00;00;03;28 - 00;00;38;13 Samantha Allen [Theme music] Allen: I remember being 20 years old at BYU and everything feeling so big and consequential. It felt like the end of the world. And after you find community, after you get those lifelines, after you even just see one person living in the way that you dream of living and things become possible for you, you get perspective. You know? [Theme music] 00;00;38;15 - 00;01;04;26 J.R. Jamison Jamison: I'm J.R. Jamison. Today on the Facing Project I sit down with Samantha Allen, author of “Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States,” and the novels “Patricia Wants to Cuddle” and the forthcoming “Roland Rogers Isn't Dead Yet.” We'll talk about writing stories with unexpected plotlines and finding community in isolated places. Stay with us. [Theme music] 00;01;04;28 - 00;01;36;07 J.R. Jamison Jamison: This season, I'm doing something a little different to mix up our format. I'll still share stories from past Facing Projects to shine a light on specific topics and issues, but also I'll sit down for long form interviews with business executives, bestselling authors, filmmakers, and other artists who are using their platforms to make the world a more understanding and empathetic place, asking each of them the same question: How do we create a more empathetic world in a time when listening has decreased and each person's message is competing with millions of others? 00;01;36;13 - 00;02;04;05 J.R. Jamison Today's guest is Samantha Allen, who traveled across the country in 2017 capturing stories of LGBTQ individuals living in red states, making pit stops at drag shows, political rallies and hubs of queer life in the heartland with the goal of finding something gay every day. This experience became the 2019 wide released book “Real Queer America.” Since that time, Samantha has penned two novels: “Patricia Wants to Cuddle” 00;02;04;05 - 00;02;29;29 J.R. Jamison and “Roland Rogers Isn't Dead Yet.” Recently, “Patricia Wants to Cuddle” was optioned for a TV series. Aside from writing books, Samantha spends her days as the senior culture editor for Them, the online award winning authority on what it means to be LGBTQ+ today and tomorrow. Samantha Allen, GLAAD award winning journalist and author of “Real Queer America: LGBT stories from Red States,” 00;02;30;00 - 00;02;36;18 J.R. Jamison “Patricia Wants to Cuddle” and the forthcoming novel “Roland Rogers Isn't Dead Yet,” thank you for joining me on The Facing Project. 00;02;36;19 - 00;02;38;25 Samantha Allen Allen: Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. 00;02;39;02 - 00;03;01;11 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Absolutely. I'm thrilled to chat with you today about your work and just to catch up. One thing our listeners may not know about you is that your background is women's, gender and sexuality studies. And you actually spent time here in Indiana at the Kinsey Institute at IU Bloomington, where I do the show - not at the Kinsey Institute, but here in Indiana. 00;03;01;13 - 00;03;11;11 J.R. Jamison How do you get into writing, especially traditional publishing? And did you see yourself where you are today when you were working on your academic studies? 00;03;11;13 - 00;03;40;17 Samantha Allen Allen: You know, a PhD program takes a long time, like generally at least five years. And your stipend in a PhD program is very small. You know, it's generally like enough to have an apartment and to eat barely. So kind of midway through my PhD program, I needed supplemental income. And writing is the thing I know how to do. 00;03;40;17 - 00;04;09;05 Samantha Allen And it's, you know, what I was doing in my PhD program, just in a more highfalutin theoretical style. So I started writing for online publications about, you know, some of the topics I was working on in my research. I mean, women, gender and sexuality are huge cultural discussion points. And I had kind of an academic backing for speaking on those things, but could do it in a popular way. 00;04;09;11 - 00;04;23;01 Samantha Allen So I derived a lot of pleasure from just kind of like, yeah, having my academic work on one side and then doing more popular writing that, frankly, people actually read, you know? [Laughter] 00;04;23;08 - 00;04;24;06 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah. 00;04;24;08 - 00;04;50;17 Samantha Allen Allen: On the other side, like, I think probably five people on the planet ever read my dissertation. [Laughter] And, you know, you can write an article and communicate something to thousands of people. And, yeah, selfishly, that, that prospect appealed to me. But at some point, you know, the, the side hustle became the main hustle. Yeah, yeah. 00;04;50;18 - 00;04;59;15 J.R. Jamison Jamison: So do you write full time? Is, is writing and producing your content your full time role? 00;04;59;18 - 00;05;25;14 Samantha Allen Allen: So I work as a senior culture editor for Them at Condé Nast, the LGBTQ publication under that banner. So that's kind of the day job. Writing books remains supplemental, and I like to be, like, open and honest about that because, I mean, you know this, but like when you publish a book, people are like, oh, you're an author. Like, that must mean, like, you're... 00;05;25;15 - 00;05;28;08 J.R. Jamison Jamison: You're a millionaire now. Yeah. No. [Laughter] 00;05;28;10 - 00;05;48;23 Samantha Allen Allen: It's, you know, I can hold your book in my hands. That must mean you made a ton of money from it. And, you know, generally, unless, unless Oprah blesses you with a book club pick, you're still going to have, yeah, you're still going to have day jobs or other things you're doing for money. 00;05;48;29 - 00;06;10;17 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah. One of your most well-known works to date is “Real Queer America,” and it was released in 2019 and follows your 2017 road trip through red states, searching for something gay every day, and queer joy in places where some might least expect it. Take us back to the beginning of that journey. Why was this an important story to tell? 00;06;10;20 - 00;06;47;11 Samantha Allen Allen: No, it started with the Trump inauguration in 2016, and kind of the immediate post-election anger that I observed a lot of; Blue state progressive friends directing at states that they had perceived as being responsible for the election outcome, you know, kind of a whole cloth dismissal of what people often derisively refer to as flyover country. And I had had a bunch of life experiences in these places. 00;06;47;11 - 00;07;18;24 Samantha Allen I came out as trans, as a trans woman while living in Georgia, an identity I first started really exploring in earnest while closeted in Utah. I met my wife in Indiana at the Kinsey Institute, where I was doing summer research. I, we lived in Florida for three years, so I had had, you know, a whole adult life in these places, building LGBTQ community with people. 00;07;18;24 - 00;07;49;05 Samantha Allen And I knew how, how vibrant and warm and passionate that community was. And I kind of didn't want to see the baby thrown out with the bathwater, as it were. I was like, hey, we should actually pay attention to these LGBTQ enclaves in, in red states. And so, yeah, the summer, the following summer is - book deal in hand - is when I traveled the country. 