 Hi, my name is Margot Conestrucci, and I'm the coordinator of public programs at the Brooklyn Museum. It is my delight to gather with you virtually this evening for our book talk with Zena Arafat and Meredith Tulucin in celebration of You Exist Too Much and Ferris, respectively. As we begin, I would like to acknowledge that the Brooklyn Museum stands on land that is part of the unceded ancestral homeland of the Lenape Delaware people. As a sign of respect, we express our gratitude to the Lenape Delaware nations and honor their elders, past and present, as well as their future generations. I would also like to acknowledge that this program was originally organized as part of June 1st Saturday, which we canceled in solidarity with the uprisings for black lives throughout the city and to honor the space needed for collective grief and collective rage. You'll notice that parts of this program were recorded at different times, and we're learning different outfits. The program will begin with readings from Zena and Meredith and progress into a conversation between the three of us. Zena and Meredith are present in the YouTube chat right now. I encourage you to comment questions for them, and they will respond in real time. The two books are also on sale in the Brooklyn Museum Shop, which will link to in the chat. I highly recommend buying your own copy or gifting one to a friend. Without further ado, it is my pleasure to introduce our two readers. Zena Arafat is a Palestinian American writer. Her stories and essays have appeared in publications, including the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic and MPR, among others. She holds an MA in international affairs from Columbia University and an MFA from the University of Iowa. She is a recipient of the Arab Women Migrants from the Middle East Fellowship at Jack John Jones Literary Arts. She grew up between the United States and the Middle East and currently lives in Brooklyn. Meredith Touloucin is an award-winning author and journalist who has written for The Guardian, The New York Times and The Atlantic, among many other publications, and has contributed to several essay collections. She has received awards from GLAAD, the Society of Professional Journalists and the National Lesbian Engaged Journalist Association. She is also the founding executive editor of them, Condé Nast's LGBTQ plus digital platform, where she is currently a contributing editor. And I am so glad that we were able to come together to discuss their amazing new books. Hello, my name is Zena Arafat and I am going to read from my debut novel, You Exist Too Much, which comes out on June 9. Where Do You Live? The Professor Wrote Me. We'd met the previous summer, almost a year earlier. She taught French literature at the Allianz Française in Midtown East in between semesters at Columbia. On the first day of class, she'd announced that past students had told her she didn't smile enough. So, she put her palms on the edge of the desk and leaned forward smiling as if to say, here you go. I'd loved her since the day she kept me after class and suggested I was too harsh on Emma Bovary for her childish fantasies and for cheating on Charles. Emma's pathetic, sure, she said, pressing a polished fingernail to the word mechizap on my paper. From the dinosaur bandaid on that same finger, I surmised a husband and kids. But this is melodramatic. She looked at me, paused, then offered an effortful smile. For the first time, I noticed the dimple that appeared above her lip when she smiled, like a second smaller smile. While we stood there, I began to fall into its span. As I gathered up my things and walked towards the classroom door, she asked, is it so bad? I stopped and turned towards her. Is what so bad? To have an affair? Her questions seared. It felt both suggestive and forgiving. At the time, a photo of Elliot Spitzer and his scorned wife, Silda, adorned the front page of the New York Post. I felt myself blush. I don't know, I said. But it is in this country. She laughed. Her laugh was deep and started in the back of her throat, getting increasingly lighter as it worked its way forward. True, she said. My body surged with heat. When I got home that night, I googled her. I discovered that she wrote fiction. A short story with her byline came up. A simple piece about a woman struggling to keep her marriage intact, as the other couples and their circle divorced. I wondered if it was based on truth, and I searched for details that matched her reality as I knew it. During class the following week, I made a point to mention it. I read your story, I said, nervous to admit it and tingling with excitement, as though I'd accessed some part of her that was now laid bare between us. Oh, she said. She nodded once, then offered the smile. Thank you. She appeared not to care whether I liked it, confident that it was good without my approval. Still, I felt encouraged to say, it would be nice to meet up sometime, maybe after the class is over. She nodded in return. It would. We met in early September at the Nespresso store in Midtown East, three blocks from our classroom. I showed up in a pencil skirt and a silk sleeveless shirt. The conversation flowed. She talked about walking her daughter to school, her husband's startup, their vacation home in St. Paul de Vence on the Côte d'Azur. I tried to match her level of privilege and exposure. I've been to Nice once, I said. I didn't mention that I'd gone with Kate, my ex-girlfriend, towards the end of our relationship. Nor did I mention Anna, worried that, as a straight French woman, the entire practice of gayness would make her uncomfortable. We ordered cappuccinos. I resisted asking for skim milk so as not to seem too weight-conscious or too American. I felt slightly tipsy as we left, though we hadn't drank any alcohol. When the bill came, I hesitantly asked if she would send me some of her unpublished writing. She placed her credit card on the table as I reached for my wallet, waving my hand away. You want to read more from me? She asked, sounding almost suspicious. I panicked. Until then, I felt emboldened, but her response was humbling. I thought I'd ask, I said, if that's okay? Sure, she said. She smiled again. It was starting to feel more natural anytime she did so. I'm just surprised is all. We stepped outside the cafe, and as we walked off in different directions, I felt overwhelmed. I wanted her, I wanted her life. I wanted to live inside her life while still living inside my own. I wanted, above all, for her to like me. Two days later, when she still hadn't sent any of her work, I followed up. Three essays arrived in my inbox that night. She seemed to be a guarded person, so reading her unpublished writing was like cutting to the front of a long line. I couldn't believe how much her inner world resembled mine. The problem was asymmetry. Not only was she straight, but she had a husband to share her inner world with. I presumably had Anna's world, yet somehow hers was never nearly as captivating. I read each of her essays several times. They're nice, I wrote in response, afraid to shatter a veneer of detachment. A month later, we went to lunch, but I couldn't eat. I wore a dress that once belonged to my