During the Winter of 2021, I received a generous gift of funds from the Department of English, which were intended to help me complete the final revision of my second book manuscript, Queer Forms. I used these funds to organize a second book forum, which included esteemed colleagues in the fields of women’s, gender and sexuality studies and literary studies. Our own Leslie Bow and Sara Guyer joined Linda Zerilli (University of Chicago) and Darieck Scott (UC Berkeley) to participate in a three-hour dialogue about my book manuscript, which was held over zoom in late Spring. This discussion was invaluable in helping me perfect the manuscript before final submission to my publisher at the end of the summer.
All four of my colleagues brought the full weight of their expertise to our dialogue, underscoring what parts of the manuscript read the strongest and what parts could use fine tuning. I used these comments to guide a meticulous revision of the entire manuscript before submitting it for production at NYU Press in early August. The second book forum was one of the most intellectually generative and confidence boosting activities I’ve had the privilege of participating in during my academic career. I am immensely grateful to our department donors for providing me the resources to organize this conversation in support of my writing and research.
