#seth fischer

Before the Clock of Doom

“meet the fanboyz”

Black Girls Hunger for Heroes, Too for Bitch Magazine

A conversation between black feminist writers Ibi Aanu Zoboi and Zetta Elliott on fantasy fiction for teenagers.

An Interview with Dr Mimi Hoang by Seth Fischer at The Rumpus

The invisibility of bisexuals.

The Year in Racial America by Cord Jefferson for Gawker

A recap of 2013.

One Weird Old Trick to Undermine the Patriarchy by Michelle Nijhuis for The Last Word On Nothing

If I ever have kids, I will do this!

A Complete Curmudgeon's Guide to The Sound of Music by Linda Holmes for NPR blog, Monkey See

Hi everyone! Ashley Perez and my therapist pointed out that I had a pretty damn good year  last year in terms of publications and writing things and teaching and life, and that I should celebrate this. So here goes: me celebrating all the things I'm grateful for and about from last year.  

I will leave out the shitty stuff. I am probably forgetting good things, too. 

Here goes! 

I quit my day job! I no longer have to do math! Or battle rush hour! You have no idea how awesome this is! 

My 2012 essay "Notes from a Unicorn" was included in the Best Sex Writing 2013 and as a notable in Best American Essays! 

My essay "That's Life" was featured on The Rumpus, and it got noted by none other than my hero Andrew Sullivan. 

I attended the Jentel Artist Residency Program, which changed my life and made everything wonderful and I love them and if I could give them whatever it was in the world they wanted I would. 

I had some of the best, most inspiring students one could ask for,  at Writing Workshops Los Angeles, Blue Stars Consulting, and Antioch University Los Angeles. I heart my students. They did so many amazing things I really can't list them here for fear of forgetting something, but they are really, really good at this life thing and this writing thing, you guys. 

I wrote an essay on bisexuality on Buzzfeed that caused a bit of commotion about the Internets. 

I got to run the AULA breakfast at AWP that had people like Poet Laureate Eloise Klein Healy and so many of my favorite people and this made me happy. 

I met Ashley Perez. :) 'Nuf said. 

I found out my father is going to be okay, health-wise, or as okay as any of us are, despite a bad, bad scare. 

I wrote a Letter in the Mail for The Rumpus! And I had so many awesome people write back to me, and I wrote back to as many as I could. The Letters in the Mail readers are pretty phenomenal. 

My sister had a baby! MY SISTER HAD A BABY! 

Kate Maruyama published her amazing book, and I got to write a promotional short story for it. 

I got to edit Antonia Crane's book Spent for Barnacle Books, which is coming out this March, and it was an AMAZING experience. Now I am editing other books! I love editing books. 

Speaking of Antonia Crane, I wrote about kinky sex for her Saturday kink column at The Weeklings. 

I wrote two craft essays based on a presentation I got to give at the Rocky Mountain MLA conference in Vancouver, Washington: "The Art of the Overshare" at Jaded Ibis Press and the featured essay at Lunch Ticket, "How to Make Your Family Proud." 

I got to interview the absolutely amazing bi activist Dr. Mimi Hoang for The Rumpus! 

I wrote 50,000 nonsensical words of a memoir, but they are 50,000 nonsensical words I didn't have before. 

And last but not least, I finally published an essay about my cousin that has been dogging me for almost two years, called "Bow and Arrow." And then it got me a phone call from a really kick ass person, who I now have to prove myself to by writing the best stuff I've ever written in my life in the next month or two. Eek. 

By Seth Fischer, The Rumpus (February 24, 2012)

Back in 2002, when I was still in college, I lived in DC for a quarter in a quad dorm room that felt like the set of a queerish Adam Sandler movie. I—a semi-closeted bisexual drunk—lived with a gay guy from Beverly HillsI’ll call Mark; James, a kind-hearted straight stoner with whom I shared a room; and Mark’s best friend, an even straighter dude who looked exactly like Corey Feldman. I had a secret crush on Mark. Sometimes the four of us would stay up late at night watching CNN and drinking. For special occasions, we went to the Cheesecake Factory. Then we’d get up and be interns, whatever that meant, for the people who ran the world because that’s how we thought we could go about saving it.

Mark hit on me the way gay men hit on straight men they’re already comfortable with, the way straight women hit on gay men. He’d go “mmmmm” when I walked by and say, “Why are you straight again?” He could tell it made me a little uncomfortable but not too uncomfortable. He could tell I liked it a little. He was tall and good looking and rich, and he’d tell me all about his trips giving road head to hot flight attendants in the Florida Keys. He might have been telling me the plot of a porn he’d watched or it might have been the truth, but I was enthralled and jealous and disgusted and turned on.

One night, the four of us went out together for drinks. Across from our dorms was a place called The Fox and The Hound where we smoked cigarette after cigarette. For three bucks, you could order a whiskey and Coke, which meant they’d bring you a bucket glass full of well whiskey and a tiny bottle of soda. We drank and gossiped. Mark’s foot brushed my leg. I don’t know if it was on purpose or if he thought it was a table leg, but I let his foot keep brushing mine, over and over, and I lost my breath for a second. He was looking at Corey Feldman, talking about some date he’d just been on. He hated straight places. “I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored,” he said, jumping out of his seat, trying to talk us into going to a gay bar. Corey Feldman wasn’t having it. “Fuck,” I said finally, “Let’s just go back up to the room.”

We stumbled across the street, made it to the apartment and sat down in the living room, all of us on the couch but Mark, who was standing. He still wanted to leave. Someone plopped on CNN.

It had been eating at me. He’d been flirting with me since I moved in. I hadn’t told many people, but this was different. He had to know, or if he found out later, he’d have a right to resent me. I didn’t want that.

“Mark,” I said, and then I mumbled at him for a bit until he rolled his eyes at me.

“Spit it out.”

“You should know that I’m bi.”

This was the part where in my imagination he smiled, maybe gave me a hug, and welcomed me to his club, where the streamers came from the ceiling and the music started blaring. Instead, he took a seat on a chair near the couch. His smile disappeared. Everyone was sober all the sudden. Corey Feldman, who was sitting next to me, said something like, “That’s my cue, bro” and went to bed. James stayed put, his eyes glued to the TV, but not a peep came from him, either.

I sighed and fell back further into the couch.