mother, her gold hoop earrings, her Michel watch. Anything beautiful that's mine was once hers. Now that I'd read the professor's writing, now that her sapphire wedding ring was refracting light from every surface, I was too conscious of my motions to land the fork in my mouth, so I stopped trying. Sorry, I said, laughing dumbly. I can't eat and talk at the same time. She had chosen a place on the Upper West Side known for its burgers, but I ordered a salad. I imagined she was judging me in that moment. I'm familiar with that judgment, but still, how could I eat something so unsexy as a cheeseburger in front of the sexiest woman in the universe? She continued to look attractive and in control as she ate her burger, chewing with unapologetic authority. I had the ridiculous salad packed up, though I knew I'd never eat it. When the check came, I offered to pay. I looked up the place beforehand, cash only, and I fumbled self-consciously through bills fresh from the ATM. My eyes began to blur, I put down too much for the tip. We got up and left, and the minute she turned the corner from the restaurant, tears spilled down my cheeks. I was certain that I'd given myself away by not eating, though I admit, by then, a part of me wanted her to suspect. Thank you. Hi, everyone. It's great to be here at Brooklyn Museums Virtual for Saturday. My name is Meredith Touloucin, and I'm the author of my debut memoir, Ferris. And I'm going to read an excerpt of the book from you. It's a section in which I talk about a performance piece that I did spring semester of my senior year at Harvard called Dancing Deviant. When I was a gay man exploring gender, I have since transitioned and am a woman. And I think that's pretty much all you need to know about this section. I'm reading it from my iPad because I'm all by now and I can enlarge the font, so it's easier for me, even though here's the book. So if you are interested in purchasing it. Okay, I'm going to start now. Dancing Deviant became a campus sensation when it ran the last two weeks of my spring semester senior year. My Harvard Swan Song. The lampoon even put out a fake issue of the Crimson that featured me on the front page, which to many was an even brighter mark of fame than the real article. As a result, the underground theater at Adams House, where the performance took place, nothing more than a basement room painted black that normally seated 30 people, found itself needing to accommodate more than twice that number, as they added more shows to keep up with demand. Audiences lapped at my feet, some sitting on the floor so close to me, so close to me, they could reach out and touch my knees. The show was so popular that it became a badge of honor to have gone, even for people who weren't queer, especially when rumors started floating around that the climax of the show was me doing a backflip and paling myself onto a Barbie doll. One night, ten minutes before the show started, I lay inside a trunk in the middle of the stage, curled up in a ball, unbeknownst to the audience. I enjoyed squeezing myself into improbably tight spaces, testing the capabilities of my body. It was half way through my run, and I'd done the show a few times by then, that tight squeeze having become oddly comforting, the smell of wood and the hint of light that's shown through a crack at the top of the trunk. It reminded me of those nights in high school when I slept under a table in a classroom. I was taking French at the local community college to strengthen my university applications, even though the bus had stopped running by the time I got out at 10. Mama had agreed to pick me up, but she was too addicted to blackjack by then, and ended up 30 minutes late, then an hour, and then didn't show up at all. But I refused to withdraw. Instead, I slept under the oak table where the college newspaper staff held their editorial meetings. I was news editor at the community college while also editor-in-chief of my high school newspaper. The windows in that room rested up high and only led in slivers of incandescent light, like the light from that crack in that trunk. That was how this tiny space became one of comfort and put me in the right frame of mind for my daring performance that pushed the limits of my being. I was not comfortable that night, however, when I noticed that the buzz from the audience was several rungs lower in pitch than I was used to. I'd heard a rumor that the football team was planning to come, but I didn't believe it actually show up until those low voices reached my ears. There must have been a whole horde of them to affect the din of that crowd as I tried to pick out their conversation. I couldn't tell if it was my brain or their mouths that formed the word faggot, which transmitted a rush of danger into my system as the house lights dimmed, my signal to begin the show. I emerged from the trunk as blinding stage lights diffused the darkness within seconds, but not fast enough for me to unsee an entire row, maybe two, of broad-shouldered men peering at me from across that imaginary border between performer and audience. I suddenly wondered if this was a boundary the young men knew to respect. Man and woman are not created equal, I began. These words taking on a different meaning in front of the straight, strong, verile men whose superior bodies were designed for the collisions of sport. I estimated 20 of them, based on their outlines, could only see shadows between my pool of light and their darkness, yet somehow perceived lines of bare teeth ready at any moment to laugh, hurl insults, devour. There was an instant, just a sliver of time, when I felt fear and my voice nearly faltered, as I declined about the ability of creativity and technology to surmount gender inequality, how we needed to take shame out of sex and the body to make this possible. In that moment, I heard naivety in my words, absurdity in trying to redefine my gender, while these normal men who performed their sport in front of thousands looked on. But I knew so well how it was only my conviction that could withstand them, just like my conviction that I needed to be seen as white, to be worthy, seen as a woman to escape men who would have beaten me up had they realized they desired a man. Trying to survive, there was no need for me to turn the switch of bravado on that I prayed would render those young men mute, because my mind and body knew how to work on their own. They had no words for me when I began to undress. By the time I stood before them naked, I could tell that I would, by the end of the night, or not just their silence, but their respect. This is the story of my body. I concluded as that first monologue came to an end. I hope that you can one day tell yours. For the rest of the night, I described how my body and the self that came with it was so different from other bodies, especially after I realized that I could easily be perceived as a woman if I didn't have a penis. And more than that, I grew not to care whether I was a man or a woman, that I could be both or neither. But having been born with a penis, I imagined my rectum as my substitute vagina, a body part that gave me access to some of the womanhood I did not experience in my daily life. It's through this