00;07;49;08 - 00;08;09;20 Samantha Allen I, God, it's so long ago now that I barely remember the exact trajectory, but I think it went Utah, down to Texas, up to Indiana, and then kind of zigzagging through the deep south, through Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, ending in Florida. 00;08;09;22 - 00;08;14;20 J.R. Jamison Jamison: What surprised you most about the trip? 00;08;14;22 - 00;08;44;18 Samantha Allen Allen: You know, I think that having the experiences that I had, I, I expected to find LGBTQ community everywhere I went and I, and I did, so in that respect, like, I was happy to have a preexisting assumption confirmed. I guess I'd say what surprised me most is like, kind of, just how easy it is to, to kind of get in with queer community in a new place 00;08;44;20 - 00;09;12;00 Samantha Allen if you, if you try, you know. Most places I went, I tried to have someone kind of picked out in advance to be my guide, like a friend or someone I had kind of scouted online earlier. But, you know, I'm, I'm busy. I'm just one person. A some of this trip, I’ll admit, was pretty- as road trips go, things get slapped together at the last minute. 00;09;12;00 - 00;09;41;25 Samantha Allen You don't know where you're going to go at all times. And so, you know, at one point I was going to the Rio Grande Valley knowing, like, absolutely no one, and someone who I had met in Austin just gave me, like, one name of someone on Facebook. And within three days, you know, I had had coffee and lunch and hung out with all sorts of queer people in the Rio Grande Valley, and that's like, incredible. 00;09;41;26 - 00;10;03;13 Samantha Allen I don't know, you can't really, I mean, here in Seattle, where, now, we have this phenomenon called the Seattle Freeze, where it's like, it's very hard to make friends or meet people. But, you know, that was like the opposite of my experience on the trip. And I think what was most warmly surprising about it, is you could just kind of show up and be like, hey, I'm queer. 00;10;03;13 - 00;10;08;28 Samantha Allen I don't know where to go or who to talk to, and people want to show you. 00;10;09;00 - 00;10;44;01 J.R. Jamison Jamison: I've heard you speak before about smaller communities in rural areas, where often there's only one LGBTQ bar, and that's the place where everyone goes, and there aren't, in smaller communities, subset bars, right, to serve other subsets of the LGBTQIA+ community. And so that space of having everyone in one place, I think, brings the LGBTQ community together in a different way in smaller communities. 00;10;44;02 - 00;10;48;10 J.R. Jamison Was that your experience to as you went from town to town? 00;10;48;12 - 00;11;20;03 Samantha Allen Allen: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I remember it in most vividly in Jackson, Mississippi. The bar has changed names so many times. I have no idea what it's called now, but there's essentially just like 1 or 2 LGBTQ watering holes in Jackson at this point. And so, you know, if you, if you go there, you're going to see everybody, you know, you're going to, you're going to see, you're going to see gay guys; you're going to see lesbians; you're going to see mask people; you're going to see fem people; 00;11;20;03 - 00;11;45;14 Samantha Allen you're, like, you're going to see trans people; you're going to see cis people. It's like everybody has one spot. And I think that that's beautiful. I also think it's important, you know, I think the less segmented and fractionalized we are as a community, the more we understand each other, the more we have empathy for each other's experiences and, and the more power we have. 00;11;45;16 - 00;12;23;04 Samantha Allen You know, like, I appreciate people kind of wanting to have very purpose built night life experiences in, in, in Weho or New York or something where it's like, tonight I want to meet a otter, [laughter] go to the place where I can meet an otter. But, you know, I think if you just kind of live in your hermitic little bubble where you're only interacting with the exact people you want to interact with at all times, it's probably to the detriment of community. 00;12;23;06 - 00;12;32;01 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Were there any moments during your travels where you felt unsure, uncertain or scared? 00;12;32;04 - 00;13;08;15 Samantha Allen Allen: Yeah, I mean absolutely. I mean I'm a, I'm a trans woman driving a rented SUV like, you know, at 2 a.m. through, yeah, Indiana cornfields like, [laughter] like yeah, there're, there're weird moments. I was pulled over once, but nothing came of the interaction. And, you know, those are moments in which I definitely, like, have to recognize, like, my racial privilege, which I write about in the book, you know, like, as a, as a white trans woman. 00;13;08;20 - 00;13;37;03 Samantha Allen This trip is so much easier for me to conceive of and execute in a way that I felt safe than I imagined I would have if I were a person of color, you know. Like, road trips, and, you know, we know the history of, of, of sunset towns, which is very much still, like, present in America, make it really challenging for people to traverse the country and yeah, in a private vehicle. 00;13;37;03 - 00;14;07;26 Samantha Allen So I'm keenly aware of that. Didn't really fear for my safety ever. But it's certainly top of mind, especially when, you know, you're traveling through states where, you know, people are listening to propaganda all the time about how if they find a trans woman in the bathroom, they should “show her what for.” And I don't know, you know, it's hard not to have that stuff in your head when you're just trying to live and exist in public space. 00;14;07;29 - 00;14;32;05 J.R. Jamison Jamison: One of the places you visited and that you lived previously, prior to writing Real Queer America, was Indiana, where I am here today doing the show and where I grew up, and I can completely relate to everything that we were just talking about related to being queer in, in Indiana. And there are also really wonderful, beautiful pockets across the state to of, of welcoming communities. 00;14;32;05 - 00;14;58;21 J.R. Jamison And so that's what's interesting to navigate in a state or a place like Indiana is, there are small pockets of hope, but you travel five miles outside of those pockets and it can get scary really fast, but you also find small pockets of hope in some of those places that are seemingly scary on the surface, too. So I always tell people that Indiana is a complicated place, as I'm sure most red states are for queer people to live in exist. 00;14;58;24 - 00;15;28;18 Samantha Allen Allen: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I remember meeting people in Bloomington who were talking about experiences they had had in like the south central part of the state or things like that, where it's like, you know, they felt like they had to get out of that part of Indiana to go to Bloomington, which, you know, I relate to. But I think I was writing the book for, for Red state readers to feel seen, but also to show Blue State readers that that phenomenon is happening 00;15;28;18 - 00;15;54;17 Samantha Allen increasingly. People who don't feel safe in a part of Indiana are saying, “Oh, here's a city I can move to, like, an hour away,” but as a community. And it kind of defies the narrative, which I think is still very much in people's heads, that everyone in these states, like, gets on a bus to New York or LA, like, at the first sign of trouble. 