Help Bruce Get Unstuck

Thanks to the amazing response to this campaign (I met my initial goal in three days and actually ended up going over to a total of $3,240!), I've decided to summon a stretch goal!

The stretch goal is to raise an additional $728.00 for an overall campaign total of $3,968. This $728.00 goal covers my electric, phone, internet, and therapy back payment.

I'm currently in therapy twice a week. On Mondays, I'm in a dialectic behavioral therapy (DBT) group. DBT is designed specifically for borderline to help us rewire how our brain reacts to situations that trigger us. This diagnosis has been a tough adjustment, especially with the stigma surrounding borderline. There's also a lot of homework. On Fridays, I have individual therapy.

I do not ask for your donation lightly. I have made a ton of progress on my book and would love a little more time to get the proposal ready to go out to the agents who have expressed interest in it. Your help would gift me more of that time and keep me moving forward!

One of the biggest breakthroughs I've had on the book is the title and description of it. Here it is: My haunted memoir, Ghost Fever, is about me, a queer horror movie fan, resisting the urge to talk about the ghosts that have followed me since childhood for fear I’ll be forced to stay in the psych ward longer even as it’s difficult for me to imagine what life will be like once home as I grapple with my new borderline personality disorder diagnosis, which leads me to reckon with what it means to be haunted, how to banish the destructive patterns I inherited, and to stop being a phantom in my own life.

Here's a breakdown of how new donations will be used:

To catch-up on my back payments for therapy: $90.00

Phone: $87.70 per month. I'm fundraising to cover it for December, January, and February.

Total: $263.10

Electric: $25.00 per month. I'm fundraising to cover the same months as my phone.

Total: $75.00

Internet: $100.00 per month. I'm fundraising to cover the same months as my phone and electric.

Total: $300.00

Updated Overall total: $728.00

Good news! A generous and kind friend has covered my Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship Application!!

New Essay Alert! On October 30, Zócalo Pubic Square published my essay about Halloween attractions and my time in the psych ward, which you can read here:

https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2023/10/30/asylum-halloween-haunted-house-attraction/ideas/essay/

Below you can read more about my writing and the circumstances that brought me here.

Hi, I'm Bruce, and I truly appreciate you taking a moment to read my story. I'm a queer disabled writer and ghost nerd. A lot has happened in the past month that has radically changed my life and my goals as a writer. On September 1, I got fired from my job as a barista at an indie coffeehouse in Chicago after seeking help from the owners when a co-worker mocked me about my mental health, I attempted suicide a few hours later, and was voluntarily hospitalized for five days. I've been advised by my psych team (social worker, psychiatrist, and therapist) to not return a job as a barista or in a retail environment because the pressure and general insensitivity to workers in those environments could trigger another breakdown and suicide attempt. I also received a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder while in the hospital. I need time. The funds from this fundraiser will give that time and the resources to pursue job opportunities in a better environment for my mental health, take the leap to fully invest in my writing career, to adjust to my new diagnosis, and to recover from my suicide attempt.

Any money donated will be used to pay my rent and for a life changing writing course with Katherine E. Standefer, who is the author of Lightning Flowers and a writer who understands the struggle of balancing life's difficult moments with the writing we need to do to chart a new course in our lives. Any amount you're willing to contribute is so greatly appreciated, and if you aren't able to contribute money at this time, a share with your friends and family would mean the world to me. Now is the time for me to move my life in exciting new directions and, if you can, with your help!

Here are the details on how the money will be used:

Rent: My monthly rent is $883 per month. I'm fundraising to cover part of November 2023, and December and January in full.

My former employers did give me a $1,500 severance that covered my October rent and a majority of my November rent.

November 2023: $258

December 2023: $883

January 2024: $883

Total rent amount: $2,032

Getting Unstuck on Your Memoir course: $976

Thanks to a very generous friend I've already been able to pay $1,100 of the $2,076 class total, which is a reduced price thanks to Katherine's understanding of my financial situation and the necessity of me needing to get this book ready to go out to agents. But these classes are how she makes her living. I have already learned so much from her and want to make sure she is paid for it. Having that worry off my spinning plate of worry will greatly help me in moving forward in this new version of my life.

