Updates from Mr. Homodoxy

Dear all,

I’ve paused The Rearview while I finish my PhD (and turned off paid subscriptions).

The dissertation is due one week from today, and I have some miles to go yet. Mr. Homodoxy will be Dr. Homodoxy! (I think I’ll keep “Mr.” for the publishing work and use “Dr.” whenever Homodoxy can start offering courses.) (heh heh heh)

Homodoxy has not been quiet, however. In the midst of the present evils, I’ve grown in the conviction that I need to use my time to build a place for complex and beautiful queer voices in the hopes that their desires and beliefs might speak to yours in ways challenging and encouraging.

So, I’ve been busy at work preparing to go full time on the press once I graduate in May. There is a small chance a postdoc could come through soon, but it’s one in which I’d be able to keep working on the press.

I would like to share with you what I’ve been working on.

• As of late August, Homodoxy is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas. This means that the press can accept donations that are eligible for tax exemption to the legal extent. Thank you so much to those who have donated. If you haven’t yet, please consider donating.

• I have been fundraising enough to work on infrastructure for the business end of things. Raised almost $8,000 since September.

• I have been applying to grants and building my network.

• The TSAI Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale awarded Homodoxy $700 to trademark our brand and slogan, books worth burning.

• I am working on the base contract for new books.

• As soon as it is done, I will send it out to the first author I would like to contract to (hopefully) sign. I am so excited to share more details when I can.

• I interviewed Robert Glück for The Yale Review.

• Still working to acquire the first BRICCs. Hunting down copyrights…

• Translations of Shusakū Endō are coming in for a book of new translations of homoerotic Japanese writing. It will likely also include work by Okuizumi Hikaru, Yukio Mishima, and Tatsuhiko Shibusawa.

• I am planning for 2027 to be the first year the press publishes two books per year (March/April and September/October).

• A fabulous designer is working on a small rebrand for the press. So, a new logo and a new logomark are coming soon, with perhaps some other things.

• Homodoxy is now an associate member of the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses! Which is thrilling.

• In January, I started my term as co-chair of the American Academy of Religion’s Gay Men and Religion Unit. Its founder, J. Michael Clark, died in 2024. He started a small press—and I think a journal—to promote his work and the work of the unit.

• The wonderful organizers of the Saints and Sinners LGBTQ+ Literary Festival in New Orleans have invited me to come sit on a panel and perhaps give a reading at this year’s Festival at the end of this month. If you’re in the area, come through! I’ll be the small new press voice on a panel about publishing during repressive times.

• On April 25 at 6:00 pm, Homodoxy will be hosting a reading with Judy Grahn, the poet and visionary. It will be at the Episcopal Church of St. Paul and St. James. The reading will be free and open to the public. I’ll send invites out soon to help make sure we stay within capacity. A variety of Yale groups have been kind enough to fund it.

  • The Queer Faculty Affinity Group at Yale have been extraordinarily generous

  • The LGBTQ Employee Resource Group

  • Religious Studies’s administrators are helping with the leg work

  • The Creative Writing in the English Department

  • The Working Women’s Network at Yale

• After the reading, there will be a gathering for some friends and potential donors of the press. It’ll be a smaller group and more focused on building some community around the press and raising some funds. My dear friend and newly christened “Playboy Priest” (he’s started writing an advice/confessional column for Playboy) the Rev. Paul Anthony Daniels, III, will give an invocation. I’m grateful to those who are helping so far with that:

  • The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven

  • Wesleyan University

• The Fetzer Institute is including Homodoxy in their Spiritual Solutions Library. They will send a film crew to New Haven to cover the weekend of the April 25 events. They’ll make an 8-12 minute documentary about the press to show at some film festivals. I am so so so excited and floored by that.

• I have brief contributions coming out in The Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion and Queer and Trans Studies in Religion.

• I have been teaching a small seminar at Yale College called Nightlives this semester alongside my co-advisor Linn Tonstad. It’s the first time I’ve been able to teach material I myself have assigned, and it has been so lovely. I’ll be looking for ways to continue teaching outside of the university.

• Homodoxy’s newsletter for marketing and sweet nothings will begin soon. It will be called “Tongues.” I’ll add everyone from this list and save you the hassle. (Of course, you will have the ability to opt out.)

• In June, Homodoxy will move into a loft office space above the parish hall of the Episcopal Church of St. Paul and St. James.

• Around then, I will also start my tenure as theologian-in-residence at the church. In that position, I’ll help with adult education and organize a speaker series.

• Come June, my salary will come from grants and donations. In order to begin paying off loans, start saving some money for a rainy day, etc., I would like a salary at least of $70,000 a year. New Haven is not cheap!

• When The Rearview starts up again, it will either be hosted directly on Homodoxy’s website or on Ghost, which allegedly has fewer Nazis. I’ll move y’all over when the time comes.

In all things, I am seeking ways to build the press that depend minimally on social media. That means I will be dependent of course on the strength of the press’s work, but also on you. Please tell your friends. Forward this email, whisper into ears, etc.

And if you are able to give and help me plan for the future. Please do!

Gaily yours,

Sam
publisher + editor in chief

A word from our sponsor:

Homodoxy is a fiscally sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a 501(c)(3) charity. Contributions made payable to Fractured Atlas for the purposes of Homodoxy are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. If you receive a reward in exchange for your donation, the fair market value of that reward will reduce the tax-deductible portion of your donation. The value of the reward you receive will be included in your donation receipt.