00;15;54;19 - 00;16;05;27 Samantha Allen Yeah, that narrative is so embedded in people's heads. And, you know, as we've seen from just, like, demographic data, that's not what's really happening anymore. 00;16;06;02 - 00;16;23;10 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah. One of the worst questions I feel someone can ask or state to me, and it's often people from the coast, when they get to know me, and they're like, “Oh, so where do you live?” I've had people say, “Do you live in New York or do you live...?” And when I say, “Oh no, I live in Indiana.” 00;16;23;12 - 00;16;26;02 J.R. Jamison People say, “Why?” [Laughter] 00;16;26;02 - 00;16;27;07 J.R. Jamison Allen: They make a face, yeah. 00;16;27;10 - 00;16;50;29 J.R. Jamison Jamison: They do! They make a face that say “Why?” And then I have to feel like, you know, I feel like I have to explain myself about, you know, well, my family's here, and I want to be close to them, except- Right? But it's just amazing to me how the assumptions people make about what it's like to live in flyover country, as it's affectionately called by some people on the coast. 00;16;51;02 - 00;17;16;06 Samantha Allen Allen: Yeah. I mean, he just- dismissing a whole state with a single frown. It's like, come on, thousands and thousands of people live there, call it home, have, you know, fallen in love and built families and pursued their hobbies in this place. Like, there's got to be something to it. 00;17;16;08 - 00;17;32;20 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah. Yeah, totally. Well, speaking of Bloomington, you wrote about Bloomington in the book, and I'd love for you to read an excerpt from “Real Queer America,” if you're willing to do so, from the chapter that you affectionately call “Boomington.” 00;17;32;23 - 00;18;05;15 Samantha Allen Allen: Yeah, so-called because I met my partner in Bloomington in 2013. Yeah. This section I'm going to read is kind of about queer world making and my first encounters in Bloomington. Before I came to Bloomington for the first time in 2013, I sent an email to Lauren Berlant, the social theorist who coined the concept of queer world making with scholar Michael Warner in a famous 1998 essay called “Sex in Public.” 00;18;05;17 - 00;18;38;28 Samantha Allen At the time that essay was being written, the New York City Council had overwhelmingly approved zoning changes that threatened to close several gay themed adult businesses on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. Berlant and Warner were concerned not only with protecting public space for queer people, but also with carving out cultural space for queer life in a society they deemed heteronormative, meaning that almost everything about it - from government to religion to his & hers towels - favored heterosexuality is the only right way to live. 00;18;39;00 - 00;19;06;19 Samantha Allen The term heteronormative has since passed into popular parlance. At the time, however, it was breathtakingly radical to consider how persistently heterosexuality pervaded every facet of public life. “Heterosexuality involves so many practices that are not sex that a world in which this hegemonic cluster would not be dominant is, at this point, unimaginable,” Berlant and Warner wrote. “We are trying to bring that world into being.” 00;19;06;22 - 00;19;28;15 Samantha Allen Some 20 years later, queer people are still trying to bring that world into being. The queer worlds are hard to build and even harder to define. Neighborhoods like the Village are easy to label as queer based on the concentration of LGBT establishments alone. After a certain point, as Berlant and Warner noted in their essay, a quantitative change is a qualitative change. 00;19;28;16 - 00;19;57;04 Samantha Allen A critical mass develops, the street becomes queer. But how do you find a queer world in a place like Bloomington, Indiana, which isn't exactly West Hollywood? I emailed Berlant for recommendations because they work four hours north of Bloomington at the University of Chicago. Their response was as brief as you'd expect an academic rock star’s to be. “There's a new gay bar: The Back Door. Cafes: Rachel's. Selma: queer people hangouts.” 00;19;57;04 - 00;20;26;05 Samantha Allen But that was all I needed. A single point of entry is like a passport into any town's queer world. Three was plenty. On my second night in Bloomington, I went to the Back Door, which, in addition to the sex pun in its name, could literally be accessed only through an alleyway entrance. The foyer was directed with old Kinsey Institute memorabilia, but the nostalgia it evoked was quickly replaced with visions of an even queer future when I entered the bar itself. 00;20;26;07 - 00;20;47;22 Samantha Allen The walls were zebra print. The decor consisted mostly of elaborate paintings of unicorns, and one portrait of Dolly Parton hung up in gaudy, gilded frames. If a rainbow could gain sentience and become an interior decorator, I thought, this would be her greatest creation. But the kitschiness of the space was balanced out by the homeyness of the bar's vibe. 00;20;47;28 - 00;21;07;04 Samantha Allen I rarely drank - a mormon habit still dying hard a decade later - so it was a relief to be able to sit down at a table and watch a drag show that featured a gut-bustingly funny performance of Isaac Hayes’s “Chocolate Salty Balls” from South Park. I could tell this bar wasn't just a place to find someone to bring to bed. 00;21;07;06 - 00;21;37;14 Samantha Allen It was also a gathering space for community. Any remaining jitters I had about being in Indiana faded as the night wore on. Berlant’s recommendations kept paying dividends as I built connections of my own. Rachel's Cafe had provided an early gateway into Bloomington’s queer subculture, giving me a quiet place to study and stay on top of local events. An employee at the Kinsey Institute introduced me to a bookstore where I could catch a screening of a mid-90s lesbian romance film. 00;21;37;17 - 00;22;07;09 Samantha Allen And not too long after I arrived, my queer housemate Megan, who lived in the room above the basement apartment I had rented for the summer, took me and her friends out for a night on the town that began at a street club, moved to a now closed lesbian bar called Uncle Elizabeth’s that was tucked away in a drab shopping center, and somehow ended at a local strip club called Night Moves that is locally famous for its playful roadside signs with messages such as “Let's be naughty and give Santa a trip.” 00;22;07;12 - 00;22;34;15 Samantha Allen I remember almost none of that night, except a feeling of absolute bliss and belonging on the cab ride home, jammed in the back seat between two queer women. I had made the excellent decision to drink that night. Somehow, through a handful of chance connections in a 25 word email from Lauren Berlant, I'd