somafrazier

Huzzah! Foglifter Press, which recently won the prestigious Whiting Award, will release Home is Where You Queer Your Heart in March ’21.

Not only are its editors (Miah Jeffra, Arisa White and Monique Mero-Williams) and contributors some of my favorite literati of all time, but I’m honored to have a story, “Face,” included in the book. “Face” was conceived back in 2000, and its embryonic form was selected by Sarah Lawrence College professors to represent the graduate writing program in a national competition. It didn’t win—and was never published, as I got unnerved and shelved it after a classmate mistook me for the (not-so-swell) protagonist and chastised me for that character’s actions. But in 2020, with two decades of writing and publishing under my belt, I brought the piece back out and suddenly saw in it what my professors had seen. I set to work revising and updating it, and voilà. It’s weird to see the story all grown up.

NOTE: the first print run of the book omits my final edits (totally my bad) but the second printing will include them. So if you find yourself wondering why Maeve’s character is working from home during COVID-19 times, just sub in “had a benign admin’ gig” for “worked” in the paragraph about where she’s employed…

…and if you’re a student of mine, let it be known that this omission, 100% my error, would’ve FREAKED ME THE F OUT when I was a newer writer. Now, after hearing myself tell all y’all (repeatedly) that these sorts of things aren’t the end of the world, I’m cool as a cucumber: sending your work out into the world really does get easier.