Recently, I joked to a friend that I’m every reading series’ token something. I can check any box that’s required of me. I can be your lesbian / latina / asian / woman, just pass over the container no matter its contours, no matter the angles or irregularities, and like water I will morph to fit its shape. I can be whatever you need me to be. 

Often, what institutions (literary or otherwise) want from queer diasporic people of color is for us to be just one thing. One simple, uncomplicated marginalization that is easily digestible and allows them to claim a gold star for “diversity,” whatever that means. Perhaps a single intersection between two could be permitted, as long as it evokes an image that gatekeepers find familiar and useful. But wander too far beyond the pre-approved borders, and suddenly you are unwieldy. You are unrelatable. You are too much. Pick a side. Make yourself palatable. Shave your edges down. Become universal and maybe then you’ll get a rickety stool at the table, for which you should be eternally grateful. 

What drew me to join Xenolithic Edges was Kyla-Yến’s insistence on creating a literary space where writers like myself would not be asked to fracture themselves. As an XE editor, I don’t need to choose which aspects of my identity to highlight or suppress. I can bring the whole of myself to the publication and be embraced for it. The same is true for our writers. When we are not required to be identity contortionists, we can channel all our complexity, vibrancy, and authenticity directly into the work. As a result, our words are brighter. Sharper. Truer to life.

The work featured in the debut issue of XE Literary is audacious and incisive, tender and expansive. These pieces push the boundaries of language and form, urging the reader to imagine new ways of being, and new ways of putting words to them. They reckon with the absurdity of our current times and transform the resulting confusion and anguish into a kind of power. They take us all the way to the event horizons of love and grief. They remind us what is possible when we stand on the xenolithic edges of our own lives and refuse to choose a side.

Thank you to Kyla-Yến for your clarity of vision and for bringing me onto such a vital project. Thank you to my fellow Associate Editor, Jamie, for all the expertise, humor, and joy you bring to each editorial meeting. Thank you to the brilliant writers of Issue I for entrusting us with your hearts in the form of your words. Thank you to each and every reader who decides to spend their time with these pieces. I hope that you find the same catharsis I felt as I read them, and the freedom to embrace your own intersections, in all their forms.