found Bloomington’s queer side. Queer culture is slippery in precisely this way; the visible world is frustrate cisgender people, 00;22;34;15 - 00;23;00;07 Samantha Allen but the queer world courses through every secret crack in its facade. The only thing Berlant could do from their computer was point me to places like Rachel's and the Back Door, because, as they and Warner wrote, the queer world necessarily includes more people than can be identified and more spaces that can- than can be mapped beyond a few reference points. To explore the queer world and thereby help create it, 00;23;00;09 - 00;23;33;29 Samantha Allen you have to show up and see where the night takes you. Queer culture, Berlant and Warner noted, often has to be pieced together from mobile sites such as drag shows, dances, and parades, so joining in its rhythm requires flexibility and curiosity. Bringing an itinerary along would be pointless. The queer world, they wrote, is a space of entrances, exits, unsystematic lines of acquaintance, projected horizons, typifying examples, alternate routes, blockages, incommensurate geographies. 00;23;34;02 - 00;24;04;15 Samantha Allen This slippery quality means the queer people will always find new ways to congregate when bigots try to shut down our gathering places. But that doesn't mean they can't make life difficult for us. As Berlant and Warner noted, the New York City Council's attempt to shut down gay businesses on Christopher Street in the mid-90s threatened to send queer people either to the internet or to small, inaccessible, little-trafficked, badly-lit areas remote from public transportation and from any residences. 00;24;04;17 - 00;24;35;29 Samantha Allen Still, they would have survived. You can try to exile queer people from public life. You can send us into the shadows of the world. But we are resilient. Much like cactuses, as Jorge Longoria reminded me in Texas, we find purchase in the most extreme environments, and so we keep creating queer worlds wherever we can, even in south-central Indiana college towns. At its best, queer world making can be thrilling, like knowing a secret handshake or being on the inside of a juicy secret. 00;24;36;02 - 00;24;46;11 Samantha Allen Queer world making is the excitement of being able to find a single door, a back door even, that you can walk through and find your people waiting. 00;24;46;13 - 00;25;14;26 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Thank you for reading that. It actually brings me back to college. So many fond memories of the small gay bars and clubs where I found my community. And the younger generation, much younger than you and I, are unapologetic about who they are, and they are finding each other- well, at the same time, it seems like physical queer spaces are disappearing. 00;25;14;26 - 00;25;41;08 J.R. Jamison And you talk about this in the book. When you revisited Bloomington a mere four years later, after your time there, you discovered that many of your reference points in Bloomington were gone. And, you know, the pandemic also didn't really help either with small businesses trying to survive. Does this worry you, especially in the context of red states with physical queer spaces disappearing? 00;25;41;10 - 00;26;11;23 Samantha Allen Allen: Yeah, I mean, it concerns me, like, on a human level, that people are no longer socializing in physical space. I mean, you know, I think we're still social animals and we're doing it online, but I feel like the more our interactions are mediated through short form video, probably the worst off we are as a species. [Laughter] And I guess I am specifically worried about it from an LGBTQ perspective. 00;26;11;24 - 00;26;51;14 Samantha Allen You know, on, on one hand, I want to recognize the nuance that, as everyone kind of gets queer, something like 1 in 5 Gen Z adults - Zoomers as they're called - identify as LGBTQ, more spaces, kind of, de facto become queer and queer-friendly spaces. You know, like, on one hand, you have that dynamic, but on the other hand, the importance of having a space where someone who is in the early stages of exploring their identity can go to know, like, this will be a space I can exist, 00;26;51;16 - 00;27;24;28 Samantha Allen losing those lifelines is going to have consequences, especially in red states that are, you know, trying to legislate queer people out of public life and ban drag shows and pull queer books off the shelves. You need the bookstores. You need the bars. You need the cafes. And if they're, if they're gone and all you have is the internet, that makes people feel more isolated in their area than they really are. 00;27;25;00 - 00;28;01;29 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Especially for individuals who maybe don't have a family or their family has disowned them or kick them out or whatever that long list may be, that further isolates those individuals even more too. I know personally I do feel hopeful when I see talks happen about bringing queer spaces back that maybe aren't bars but are maybe nonalcoholic venues where queer people can meet and interact and have art shows and do different things, and smaller communities are talking about this, so that gives me hope. 00;28;01;29 - 00;28;25;09 J.R. Jamison But sometimes I get a little worried about physical queer spaces, especially queer bars, because it's not just about going and really tying one on for the night. I mean, that happens at every bar, right? But it is, as we talked about, finding your people and finding your chosen family in that space, that sometimes it does concern me that the internet can't replicate that in the same way. 00;28;25;11 - 00;28;40;19 J.R. Jamison And as you so eloquently talked about, rights are being stripped away from our community across the country in various states. And I do worry about, what is this going to look like ten years from now? 00;28;40;22 - 00;29;22;19 Samantha Allen Allen: Yeah, it's, it's harrowing to think about. And I mean, like, these spaces are so important, like, one of the most impactful experiences I had writing the book was spending time at the Encircle House in Provo, Utah, which is essentially just kind of a gathering space for LGBTQ youth and their supporters and allies. They, they have discussion groups. They had showers for, like, people to take showers because many of the youths who frequented it were homeless and had no place to shower or, you know, they felt like they could be themselves at Encircle. 00;29;22;19 - 00;29;54;23 Samantha Allen And then they would go sleep at a shelter where they felt they couldn't really be themselves or be as open in their expression. They had, you know, card games and a full library with every, you know, YA book you could imagine up there. And to be able to, like, sit in that place and play, like, card games with, like, queer Mormon teenagers, some of whom came from supportive homes but some of whom literally, like, had no other place to be. 00;29;54;24 - 00;30;26;23 Samantha Allen I was like, physical space still matters in a digital age. These kids are nowhere if they don't have Encircle. And several of them told that to me, they were like, I don't know where I would be during the day if this house weren't here. And it's, it's just a house. It's three bedrooms there, you know, like that is often all you need is just to like, literally four walls, [laughs] climate control. 