West Branch Spring/Summer 2024 Print Issue Number 105
It came in a neat envelope with another author-copy (along with my check π). I knew what it was but couldn’t bring myself to open it until that night, when I had a glass of wine in my hand. Seeing my name on the back cover was surreal. And myself, among these other accomplished contributors – professors, editors, authors, poets – gave me severe impostor syndrome.
My story begins on page 11 and ends on page 34. It’s told from the POV of young, teenage foundling Zayn Youngblood in Harlem during the Summer of 1991. Originally titled “Zayn for a Day” retitled “Harlem, 1991”.
It is part of a planned series of stories following young queer and transsexual castaways in Harlem in the early 90s learning to navigate life and the world in impossibly hostile ghettos. I have two other stories in the series that I’m currently querying: “Out Getting Gyros in the Nightshape” and “The Midnight Baby of Harlem“. Be on the lookout for them soon!
Also – order a copy of West Branch’s Spring/Summer 2024 Print Issue Number 105 here: https://westbranch.blogs.bucknell.edu/west-branch-105-spring-summer-2024/05/2024/
Support the production of this kind of art here: https://www.patreon.com/atsteel/about
- Zayn for a Day
- It Came!
- My Story About a Trans Teenager Was Published in a Literary Magazine!
- Philadelphia, Fall 1992
- Protected: Masculine Trauma and Gender Identity
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