creativity that I combated the embedded inequalities between men and women. I ended the show by inviting members of the audience to address the inequalities of gender through fucking. As I brought out a chrome vibrator to emphasize how technology can augment our body's destiny. I sat on the trunk from which I had emerged and began to penetrate myself as the lights dimmed. So the act was invisible to the audience, even though I performed it for real, a shocking spectacle out of context, but also the show's only fitting conclusion. I graduated shortly after Dancing Deviants run and froze the experience for those football players in my mind until I came back to Cambridge 20 years later for a union. In a marble night reception room at the Barker Center, a building that was only being built while our class was at Harvard, a large grinning blonde man came up to me and introduced himself as Tom. You're the Dancing Deviant guy, aren't you? He asked. Girl, no. I replied. But yes, I am. Can I introduce you to some friends? We all saw your performance. I followed him to a group of seven or eight similarly large, similarly broad men, some of whom still possessed muscled, muscled physiques, others rounder. These men took turns thanking me for doing my show, telling me how much it helped them to be more tolerant of queer people, how it opened their minds. Later, one of those men took me aside and told me how his younger brother came out to him a few years after graduation, which was a huge crisis for his conservative black family. I didn't know how I could have gotten through it if I hadn't seen your show, he said, through near tears and a quaver in his voice. I was not just speaking for myself then, but for this man's brother and this man himself, who, as a black man at Harvard, must have also struggled to belong. His vulnerability cut through time and paired with the strength he mustered to get through that performance he saw, to assert not just my reality, but one of the many possible worlds for those of us who lived outside society's expectations. Thank you. First, I'd like to thank you both for gathering virtually with us today, and to congratulate you on the celebrated releases of both of your books. I loved reading Ferris, and you exist too much so much, and I'm excited to discuss them with you now. It feels necessary to recognize that we're in an intense moment of mass death from the COVID-19 pandemic and anti-black violence. Our program was initially organized as part of our dream for Saturday festivities when we annually celebrate Pride and LGBTQ plus communities in Brooklyn. Our team with the artist collectively decided to reschedule programming for later months, out of respect for what felt like needed space and attention towards the ongoing uprisings in New York and across the country. Meanwhile, your books and the people within them have been such vivid companions for me during this time of social distancing. How has it felt to release these stories to the world, and how have readers been engaging with them? I think for me, releasing the book during this period has been honestly really difficult, not necessarily for all of these reasons around attention or publicity, etc. For me, one of the hardest things was trying to balance what I feel like are important ideas and important stories that I relate to in the book and that I know that other people and readers can resonate with in the long term while at the same time are dealing with these really acute crises around both the pandemic and police brutality and racial justice. So I think for me it's been really tough balancing all of those concerns, being able to sort of be present to talk about my book while at the same time also being there to be able to be of help to people and also to advocate for racial justice. I mean, I relate to a lot of what Meredith said and kind of I felt, I suppose a lot of the, you know, I felt so wanting to sort of at once be feeling the weight and the impact and sort of participating as well in the resistance against police brutality. And of course also feeling the collective weight of the COVID crisis, while simultaneously I think trying to have some headspace and just like emotional space to embark on the journey of putting a book into the world. And, you know, I guess also feeling especially emotional and kind of a lot of solidarity around resistance in general, and just thinking about that in terms of as a Palestinian and, and how I think for me it's been, it's just been, I've been thinking so much about the way that resistance, you know, people that are oppressed, how they sort of unite globally to resist. And I've just been thinking about that a lot in this process of like releasing a book that also takes place in other parts of the world, specifically Palestine I suppose. So yeah, it's been mixed emotions. And yeah, it's been a lot of feelings. It's been a lot of sense. Meredith your book came out in May and I know you know your book just came out in June, and they're available at the Brooklyn Museum shop. And I'm really great. The times are wonderful. I know I was thinking the same. As you can see I really loved reading these books and I really loved reading them together. I am thrilled that we have the opportunity to discuss them together right now. As you mentioned you know each other personally and as I understand you share a writing group as well. And when I was reading the books I was so curious to how you might have been in dialogue with each other while writing them. They're both such powerful meditations on longing and liminality. And you exist too much is an awful and Ferris is a memoir. They each follow a queer person's navigation of gender and sexuality, as well as the experiences of living within and between cultures. And you exist too much the protagonist is a Palestinian American bisexual woman who grows up splitting her years between DC Jordan Lebanon, Palestine and New York. And Ferris, Meredith you chronicle your experiences growing up in the rural Philippines migrating to California and later studying at Harvard and living in New York. Could you tell us more about the breath the Genesis for these stories, where did the writing start for you both. And Zana do you want to start this time. Yeah, I'll start this time I mean so for me on the side of the writing started with a question around unattainability. And, you know, why somebody would set their sights on something that was unattainable rather than something that they had right in front of them. And I initially located that question in unrequited love and from there I started to see a lot of parallels with this with the narrator in terms of not feeling. Not being able to attain a mother's love not being able to attain a sort of like cultural cultural stability and by virtue of being in between two cultures, feeling unable to fully attain a sense of like sexual identity just by virtue of by virtue of coming from a culture where, you know, queerness is not entirely acceptable coming from a culture and a family of comes from an Arab Muslim family and she sort of struggles to accept herself. So it started with this question around unattainability. And through that lens I suppose I explored like cultural identity