<div>TLDR: Suggested donation $40-$200 (but no amount is too small!); help a Filipinx trans writer finish their first book this summer! Funds needed to help cover two months of food, gas, rent, and bills while away from work/home at a writing residency. **<em>Please note: the published goal has been raised to account for the 3% processing fee.**</em>
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<div>Howdy!! As some of you might know, I've been working on a book for some time (over ten years!!!). One of my goals for completing this book was to snag a writing residency--a place and time without distractions to solely commit to finishing this work. Earlier this year I applied to the <a href="https://yefenof.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Yefe Nof</a> California Writing Residency which supports writers who are in the final stages of completing a work. Three writers are selected each year through an application process that includes a work proposal for the two-week stay at the residency. On March 31st, I was notified that I had been selected for a writing residency this summer (July 7-21) to complete my proposal. Yay!!!
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<div>The residency is in the San Bernadino National Forest near Lake Arrowhead, CA. For the past two years Atlanta, GA has been my home where I rent an apartment by myself and work at two restaurants. I will be driving cross-country for this residency (having a vehicle is a requirement), combining the trip with family visits, and attendance at the San Francisco Trans March. In total, I will be away from work and home for about eight weeks (June 7-August 3).
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<div>In order to make all of this happen, I really need support from my community, friends, and family! I will not be subletting my apartment since it is also a weekly practice space for local musicians. Rent is my greatest expense ($1675/month) and I will need to cover two months. Transportation is my next greatest expense (I don't even have to tell you about gas prices these days); <a href="https://www.gasbuddy.com/tripcostcalculator" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">GasBuddy</a> estimates about $450 one-way ATL to Southern California in my 1999 Nissan Frontier (and I believe this is a low estimate lol). Of course there's food, too!! Groceries these days usually cost me around $100/week in Georgia, and CA is pricier. Plus all the bills--my phone, car insurance, utilities at my apartment, etc.
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<div>My goal of $7500 is a conservative estimate of what it would take to keep me afloat for two months. Meeting half of this goal ($3750) would completely take care of my rent <em>and</em> utilities in Atlanta while I'm away. The remaining $3750 breaks down to about $470/week for the eight weeks I plan to be traveling or at my residency. So (after rent) I would be living on a total of $67/day from your kind donations. Not too bad for an artist! :D
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<div>Here is a description of my book that I submitted to Yefe Nof:
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<div>"<em>What I will be finishing is a collection of journal writings created over ten years while I was working, traveling, and living in different countries and around the USA. Much of the writing is first-person, creative nonfiction narrative and vignettes. The author is a young adult traveling alone and discovering themselves and their place in the world. There are themes of spirited adventure, love/heartbreak, money problems, loneliness, deep uncertainty, unbreakable friendship, sex, drugs, rock, and roll. The author also reckons intensely with untreated conditions of insomnia, extreme impulsiveness, and depression. As the author of this work, I relate to it somewhat as a eulogy for my gender before I came out and started transitioning. Traveling alone, often hitchhiking, as a young woman in my twenties came with many challenges and was downright scary at times. The young woman who dedicated herself to creating these stories deserves for her stories to be told, and I am grateful to be able to now tell it with a transgender voice.</em>"
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<div>Thank you so much for taking time to read all the way to end :) I am firm believer in mutual aid and have long shrugged-off the notion of "boot-strap individualism"--that is, no one should have to do anything completely alone and without help from others. I currently organize with a mutual aid collective in Atlanta and I'm hoping that, in the spirit of grassroots organizing, folks will be able to come together and support me as I make this huge vulnerable next step with my writing.
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<div>Here's to more queer trans literature from authors who never went to no college!
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<div>Much love and solidarity,
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<div>Rex
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<div>aka Huck Reyes
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Support Rex while they finish their first book!

Support Rex while they finish their first book!

Still $2,786 to go. Help us build momentum.