This week, we published an essay from Jackie Domenus called “Two Truths and a Lie.” She described it as a piece about “the awkwardness of ‘growing up,’ made all the more complicated by queerness and repression.” Here’s an excerpt:
My first kiss was with a girl on a trampoline.
We sat across from each other, our legs crisscrossed, knees barely touching. The nighttime air was crisp, and crickets sang around us. I raised my shaking hand to push her hair back behind her ear and leaned in close, hovering my lips in front of hers, like a magnet waiting to catch its opposite. We kissed softly at first and my legs ached—this time from longing rather than injury. Then we kissed harder, like we were desperate to taste each other, afraid we might never get the chance to again. I smiled into her mouth, before pulling away to catch my breath.
This is the lie.
But perhaps if it were true, I wouldn’t have spent my teenage years so intent on being anyone but myself.
The recent essays we’ve had the good fortune to house at Identity Theory are exceptionally strong, including Jackie’s piece, Corinne Cordasco-Pak’s “Δ Means Change,” and Lad Tobin’s “Gogol’s Nose and the Ghost in My Machine.” Go read them!
Response Time Disasters and Upcoming Submission Windows
Our poetry submission response times lagged beyond expectation, so we closed poetry submissions last year. We’re going to send decisions on all remaining poetry submissions by the end of February—most likely sooner.
We will reopen poetry submissions on March 1st.
We’ll also be posting official micro guidelines in February for fiction and essays under 500 words, and micro poetry submissions will open at the same time that general poetry submissions open.
Going forward, once submissions reopen, we will stick to a zero-to-three-month response time for poetry. If circumstances arise where we can’t honor those response times, we’ll suspend submissions until we catch up.
One of the reasons that our response times may be longer than other magazines is that we have thorough group discussions about every piece that gets published, so pieces can remain under consideration for extended periods of time.
For now, submissions remain open in fiction and nonfiction, and we’re adding editors to help work through those submissions.
It’s Video, Dude
We finally arrived at 50 followers on TikTok. I never thought we’d reach this prestigious milestone. Wow. Thank you all.
Seriously, this year we’re going to produce more videos. With feelings.
Bye now,
Matt Borondy
Identity Theory