sexual identity, and just a series of love story of unrequited love stories. So, and also the question I think a larger question of unattainability when it comes to being Palestinian and like Palestinian statehood and self determination being unattainable. So that was the genus that was the starting point and that's how everything grew. Yeah, and it's really, I mean, it is really fascinating how how much resonance there is between the books, which I also noticed, you know, because of the fact that we were already in the middle of our projects when, you know, like Wednesday night came together in writing group so you know in certain ways. It was really fascinating to then kind of like hear, you know, like these echoes of inspiration without being like fully absolutely conscious of them as at least for me like while I was writing right you know because for me. I mean there were there. I answered this question in many ways, but one of the nature, you know, like on this occasion like one of the one of the major reasons why I wanted to write this book was really to give myself space to express both my trans experience and my experience around my unique experiences in America in a context where I didn't have to tie it to some sort of topical news event. I've done a ton of personal writing, but it's usually always like an essay that's tied to something that is happening in the world right and and especially because you know we're living in a time where there's been a lot of discussion around both transgender issues and issues around racial justice and so what I wanted to do was say look actually, you know, this reactive mode, you know that minorities are forced to, you know, minority writers are forced to, you know, to to inhabit out of necessity for, you know, in terms of defending our existences is actually itself oppressive and I want to give myself space outside of that, you know, outside of that landscape to be able to establish a story on my own terms and I think that was really, you know, how I decided to embark on a book length memoir and, you know, they also feel like medium is a really fascinating, you know, question in terms of, you know, like in terms of how to explore these different issues and I think I think for me and I feel like, you know, the greetings in his book Ferris could have very easily been an autobiographical memoir, but I guess because of the fact that I was so at the time like really involved politically with this idea of, you know, of, of like, especially trans people's individual lives should be narrated more and more of them should be narrated in order for people to see the, you know, the incredible variation in those lives because, you know, because our lives tend to be portrayed as monolithic and our narratives tend to be portrayed as, you know, as like only existing on this sort of like really simple flat linear. Yeah, I love what you said about being writing from a place of like proactiveness rather than reactiveness and like, yeah, feeling that, you know, taking that's taking feeling entitled to do that and like taking that and stepping outside of that like reactive place I completely relate to that. And I think that's part of what's so empowering about taking these narratives and putting them in like book form because you're not, you know, tied to this sort of the sort of like response this burden some kind of responsibility you feel to be like reacting and telling us like kind of not taking control of your own narrative and shaping it, you know, in a way that isn't beholden to those constraints. But I really like that. Thank you both. I would like to zoom in on two moments early in your books which stood out as glimpses of possibilities for your partner for your characters. And I'm thinking more broadly, as you speak about writing proactively that the nuanced representations of gender sexuality that you each present, I imagine might be some of the first times people readers counter those intersections in narrative and so I'm thinking about your readers as I asked this question as well as I'm thinking about your characters. But there's two instances in each of the books that stand out at the beginning. And Ferris Meredith you recall an encounter with a distant relative a 12 year old that was already known as Bacla. Am I pronouncing correctly? Bacla, yes. A boy who acted like a girl and liked other boys as you write and in you exist too much the protagonist also at 12 is harassed by men outside the church of nativity and Bethlehem in response to her exposed legs. She winds up trading her shorts for her uncle slouchy pants and she relishes the blurred lines and unsettling yet exhilarating space that they invoke. Could you elaborate on the significance of these early scenes for your characters. I can start. Yeah, I think that for me, you know, the interacting with that cousin of mine, you know just really exposed this, you know, this idea of gender non conformity for me. You know, so it's working at that level at the level of my own personal exposure, you know, really my first real life personal exposure to gender non conformity, but also, you know, like writing in English for a primarily American audience. Like I also wanted to really establish that my encounter with gender non conformity is not the same as a lot of people's encounters with gender non conformity right that in the Philippines. It isn't, you know, in the Philippines, gender non conformity is marginalized in certain ways, but it's viewed as much more common and acceptable socially right that even though, you know, people were laughing at jambong people were, you know, were, you know, we're teasing him. He was still, you know, like allowed to behave openly in a gender non conforming way, you know that he wasn't, you know, like his family or his parents weren't actively preventing him from behaving in that way. And I think that really establishes, you know, how the norms of gender that I grew up with as somebody who lives between cultures is so much more complicated than one might assume and hopefully that also opens up, you know, the space for readers to think to themselves, oh, you know, other people might have all of these other different gender experiences. And so we can't assume that, you know, like a person is, you know, like is encountering gender or gender non conformity in the same way. Yeah, that's super interesting. Yeah, I mean, I thinking of the significance of the scene that you referenced the scene where the narrator is harassed outside the church of the Nativity for wearing shorts. I mean, I was trying, I feel like that scene, I chose that scene as the opening scene because I felt that it explored right away the various in between this is that the narrator is in bodies. First of all, like cultural in between this and the sort of alienation and like painful moments but also sometimes like humorous moments that accompany that experience because I mean in the end she the solution is to trade her shorts for her uncle's trousers and there's some levity around it, but it's also rather painful moment in so far as she's being harassed and, you know, basically facing the judgment of those men as well as her family, because of the fact that she doesn't realize