was reminded of Victoria Chang’s Obit, where the author, when contending with the death of her parents, notes how grief moves, how memory “gets up […] and starts walking.” It’s been a few years since my Nana passed away, but I feel this sometimes in moments. Something will unhook or unlatch as I move through the day, and she is here again. She is here still, even when she isn’t.

This year was also challenging due to the worsening of my chronic intestinal issues, which have been confusing and disruptive. My relationship to food, which used to be somewhat indifferent, has become more contentious, as I don’t know which foods that I put in my body will end up giving me intestinal issues. I haven’t been able to figure out a consistent pattern to anything. I’ve gone to the gastrologist and have tried many different approaches, medications, antibiotics and probiotics. I know I should exercise more (who shouldn’t?), but I have low energy and have always hated moving and sweating. Please don’t make me.

As you will notice below, I largely read poetry and nonfiction this year, which makes sense, as I’ve been working on my own collection of poetry. I have a new poem, a haibun, that will be published in the upcoming issue of Hayden’s Ferry Review. I listened to many podcasts and some audiobooks, which helped with my long commute to work. I played a good variety of video games, many of which probably fall under either the “cozy” or “puzzle” category. Some visual novels, some fighting, and some cooperative games I played with my sister. Not many RPGs, although I definitely have a backlog that I should tackle in the upcoming year. Not a lot of new music. I didn’t really watch movies at all.

I am hoping next year is more stable. Softer. During this winter break, I’ve been reminded how nourishing the act of reading is. I don’t do much of it for pleasure during the semesters, as I much prefer sleeping and turning off my brain. I need to submit my poetry more often, more widely. I need to apply the hydra strategy: for every rejection received, you submit to two more journals in its place. If you’re annoying, you can make more things happen.

Media and Art that Defined My Year

Poetry:
Love Prodigal by Traci Brimhall
Deed by torrin a. greathouse
Crush by Richard Siken (reread)
Love Is a Dangerous Word by Essex Hemphill
Song of My Softening by Omotara James
Punks by John Keene
Modern Poetry by Diane Seuss
Trophic Cascade by Camille Dungy
My Alexandria by Mark Doty
If They Come for Us by Fatimah Asghar
The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded by Molly McCully Brown

Nonfiction:
Teaching Critical Thinking by bell hooks
Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come by Jessica Pan
Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby
High School by Tegan and Sara Quin
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan
My Meteorite by Harry Dodge
Like Love: Essays and Conversations by Maggie Nelson
Poets Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats by Courtney Gustafson
The Two Kinds of Decay by Sarah Manguso

Fiction:
The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
Lie with Me and In the Absence of Men by Philippe Besson
Willful Creatures by Aimee Bender
Nimona by N.D. Stevenson

TV Series:
Abbott Elementary
The Great British Baking Show
Broad City
Hacks
Big Boys
Superstore (rewatch)
The Man on the Inside
The Prisoner
Stranger Things

Video Games:
Infinity Nikki
Arcade Spirits: New Challengers
Hello Kitty Island Adventure
Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket
Lego Horizon Adventures
Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection and Capcom Fighting Collection 2
Them’s Fighting Herds
Bugsnax
Carmen Sandiego
Coffee Talk and Coffee Talk, Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly
Astro’s Playroom and Astro Bot
Blue Prince
Breath of Fire II
Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma
Trash Goblin
Date Everything!
Tiny Bookshop
Klonoa: Empire of Dreams
Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar
Final Fantasy Tactics: the Ivalice Chronicles
Beacon Pines
Once Upon a Katamari
Kingdoms of the Dump
Marvel Cosmic Invasion

Music:
Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party by Hayley Williams
The Gods We Can Touch by Aurora
From the Pyre by the Last Dinner Party
Supernature by Goldfrapp
“Children of the Corn” and “In Der Palastra” by Sopor Aeternus and the Ensemble of Shadows

