Second Tuesday presents “It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror”
Second Tuesday Presents
"It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror"
The Center in partnership with Feminist Press presents “It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror,” edited by Joe Vallese. Join Joe in conversation with Zefyr Lisowski, Viet Dinh, and Sarah Fonseca as they discuss the films that informed their contributions to the anthology.
ABOUT THE ANTHOLOGY
Through the lens of horror—from “Halloween” to “Hereditary”—queer and trans writers consider the films that deepened, amplified, and illuminated their own experiences.
Horror movies hold a complicated space in the hearts of the queer community: historically misogynist, and often homophobic and transphobic, the genre has also been inadvertently feminist and open to subversive readings. Common tropes—such as the circumspect and resilient “final girl,” body possession, costumed villains, secret identities, and things that lurk in the closet—spark moments of eerie familiarity and affective connection. Still, viewers often remain tasked with reading themselves into beloved films, seeking out characters and set pieces that speak to, mirror, and parallel the unique ways queerness encounters the world.
“It Came from the Closet” features 25 original essays by writers speaking to this relationship, through connections both empowering and oppressive. From Carmen Maria Machado on “Jennifer’s Body,” to Jude Ellison S. Doyle on “In My Skin,” Addie Tsai on “Dead Ringers,” and many more, these conversations convey the rich reciprocity between queerness and horror. For more info please visit: https://www.feministpress.org/books-a-m/it-came-from-the-closet
Joe Vallese is coeditor of the anthology “What’s Your Exit? A Literary Detour Through New Jersey.” His creative and pop culture writing appears in Bomb, VICE, Backstage, PopMatters, Southeast Review, North American Review, Narrative Northeast, VIA: Voices in Italian-Americana, among others. He has been a Pushcart Prize nominee and a notable in Best American Essays for his essay “Blood, Brothers.” He is currently clinical associate professor in the Expository Writing Program at New York University, and previously served as site director and faculty for the Bard Prison Initiative. Joe holds an MFA from New York University, and MAT and BA degrees from Bard College.
Viet Dinh was born in Vietnam and grew up in Colorado. He attended Johns Hopkins University and the University of Houston and currently teaches at the University of Delaware. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Delaware Division of the Arts, as well as two O. Henry Prizes and the Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction from Ploughshares. His stories have appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, Witness, Fence, Five Points, Chicago Review, Threepenny Review, and Best American Non-Required Reading 2017. His debut novel, “After Disasters,” a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Prize, was released in 2016.
Sarah Tomasin Fonseca is a writer, editor, and film programmer based in New York City who has dispatched from Cannes, New York Film Festival, and Sundance. With one eye on queer cinema history and the other on its future potential, she has contributed a volume of interviews, reviews, and critical essays to LGBT and mainstream film publications, including Condé Nast’s them., The Advocate, Film Comment, and Museum of the Moving Image’s Reverse Shot. She is a co-editor of “The New Lesbian Pulp,” forthcoming from Feminist Press in 2024. She tweets @girlsinmitsouko.
Zefyr Lisowski is a trans woman poet and essayist based in New York City. She’s a poetry co-editor at Apogee Journal and the author of the Lizzie Borden queer murder chapbook “Blood Box” (Black Lawrence Press 2019). Zefyr has received support from Blue Mountain Center, Tin House Summer Writers Workshop, and elsewhere; her poems and essays have appeared in Catapult, The Offing, The Rumpus, and many other places. She lives at zeflisowski.com.
To request an accommodation, please contact Richard Morales at rmorales@gaycenter.org by October 4, 2022.
DETAILS
Tuesday, October 11, 2022
6:30 p.m. ET
$10 Suggested Donation