you're not supposed to wear shorts as a 12 year old girl. And so that is one of the sort of reasons that it's there but also like exploring her sexuality and her in between this and that realm and like kind of way that she enjoys and inhabiting stepping outside of certain expectations and taking comfort in or just enjoying an ambiguous space when it comes to like present self presentation and, you know, feeling more stepping outside of like what a, you know, basically enjoying the feeling of wearing her uncle's pants. And so that scene kind of puts all those things together as along with the mothers, you know, bringing in the mother as the ultimate arbiter of judgment for this narrator, because it's really like that's who she's most terrified of more than like the men that are cat calling her it's the mother so yeah. Seems like a really natural segment a segue to my next question. There are incredibly compelling and complex maternal figures in both of your books. I was struck by parallels between these maternal relationships, both in regard to parental neglect and abuse that your characters experience, the way in which they strive not to replicate in your case narrative you replicate their mother's behavior, also holding deep compassion for the context in which their mothers grew up and empathy and understandings for some of the ways their mothers might resent parenthood. And at the same time the protagonist have these interesting relationships with Palestine and the Philippines mother lands if you will, that are likewise characterized by learning to belong. How did you approach these maternal relationships in the book and more broadly the ideas of lineage and belonging. I knew you were going to say that the that's a big question. I okay so I like what you said about simultaneously like not wanting to replicate but also having respect for the mother's, I guess, responses and background and even behavior. I mean for me, so much of creating the mother character, so much of the, I guess the challenge of creating this mother was to at once demonstrate her, you know, withholding qualities the ways in which she could be kind of damaging to the narrator the ways in which her fury was, you know, a source of trauma and have also representing, you know, the mother in her own right as somebody who grew up in essentially like grew up under occupation and between, you know, two major Israeli Israeli Palestinian wars, who came to the United States as an immigrant at like, you know, in her very early 20s and was like, you know, forced to kind of follow her husband, as he pursued his career and chill and so like, I really wanted to get at the heart of like, you know, who this mother was outside of being a mother, but also to represent her as, you know, a very powerful person in this narrator's life because of the fact that she is, you know, her mother who she seeks approval from, and also feels disconnected from because of the fact that the mother is essentially from a different, just has such a different cultural background almost in the narrator she's an immigrant she's very closely tied to Palestine she never she is Palestine for the narrator. And so, and she wants very much the narrator to belong to that lineage to belong to her mother but feels for reasons that, you know, because the mother both denies that to her and because of that divide between immigrant and first generation. And she feels like she can't attain that sense of belonging to that lineage so that was. Yeah, I mean it was that dual depiction of the mother as mother and as just woman in the world, who just happened to, you know, and trying to capture both of those. Yeah, you know, like I feel like it's, it's been really important for me in my writing, you know, to sort of, you know, the guy love how I love textures and narrative, you know, like I love the ways in which, you know, one, one doesn't have to, you know, portray you know, these sort of like stark, you know, kind of like poster board characters of good and evil, you know, representations in in in my book, you know, apart from, you know, my biological mother, my grandmother who basically is also like a really strong maternal figure so there was there are those dual figures and, you know, and my grandmother, you know, was super doting and laughing, et cetera, et cetera. And my mom was, you know, like was distant and had me when she was very young, and yet at the same time it was really important for me to be able to portray the ways, you know, like the grays in their characters, right. And, and, and I feel like that also feels like a certain amount of adulthood, you know, like it feels like a certain amount. It feels part of if the, if the memoir is a coming of age memoir, it feels part of my coming of age to be able to recognize the ways in which people can have overall general characters. And yet at the same time, you know, they, and yet at the same time depart from those general characteristics in really important ways, you know, that for my grandmother, you know, that she was a really extremely doting figure and yet at the same time, you know, like part of the ways in which, you know, she loved me so much is because of the fact that, you know, that she has really been indoctrinated into white supremacy and the idea of white superiority. And that, you know, and that even though my mom, you know, was, was neglectful to me as a child, she also imparted really important lessons and also as I've grown to be an adult, I've grown to understand her very real reasons for, you know, like having been so neglectful. And that was really important. Those grays and those textures were really important for me to portray. Thank you. They're both incredibly dimensional characters and portrayals. In that spirit, thinking about lineage, I'm curious, either people known to you or people in history or even phenomenon curious, who informed, who were mentors who informed these stories and enable their telling for both of you. Aside yourself, of course. So many people, I mean, so many people, so many books, right? You know, like I think, I think in terms of book lineage, you know, because of the fact that, you know, this book stands race and gender and disability and migration, etc, etc. You know, I drew from a bunch of different sources. One that I've been talking about recently, a lot has actually been Jamaican kid, and her novels, Annie, John and Lucy, you know, were definitely early inspirations in terms of thinking through what it means to move to a new country and, you know, and be at a loss and be at sea. You know, but then also just like, you know, a bunch of wonderful people, including our writing groups, you know, and, you know, like, certainly, you know, we all have our little, you know, like our own kind of like fairy godmother figures. I talk a lot about Alex Sheen, you know, who gives me a ton of advice. You know, Janet Mock has been, has been really wonderful over the years. José Antonio Vargas, right? And these are three people who occupy different aspects of, you know, of the ways in which I move through the world and are inspiring to me, you know, both as a writer and I've also been, you know, like really lucky enough to, you know, to get to know them