#cleo qian

[smokefalls]

There would be no final answer to anything. There would be no arbiter of how they should be, no guarantee of how they were going to turn out, who they would become, what lives they would live, what the outcomes of the choices they made would be. However far ahead one ran up the road in life, there was only more uncertainty ahead. Constantly, they were in the process of becoming.

Cleo Qian, "Messages from Earth" from Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go

[lgbtqreads]

August 2022 Deal Announcements

August 2022 Deal Announcements

Adult Fiction Marquette University professor of English B. Pladek’s DRY LAND, set at the cusp of America’s involvement in World War I, when a young queer forester discovers an uncanny gift for growing plants, seemingly from nothing, to Dennis Lloyd at University of Wisconsin Press, for publication in fall 2023, by Brenna English-Loeb at Transatlantic Literary Agency (world English). Mark…

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[smokefalls]

“You should know,” my grandmother said heavily, “we all carry different ghosts on our back.”

Cleo Qian, "The Girl with the Double Eyelids" from Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go

[smokefalls]

There are many nights when I am lost and confused and don’t know what to do. I feel a lot of pressure. I feel tired. I wish there was someone who could tell me what to do. But when I look at the adults around me, they seem just as uncertain as I am. All of us are flailing around, trying to figure out how to find that vague thing, happiness.

Cleo Qian, "Wing and the Radio" from Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go

[smokefalls]

People thought they wanted stimulation and excitement, but what they really wanted was the bleed of authenticity. This was why there was such outrage when people found out reality shows were actually scripted, or the incredible memoir they’d loved turned out to be fake.

Cleo Qian, "Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go" from Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go

[smokefalls]

I wasn’t sure which terrified me more: the thought that this was all there was—this limpid transience like I was being carried along from stream to stream, that it would never matter if I did something or didn’t—or the thought that this was not all there was to life, but that I was missing something fundamental other people had—drive, vision, intelligence, something—which was the cause of my chronic inability to stick with anything real. Either option felt impossibly consequential.

Cleo Qian, "We Were There" from Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go

[smokefalls]

At what point does the line between art and reality blur, at what point does the performance become the life?

Cleo Qian, "Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go" from Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go

[smokefalls]

It was hard to articulate the point at which we switched from wanting to get older to feeling like we could stand to be a little bit younger. Perhaps there had never been a point when we really felt like we wanted to be older, only to have the things we thought being older entailed: freedom, money, privacy, love. But it had always been true that if we were a little bit younger, a little bit fresher, then we’d be a little bit better.

Cleo Qian, "Chicken. Film. Youth." from Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go