Lonely Christopher
Poet, Filmmaker, Fictioner, & Dramatist
Author of the New Collection
in a january would
EVENTS
UPCOMING
Readings in Manhattan, Rochester, and Philadelphia for March through early May have been cancelled or postponed due to the current public health crisis.
Zoom
April 4, 5pm
Segue Virtual Reading Series
w/ zakia henderson-brown
Moe’s Books
May 22, 7pm
2476 Telegraph Ave, Berkeley, CA
Launch for In a January Would
w/ Eric Sneathen
Poetic Research Bureau
May 23, 7:30pm
951 Chung King Rd, Los Angeles, CA
Launch for In a January Would
ProArts Gallery & Commons
May 27, 7pm
150 Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland, CA
#we Series
Performing: “At Risk: Crises at the Intersection of Art, Family, and Health”
PREVIOUSLY
The Internet
Livestream Event
3/29/20
Imminent Readings v2
w/ Jessica Guzman and Candice Wuehle
Torn Page
New York City
2/27/20
Launch Party for In a January Would
w/ Paul Legault and Ana Božičević
Bowery Poetry Club
New York City
12/15/19
Boog City 17th Annual Small Press Event
w/ Erin Fleming, Katy Mongeau, Christy Davids, Roberta Allen, Corey Frost, Cori Kresge, Tyler Morse, Evelyn Reilly, Rebecca Teich, and musical guest Jason Trachtenburg
Powerhouse Arena
Brooklyn
11/3/19
Evergreen Review Issue Launch
w/ Frederic Tuten and Natascha Uhlmann; hosted by Dale Peck
The LGBT Community Center
New York City
10/12/19
Come Hear! LGBTQ Poetry Reading at the Rainbow Book Fair
w/ Davidson Garrett, Jee Leong Koh, Scott Hightower, R. Erica Doyle, Aimee Herman, Steven Cordova, Drew Pisarra, LeNair Xavier, Dean Kostos, William Leo Coakley, et al
Bureau of General Services—Queer Division
New York City
6/19/19
World Pride Stonewall 50 Poetry Extravaganza
w/ Adam Fitzgerald, Aimee Herman, Christina Quintana, Dante Micheaux, Don Yorty, Guillermo Felice Castro, Michael Montlack, Sarah Sala, Stephen Motika, et al
Pete's Candy Store
Brooklyn
6/14/19
Pete's Big Salmon Poetry Series (Pride Month Edition)
w/ Adam Fitzgerald, Christina Quintana, Don Yorty, Grey Vild, Jason Schneiderman, Jeffery Berg, Michael Montlack, Sarah Sala, Stephen Mills, Thomas Dooley, and William Leo Coakley
Dixon Place
New York City
6/5/19
Endymion Dreams the Moon: a play by Lonely Christopher
w/ Tony Torn and Stephen Ira
Apexart
New York City
4/30/19
Double Take Reading Series
w/ Rich Blint, Heather Chaplin, and Jibade-Khalil Huffman
Rizzoli Bookstore
New York City
4/27/19
Independent Bookstore Day Celebration
w/ Ayesha Raees, Claire Durand-Gasselin, Najmah53, and Dakota Smith
Barney Savage Gallery
New York City
4/26/19
Mediated Selves
w/ Chris Campanioni, J. Mae Barizo, and Jee Leong Koh
Book Culture
New York City
4/17/19
w/ Shiv Kotecha
Codex Books
New York City
4/2/19
w/ Jennifer Soong
Zinc Bar
New York City
2/2/19
Segue Reading Series
w/ Chia-Lun Chang
The Poetry Project
New York City
1/23/19
Wednesday Night Reading Series
w/ Rachel Levitsky
Sam’s Morning Glory Diner
Philadelphia
1/12/19
Frank O’Hara’s Last Lover Reading Series
Launch for The Resignation
w/ June Gehringer and Emma Brown Sanders
La MaMa Galleria
New York City
12/17/18
Experiments Play Reading Series
Voyages: a play by Lonely Christopher
w/ Gore Abrams as Hart Crane
Zinc Bar
New York City
11/24/18
Segue Reading Series
Launch for The Resignation
w/ John Istona and Penny Arcade
House of Kava
Brooklyn
11/8/18
An Evening with Michael Lally & Lonely Christopher
Anthology Film Archives
New York City
7/11/18
AltFest 2018 and the NewFilmmakers Series
MOM: a film by Lonely Christopher
Brooklyn Historical Society
Brooklyn
5/29/18
Walt Whitman Turns 199: a Brooklyn Celebration
w/ Elizabeth Nunez and Nicole Mitchell
Bureau of General Services—Queer Division
New York City
5/4/18
Spring Thing!