00;30;26;24 - 00;30;59;27 J.R. Jamison Jamison: It's like our basic needs, right? Maslow's needs. [Laughs] It's, right? I mean, shelter is number one. And, and I mean, and having acceptance too. And that's a really- Thank you for sharing that, because I do think that that's an important piece that some people don't often think about is that queer spaces, disappearing physical queer spaces, and the correlation to states legislating our rights away hurts kids. 00;30;59;28 - 00;31;11;22 J.R. Jamison I mean, it's a harmful- it's harmful to the youth. It's harmful to our entire community, but especially the youth who are just coming into the community and accepting themselves for who they are. 00;31;11;25 - 00;31;42;28 Samantha Allen Allen: And like, let there be no doubt about it, that is the anti-LGBTQ lobbying groups, like, intention and ultimate purpose. You know, like, the current anti-LGBTQ moral panic, in my view, is driven largely by parents who perceive that their children are being, quote unquote, “turned queer by external influences.” They think, oh, the books are doing it, the drag shows are doing it. 00;31;43;00 - 00;32;11;16 Samantha Allen The internet is turning my child queer. Any other explanation besides, “Some people are gay, Susan,” you know? Like, and so they're, they're just trying to, yeah, cut the snake off, but not by the head, you know, they're like, oh, we'll get rid of the drag shows. We'll get rid of the books. We'll, we'll install parental controls on my child's internet access. 00;32;11;16 - 00;32;16;05 Samantha Allen And it's like, well, you can't stop people from being queer. 00;32;16;09 - 00;32;26;29 J.R. Jamison Jamison: No. Yeah. No one chooses to be this. Just like no one chooses to be straight. And I don't understand how people can't understand or accept that. 00;32;27;02 - 00;32;55;28 Samantha Allen Allen: It's, yeah, it's just an attempt to, like, treat it as a symptom rather than accepting, accepting people. And it's, it's heartbreaking. And it frankly is just kind of conversion therapy by a thousand cuts, you know? The- they've sort of accepted it's not good optics to say, “Let's send our kids to camps to be turned straight.” So instead they're trying to do it culturally. 00;32;55;28 - 00;33;07;25 Samantha Allen They're like, “Let's make sure kids can't even encounter the word ‘gay’ in school, ever.” It’s not going to stop your kid from being gay. [Laughs] 00;33;07;29 - 00;33;08;16 J.R. Jamison Jamison: No. 00;33;08;17 - 00;33;21;06 Samantha Allen Allen: I promise I had no- I didn't know the word transgender until I was 16, and I promise I knew something big was [laughter] going on with my gender at age four. 00;33;21;08 - 00;33;46;04 J.R. Jamison Yeah, and when I talked to young people, the message I tried to convey to them is, you may feel like there are people around you who are not accepting you or wanting to force you to be something that you're not. And there's an entire community of people out there who are willing to bring you into their fold and to make you a part of their lives and their home. 00;33;46;04 - 00;34;06;24 J.R. Jamison And there's beauty in that, too. Even though that's not always the best, you know, like feeling to have to think, you know, if you're living in a small rural community, you may not know that there is that other community out there that is a chosen family that will take you in if others do not. And so it can feel very alone, I think, for teens. 00;34;06;24 - 00;34;26;12 J.R. Jamison So I always try to convey a message when I'm talking to teens about there is life beyond this town, and there's life here in Indiana, beyond where you're living, where there are really safe spaces for you to be a part of a community and be who you are and not who somebody else wants you to be. 00;34;26;14 - 00;34;51;10 Samantha Allen Allen: Yeah, I mean, I felt that really deeply when I revisited Utah for “Real Queer America,” because I, you know, I'm an ex-Mormon. I guess I haven't mentioned that so far yet. No, I was raised in a Mormon household. Mormonism teaches that your gender is ordained before you're even born. It's decided in the pre-mortal existence. Your, your soul is eternally male or female. 00;34;51;11 - 00;35;29;21 Samantha Allen So not exactly the most trans-friendly doctrine in the world. And, you know, I was deeply closeted when I was a student at Brigham Young University. And I remember, you know, being 20 years old at BYU and everything feeling so big and consequential, it felt like the end of the world. I felt like I was going to hell or I was jeopardizing everything forever, or everything would come crashing down and my life would be ruined, you know? 00;35;29;24 - 00;36;05;08 Samantha Allen And after you find community, after you get those lifelines, after you even just see one person living in the way that you dream of living and things become possible for you, you real- things- you get perspective, you know? And so going back to Utah, to Provo, to these places where, you know, I had felt so traumatized and kind of triggered by everything, I was like, actually, this place is just, it's just a town, you know? Like, these things that I thought were so monumental, 00;36;05;09 - 00;36;11;02 Samantha Allen are just, you know, they’re just people. And I can choose how I live. 00;36;11;04 - 00;36;28;12 J.R. Jamison Jamison: What advice do you have for someone out there who's listening who might feel trapped by religion or other types of organizational influences? What would you say to them about being their authentic selves? 00;36;28;14 - 00;36;56;24 Samantha Allen Allen: I would say a few things. I'd say find your people as fast and in whatever way you can, whether that's an online message board, whether that's an in-person place, whether that's a dating app, you know, whatever. Like, go, go find people as fast as you can. And the second thing I would say is, you know, I sort of avoid a slogan like, “It gets better,” 00;36;56;24 - 00;37;21;12 Samantha Allen that sort of promises a trend of upward progress that lasts throughout your life. Life has lulls and ebbies, but I would say, I would say life is long, you know. And if you, if you stick in it, you're going to have the experiences that you, that you want to have. You know, people want connection. People want the things that you want. 00;37;21;14 - 00;38;00;05 Samantha Allen People are living the ways that you're living and want to live. And if time is the only thing keeping you from joining them right now, or, you know, a certain living situation, you've, you've just got to outlast that situation and get to the other side, you know. I hope it doesn't come across as glib for me to say that, because I very much lived that, you know, I was in the Mormon church until I was 20, 20-21 years old, you know, like, I, I felt like I was damning myself when I first started to accept who I was. 00;38;00;06 - 00;38;11;10 Samantha Allen Like, that was a terrifying feeling. So like, I know how big it feels, but you just got to last. You just got to keep going. 