Podcasts:
A Bit Fruity w/ Matt Bernstein (pop culture, internet, politics)
Square Roots (gaming)
RPG Cast (gaming)
Bad Art (politics, art)
404 Media Podcast (technology, internet)
Between the Covers w/ David Naimon (books, writers)

The Life Stages of a Writer

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We often think of a life in chapters. This organization makes sense, even for those who don’t consider writing to be their dedicated vocation or life’s work. A poem cycle I am drafting features this conceit: each poem is a chapter, and each chapter is written with the conventions/tropes/lens of a different genre (e.g.: fantasy, horror, romance, etc.). It is strange to think about how my life would be organized otherwise, if I weren’t a writer. I cannot help but think back to certain life events through the lens of my reading/writing and creative impulses/obsessions at the time. My whole identity is bound up and defined this way. Because of this, I’ve paid close attention to how my tastes have changed over the years, how my specific motivations for writing have changed. Through this mapping, I can also see how my priorities have shifted as a human. I wonder if other writers and creatives segment out their lives in a similar way, if any of the organization to these chapters have more universal qualities than I realized.

Here I have mapped out my life stages as defined by my primary motivation for my writing-being during each period.

1. Childhood: Escapism

I was a quiet child with a loud imagination. I was an only child for the first eight years of my life. Writing was a means to entertain myself and the few others who would put up with my eccentricities and esoteric fascinations. I made books out of construction paper for my mom, I wrote plays for my family. I made up video game character select screens, bestiaries. I wrote because it was exciting; I was always vibrating with ideas and had to put them somewhere. Writing gave me the space to play with them.

2. Adolescence: Catharsis

During my teenage years, I obsessively chronicled my everyday life. Writing became less about dreaming and fantasizing and more about venting and understanding what I was feeling (see: existential angst, confusion, frustration). It became my primary means and preferred method of communication. I kept several online journals (one was read by close friends, others were only for me). I wrote because I was compelled to and I wrote to feel less alone. It was part prayer, part exorcism. This was the obsessive period in that I couldn’t seem to help what I was doing. Along the way, I connected with others online through my writing and ranting into the ether. They certainly put up with me more than I would have.

3. Young Adulthood: Observation

After graduating college with my BA, I felt adrift and uncertain. I knew what I was good at, but I didn’t know how it was going to fit into a career exactly. I was unsure about teaching. I began having severe panic episodes for the first time. I moved away from my everyday online chronicling and instead kept a physical journal to map my anxieties, shown only to my therapist. I was forced to look at myself with more distance, from the outside in. I began to edit for literary journals and publish poems and short fiction. For the first time ever, there was a consideration of audience. My writing became less private and I had to think about what that meant, if I wanted to use a pseudonym. I ended up using a half-pseudonym, which has stuck with me to this day.

4. Adulthood: Organization

My writing and reasons for writing now take on many forms; it’s all about juggling modes and moods. There are so many drafts in so many different places, to-do lists and notes. Writing happens on my phone, on my computer, in the shower, before I fall asleep. Pieces eventually coalesce or don’t. I check tasks off everywhere, I set reminders. There is so much prioritizing. My creative life is much more compartmentalized because it has to be. I strive for coherence in my writing and through my writing.

2024: The Retrospective

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This year, I decided to split everything up, as life and American culture continues to fracture. You see, life imitates art (and blogging).

Teaching

I taught as an adjunct professor for a year and was hired by my alma mater as a full-time instructor. My role now is hybrid: I teach a class or two every semester while also helping to direct the university’s writing center. This new role suits me, as I have previous experience working at the center for years. I’ve also come to incorporate my classroom teaching with more writing center pedagogy, spending more time individually with students as I did when I was a writing consultant. I often feel much better about teaching when I get to spend time like this with students as individuals; it humanizes the learning process a lot more. I also look forward to teaching poetry and perhaps creative writing in the future.

