Alejandro

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Join the McCormack Writing Center (formerly known as Tin House Workshop) for our 2026 Winter Online Workshop and cozy up to better craft! ⁠
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If any journalist wants to talk to a trans man with a PhD in Human Genomics who was trained in labs that studied the evolution of sex, I'm right here

Or just keep platforming Republicans who have a 5th grade understanding of biology so they get more trans people killed, sure 🤷🏻‍♂️

The Franklin Park Reading Series Season Finale was a smash—huge thanks to mesmerizing readers @angelaflournoy.bsky.social, Tim Blake Nelson, @drovarela.bsky.social, @megancummins.bsky.social, @jennifersears.bsky.social & Wah-Ming Chang, and lots of ❤️ to our awesome audience! 🗓️We’ll be back Jan. 12!

MONDAY, 8PM: Join us for the Franklin Park Reading Series, featuring an all-star lineup: @angelaflournoy.bsky.social, Tim Blake Nelson, @drovarela.bsky.social, @megancummins.bsky.social, @jennifersears.bsky.social, and Wah-Ming Chang! #Free! #crownheights shorturl.at/9gnfC

ONE WEEK AWAY--MONDAY, DECEMBER 8, 8PM: Can't wait for the Franklin Park Reading Series Season Finale with superstars @angelaflournoy.bsky.social, Tim Blake Nelson, @drovarela.bsky.social, @megancummins.bsky.social, @jennifersears.bsky.social, and Wah-Ming Chang! #Free
Details: shorturl.at/9gnfC

We hope you've enjoyed ACCOMPLISHMENT SUNDAY as much as we have 🥰 Contributor @drovarela.bsky.social was interviewed by Julián Delgado Lopera about his new epistolary novel MIDDLE SPOON for @electricliterature.com. Check out this convo on anxiety and heartbreak: buff.ly/MLuaVWm

MONDAY, DECEMBER 8, 8PM: Join us for the Franklin Park Reading Series Season Finale, featuring
@angelaflournoy.bsky.social, Tim Blake Nelson, @drovarela.bsky.social, @megancummins.bsky.social, @jennifersears.bsky.social, and Wah-Ming Chang! Details: shorturl.at/9gnfC #Free #crownheights

This Epistolary Novel Plumbs the Anxious Depths of a Broken Heart - Electric Literature Alejandro Varela’s “Middle Spoon” is an obsessive exploration of mental health, polyamory, and the desire for our pain to be witnessed

National Book Award finalist and renowned middle child Alejandro Varela tells us about being gay while heartbroken (@drovarela.bsky.social)
buff.ly/oW5GR6Q

This was a blast

Thank you, Mary Ann!

THIS

Thanks! I hope you enjoy it. If not, give it to someone you dislike.

Thanks @lithub.com.web.brid.gy for providing space for so many of us to share our work (and ideas).

The Case for Polyamory: Alejandro Varela on Writing a Novel That Questions Everything If you’re barely clinging to the safety of monogamy or the no-strings-attached joys of an open relationship, I don’t advise picking up my latest novel, Middle Spoon, where I write with painstaking …

“I’d wanted to dissect, intellectualize, and dramatize the pain of loss.” @drovarela.bsky.social on writing a novel that questions everything about love and heartbreak.

Opinion | ‘This Moment Is a Cataclysm,’ but We Can Still Act The longtime activist and writer Sarah Schulman on why now is the time to stand up to people you oppose.

I spoke with the great Sarah Schulman about her exceptional new book, which is a bracingly practical guide to building solidarity now, based on her decades as an activist for people with AIDS, Palestine and more. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/o...

BREAKING: Hundreds of Jews and allies have taken over Trump Tower chanting “We want justice, you say how. Bring Mahmoud home now!” and “Fight Nazis, not students.”

The civil disobedience is spawned by the ICE arrest of Palestinian student Mahmoud Khalil.

Middle Spoon by Alejandro Varela: 9780593835173 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books “Middle Spoon subverts the ordinary novel with intelligence and vulnerability. . . . Varela has made a sly, analytical opera of the heart.” —Andrew Sean Greer, author of Less and...

www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/776881...

Book cover. Red lettering on magenta backdrop. Image of three stacked pillows between text (MIDDLE SPOON and Alejandro Varela)

MIDDLE SPOON, Sept 2025 @vikingbooks.bsky.social. Not the book I set out to write, but the one I needed to. Couldn't be prouder of it. I hope it induces dialog, empathy, & fits of laughter. Pre-orders welcome. (Link in bio.) Thanks for supporting me/my work. 🙏🏽 Colin Webber for the design.

Thanks for this!

🧵Thread: How I Make Money and Survive as a Writer. I grew up with a household income of around 22k a year and recently transitioned out of the service industry to writing full-time. Hope some of this helps!

Join me & the incredible @livesinpages.bsky.social in January to discuss Revolting Indolence! An evening of indolent theorizing, good chisme, & so much more.

Register here: www.eventbrite.com/e/marcos-gon...

I think the transgender kids are the bravest kids right now that we see; they're as brave as my generation was in breaking down segregation. They're breaking down-I don't have the word for it right now-but it's gender prejudice, and [the idea that] somebody has decided that they can tell you who you are, what your name should be, and how you should look. And those youngsters are saying, "No, I can decide who I am, what my name should be." Everybody's mad at me like, You should be a girl because we've decided you're a girl. And they say, "Well, who the hell are you?" I can decide that I'm a boy. And if it makes me happy, what does it mean to you? And I can decide that my name is John. And if you don't like that my name is Geraldine, why can't you name yourself? And if the people who know you and love you-or have to talk to you, maybe they don't even love you but they have to talk to you -you can tell them, “This is my name, and I would like to be referred to in that way."

This interview with Nikki Giovanni from earlier this year should be required reading. oxfordamerican.org/web-only/nik...

This guy is the personification of a Bernie policy. Structural target. Mass appeal. Well planned.

A press release from the American Association of Anaesthesiologists condemns this new policy change and asks the public to reach out and complain to legislators.

Israel killed 100 people in Gaza today. I listened to NPR this evening, and this wasn’t even reported in passing. There was even a report about an initiative to save endangered wolves somewhere, but no mention of the 100 people who were killed in less than 24 hours.

Welcome to Writing, Wandering, Wondering! Writing advice no one wants, an early year-end reflection, the last writer I had dinner with, and more

I finally made a Substack newsletter. In this first issue: Writing advice no one wants, an early year-end reflection, the last writer I had dinner with, and more

deeshaphilyaw.substack.com/p/welcome-to...

Letter to PEN America. (Too long to include text. Will share upon request.)

I withdrew my work from consideration for the Jean Stein Award. I can't align myself with a human rights org that waits 5 months to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, while platforming zionists & pretending there's nuance to genocide.
✊🏽🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸
✊🏽WAWOG

Terribly unnecessary scene

The flaccidity of it all 👿

Also finished last nite. You capture much of what I was feeling but hadn't thought through. Thks. Also: 1)later eps don't sustain style, pace, or believability of earlier ones—diff btw book & script? 2)Completely smitten w Skippy. 3)For being otherwise hirsute, there wasn't a single hair on his ass.