00;38;11;13 - 00;38;30;16 J.R. Jamison Jamison: And I know some people may feel like I've beaten up Indian a little bit in our conversation, but you actually met your wife Corey here in Indiana. That's an important connection to this state. I'm curious to know - and you can't pick Corey - what do you love most about Indiana? 00;38;30;18 - 00;38;48;29 Samantha Allen Allen: Oh, my God, it's like quintessential Midwest with all the kind of, like, hospitality, food and like Americana that comes with that. I mean, don't they film like a bunch of college movies at IU campus? 00;38;49;01 - 00;38;55;20 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah, Hoosiers, you know, the, the basketball movie from the 80s that people still watch was filmed here. And yeah. 00;38;55;26 - 00;39;21;08 Samantha Allen Allen: Yeah, when you're walking through like an Indiana town, it feels like you are, like, living in the platonic ideal of, like, what people think of as America. You're like, oh, a town square with a main street and a big courthouse in the middle, and, you know, a little one story shops with brick facades? Like, I am a sucker for that. 00;39;21;09 - 00;39;48;24 Samantha Allen You know, you grow up on, you know, like Jimmy Stewart movies, like, and, and that, that becomes, yeah, kind of fantasy for you. And so I love just kind of being able to live that. And I also like that it's like underestimated. I like that, like, you say, “Indiana,” and people are like, “Huh?” You know, well, there's major cities there. 00;39;48;25 - 00;39;56;18 Samantha Allen There’s small towns. There's, you know, beautiful nature. There’s fantastic food. Like, it's a place. 00;39;56;19 - 00;40;15;16 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah. People are always amazed. Where I'm at, I'm located in Muncie, and people are always amazed that David Letterman's from here, that Jim Davis, who created Garfield, is from here and created Garfield right here in Muncie, where he had Paws. People were just shocked by that. They're like, “Why? Well, why would he stay there?” And it's all the things that you talked about. 00;40;15;17 - 00;40;24;22 J.R. Jamison It's- there's a lot of beauty here, and there is a lot of the Hoosier niceness, for better or for worse, that is here as well. 00;40;24;24 - 00;40;36;25 Samantha Allen Allen: Yeah. I mean, sometimes, you know, and I know this from living in Georgia, sometimes the, the politeness with the niceness or the hospitality is often, there's something, there's something rotten under that sometimes. 00;40;36;26 - 00;40;39;15 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah. It's just something underlying. [Laughs] 00;40;39;18 - 00;41;13;28 Samantha Allen Allen: But on the surface I think I prefer it, you know? Here, here in, here in Seattle, people don't really talk to you or interact with you more than they have to, even in, you know, just little interactions like picking up a coffee or something like that. You know, I remember when I moved to Georgia for the first time after having only lived in California, in New Jersey, and Utah, going to the grocery store and the person in the checkout aisle being like, “How was your day?” [Laughter] 00;41;14;03 - 00;41;16;14 J.R. Jamison Jamison: And you're like, what? 00;41;16;16 - 00;41;32;14 Samantha Allen Allen: I literally was, like, dumbfounded by the question. I, I, like, stopped for five seconds before I was like, I, I guess it was good. Like, I had- no one had ever asked me that, like, before. 00;41;32;17 - 00;41;43;00 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah. If you had to do the trips you took to produce “Real Queer America” in 2024, what would that look like? 00;41;43;02 - 00;42;06;29 Samantha Allen Allen: Yeah, I mean, there are ways in which I think, like, some of the choices I made with the trip hold up well. Like, I paid special attention to speak to trans youth and their parents, which has kind of only become a more salient political issue since then. What I would do differently; I think I would spend more time in the Great Plains states. 00;42;06;29 - 00;42;28;08 Samantha Allen I wanted to spend, yeah, more time and kind of Idaho or Montana. But you know I was already spending my book advance, right, on this thing anyway. I wanted to at least break even on the book, so I couldn't go everywhere I wanted to go. 00;42;28;10 - 00;42;48;18 Samantha Allen Yeah, just some more geographic diversity, I suppose. And more time in each place. As it stands, I think it's kind of a fun little cross section where people can feel like they're on this rollicking road trip with me. Yeah, mostly I just want infinite time and money. [Laughter] 00;42;48;24 - 00;43;10;26 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah, yeah. So you had mentioned before that you're the senior culture editor for Them, and that's an online award winning authority on what it means to be LGBTQ+ today and tomorrow. You've contributed a ton of stories to the site. How do you come up with the ideas, and what types of stories do you hope to tell? 00;43;10;29 - 00;43;44;22 Samantha Allen Allen: Yeah, I mean, mostly what I hope to capture as a culture editor at Them is, I mean, precisely the culture, like, the ways in which queer culture is becoming our culture, especially with, you know, the rise of the generation that I mostly edit, you know. I'm mostly working with Generation Z contributors who are, who are from a generation that's even queerer than millennials, who are already identifying as LGBTQ at very high rates. 00;43;44;23 - 00;44;13;11 Samantha Allen So, yeah, I look for stories that kind of document that, whether it's, you know, music, film, television, entertainment, things people are talking about on social media, that just kind of show, like, every- everything is queer now, you know. You- yeah. It feels like, you know, 20 years ago I would have had slimmer pickings in terms of coverage angles. 00;44;13;11 - 00;44;52;16 Samantha Allen And now it's like, oh, the Mean Girls reboot is coming out. Guess what? Reneé Rapp is Regina George, and she's bisexual, and she's out here on a press tour talking about how she thinks Regina George is a lesbian, you know, it's like. And you can do that with anything now. And it- I think that’s so beautiful, kind of the, like, the casualness on one hand with which that generation is sometimes regarding. like, sexuality and gender, but also like how pronounced it can be in this- in just this hyper vocal way. 00;44;52;17 - 00;45;07;18 Samantha Allen You know? 30 years ago, you wouldn't see the star of a wide release movie openly opining in, in that way and being kind of brashly and boldly queer someone like Reneé Rapp is. 00;45;07;21 - 00;45;16;26 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah. What advice would you have for an aspiring writer who wants to write for an outlet like Them? 00;45;16;29 - 00;45;53;21 Samantha Allen Allen: You've got to like to write. [Laughs] I think, I don't know, maybe you've been in a position to give similar advice, but often people like the idea of having written a book or having a byline. And this is my, this is my Capricorn kind of work ethic showing - you have to actually like the process of putting words to paper in the right order and rearranging them until they're perfect to really kind of like be in, in, in the publishing business. 