as people. Yeah. Um, yes, I know so many different like sources of inspiration and mentorship and just like ways to grow as a writer and yeah, it's including our lovely little writing group. I mean, it's so essential. I feel like to have that community and it was really helpful at a really crucial time, I would say. And so, I mean, for me, like, just, I guess, lineage-wise, book lineage-wise, you know, like, I have to just say that Edward Said has been one of my main, um, just one of the most helpful writers. His work has meant so much to me and has really just his ideas about, you know, projections from West to East has been so enlightening and also just thinking about it in terms of the book. I mean, I've thought about just how the narrator kind of has her own set of projections that are things that are both projected onto her and the way that she is also complicit in like projecting. Um, especially when it comes to, you know, her romantic obsessions. Um, and so, I mean, there have been so many, so many other writers that have been incredibly influential. Another book that I recently, like, that recently I just recalled that at some point was super inspirational to me was Arjean Riss and her writing. She has this amazing book called Good Morning, the Night, and it centers a lot around certain themes that I explore in my writing, including addiction. And so I, yeah, I mean, just a number of, you know, in terms of like form, I've been inspired by like a lot of lyric essayists like Maggie Nelson, Yulia Viss is another writer who's been, she also explores race in her writing and just like certain notions around like, I guess, identity and belonging as well. So yeah, I mean, there's just tons and tons. We can spend hours talking about memory inspirations. It's an overwhelming question that you almost draw like a total blank on your face with it because it's like, oh, like, right. So you're just thinking back through like eight years of reading. Um, but anyway, and life. I mean, your experience doesn't have, you know, the sort of like strong corollary, you know, like, especially when the, the, you know, there's in certain ways I feel like there's a sense in which a lot of writers now are trying to, you know, to sort of like establish new ways of thinking and about these issues. And so, you know, and so as a result, your influences end up coming from like a wild number of places, right? That's so true. Right. Like, exactly. Like so many of my influences are like super contemporary, which is interesting because like the book was written, you know, before a lot of these books came onto the scene. But at the same time, like, those are the, those are the corollaries that, because you're right, those these, they didn't exist. They haven't, you're writing about things that aren't necessarily a part of the canon, you know, whatever that constitutes that. That makes a lot of sense. This next question is specifically for you, Zana, and relates to it to some of what you said earlier around your character's relationship to unattainability and the place of addiction in the story. In your book, the protagonist is recovering from an eating disorder and she also has a habit of romantically pursuing primarily unattainable women. Around halfway through the book, she checks into a recovery program for love addiction, which is akin to a sex and love addict synonymous. I was deeply moved by your depiction of this kind of recovery space, which was at once humorous and tender and provocative. And the main character is also a writer. I'm curious what the place of recovery is in you exist too much. And where might you think writing factors into healing with the characters, personal trauma, but also this kind of sense of inherited generational trauma? Yeah, I mean, I guess the, you know, the place of the treatment center is intended to be, it's also intended to, I guess it's a place, honestly, mostly it's a place where she is simultaneously like humbled in a way, and also finds community because she's very alienated. She doesn't really have a, she doesn't belong to any queer community because she's very closeted. Even though she has like queer relationships, she's still unable to accept that part of herself. She doesn't really belong to a Arab or Arab American community. She even her like profession as a DJ is isolating. So like the center is meant to be a place where she, that she initially resists because of this impulse towards alienation, but also comes to embrace eventually and find community. And I think a lot of what leads her to embrace it is writing and the fact that she, I think writes her way, you know, at first is arriving at the place with such skepticism that, you know, her observations are just very, I guess, skeptical. And, you know, she's reluctant to turn the lens inward. So she's like, looking outward and, you know, jotting down things about other people in the center and then eventually like as she, I guess, starts to break down these resistances. She uses writing as a way to, I think like synthesize a lot of what she's encountering there and really apply it to her own experience and her own things that she has been internally resisting. And so yeah, I mean, I think that's, that's what I would say in terms of that question. Thank you. Next question is also about writing. I had initially thought about this question in relationship to Ferris, but I actually think it applies to a lot of what we've spoken about so far in this conversation, so please chime in as it feels relevant and applicable. Meredith, I know that you've described your commitment to write a prismatic memoir. And indeed the story of your gender transition is but one of many transitions explored in Ferris. Ferris circles around one of the memories that Ferris circles around is your Harvard class reunion and the interactions you have with former classmates decades after attending. There's one passage that I really treasure after you've reconnected with Camilla who's a classmate who has since left the church that was she was prominently involved in college. At the reunion, you're, you're disclosing your gender transition to people that you encounter and she's likewise disclosing news that she's no longer part of this church. And if you'll indulge me, I'd love to just read a little bit of this section. These are really, they're really resonated with me. And you're writing, you're writing about Camilla, but you're also writing about yourself. You say, it wasn't that I didn't resonate with being a gay man and similar ways to Camilla joining these DC because she was a Christian, but it was the specific masculinity obsessed form gay male culture took in America that I eventually couldn't tolerate. And then you go on to say, I would have probably been Bacla had I stayed in the Philippines remained that more indeterminate space and a culture where that was possible. And as a non binary person I really appreciated throughout this book how you seem to work against a really popular mainstream trans archetype of being born in the wrong body which put so much, which is so individualist in some ways that instead you place this focus on how harmful biological essentialism is. And in this in this one breath you also point