When I interviewed Issa Rae last year, I asked about the book she wrote in her mid-20s and she immediately expressed regret about exposing so much of her personal life in a book at such an early age, and now I think of this whenever young writers publish deeply personal essays. Young writers, particularly writers of color, are often asked to mine their trauma in order to gain entry to the journalism/literary worlds, and I wish more of them were told how awkward it is to grow up with all your business out there.

I will be interviewing 100 LGBTQ elders over the next two years for a project I am calling “OLD & QUEER.” I believe it’s vital to collect stories from our elders while they’re still alive, and I’m excited to share the first one here:

Pat and Paulette, both 70, in Harlem, NYC 🧵 Every two weeks, I’ll be sharing a different short story from one of our LGBT elders. I hope to give this project a global scope, and that you’re able to draw inspiration from these stories of love, growth and resilience. Follow along here:

I am leaving my job at The New York Times! I don’t have another job lined up.

I’m taking some time, at least two months, to find myself as a storyteller.

After working my entire life to be able to do this, I think I deserve it. 1/x My whole life, I was told that poor black kids have to fight to get a seat at a table.

So I fought: I worked on Broadway, off-Bway, at HGTV, on an HBO show, VICE, NBC and the Times all by the time I was 27.

Y’all, I’m tired. And I need to figure out who I am outside of that.

Re: Racism at @Vice and in the media world in general: (Thread) 1/27 The media world is outright hostile to people who aren't straight white men. 2/27