[Author’s Note: This is Dawn. Nic and I took a two month break from updating this blog. I had a myriad of mental and physical health issues in addition to some family drama that crashed together all at once. The last chapter of this had been half-written for two months, and I was just not well enough to finish the other thousand or so words I had left to write. I hope this personal, non-fiction essay can help shed some light on the personal issues that Nic and I are trying to explore with this series. There is a lot of supernatural silliness at the edges of Orchid, but it’s a fundamentally trans Appalachian narrative from two committed leftist storytellers. This is a look into our actual lives.

Also, I wanted to credit the above image to the wonderfully talented FawxDraws. Nic and I had been looking for an icon for this site before it went live. Nic knows a lot of really talented artists through their various Tumblr fandoms, and I knew that I wanted Fawx to draw our titular Orchid as soon as Nic showed me one of their pieces for the first time. Nic and I are hoping to commission more art for the site in the future but for financial reasons, that’s a more long-term plan. We both hope everyone has been enjoying our story.]

Continue reading “Wearing a Woman’s Shirt to a West Virginia Wal-Mart” →