AI and Algorithms

If you are any teacher of writing, I feel your frustration. These LLMs have become so quickly integrated into so many online tools without enough deserved skepticism. I emphasize in my classes how writing is distinctly human, bound up intimately with identity, voice, and an individual’s critical thinking, and these tools remove all those essential elements. As a result, writing loses its originality and texture. I find myself, more than ever before, having to justify why writing your own original work is important and necessary, which seems surreal to me. Any issues with traditional plagiarism have become almost quaint. This is where we’re at now, unfortunately. I half-joke with colleagues that I am returning to parchment and quills. Students will be expected to bring their own inkwells.

Writing

I published a lyric essay in Salamander, which was recognized as Notable in Best American Essays 2024. I received many nice rejections for my poems, but didn’t have enough time to send more out. I will try to work on that. I say this every year.

Reading

I read a lot of student papers, of course, and texts/books on writing and teaching writing. Outside of that, it was mostly poetry and graphic novels. Bite-sized things in my leisure. I have gravitated less towards literary fiction, as I have been writing more poetry and nonfiction.

Libraries

I got a new library card, and so my sister and I have gotten more in the habit of paying visits to our local library. We’ve discovered new writers this way. They often have sales too, where we find good books for a dollar. I harp on and on about using the library’s resources to my students. It’s free, it’s one of the few remaining third places we have, and it’s right there. Use it!

Social Media

What are we even doing anymore with these platforms? There has been a migration from Twitter/X to places like Bluesky and Threads. Everything is so fractured and it feels kind of pointless to try to keep starting over and over and over again.

Weather

I know I constantly bleat and whinge about how oppressively hot it is, but this year was brutal. And then the hurricanes came.

Illness

I got COVID for the first time and I was so mad. It was miserable. The one time I leave the house.

Body

I continue to suffer from irregular GI issues. My dysmorphia also hasn’t been great. My body and mind love being my archnemeses. Instead of all this AI nonsense, can someone please usher in the era where I can upload my consciousness or become an ethereal mist? Thank you.

Election

Disappointed but not exactly surprised, which is my general response to most human outcomes.

Congrats/Thank Yous

Congrats to my sister for graduating with her degree in environmental science!
Congrats to me for surviving the first semester in my new professional role!
Thank you to my husband, whose lovely presence continues to reach far and deep.
Thank you to teachers, always.
Thank you to the editors of Salamander, who championed my work.
Congrats to my writing friends on all their publications!

Memorable Media and Art that Defined the Year

Books:
Autobiography of Red and Red Doc> by Anne Carson
Bestiary and The Renunciations by Donika Kelly
Bound by Jubi-Arriola Headley
Mammoth by Rachel McKibbens
Song and To the Place of Trumpets by Brigit Pegeen Kelly
Obit by Victoria Chang
The Clerk’s Tale by Spencer Reece
The Tradition by Jericho Brown
Bluff by Danez Smith
Banned Book Club by Kim Hyun Sook
Roaming by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki

TV Series:
Somebody Somewhere
Broad City
English Teacher
Abbott Elementary
The Great British Baking Show
The Dragon Prince
Heartstopper

Movies:
Nope
Totally Killer
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
Babes
Bottoms
The Craft: Legacy

Video Games:
Palia
Dave the Diver
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy
Tekken 8
Subnautica: Below Zero
Botany Manor
Sticky Business
Endless Ocean: Luminous
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Little Kitty, Big City
We Love Katamari Reroll
Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist
Lemon Cake
Beyond Good and Evil (20th Anniversary Edition)
Cattails
Potion Permit
Paradise Killer
Pikuniku
The World Next Door
My Time at Portia
Crab God
Pokemon TCG Pocket
The Fall of Porcupine
Metaphor: ReFantazio
RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic
Infinity Nikki

Music:
The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess by Chappell Roan
Prelude to Ecstasy by The Last Dinner Party
All Born Screaming by St. Vincent
Palomino by First Aid Kit
Fire Within by Birdy
Dreaming of Revenge by Kaki King
Philharmonics by Agnes Obel
The Burdens of Being Upright by Tracy Bonham

2023: The Retrospective

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This has been a year of doing and being done.