to that they're actually are long standing histories of non binary and trans experiences outside of this really limited white western imagination. And that just felt so refreshing and so expansive to me as a reader. And I was curious I know that you have also a lot of experience leading journalism at them and throughout your career writing about trans issues and trans experiences and I'm curious, with this book in particular were you writing against certain trans archetypes, or alongside other trans archetypes and kind of how you were writing into this into this version in Canada. Yeah, I mean I feel like one of the things that I really love to do and has become kind of second nature is I sort of absorb political and you know the theoretical philosophical writing. And I sort of I think it comes from I come from a dance background. And so one of the things that you learn in dance is you know like when you rehearse, you can like focus on the toe point you can focus on like, all of these like super technical aspects of what you're doing. But then when you're performing, you just, you know, like you forget all of that, and just like work on instinct. And I feel like I do that as a writer, you know, like I absorb all of this sort of political writing philosophical you know but then when I'm writing, I just write the story the way that you know the way that my unconscious is moving me. So I can say in retrospect that you know that absolutely all of the things that you're talking about are really present in the book and I really appreciate their presence in the book and the fact that you know the fact that the book destabilizes a lot of our received notions about what it means to be trans even the notion that one is always destined to be trans right you know one of the things that has been really important for me to point out is that as somebody who grew up in two completely different gender systems, there's no guarantee that if I had continued living in you know the gender system of my birth that I would it's not even there's no guarantee it doesn't make any sense that I would be constituted the same way gender wise right. And I think even pointing out that just very simple, you know to me like really self evident fact, sometimes, you know just feels from feels like it's running against so much of, you know, so much of this received understanding of what it means to be trans in America, which in a lot of ways comes out of a cisgender desire for it to be convenient for cisgender people to accept us, you know because if we can't help ourselves and we're always destined to be trans, then you know it becomes easier for people to say well then I guess you know it's fine since it's a life or death situation right. And one of the things that I'm going to say is that no like I couldn't be trans, not have it be this like enormous big crisis. And I still demand that you treat me, you know, you know all of those things are, you know, are really important to me. But at the time that I was writing, I was not consciously thinking that you know that I was really just sort of engaged with my experience and trying to figure out ways to structure the book so that it can, it can impart to the reader what it means like for me to be, you know, to live as a trans person in the way that I am specifically trans. Thank you. I guess Zana, if you want to also answer the question, I know both of you have mentioned there really aren't precise corollaries for your books, which is why it's so incredible to hold them and to have them out in the world. And I encourage everyone watching to go buy a copy if you don't already have, you won't regret it. I'm curious, Zana, if there were archetypes that you were writing against or on the flip kind of thinking more practically when you were writing the book, were you like what were you hoping that your readership might take a minute? You know, I mean, I think one, yeah, I think one thing I was resisting was like tidiness of character. And, you know, I think I just really, two things actually that I was resisting. One is the tidiness of character and like, I wanted to create a character who was allowed to be messy. And so far as she had like tons of just overlaps and non-reconcilable like, you know, identities and contradictions that she just embodied and not feeling like by the end all of these had to be sort of resolved or even like reconciled or just made sense of as allowing for these things to just exist within her and to manifest as they did. And so like, I was just, that was something that I was really determined to do. And similarly, I was resisting the, I was resisting the pressure of like creating a narrator that was like likeable, I guess. I think that she's lovable, but I think that she's not always likable. And I think more than likable, I wanted her to be authentic and to be true to her past, to her behavioral patterns, destructive as they may be to her past wounds to her traumas, just to all of what, you know, sort of makes her and to act in ways that were more believable rather than like necessarily pleasant. There were times where, you know, I would just watch her make a decision and feel really frustrated with the choice that she would make, but I couldn't really steer her towards in the other direction, because it wouldn't have been authentic to her and she had to sort of arrive at, I think healthier choices on her own. And of course, I mean, there is a lot of pressure to have, especially for like female narrators to be, I guess, likable. But I trusted that like the reader would understand that even though her choices were destructive and sometimes her behavior was just really painful to watch. It was, there were underlying reasons for this. And that was just part of her reality and I think also part of the reality of being internally, just having a lot of internal shame and that she needed to really overcome. Well, I was incredibly invested in her storyline. I think she's definitely a very lovable character. I agree. Thank you. I'm curious for both of you, what is on the horizon for you and how can people watching stay up to date with? Oh, that's a good question. I'm working in a novel. So that's been really enjoyable, you know, to sort of like dive into the world of fiction again. So, and, you know, and it wrestles with, you know, with some of these concerns around, you know, kind of like liminality and migration, you know, but in a fictional world. So, so I'm, you know, working on that. And so yeah, and, you know, and people can, you know, can follow me. I'm on Twitter and Instagram with people, you know, feel like, you know, they feel like following me there. And, you know, I, I, I tend to just sort of like say witty missives and the politically opinionated on social media, which is very different from, which is kind of very different from my, from my writing personality. But yeah, I'm a, I'm a cancer, and I'm very much a cancer on the page on this page, but on social media. I'm a little bit more. And yeah, and just just really, you know, just really looking forward to getting back to that mode of self introspection writing. Yeah, I got excited when you said you're writing a novel just because I can't wait to read more from you. That's