August 2025 Newsletter: Rachel Pollack, Sapphic Literature, and Gaylaxicon
(Pictured above: Me and Rachel Pollack at a Tarot convention in 2007 in costume as both The Empress (Rachel Pollack) and The Lovers (both of us) from her Shining Tribe Tarot. The Lovers and The Empress cards are on either side of our photo.)
Welcome to this month’s newsletter! Each month, I try to share what I’ve been up to, what things I’ve published that month, and exciting news if there’s any to be shared.
News and updates
As the weather turns colder and the school year approaches, we’ve got a new hub page available for you to check out! Embodied Neurodivergence includes resources, readings, ponderings, and more on all things neurodivergent. Not just the commonly known mental symptoms, but the ways in which neurodivergence manifests in bodies and minds across identities, cultures, and experiences. Give it a read to learn more!
Additionally, I’ll be at Gaylaxicon 2025 with Stephanie Burt and fellow Macalester professor Emma Törzs, October 3-5, 2025. It’ll be a fantastic weekend of LGBTQ+ literature, stories, and fun conversations. More details to come on that in the future.
Blog posts from this month
It’s been a bit of a slower month, and I’ve been reflecting on last month’s GCLS conference. My post on sapphic literature and queer elders contains more reflections on that topic. It includes people who have inspired me, fellow trailblazing authors, and thoughts on moral decline and how we keep ourselves sane.
Visiting Rachel Pollack
Rachel Pollack has been tremendously influential in my life and thinking. She’s a pioneer in Tarot, speculative fiction and comics–and as a trans woman, transitioned the same year I was born. I was introduced to her in the mid 1990s by Kate Bornstein, and we became friends and eventually chosen family.
I’m still grieving her death in 2023 and appreciating that I have all her wisdom accessible in her work. Her Shining Tribe Tarot is the main deck I use for myself. This year with the GCLS conference in Albany, I was able to drive to Rhinebeck in late July and visit her memorial. Of course, I brought the new edition of the Shining Tribe Tarot and drew some cards.
The first of those cards, drawn while sitting in front of her memorial, was a new card she added for the most recent edition: The Sphinx in Eden. She says about this card:
‘Ruled’ in a sense by the High Priestess, the element of Water symbolizes the mysteries of existence, a state in which we sense great truths but cannot put them into words. The Sphinx traditionally is said to pose riddles and exact a terrible price from those who cannot answer. But if we could return to the pure state of Eden, the Sphinx would be seen to sit silently, in peace. Thus, this picture symbolizes our ability to accept the unanswerable riddles of life.
Few cards bring such a clear message about death and transformation, the mystery of these lives we lead. (And I got some of the other cards with clear messages on that subject for the rest of the reading.) Overall I came away with the sense that she isn’t at her memorial, though some of her energy is there and it’s lovely. She’s traveling, being in the world, visiting with all of us who are still connected to her.
You can expect more posts about her work here in the future, and at Gaylaxicon, Oct. 3-5 in Minneapolis, I hope to be on panels talking about Tarot and Rachel Pollack’s work. Check back here for details in the next few weeks.
Stay tuned next month for more blog posts, resources, and another newsletter. Thanks for being a reader!
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