I completed my thesis and graduated with my Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and a 4.0 GPA. I taught a creative writing workshop for the first time and hopefully not the last. Over the course of teaching, I received a lot of positive feedback from the student evaluations. I finished my time working at my university’s writing center as well, which was probably one of the most rewarding jobs I’ve had.

I also got to visit a few new places, beautiful places. In the spring, we visited Savannah, Georgia for a niece’s wedding. After my graduation, we saw friends and family in Colorado and North Carolina. I acquired a new jealousy: of those who get to experience a real autumn, with the crisp air and the leaves changing color. I imagine it would be my favorite season if Florida actually had seasons (aside from hurricane).

Colorado

North Carolina

This fall, I started teaching writing at a new university 5x a week, which was overwhelming at first. Teaching takes a lot of time and energy, in case you didn’t know. Some much work happens behind the scenes too, the work that is easy to forget if you’re on the outside looking in. But it’s fulfilling work, which is why I continue to do it. I feel like I’m actually using my abilities now as they should be used. This is a new feeling. I love helping students become more confident as writers.

However, alongside all this work and these accomplishments, we lost Nana, one of my favorite people in the world. It still feels strange and a bit unreal; she was such a bright, constant presence in my life that it feels impossible to no longer have her in it. My brain makes me feel like she is still here, even though she isn’t. I think about her most often in moments of triumph, when I feel like I’ve done something especially meaningful. Something changes for the good and I want to give her a call. I want her to be excited with me. I miss her delight at the news I’d bring her.

I always promised Nana I’d dedicate my first book to her, so here is the dedication from my thesis:

She taught me how to make light, how to be light.

I also published a lyric essay in the latest print issue of Salamander. I was very proud of this, as it served as the heart of my thesis. I was invited to do an online reading with the magazine over the summer.

I tell myself that I haven’t had the chance to read as much as I’ve wanted to because I’ve been reading and grading so much student work. This is true, but I’m still kind of annoyed that I didn’t read more. I didn’t even reach half of my reading goal this year. Most of what I did read was poetry and nonfiction, a continuation of last year. This is no surprise. Some craft, some textbooks. And of course, cats poems and cat-related fiction.

I played a lot of stellar video games. Some were retro, some were remakes, some were sequels, some were really interesting new indies. I didn’t listen to a lot of new music; most of which I did listen to was ambient noise for my long grading sessions.

I didn’t write much following graduation either. I let myself replenish. Sometimes you need just that. I revised a little, started a few new poems. I will start submitting again next year. I wrote a rejection erasure, which was part of this small trend happening on social media among writers.

I met writer and poet Julie Marie Wade at a reading at Books and Books. Her writing served as inspiration for my thesis. I fell in love with lyric essays partially because of her. You should read her new book of essays. It’s called Otherwise.

I filled up a small notebook I’ve been carrying around with me. The first entry is dated 1/8/22. The front is ripped and almost falling off, but it is now filled with all kinds of scribblings–notes from graduate classes and my thesis committee, lines for poems, thoughts on feedback received in workshop, to-do lists, lesson planning, and more. I will have to start a new one next year, of course–fortunately, I am never without a fresh one. It’s a gift I often receive as a writer, and one that I will always need.

Finally, here are the various medias/art that have defined my year. I may consider doing one for podcasts next year, as I’ve started listening to quite a few of those.

