Lee Mandelo Is Creating Queer Futurity Today

It seems similar kismet for a PhD graduation, a publication publication, and a 35th day to coincide. That’s what happened to Lee Mandelo, author, scholar, and exertion of Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity. The speculative anthology had been successful the works since 2021—he devised the connection aft the work of his debut novel, Summer Sons. As the elder fabrication exertion astatine the Hugo Award-nominated mag Strange Horizons from 2012-2015, he’s nary alien to moving with the fabrication of others but, arsenic helium told me, portion of the task of Amplitudes was to spell beyond a elemental anthology of queer penning and propulsion backmost connected the mode queer and trans fabrication is often siloed wrong the publishing industry. Inspired by José Esteban Muñoz’s landmark enactment of queer theory, Cruising Utopia, Mandelo’s anthology—featuring stories from some established and caller writers successful the sci-fi/fantasy field—envisions queer beingness a week from now, a twelvemonth from now, centuries from now. The stories, written by newcomers and established sci-fi/fantasy voices alike, diagnostic polyamorous, radical, queer activistic collectives, pouch futures that spew ephemera into the past, knights successful struggle with militias, cyberpunk noir stories, spy dramas, and the past cheery nine successful the galaxy. 

Lee and I were some contributors astatine the subject fiction, fantasy, and popular civilization tract Reactor Magazine (formerly known arsenic Tor.com) a decennary agone but ne'er had the accidental to interact face-to-face until this interview. Reading Amplitudes brought backmost the feeling of encountering his captious investigation backmost successful the day—Lee has ever had a unsocial quality to admit and exposure caller ways of reasoning astir queerness and queer futurity. There’s a guardant momentum successful the collection, a consciousness that clip is not lone a origin successful discrete stories that research pasts and futures—post-apocalyptic dating apps and ghosts of integer avatars—but besides forms a communicative arc for the postulation arsenic a full arsenic it imagines the galore imaginable worlds we are rocketing toward. 

During our Zoom conversation, we discussed the temporality of these queer futures, the stories that caught him by surprise, and committing to the vulnerability of sincerity implicit irony.

Natalie Zutter: What inspired the prime of  “amplitudes” for the anthology’s title?

Lee Mandelo: We landed connected Amplitudes erstwhile proposing this because, truthful often, radical speech astir queerness, gender, transness, etcetera, arsenic a spectrum, which is imagined arsenic 2D, point-A-to-point-B. I wanted to messiness with that. When radical deliberation of amplitudes, it tin beryllium a measurement for a batch of antithetic things but it is seldom that 2D. You’ve got things going each implicit the place. That representation is thing I wanted to hook into for however we’re reasoning astir gender, sexuality, and civilization successful these pieces.

NZ: What made you determine to enactment with Erewhon Books?

LM: We talked to aggregate places crossed astir a twelvemonth successful the connection process, and Erewhon were the folks who came backmost with the astir enthusiasm and the astir willingness to propulsion backmost the curtain connected the business. Part of that was paying contributors what I wanted and handling the task successful a mode that was labor-responsible for those contributors. We paid afloat marketplace complaint and everyone got royalties. I wanted fabrication successful translation and to wage some the translator and archetypal writer the afloat rate—which should beryllium the norm but isn’t. Erewhon was consenting to enactment their wealth wherever their rima is connected valuing abbreviated fabrication successful the industry.

NZ: Did you announcement immoderate recurring themes successful the stories that you received oregon chose? What amazed you?

LM: We had a three-stage gathering process successful which I solicited rather a spot of work. With solicitation, for each 10 radical you email, possibly 5 say, “I deliberation I could perchance acceptable that in,” and possibly 1 tin really bash it. As idiosyncratic connected some sides of the table, I wholly recognize that. 

We besides did unfastened submissions, arsenic I didn’t privation to lone trust connected the built web I have. I wanted to spot enactment from caller writers—most of the surprises came from them. For a mates of folks, this is their archetypal professionally published piece. The mode radical took the thought of futurity and ran with it was astonishing due to the fact that for a batch of them it wasn’t astir uncritical anticipation oregon positivity. A batch of the stories are politically grounded successful the now. I liked seeing radical instrumentality that and marque thing moving, oregon adjacent funny. Nat X Ray’s “Trans World Takeover” is 1 of the comedies. It’s astir the absurd ways radical speech astir trans teenagers and young adults. That was truthful fun; here’s idiosyncratic I’m wholly unfamiliar with coming successful done the submissions pile. It adds an constituent of bizarro wit to this truly acheronian concern and lets america laughter astatine it, portion besides being astir interpersonal relationships.

NZ: I was trying to radical the stories into subgenres, but they span truthful galore antithetic styles, similar Aysha U. Farah’s cyberpunk detective communicative “Sugar, Shadows.” There are besides a fistful acceptable successful Appalachia, similar Katharine Duckett’s “pocket futures successful the contiguous past” and Jamie McGhee’s “Copper Boys.”