really great. I'm working on an essay collection. And I am also working on another novel. I think I'm right now really, I'm excited about both, but a lot of my focus is in the essay collection, maybe just like change of pace from novel writing. What'd you say? Confiction. Exactly. So I, um, yeah, I'm doing that. And occasionally publishing essays, which actually, once I have been, you know, in the lead up to a book, you kind of do that. And it's so wonderful to get back into like writing things that take a shorter amount of time sometimes than a book to exist in the world. But then in the after, after you publish a novel, you are just, you don't write for like, I don't know, six weeks or something. And now I'm just like ready to write again and get back to this essay collection. And then I guess the novel as well, and you can keep up with me on social media. I'm not, I'm really, I'm like a 97 year old and truly like learning it now. I just learned about how to share like an Instagram story. But you can find me on all of those things. And I'm going to try and be more vocal. Just feel shy. So that's it. Do you have any questions for each other before you wrap up? Oh, that's a good question. Do I have any questions? Do I have questions for you? I don't, I don't know if I have questions, you know, I just, I just want to say that I absolutely love your book and I, you know, I just love how insightful it is and how, you know, like how it finds all of these like, really, really surprising moments of complicated emotion. You know, including humor, including anger, including pain in moments that seem so stark, you know, that's one of the things that I love about it where it's like people are in conflict or people are having sex or people are in recovery, which just seem like these black and white situations. And so consistently, you find ways to make them, you know, complex and, you know, and have all of this emotional texture. And yeah, and I absolutely love that. Apart from the fact that your prose, of course is, you know, gorgeous. So, so basically, I don't have a question. Thank you. That's the loveliest thing. I mean, I want to say and I have, I think like reading your book, I was just like, you're mine. You are such an incredibly like rich thinker. The way that you can just take a moment and refract it through so many lenses as well and just like push on it and just bring to it. I mean, as when you were talking about dance and like learning all these techniques and then just going out there and dancing and sort of forgetting them in some way, I could feel like, I mean, I couldn't see the strings of like all of the sort of, I guess, like, you know, philosophy and just like literature that's like informed your mind, but I could just feel it come through so, so much on the page. And beyond that, I mean, obviously, just like the subject matter is so I was just so it's just so I'm so happy that this book exists and is in the world. I just couldn't feel more urgent and, you know, necessary. So yeah, it's been really wonderful. How can I ask one question to which is, I mean, how has it, how has the last how has it felt for you in the, I guess, just this, like, have you felt like you've been able to engage with readers in this virtual format, you know, of course, like it would be ideal to engage in person but like have you found that you've been able to, you know, find that I do, it's interesting just because they feel like there are different forms of engagement, right, like there's this way in which, you know, the guest absolutely, you know, the contracting with people in person has its pleasures but it but it's been really fascinating that you can, you know, that like when somebody sends you an email or when somebody sends you a message, you have time to reflect before responding like rather than, you know, they get being live and you know that I've been dedicating books for instance, you know, because I'm working with my local bookstore and I've had the chance to, you know, the people would buy books online and I would dedicate them and it actually feels really special to be able to have the time to, you know, write what I want rather than in the context of like a, you know, post-show reading where you're, you know, where you're, you know, where you feel such pressure to write, you know, to write something wise and like, you know, in the 30 seconds as you're also talking to a person, you know, so I try to really focus on, you know, like on the positives of interacting with people. Obviously like the biggest one is that I can interact with people all over the country in the world, you know, like it really sort of like equalizes distance and equalizes place in a way that has been really wonderful and hearing from readers all over the world has also been really fantastic. What about you? Everything you said is literally exactly what I would say, which is like, yeah, I mean, I, you know, there are parts of me that really miss that like in-person interaction, but getting, first of all, yes, having, being able to, you know, have a Zoom event and have people from anywhere in the world attend, that's amazing. And it just like completely, you know, widens the reach and there's like people you can connect with and then, yeah, receiving emails and just like notes and messages about from readers and hearing their responses and having the time to like sit with that, feel the impact of that and respond to that has been like it has been a really a different but just lovely experience. I mean, there's nothing that I love more than just, you know, whether in any sense just like hearing from a reader because it feels, it is, you know, at the end of the day, like I'm just sort of in this apartment by myself. And so I just love the way that we can find ways around that and kind of engage in this, in this way, even though at first it was like a little, you know, obviously a little worried about it, you know, not being able to connect with readers and so yeah, I'm just enjoying that too. That's all. Well, on that note, I want to thank you both purposely for engaging with our Brooklyn Museum audiences and our community here in central Brooklyn. It's been so much fun talking about your book and now of course I have a million more questions, but I hope that this is one of many conversations we have that will stay up to date on your future projects. I can't wait for the writing that you put forth in the future. And in the meantime, I encourage everyone who's watching to, these are advanced copies and mine are very annotated, but get your own shining new new copies. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for the excellent conversation. Thank you. Thank you all for tuning in tonight and thank you a million times to Meredith and Zana for sharing so generously with us about your books and the process of writing them. I would also like to thank our team behind the scenes Bob, Teddy and Keith, who have been holding it down with tech, Brooke, Sarah and Adam for spreading the word about the program. Thank you so much for the opportunity to transcribe the captions for the talk and our teammates, Lauren and Danilo. Have a wonderful rest of your night and I hope you all are taking care.