Books:
Fight, Magic, Items by Aidan Moher
Woman without Shame by Sandra Cisneros
The Balloonists by Eula Biss
A Harp in the Stars, edited by Randon Billings Noble
Voice of the Fish by Lars Horn
The White Card by Claudia Rankine
The Black Unicorn by Audre Lorde
The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes on by Franny Choi
The Study of Human Life by Joshua Bennett
Hand in Hand with Love: An Anthology of Classic Queer Poetry, edited by Simon Avery
Cat Poems, edited by New Direction
The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa
Nick and Charlie by Alice Oseman
Periodic Boyfriends by Drew Pisarra
Otherwise by Julie Marie Wade
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino
The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux
Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway
Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing by Elizabeth Losh and Jonathan Alexander

TV series:
The Other Two
Loot
Aggretsuko
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Heartstopper
The Great British Baking Show
Tiny House Hunters
Fellow Travelers

Video games:
Harvestella
Arcade Spirits
The Oregon Trail (2023)
Shining Force
Shining Force II
Warioware
Pokémon Stadium
Grow: Song of the Evertree
Paper Mario
Loop Hero
Sackboy: A Big Adventure
Octopath Traveler II
Street Fighter 6
Hogwarts Legacy
Sea of Stars
Inscryption
Saint Maker
Little Goody Two Shoes
Pilgrims
Super Mario RPG Remake
Wattam

Music:
Imperium by Blouse
Slugs of Love by Little Dragon
If You Leave by Daughter
Strip Me by Natasha Bedingfield
Live Through This by Hole
American Thighs by Veruca Salt
So Long, Scarecrow by Scarling

2022: The Retrospective

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It’s the end of the year and we are finally getting some cooler weather. Most of the country is not too pleased about this right now, but here in Florida, I’m very grateful. I’ve been literally sweating this whole year.

This summer, I started working on the poems that are now part of my thesis. I’ve had a structure for a poetry collection in my head for a while now, but didn’t have enough complete poems to fill it all in. In June, I was invited to do a poetry reading as part of a Pride series. I read some earlier versions of these thesis poems and met some other lovely poets.

We also visited David’s family in Texas. It’d been a while since we had seen them due to the pandemic. During the trip, I got to visit my favorite independent bookstore, Malvern Books. We don’t really have any independent books in South Florida, so I always look forward to this. They have so much poetry and work in translation. I picked up a bundle of books from local authors (Alfredo Aguilar, Laura Villareal) and discovered a new poet I hadn’t heard of (Sarah Fox). These books were among my notable reads of the year (list included below). Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to me at the time, this would be the last opportunity I’d have to visit the bookstore. Shortly after our return home, it was announced that the founder of Malvern Books, Joe Bratcher, had passed away and the bookstore would be closing at the end of this year. From the outpouring of appreciation online, it was clear Mr. Bratcher left an indelible impression on both the local and national literary community. I will miss my time spent browsing the shelves and discovering new writers there.

Alongside my writing, I also experimented with AI image generation. This was before it broke into the mainstream conversation, with everyone using Lensa to create AI selfies. For one of my classes in the fall, I created collages out of AI images that were generated by keywords I selected from some of my tweets. I used the resulting images for collages that defined the years 2020 and 2021.

I noted a contrast between the two years: how 2020 seemed to contain more apocalyptic imagery and how 2021 seemed to contain more images of lone figures in scenes of self-isolation. Perhaps not very surprising.

The one piece of writing I did publish this year was a poem that was inspired by the alien form and undulation of deep-sea life. It was published in the inaugural issue of Cold Signal, an online magazine that was initially conceived to explore the creative possibilities between writing and AI image generation. The editor of the magazine tweeted: “inspired by the shapes of siphonophores, [Dante’s poem] flows with a gorgeous and alien awareness of the beauty and communion in the colony-self, where the lines between singular and plural ebb like the tide.” The poem was nominated for a Pushcart.

While the potentially boundless creative possibilities made AI image generation exciting at first, the conversation has shifted since, with more people rightfully questioning its ethics, especially in regards to whether the sources being pulled from by the generators are stolen works from living artists. Furthermore, some have pointed out how the proliferation of these image generators undervalues the talent and work that goes into art-making. These are all legitimate concerns to have. John Chrostek, editor of Cold Signal, brings nuance to the conversation in his editor’s note for the inaugural issue of the magazine. Moving forward, it seems like the magazine will be less focused on AI image generation and more on the speculative element, exploring the relationship between the synthetic and the organic.

