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Spring in Appleton: the days peak in a comfortable lukewarm and the nights stay misty and cool. While rural Wisconsin originally seemed antithetical to my queer identity, I have come to realize how in tune I feel with Lawrence’s campus and the Fox Valley region at large: the numerous trails alongside the river I run and write on; the countless window seats I dream in, caffeinated; and the wonderful folks, faculty and community members I have befriended. My father, a hockey-playing alumnus himself, said it best: “You’ll love it more than you know.” Indeed, I have found a voice here.
What first drove me to write — let alone, create at all — was a tolerance for ambiguity. I played with the neighbors’ Barbies and feigned dresses with towels to explore my queerness from an early age. Though, I never casted myself entirely in some stereotypical girlhood: I dirtied my knees in my grandparents’ backyard creek and built massive Lego empires between rewatches of “Mamma Mia!” and “Pitch Perfect.” Rarely did I see these sides of my transitive identity (no pun intended) as separate.
However, among these movie-musical marathons, I lacked any archetype or character arc that I could relate to. My deepening, baritone voice failed to hit the high notes Anna Kendrick or Amanda Seyfried effortlessly executed. Each film’s problematic side comments for the sake of outdated humor scarcely affirmed my own identity. It was all too gendered and prescriptive — not nearly as fluid as I felt; thus, come high school, I began to write.
It was here where I began to find the stride that brought me to The Lawrentian. No longer bound to others’ perceptions of folks like me — and informed by Postmodernist thought and the Beat Generation — I penned extensive lyric pieces regarding trashy high school romance and my queer coming-of-age. My privilege, given way by my whiteness, class status and loving family, went unacknowledged in retrospect. While this lack of representation and agency silenced me, I rarely grasped how truly lucky I was and continue to be.
Yet what my writings both then and now boil down to are my reflexive critiques of what I deem the “bad fiction” of primarily white, upper-class and heteronormative society. Fraternized in the country club of this dominant culture throughout my youth, I lacked contact with any external perspective. This absence, in tandem with my burgeoning queerness, manifested as a longing to further cement myself within typical plots. It was more than just “Mamma Mia!” and “Pitch Perfect.” This was the only right way of performing life: mimicking archetypes to subsume an unconscious, grand narrative.
Now, I understand the power in the individual story, the situated and subjugated. Across my body of work, I aim to deconstruct with one foot in hegemony and the other in the margins. It is not just a practice; I fundamentally understand myself through both dissection and imagination.
This project naturally carried over in The Lawrentian as album reviews of indie records alongside ephemeral snapshots of our criminally under-appreciated dance program in Arts & Entertainment. In my coverage, I began seeing myself in a non-fictive, journalistic role, cultivating my precision while maintaining a digestible voice. When my wonderful section editor, fifth-year Nina Schifano, recommended me for the Co-Editor-in-Chief position, I was both frightened and elated. I could stand as the very agent of representation I lacked.
Alongside my effervescent co-editor, junior Evy Best, I ground my personal passion of investigating the “bad fiction” as a direct commitment to equity. As Whitman-esque as it may sound, each of us carries a multitude of experiences that deserve to be heard — especially under institutional pressures. Silence and violence rhyme for a reason.
For me, what is most exciting about The Lawrentian is its student sufficiency: through employing students from coverage to distribution, it fosters a space to share lived experiences in a bottom-up approach. In my tenure as a queer, white humanities student, I hope to aid in capturing the constellations of voices this campus boasts. If you spot me in the window seat of any College Avenue café, stop by and say “hi!” I would love to listen, tune in and unabashedly hear your story. You deserve a voice.