00;45;53;23 - 00;46;08;26 Samantha Allen So, yeah, I mean, I think a passion for your subject matter, but also a passion for the process, which I think is sometimes, sometimes, frankly, the missing, the missing piece. 00;46;08;28 - 00;46;15;18 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah. It's not that first draft that gets published. There's a process. [Laughter] 00;46;15;21 - 00;46;37;18 Samantha Allen Allen: Yeah. You know, and I have, I have a lot of patience for working with contributors who are kind of still working on the writing piece, so long as they're showing that they want to get it right, you know? Yeah. If someone is just like, “I have a really great idea. Here's a bunch of words. Can you put them in the right order?” 00;46;37;18 - 00;46;44;19 Samantha Allen I'm like, no, I'm, I'm more of a gentle guide than I am, like your ghost writer. 00;46;44;21 - 00;47;07;00 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah, yeah. I want to switch gears just a little bit and talk about your fiction writing. Your first novel, “Patricia Wants to Cuddle,” came out in 2022. It's about a reality TV dating show that involves a Sasquatch and contestants competing for their lives, and it received many accolades, including being named one of the best books of 2022 by NPR. 00;47;07;02 - 00;47;23;01 J.R. Jamison “Patricia” was such a fun book, and I loved it, but I have so many questions for you. First, prior to Patricia, most of your work had been nonfiction. Talk about switching to fiction, and how was the process different than writing “Real Queer America?” 00;47;23;04 - 00;47;50;28 Samantha Allen Allen: Yeah, I had the idea for “Patricia” first, actually. But, you know, when you're trying to get a book deal, you often kind of have to shop something that's fairly adjacent to what you're already doing or what people know you for, you know? So at the time that I came up with the idea for “Patricia,” I was a senior reporter covering LGBTQ stories for The Daily Beast. 00;47;51;01 - 00;48;13;09 Samantha Allen People read my reporting on queer and trans issues for that outlet. And, and so pitching something like “Real Queer America” was a natural outgrowth of work I was already doing. And after “Real Queer America” did, did, you know, moderately well, then you can pull your gonzo idea out of your back pocket and say, “Hey, I know how to write a book. 00;48;13;09 - 00;48;41;05 Samantha Allen Now, can I do this other random thing?” Even then, it's kind of a tough pivot. You know, it was, it was hard to sell “Patricia.” You know, it was my debut fiction. I'd never written a novel before. People didn't really know me for it. Yeah, the process of shopping it around took quite some time. It felt like it was never going to happen. 00;48;41;05 - 00;49;01;00 Samantha Allen And then kind of a last minute “Hail Mary” situation kind of salvaged it from sitting on my hard drive forever. Yeah, it's, it's tough to pivot. It's tough to write about fake people instead of real people, because you have to invent the things that they do and say. 00;49;01;03 - 00;49;26;25 J.R. Jamison Jamison: [Chuckles] Right, congratulations on getting it published because it is not, it's not easy. I don't know- a lot of listeners may not realize that publishing is not an easy job and industry. It's, I mean, writers were not competitive against each other, but it's a very competitive industry, and it is hard to sell work. So congratulations on getting “Patricia” published. 00;49;26;28 - 00;49;33;21 J.R. Jamison Now take me into the mind of Samantha Allen. How did you come up with the idea for “Patricia?” 00;49;33;23 - 00;50;04;26 Samantha Allen Allen: Yeah, so I'm a big reality television viewer. I love watching The Bachelor. And, you know, at some point it kind of occurred to me that, like, The Bachelor and slasher horror movies have essentially the same structure. You know, they're both elimination style contests in which women get sent home or murdered, as the case may be, one by one until there's only a final girl left. 00;50;04;26 - 00;50;41;04 Samantha Allen And so it seemed natural to combine the tropes. And, you know, part of what I loved about watching The Bachelor was it felt, you know, we talked about heteronormativity a little earlier. It felt like one of the most heteronormative cultural artifacts I could possibly consider or satirize. Like, you know, it's in many of those seasons of The Bachelor, it kind of still feels like it's 1955, you know, like the hairstyles, the gender roles, the way people talk about relationships, marriage and family values. 00;50;41;04 - 00;51;11;16 Samantha Allen And yeah, the Sasquatch became, in my mind, kind of like the queer specter haunting the shadows of The Bachelor. Patricia herself is very much kind of a metaphor for, I think, the queerness that is lurking always in, in the shadows of any heteronormative culture. Lord knows how many bisexual women have been contestants on The Bachelor without being open about it. 00;51;11;17 - 00;51;29;21 Samantha Allen You know, like, queerness is everywhere. So yeah, that's kind of how Patricia came about. Yeah. You're right. It's, it's, it's brutal to sell something. It's brutal to take a weird little idea and then go get your heart broken three dozen times before you know someone finally says yes. 00;51;29;22 - 00;51;41;27 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Says yes. [Laughter] Yeah, yeah. Your, your next book that you're, you're talking about - or I'm assuming - that's forthcoming is “Roland Rodgers Isn't Dead Yet.” Is there more you can tell us about it? 00;51;42;00 - 00;52;20;05 Samantha Allen Allen: Yeah, absolutely. It is, it is a gay ghost romance is how I would describe it in a very quick elevator ride. I'll stick to things that were in the, in the DL memo largely, but I can talk about writing it and about the ideas of writing it, but it's about a struggling mid-list writer who gets tapped to write the memoir for a major celebrity, only to discover that that celebrity is dead, and communicating with him through mysterious means 00;52;20;05 - 00;52;47;20 Samantha Allen that I won't specify here. But yeah, the connection is, you know, the celebrity kind of wants to come out of the closet - he was a closeted actor - and remembered reading this author's, you know, best-selling memoir 15 years ago, and kind of calls him up to ghost write - literally - his, his coming out memoir. 00;52;47;26 - 00;52;56;15 J.R. Jamison Jamison: I love that. I can't wait to read it. Do you have a scheduled date yet of the projection of when it should be released? 00;52;56;17 - 00;53;23;06 Samantha Allen Allen: I know the release date, but I cannot say it. But I will say you'll probably be able to read it sooner than you might think. So. Yeah. Look out, look out for that. It's like- it was so much fun to write, you know, Patricia was more of a whole cloth event invention. I would say that Roland Rogers has some more, kind of, auto-fiction elements. 00;53;23;07 - 00;53;42;09 Samantha Allen It's not really- It's kind of like taking experiences that, you know, I wasn't ready to fully process in memoirs that I had written prior and fictionalizing them and kind of exploring them through the lens of a character. 