My Book Releases July 18... also two new publications
My Book Releases July 18... also two new publications
2025 is the year i start actually releasing stuff
The Tears of Other People: A History and Memoir of Displacement in Portsmouth, New Hampshire will release July 18th. If you have already preordered, we will be mailing them starting that weekend. (Preorder started way back last September... if you need to change your address or modify/cancel your order, email my publisher!!!!!) I will also be taking the book on "tour" in August. The Brooklyn launch is at Hive Mind Bookstore August 22, and I'm doing three Portsmouth events between August 24 and 27. See you there.
I could not be happier with how the final product came together. This post is a quick update and an expression of thanks!
To start: thank you so much for your patience in this process.
We launched the presale fundraiser back in September. Once again!!!! if you need to change your order in any way, please let the publisher know.
While we've been working to finalize the book, I've put out an essay and a short story that I'm really proud of. You can access both at a free or name-your-price rate from the links in my website's about page (and I'll link in this post). I've also recently reissued an old chapbook, which I am happy to tack on for free if you've already preordered the book. Just hit me up we'll work out a way to get it to you.
The short story is called "Never Ever," published in the gorgeous all-trans t4t lit journal Imposter Review. It follows four transplanted transsexuals at Riis Beach, a gay beach in Queens, as they witness an era-defining terror attack over Manhattan. This is my first short story I've put out with a publisher and it was such a pleasure to work with Sloane Murphy and Mira Cameron (known professionally as S&M), both of whom are fabulous writers who you should read.
The nonfiction piece is a personal essay in the summer issue of Transfix Magazine about the transmisogyny I experienced at a heavily queer liberal arts school and how it shaped me as a feminist and a person. It's the most personal thing I've ever put in public and I hope it resonates for you.
We had to more than double the print run because yall bought so many books.
This is a small book by a first-time author and my publisher, the excellent Irrelevant Press, is a two-person operation between Brooklyn and Oakland. All of us work at full-time day jobs. We were prepared for a print run of like, one hundred copies. I personally had no idea whether we would meet our funding goals for audiobook production, editing, printing, etc. Turns out we met and exceeded the goals: the entire first print run (and more) was sold during presale alone.
I almost started crying on the phone when I heard those numbers! I have been treating this book like the niche exploration it is, so one hundred felt like a lot at first. Now, it is clearly not enough for this project. We've more than doubled the number of books to print and expanded distribution plans in New York and New England.
This is the best news I could have hoped for. This could not have happened without Holly Meadows-Smith at Irrelevant Press and my editor Tal Milovina Mancini. I am also convinced the gorgeous book cover played a big role in sales, courtesy of my dear friend and favorite collagist Julia Adler. I want to express my enormous gratitude for everyone who bought a book. Specifically, I want to thank the people who helped with the fundraiser/folk-punk show I threw in my backyard last October: Evelyn Garcia, Sasha of Heaviness Fell, Ezra Dogteeth, my roommate Frankie, my ex, every single person who put that event on. Because A) it was a lot of fun, and B) a lot of not-so-wealthy queer people opened their wallets to support this project I'm doing about grief, colonialism, and displacement in a random tourist town. I can't believe I ever considered putting this out by myself. It has come to feel like such a community project at this point.
Launch events! Come hang out and pick up a book in person!
FRI. AUG. 22: Hive Mind Bookstore. Brooklyn launch event. Details pending, probably I won't be the only writer speaking. Afterparty somewhere close by in Bushwick. I am so fucking excited about this one.
SUN. AUG. 24: Lezhang Seacoast queer NH launch event. Coming to a bar or cafe near you in the evening. This is a queer-focused event that's gonna highlight the theme of trans & working-class displacement where I grew up. It's also gonna be a bunch of gay people just hanging out and I am so, so excited to see all the lesbians I used to hang with before I had to gtfo of New Hampshire. ❤️
MON. AUG. 25: Portsmouth Historical Society. Gonna be presenting the work with a focus on Portsmouth's historical community and historiography, talking about my research and changes I'd like to see in future literature on colonialism, displacement, and local history.
WED. AUG. 27: Portsmouth Public Library. Really the origin point of the entire project. Come see me speak about being a displaced transsexual at my childhood library. Presentation covers the basic content of my book, then Q+A. Ending it back at the beginning full circle.
I am overwhelmed already with how generous people have been towards this project. I wrote this book mainly for closure after the unhappy realization that, both as a trans woman and a working person, I could not afford to battle it out in the city I loved. I miss Portsmouth and I am glad everyday that I left. I grieve my time there and I grieve the place itself. I don't suppose my writing a book will politically change the town, but the central motivation of my life over the past five years has been to directly confront the structural violence of Portsmouth, New Hampshire and its manifestations in myself as a writer and a person. For now, at least, this book is that confrontation. I lean into its release with love for my community, with hope for a liberated future, and with profound anger that I ever had to write such a book in the first place.
sub the newsletter for updates. follow @everzines at Bluesky, IG, and Substack. get in touch with me via email at eviewrites@duck.com.
yours,
evergreen<3