As she said to me when we were discussing me taking this course:"...“I know that when life has felt like it’s kicking me—especially at a day job— connecting to my writing and moving forward in my writing career has been the main salve I can count on.” I have felt stuck in retail jobs and the mental and physical exhaustion have slowed down progress on the haunted memoir that I've been working on since 2019. Having my book would allow me to pursue teaching, grant opportunities that are not available to me without my memoir.

In addition to the class-time and the assignments in it, she'll also review 55 pages of my manuscript. I will then be able to write my book proposal based on those pages, and send it to the two agents who have asked me to send it to them when it's ready as well as query other agents. My goal is for this book to be with a Big 5 publisher, which an agent is necessary to reach. Katherine's book is with a Big 5, so she can help with how I'll structure the book to appeal to that audience.

Here is the link to the full class description: http://www.katherinestandefer.com/calendar/2023/3/30/getting-un-stuck-on-your-memoir-standefer-writing-coach-book-memoir-9b7fn-xly6h

About my writing and my book:

I write about the ghosts, actual and metaphorical, that haunt me and how those connect to larger societal issues. This led me to coin the term "haunted memoir" to describe those experiences. We are all haunted in some way, which is especially true for marginalized identities like mine. I'm queer, nonbinary, asexual, and mentally ill. My hope being that the nonfiction ghost stories will provide more freedom for others to express both their trauma and their joy. Uplifting marginalized voices is of great importance to me as further seen through my work as the co-editor of Fat and Queer: An Anthology of Queer and Trans Bodies and Lives (Jessica Kingsley Publishers/Hachette, 2021). My essay "My Hand on the Glass" about the movie Hereditary and my initial coming out is featured in the Los Angeles Times bestseller, It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror. My contribution garnered mentions in The Atlantic and Shondaland. Super exciting days when those mentions were published and honestly, just as thrilling to revisit.

My essay "Inventory of a Haunted House, No. 4" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. (Yay!)

Now for the book!

I've always known my memoir would be about my relationship to ghosts and my queerness. Like my queerness, ghosts have always been with me, even when I didn’t want to acknowledge them. I started to notice my father’s ghost standing behind me in 2018 when I remembered that he had molested me. Those memories brought on PTSD, major depression, and generalized anxiety disorder. I didn't know another ghost waited to be discovered: my borderline personality disorder. My haunted memoir is about all the ways I've lived on the borderline

When I received this diagnosis, I cried because the diagnosis filled in a lot of context that's been missing from my life and because of all the stigma attached to borderline and I worried. The only way to begin to combat that stigma is to have more stories about the lived experience of being borderline. As a writer/reader, I wanted to read other people's experience about it. I could only find one.

Movies have always been a source of comfort for me so I'll discuss the movies that are important to me as I did in my essay from It Came from the Closet.

Here are links to a sample of my work that's available online

"Haunted Memoir" https://www.assayjournal.com/bruce-owens-grimm-haunted-memoir-assay-71.html

"Queer Ghost Hunting in Chicago" https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2022/10/24/queer-ghost-hunting/chronicles/where-i-go/

"Ghost Pansy" https://awst-press.com/essay-series/ghost-pansy

"Inventory of a Haunted House, No. 4" https://sweetlit.org/bruce-owens-grimm-issue-13-2/

More can be found at my website: https://bowgrimm.com/

Writing is how I process all of the things I've learned about myself since 2018 and with this new diagnosis. It's very overwhelming. Being in the psych ward gave me a sense of being in the world and outside of it at the same time. Although unsettling at first, the separation from my day-to-day life to hospital life allowed me to focus on my recovery. My recovery is still happening, which is asking for your help in giving me more time.