00;53;42;11 - 00;53;49;23 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Speaking of Patricia, I hear that it's been optioned for TV. Is that true? Can you tell us more? 00;53;49;25 - 00;54;23;24 Samantha Allen Allen: Yeah, it's, it's in the works. The people are signing papers and doing mysterious Hollywood things that I only have a liminal understanding of. But I've seen signs of progress and, and heard reports about pitches and things like that. So, yeah, the gears are turning on it, as far as I know. It's a fun process. I sort of believe in largely surrendering control. 00;54;23;27 - 00;54;54;08 Samantha Allen I know authors vary in their feelings, but like, you know, for me, the signpost has always been, well, Stephen King famously hated The Shining adaptation that Kubrick did, and that's one of the greatest horror movies of all time. So maybe authors aren't always the best judge of adaptations of their work. So from the beginning of the process, I was- I chose people to option it to who I really trusted and believe in and still believe in. 00;54;54;10 - 00;55;01;04 Samantha Allen And I was like, make it your baby. It was my baby for a little while, now it's your baby. 00;55;01;07 - 00;55;07;24 J.R. Jamison Jamison: What are you most looking forward to having the story in a different kind of format? 00;55;07;27 - 00;55;27;14 Samantha Allen Allen: Oh, gosh. I mean, you know, because it's TV, like, there's room for things to breathe, you know. I wanted Patricia to be a book people could read in, in one sitting. That's very much by design. I know that left some readers feeling like, I want 100 more pages, or I want to know this, or I want to know that. 00;55;27;14 - 00;55;44;00 Samantha Allen And I'm like, how, how beautiful a thing it is to be left wanting something. So now a TV show can kind of help fill in the gaps or give people some of those answers that I preferred to play a little closer to the chest. 00;55;44;03 - 00;55;52;25 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah, beyond “Roland Rogers Isn't Dead Yet,” what are you working on now? Anything you can share with our listeners? 00;55;52;28 - 00;56;24;12 Samantha Allen Allen: Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm working mostly right now at Them on covering the big releases of 2024. Just talked about Mean Girls. I'm super interested in the Julio Torres movie Problemista with Tilda Swinton. I'm excited about that. Drive Away Dolls, Love Lies Bleeding. It feels like this spring is the, the spring of, like, the lesbian crime caper, which I feel like is long overdue. 00;56;24;12 - 00;56;57;18 Samantha Allen So I'm definitely here for that moment. So, yeah, you know, Roland Rogers is, is done. It's in copy editing. And I refer to this period of the creative process as “brain rinsing.” [Laughter] So [dropout] I had a shiny new project to talk about just yet, but after I put something in the can, I feel like I need a good two months of, like, binge watching reality television before I can, like, yeah, let my brain do things again. 00;56;57;19 - 00;57;20;27 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah. Totally understandable. Lastly, the work we do here at the Facing Project is to create a more understanding and empathetic world. And this season, I'm asking all of my guests the same question. And that is: How do we create a more empathetic world in a time when it feels like listening and understanding the lives of others is actually decreasing? 00;57;20;29 - 00;57;49;16 Samantha Allen Allen: Yeah. I mean, I would say not just from a queer perspective, but people feel more alienated and isolated and siloed than ever. You know, most of our communication is, is digitally mediated. People are kind of staying at home, you know. If you have the means, you're ordering a lot of takeout, you know? Like, everyone's just kind of, like, in their little bubble. 00;57;49;16 - 00;58;15;08 Samantha Allen It's comfortable, it's nice. I'm guilty of it myself. And, you know, I'm not going to be hopelessly idealistic and say, go out and, you know, meet people and that kind of thing. That's great if you have the willpower to do that. Right now. I know in the current late capitalist hellscape, sometimes I just want to curl up and watch TV. 00;58;15;10 - 00;58;45;20 Samantha Allen So yeah, this is a long way of saying, if you can't get out your front door, read. Watch a movie about an experience you're curious about. Put on a show about an experience you're curious about, if it's more edifying than the reality television I watch. Yeah, there are so many portals into the lives of others now, and carve out some time for it. 00;58;45;21 - 00;59;14;21 Samantha Allen It might not always feel like the most immediately gratifying entertainment you could reach for, but your, your life will be richer for it. I know I have to kind of trick myself into watching dramas, you know? I'm like, oh, I rather watch the alien sci fi, you know, shoot em up movie, like, yeah, like whatever. But when you sit down and you, I don't know, I sat down the other day and watched Maestro. 00;59;14;21 - 00;59;30;15 Samantha Allen I'm like, oh, wow, beautiful to watch the life of a, yeah, a queer composer and consider the relationship of his sexuality to his, his music and his relationships. And, you know, I'm like, yeah. 00;59;30;17 - 00;59;31;06 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah. 00;59;31;14 - 00;59;34;21 Samantha Allen Allen: Watch things, read things, get curious. 00;59;34;28 - 00;59;41;13 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah. Open your eyes to a world that's different from the one that you live in every day. 00;59;41;16 - 00;59;42;17 Samantha Allen Allen: Absolutely. 00;59;42;18 - 00;59;55;25 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Samantha Allen, GLAAD award winning journalist and author of “Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States,” “Patricia Wants to Cuddle” and the forthcoming novel “Roland Rogers Isn't Dead Yet,” thank you for joining me on The Facing Project. 00;59;55;27 - 00;59;57;24 Samantha Allen Allen: Thank you so much for having me. 00;59;57;26 - 01;00;07;21 J.R. Jamison Jamison: More about Samantha Allen, including her books at SamanthaLeeAllen.com. [Theme music] 01;00;07;23 - 01;00;32;25 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Many thanks once again to Samantha Allen for joining me on today's show. To listen to past episodes of this program, visit IndianaPublicRadio.org/TheFacingProject, or find us on your favorite podcasting app, or just ask your smart speaker to play The Facing Project on NPR. To continue the conversation about this episode, find us on Facebook, Instagram, and X at The Facing Project. 01;00;32;26 - 01;00;56;15 J.R. Jamison The Facing Project is recorded at Indiana Public Radio at Ball State University in beautiful and wonderful Muncie, Indiana, and is produced by the amazing producer and audio engineer extraordinaire, Sean Ashcraft. The show is distributed nationally through PRX. I'm your host, J.R. Jamison. And until next time, I wish you the courage to share your own story and the empathy to listen to others. [Theme music fades]