Andrea Lawlor has been awarded fellowships by Lambda Literary and Radar Labs, and their writing has appeared in Ploughshares, Mutha, the Millions, jubilat, the Brooklyn Rail, and elsewhere. Their publications include a chapbook, Position Papers, and a novel, Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl (Vintage), a 2018 finalist for the Lambda Literary and CLMP Firecracker Awards. It’s 1993 and Paul Polydoris tends bar at the only gay club in a university town thrumming with politics and partying. He studies queer theory, has a dyke best friend, makes zines, and is a flaneur with a rich dating life. But Paul’s also got a secret: he’s a shapeshifter. Oscillating wildly from Riot Grrrl to leather cub, Paul transforms his body and his gender at will as he crosses the country––a journey and adventure through the deep queer archives of struggle and pleasure. Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl is a riotous, razor-sharp bildungsroman whose hero/ine wends his/her way through a world gutted by loss, pulsing with music, and opening into an array of intimacy and connections.
