Headlands Center for the Arts

Artist Statement

I am a writer and artist working at the intersection of magic, memory, history, and transsexual alternate realities. My writing spans hundreds of years of weirdo history; the magic, mysticism and deep emotion of working in archives; and the past as a supernatural encounter. I trained as a historian at the University of Pennsylvania and Oxford, and in 2017 completed a PhD in radical 17th-century printing history at University College London. In 2018, I founded CAMP BOOKS to promote access to queer and trans history. As CAMP BOOKS I make zines and print posters! My first book Bargain Witch: Essays in Self-Initiation, is a trans spiritual memoir about witchcraft, heresy, and working in an occult bookstore in London. Born and raised in Philadelphia, I spent fifteen years in London and currently live in the Mojave Desert.

While at Headlands

I will focus on hiking in the woods and getting to know the lay of the land. I will write into a site-specific chapter of my next book: Fag Hags: Countercultures of Queer and Trans Magic, a travelogue and a history of DIY spirituality outside of institutional archives and organized religion dating back to the writings of mystic gay socialist Edward Carpenter. The chapter that brings me to Headlands is about Druid Heights, an intentional community founded by the lesbian poet Elsa Gidlow in 1954. I will also be interviewing locals who knew, visited, and contributed to the vitality of Druid Heights, and its embodied blend of spiritual and political philosophies.