'Spineless Lovers' is available to purchase!!!

IT'S HERE!

I started this project in the Fall of 2023, only a few months after my "egg cracked" and I came out as a transgender woman. The original intent was to have a few poems about queer/trans joy to read at a charity open mic. At the time, I never saw this going much further than that.

After the second time I read some of these pieces at an open mic and had audience members coming up to me after telling me all the ways they felt connected to my words, I knew I had something that needed to exist in the world. I'd never published a single thing in my life but I knew I had to.

When I wrote the first of these poems, I wasn't yet thinking of myself as "a writer". It's still weird for me. I've always loved poetry but my education was focused on biology and chemistry, mainly. Writing was only for reporting observations, conveying data and information, maybe summarizing an article or a report. I think that background really informed the way I wrote this book.

I may have been writing from the heart, but it's also a book I put a lot of research into. I encourage you to look up some information on the lovely invertebrate species that I featured. Learning more about the biology of a lobster or a clam won't just deepen your appreciation of the book by providing more context, it'll deepen your love and appreciation for the vast natural world we share.

Of course, this book is just as much about me coming to terms with and exploring and understanding my transness as it is about bugs. Just like the arachnids, crustaceans, and mollusks I write about, queer and trans people are everywhere whether you can see them in front of your face or not. We're your neighbors, we're part of the same ecosystem, and it's good to remember that in times like these. Even if you find us repulsive, you can't deny that you need us and that it would be a much darker world without us in it. If you don't tolerate the spider, you'll miss her when the swarm of flies comes.

For my queer audience, I hope that you can see the elements of your own journey in my work, because there's definitely elements of mine. When I wrote "Grocery Store Lobster" (the first in the book and the first I wrote) I was very much "baby trans trying to find her place in the community and feel safe and seen". The last poem in the book was written just last summer, and is dedicated to a woman that I can happily tell you is now my girlfriend. I hope that by reading this book, you can experience even just a taste of the joy that writing it brought me.

I'm writing this from my bed, which is a bedroll on an acquaintance's floor. I'm homeless, I was recently released from a mental hospital, and I'm chronically unemployed. Even before the inauguration and before the 2024 US election, my future looked bleak. But, I have love. Love for myself, my sweetheart, my world, and my trans brothers and sisters. I have more stories to tell still. If recent events feel to you like a big ending, remember that it's not over yet. There's fights to be fought and stories to tell and pretty girls and boys to kiss. It's still possible to find love, joy, and community in a seemingly hopeless situation. Let that carry you forth as it has for me.
 

Thank you all so much.

Kassandra Krause

1/22/2025