The end of this year started out with David and I celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, it concluded with family getting sick, some health scares. I wish everyone could be safe and well, always, but that’s not how this works. I know writers are supposed to find beauty in the ephemeral nature of life, blahblahblah, but sometimes it’s just brutal and you wish to preserve everyone and everything in a glass stasis.

I already have the beginning of 2023 partially mapped out in my head. If everything goes according to plan, I’ll be graduating with my MFA. I’ll be traveling to places I’ve never been to before. Maybe I’ll publish some writing, if the publishing gods deign it so. Maybe I won’t be as sweaty. Probably not.

At last, we’ve arrived at the fun part. This list doesn’t include absolutely everything I consumed this year, but the select media and art that at least left an impression. You’ll notice I read almost exclusively poetry and nonfiction, which isn’t surprising, considering the focus of my thesis. No notable movies included here at all (with every passing year, I seem to become less interested in watching anything for long periods of time) and most of the music I listened to this year wasn’t anything new. However, I played a lot of new games (some bite-sized, some very large and time-consuming).

Books:
The Origin of Others by Toni Morrison
Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses
Owed by Joshua Bennett
Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief by Victoria Chang
The Trees Witness Everything by Victoria Chang
Don’t Let Me Be Lonely by Claudia Rankine
Just Us by Claudia Rankine
Ceremonies by Essex Hemphill
Time Is a Mother by Ocean Vuong
Obscenely Yours by Angelo Nikolopoulos
Pleasure by Angelo Nikolopoulos
Word of Mouth: An Anthology of Gay American Poetry, edited by Timothy Liu
Vox Angelica by Timothy Liu
Burnt Offerings by Timothy Liu
How to Not Be Afraid of Everything by Jane Wong
Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows by Eugenia Leigh
Fantasia for the Man in Blue by Tommye Blount
The Perseverance by Raymond Antrobus
Wound from the Mouth of the Wound by torrin a. greathouse
The Specimen’s Apology by George Abraham
Bestiary by Donika Kelly
On This Side of the Desert by Alfredo Aguilar
Borderland Apocrypha by Anthony Cody
Instead of Dying by Lauren Haldeman
Be Holding by Ross Gay
Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith
Homie by Danez Smith
Vapor by Sara Eliza Johnson
Brother Sleep by Aldo Amparan
JUNK by Tommy Pico
300 Arguments by Sarah Manguso
What Noise Against the Cane by Desiree C. Bailey
Nightingale by Paisley Rekdal
Something Bright, Then Holes by Maggie Nelson
The First Flag by Sarah Fox
Library of Small Catastrophes by Alison C. Rollins
Girl’s Guide to Leaving by Laura Villareal
When I Was Straight by Julie Marie Wade (reread)
You’re Pretty Gay by Drew Pisarra
Heartstopper (Volumes 1-3) by Alice Oseman

TV Series:
Abbott Elementary
Call Me Kat
Heartstopper
Home Economics
Rutherford Falls
Girls5Eva
Hacks
The Owl House
The Dragon Prince
Aggretsuko
Grace and Frankie
The Great British Baking Show

Video Games:
For the King
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3: Complete Edition
Psychonauts 2
Horizon: Forbidden West
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Unpacking
Little Misfortune
Lost in Random
Rune Factory 5
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
Live A Live
Stray
Heroland
The Jackbox Party collections
Ooblets
Mythic Ocean
Cult of the Lamb
Kaichu
Moon Hunters
Butterfly Soup 2
Hypnospace Outlaw
Kirby’s Dream Buffet
Deception IV: Nightmare Princess
Pokemon Violet

Music:
Dance Fever by Florence + the Machine
The Gods We Can Touch by Aurora
Hounds of Love by Kate Bush
Wolfmother by Wolfmother
“Romance with a Memory” by Oliver Sim
“Too Precious” by Em Beihold