LM: I’m not that large connected consecutive genre categories. I work crossed each 1 you could name. Part of the extremity for this was to absorption connected the effect of a piece—what does it do, feeling-wise. That’s besides however the substance is arranged; 1 of the hardest things was picking the order, due to the fact that determination is a constituent to the order! Building those affectional arcs of “Well, are we talking astir survival? Are we talking astir sex? Are we talking astir friendship?” 

I bash person emotion successful my bosom for immoderate of the subgenres. I’m a kid of the ‘90s, determination was a batch of queer cyberpunk then. But “Sugar, Shadows” is besides captious of however cyberpunk often treats poorness and drugs—if you person a queer anthology that doesn’t woody with substances astatine all, I person questions. They are truthful communal successful our spaces. Still, Farah speaks to these issues with compassion.

NZ: Should we envision the futures these antithetic stories ideate arsenic contradictory multiverses, oregon bash you spot them operating connected a continuum?

LM: Fun question. It opens the doorway for maine to beryllium a nerd astir the punctuation that opens the book, the José Muñoz of it all. Temporality is simply a happening I’m reasoning a batch astir successful this text. Particularly due to the fact that we’re utilizing the word “queer futurity”—which I’m borrowing from Muñoz’s Cruising Utopia—as a mode of reasoning astir those imaginable futures. We tin ideate immoderate occurring connected the aforesaid timeline, and immoderate arsenic antithetic paths. There’s a consciousness that queerness itself—the queer and trans beingness and civilization rhythm successful a satellite that does not privation it to exist—is ever looking toward the skyline of possibility, of potential. Life is hard, but determination is simply a future, and we’re trying to physique it together. What each the imaginable futures stock is an thought that nary substance what’s going on, nary substance wherever we spell oregon however atrocious it gets, determination volition ever beryllium us. There’s nary mode to really get escaped of us. That’s a transnational, planetary question that matters to maine arsenic a student but besides arsenic a writer. Queerness is simply a worldwide taste space, peculiarly successful the integer age. 

Something other that’s going connected successful the timeline of wherever each these stories are is that what queer beingness looks similar is truly babelike connected your governmental and societal situation. Wen-yi Lee’s “They Will Give Us a Home” speaks to surviving successful a state that has a lodging lottery strategy due to the fact that of spatial constraints; that’s drawn from a precise existent experience. I deliberation a batch of Americans volition beryllium unfamiliar with immoderate of those experiences and tin look astatine them and deliberation astir different ways of being. So possibly they’re each a small connected. These stories are each speaking to that shared temporality—like, each right, we’re present now, wherever could we spell from here?

NZ: In the past, you’ve made a constituent of calling “queer representation” queer presence, which besides references what Ocean Vuong has said connected the topic. Was that connected your caput portion collecting and curating these stories?

LM: Yes. [laughs] For me, the quality being that practice is simply a level mode of thinking.  We’re having a batch much conversations astir that present than we were adjacent 4 oregon 5 years ago. The thought of this bully oregon cleanable practice of a “type” feeds into an obsession with classification and separation, which is truly communal successful Western, precise online, queer spaces close now. A consciousness of beingness means that a batch of antithetic kinds of radical person to beryllium successful the country and person the abstraction to make and beryllium successful speech with 1 another. Part of that is reasoning astir solidarity—it’s not ever going to beryllium agreement. You’re going to person sameness—what you stock successful spaces with queer and trans radical from antithetic places, taste backgrounds, and experiences—but besides difference. Being capable to clasp connected to the sameness and quality astatine the aforesaid clip requires you to person a batch of radical successful the country who are coming from precise antithetic places.

The guiding editorial ngo of this publication was to person it look similar the queer satellite I inhabit, which is to say, it does not correspond immoderate azygous “type.” As an editor, you person to curate that connected purpose. That was portion of wanting pieces successful translation. I was asking, who are we not proceeding from if these works aren’t translated into the connection that we’re reading?

I deliberation astir my ain queer beingness coming from agrarian Appalachia successful Kentucky—leaving, coming back, etcetera. The queer communities we build, that I grew up in, are not segregated successful the mode they are successful large municipality centers, which is besides reflected successful online queer spaces. There’s not capable of us, truthful everyone’s benignant of hanging retired successful the aforesaid places and gathering the aforesaid spaces together, adjacent erstwhile that doesn’t work, oregon erstwhile it’s fraught, oregon erstwhile determination are precise superior problems. We each inactive stock the abstraction and larn from each other. That was precise important to maine successful curating, making definite everybody I could perceive from had the accidental to beryllium contiguous and signifier the publication successful antithetic directions.

NZ: As you were arranging the travel of the full anthology, did you ever cognize that Sam J. Miller’s “The Republic of Ecstatic Consent” was going to beryllium first, oregon did it instrumentality you a portion to find the 1 that would footwear things off?

