I’m from Virginia.
The first ever Virginia-based periodical I got published in was the Herndon Observer, where in high school I wrote an op-ed defending us students against something I’ve long since forgotten. My mom clipped it out. She might remember. That was in 1996. Then, nothing…until 2014, when Mary Washington College’s Rappahannock Review (named, in classic academic-journal fashion, for the river that goes through Fredericksburg, Va.) put out one of my Meme pieces. You can read it here.
Today, they also posted an interview with me, where I talk about the piece (about my first trip inside a gay bar as an out gay man), nonfiction more generally, and what if anything gives me the right to write about people I love.
I like doing interviews. It’s way easier to be on the answering side of them, except of course if you’re a politician, man on trial, or person recently cuffed by police. I haven’t been any of these, yet, so check back on me later about my cavalier attitude re answering questions.