Help Brian Attend Key Writing Opportunities Now

Who, What, and Why

My name is Brian. I am on the brink of success as a nonfiction writer—and you can help! I have the opportunity to attend The Kenyon Review Winter Online Workshop. Attending this workshop is crucial for my writing career as The Kenyon Review is a very prestigious literary magazine. Since its inaugural issue in January of 1939, The Kenyon Review has become one of the world's most influential English-language literary magazines, with writers nominated for (and winning) Pushcart and Pulitzer Prizes. This workshop will focus on generative writing and help me develop more essays to bolster my visibility to agents and publishers. Better still, the workshop will further refine my writing skills, and I am always eager to learn and improve.

I am just over a year from turning 60 and am living proof that people can be considered emerging writers at any age.

On the same day I received the acceptance from Kenyon, I received news from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) to attend the 2025 conference in Los Angeles this upcoming March as a volunteer, saving me hundreds of dollars. AWP is THE writing conference in the US, and my attendance will build community with writers and editors.

A Critical Deadline: I must pay the Kenyon tuition on or before January 8, 2025. With your help, I can meet this important deadline.

There are two big reasons why I am asking for your help.

1. My husband of 31 years, Hiro, needs cataract surgery in April 2025. The recommended replacement lenses will cost me more than $2,000. (The cool thing is that once Hiro has new lenses, we won't ever have to buy prescription eyeglasses for him.) And yes, I have a job, but my salary is for essentials (and for Hiro), and it's often a challenge to find additional funds to advance my writing.

2. As I said above, I am on the brink of greater success in my writing. The Kenyon workshop and the AWP Conference will let me take my skills even further, let me interact with publishing professionals, and bring me further into a community of writers.

For much of my life, I've been focused on responsibilities—to work, my husband, and my health. Writing has usually taken a back seat to everything else. But recent successes have encouraged me, and I stand at a crucial juncture in my writing life.

How much am I asking for?

Tuition for the Kenyon Workshop: $800

THIS GOAL HAS BEEN MET!!!

Classes start on 1/18 and I am enrolled!

Lodging for the AWP Conference: $900

This covers six nights at the Kawada Hotel, a brief ride on the Metro Rail away from the conference center, and the associated taxes and fees.

Other expenses during the AWP Conference: $500

I estimate food expenses to be roughly $70 for each of the conference's five days and an additional $150 for out-of-pocket costs like Metro Rail tickets.

TOTAL: $2200

I am not including airfare to LA. I will use air miles to cover that.

The good news is that small contributions add up. I would be delighted if you would consider a contribution as an early birthday gift (I turn 59) on January 14.

Some notes on my writing:

In January of 2024, I received a scholarship to participate in Greg Mania’s proposal generator program. This program resulted in a full proposal for my manuscript, Crying in a Foreign Language. Thanks to the generator, my manuscript has reached a point in its revisions where I can query agents and smaller publishers.

What is Crying in a Foreign Language about?

I'm a queer elder, a member of early Generation X who made it past the terrors of HIV/AIDS only to witness a cycle of progress and backlash.

When I moved to Japan in August of 1988, the AIDS epidemic was in full swing, with nearly 40,000 people dead in the US, sparse responses from the government, and overwhelming social stigma. When people asked why I wanted to move, I lied, saying I wanted to take a year off before going to graduate school. In truth, the panic and hysteria of the gay plague terrified me.

Japan took me by surprise, however. I quickly learned that the dimensions of queerness (and attractiveness) were much broader than those I had only glimpsed in the United States. And my popularity within Tokyo's gay communities (fueled, in part, by my fluency in Japanese) allowed me to come out in new ways. Sometimes, I had no choice but to destroy my closets, but each time I abandoned an emotional hiding place during my ten years there, I came closer and closer to joy.

The chapters in my memoir-in-essays are short and fractured. They mix my ten-year narrative of Japan with flashbacks of a fat, gay childhood, perspectives from a wiser present, and research from medical, historical, cultural, and literary sources.

As someone who survived their closets and their panic- and grief-driven traumas, I hope my writing will light a path forward for younger generations.

Publications

I published five essays this year:

Some of the essays I've published, including “Desire, Desiring, Desired,” adopt that fractured writing style. Others, like “Carded,” follow more linear timelines. But my writing often finds intersectional themes: where my closets and authenticity meet, where my queerness and Japan bump up against each other, where community informs the personal. I'm writing from a lucky place. Help me hone that luck. Attendance at Kenyon and AWP can make my writing voice even more potent. I will always be grateful for your help.