LM: Yeah, I deliberation Sam’s communicative being archetypal and Meg Elison’s “Bang Bang” being the past 1 were acceptable from the beginning; like, each right, here’s your theme, and here’s wherever we spell from there. Both are precise sincere stories—that’s thing that came done successful immoderate of my archetypal reactions speechmaking them. I was uncomfortable with the sincerity. You person to beryllium successful the sincerity of desire, of community. Sometimes that tin consciousness a small cringe, similar erstwhile we emotion things, but it’s portion of being alive. Especially successful a fascist moment, I deliberation sincerity is truly important. Throwing backmost to Ocean Vuong again, helium conscionable did an interrogation wherever helium talks astir people’s antagonistic responses to his caller book. To truly consciousness something—to perpetrate to feeling it publicly, largely, and openly—is thing radical person a batch of trouble with. Sometimes they lash retired against it. I wanted to foreground that successful the opening portion and the concluding one. There is simply a level of committedness to sincerity and feeling and emotion that we’ve got to person successful resistance. You can’t South Park-irony your mode retired of things; that’s what got america here.

It’s casual to manipulate people’s affectional responses done irony oregon done saying “nothing truly means anything.” A batch of radical who person studied authoritarianism successful its galore guises, its galore faces each implicit the globe, person noted that it tends to person a tendency for information to not beryllium truth. For immoderate you say, immoderate anyone says, to beryllium arsenic insincere and arsenic untrue. It detaches america from a shared societal reality, from literal proof, and feelings of compassion, investment, and relationality. Sincerity and tendency and pleasance are important, due to the fact that they are what fascism wants to snuff retired and control.

NZ: What’s adjacent for you?

LM: There is an nonfiction that’s drawn from the archetypal section of my dissertation (“Desiring Men Online: Trans Queer Masculinity and Digital Sexual Culture”) looking astatine what it means to beryllium a queer antheral who is trans—particularly however the Internet creates a intersexual civilization and a abstraction that we tin beryllium in, successful a mode that tin beryllium truly bully and abstracted from carnal bodies. The archetypal section of that is called “Toward a Transfag Phenomenology: the Orientation(s) of Desire and the Afterlives of Lou Sullivan.” It’s looking astatine how—not Sullivan himself, but the thought of Sullivan, the iconography of him, has circulated online successful these trans queer spaces and successful publications since his edited journals came retired a fewer years ago. I spent 2 weeks speechmaking his full archive astatine the GLBT Historical Society—I’m starting to teardrop up again conscionable reasoning astir it—looking astatine what got near retired of the edited journals. He had 7 bankers’ boxes afloat of writing; helium wrote his full beingness and kept everything. I was looking astatine those atrocious trans feelings that are important and that we don’t get to speech astir arsenic overmuch due to the fact that we’re faced with changeless transphobia and we don’t privation to springiness immoderate ammunition. But then, what does that chopped america disconnected from? My nonfiction is coming retired this autumn from Post45.

On the aboriginal horizon, different caller volition beryllium the adjacent project, but that’s a portion from here. Finishing a dissertation truly knocks it retired of you. [laughs]

NZ: What proposal would you connection idiosyncratic looking to compile a akin queer/trans/futuristic anthology?

LM: I privation determination to beryllium more. I privation much radical to beryllium successful speech with us. We request much books. Now much than ever.

Think astir wherever each of the perspectives that you’re gathering are coming from, and what is missing. Also, collaborate with different people; I worked with Diana Pho and Viengsamai Fetters astatine Erewhon passim the process, and they truly helped. I talked with friends astir choosing betwixt a mates of these stories. What bash we person to permission out—because there’s ever thing near out—but what tin we not spend to permission out?

Read very, precise widely. Some folks present are from antithetic genre spaces. I work a batch of literate fiction, and there’s a batch of crossover with luminaries similar Ta-wei Chi who wrote “Circular Universe,” translated by Ariel Chu.  Working with them was beautiful. 

You besides person to truly scope for it if you privation to enactment with radical erstwhile you’re similar “aw, they would never.” Not necessarily! [Laughs] If you person a chill idea, spell for it. You ne'er cognize what radical privation to enactment in, oregon who tin link you with idiosyncratic else. Don’t self-reject. Think broadly and past cheque yourself. Whatever your position is, cheque it against friends with antithetic perspectives successful the tract and ask, “What bash you spot that I haven’t included?” Sunny Moraine’s “The They Whom We Remember” came successful aboriginal but acceptable truly neatly. It thinks astir bodies, nonbinary embodiment, sexuality, and transness successful ways that I don’t—that’s not my experience. I work it connected submission and was like, “Well, shit, this is truly important, and I deliberation a batch of radical are going to consciousness this way.” But I had a unsighted spot; I hadn’t been looking for that position due to the fact that it’s a antithetic trans acquisition from mine. For me, that was a bully exemplary of, what bash you not adjacent cognize you’re not looking for? Look for that.

The station  Lee Mandelo Is Creating Queer Futurity Today appeared archetypal connected Electric Literature.