w/ Wo Chan, Rami Karim, and Emji Spero
Unnameable Books
Brooklyn
4/19/18
The Writers’ Collective of Kristiania Public Conspectus 2018
w/ James Hannaham, Stephanie Russell-Kraft, Meg Kaizu, Sarah Bibel, and Uche Nduka
Club Cumming
New York City
3/31/18
The Enclave Reading Series
w/ Tommy Pico and Max Steele
Philly AIDS Thrift at Giovanni’s Room
Philadelphia
3/3/18
Double book launch for THERE and The Atheist in the Attic
w/ Samuel R. Delany
The Poetry Project
New York City
1/1/18
The 43rd Annual New Year’s Day Marathon Benefit Reading
w/ Penny Arcade, Rijard Bergeron, Anselm Berrigan, Justin Vivian Bond, Marie Buck, Todd Colby, CAConrad, Joey de Jesus, Andrew Durbin, Dia Felix, John Giorno, Adjua Gargi Nzinga Greaves, Diana Hamilton, M. Lamar, Shelley Marlow, Jonas Mekas, Thurston Moore, Tracie Morris, Eileen Myles, Trace Peterson, Tommy Pico, Yvonne Rainer, Sarah Schulman, Sara Jane Stoner, Aldrin Valdez, Anne Waldman, et al
KGB Bar
New York City
12/19/17
Launch for the novel THERE
w/ Cammisa Buerhaus, Robert Fitterman, and Joseph Keckler
CHRONOLOGY
Lonely Christopher: I am a queer writer of poetry, fiction, and drama who lives in Brooklyn. My work is strongly influenced by modernism, post-structuralism, Language poetry, New Narrative, and queer theory. My themes are often dark and sordid, presenting anti-capitalist explorations of emotional conflict. Poet and critic Felix Bernstein has classified me as a member of the queer avant garde. I work in Harlem as a medical case manager for homeless youth.
1987: I was born during a plague that I wouldn’t learn about until years later, adopted by a middle class couple that had settled down in rural Western New York after previously living in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and San Diego, California. I have a younger brother who is neuroatypical and also adopted. I was subjected to a series of invasive ear, nose, and throat surgeries from an early age, many of which were later determined to have been medically unnecessary.
1993: My parents took me on my first trip to the cinema to watch the rerelease of Walt Disney’s Snow White. During my early youth we also took family vacations to various theme parks across the country, my favorite being Disneyland.
2000: My science teacher Mrs. Everson told the class that AIDS was a sex disease that came from a gay man fucking a chimpanzee. My middle school years were characterized by symptoms of undiagnosed mood disorders. This was not well understood by my family, especially my father, and I was subject to years of wrenching emotional abuse while also being denied proper psychiatric treatment.
2001: I was raised in the United Methodist Church and was an altar boy and award-winning Sunday school teacher in my early teens. We lived near the cultural destination known as the Chautauqua Institution, where I had been baptized and where I took art and literature classes and attended concerts and operas throughout my developmental years. Around age fifteen I realized that I was a homosexual.
2004: During my high school years I became an intellectual and emotional outsider in the heteronormative arenas of family, school, and church. The concept of a “gay teen” had never been established so I remained in the closet while formulating my identity. I was simply “creative” and “difficult.” I was known as a skilled illustrator and photographer. I stopped going to church, big scandal, and began drinking and using drugs. I attempted suicide by cutting my wrists and spent a week in a pediatric psychiatric hospital. That summer I attended the precollege program at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where I met filmmaker Andrew Gitomer.
2005: I moved to Brooklyn permanently and enrolled in the photography program at Pratt Institute. I met the writers Christopher Sweeney and Robert Yerachmiel Sniderman.
2006: I transferred into the creative writing program at Pratt and studied under such writers as Richard Loranger, James Hannaham, Rachel Levitsky, Christian Hawkey, Thomas O’Malley, and Anna Moschovakis. My friends included the writers Gregory Afinogenov and Adrian Shirk, as well as the musicians known today as HDLSS and the performer Cammisa Buerhaus. A group of us began holding a literary salon in our Bed-Stuy apartment, which attracted students from around New York City. We formed the Corresponding Society, a writer’s community and press, which published three issues of a literary journal and many poetry chapbooks. I worked as an editor and published new work from Bruce Andrews, Anselm Berrigan, Ben Fama, and Robert Fitterman among many others.
2007: Robert Yerachmiel Sniderman and I founded the Institutionalized Theater and began producing shows at Pratt, as well as the Bowery Poetry Club, over the course of three years. My first chapbook, Satan, was published by Small Anchor Press.
2008: I attempted an ambitious staging of the bad quarto of Hamlet that became such a disaster it was cancelled. I worked as Mac Wellman’s assistant on a production of a one-man play starring Paul Lazar.
2009: I won the Pratt Institute creative writing program’s Thesis Award for Fiction, for my novel THERE. I suffered another failed suicide attempt at the end of school.
2010: My play Endymion Dreams the Moon premiered at the Jalopy Theater. I booked my first featured reading at the Poetry Project.
2011: Dennis Cooper published my debut story collection, The Mechanics of Homosexual Intercourse, under his Little House on the Bowery imprint of Brooklyn’s Akashic Books. I went on two national promotional tours. I became involved with the queer literati of New York City and spent time in the company of the poets Andrew Durbin, Paul Legault, Cecilia Corrigan, and Ryan Doyle May (whom I dated), among others. I was receiving mentorship from writers such as Edmund White and Kevin Killian. I was a member of the Queer Caucus of Occupy Wall Street during the encampment at Zuccotti Park. My mother was diagnosed with late stage cancer and passed away. I started writing and publishing the Death & Disaster Series.
2012: I wrote and directed the feature film MOM starring Joe Huffman, Gore Abrams, Mink Stole, Michael Potts, Paul Lazar, and Janet Hubert. The production was troubled and it took years to finish. I lived with the writer Marie Calloway and became good friends with the author Samuel R. Delany.
2013: I worked on the sales floor of Barnes and Noble's flagship store at Union Square. During a winter vacation to Paris I broke up with my boyfriend after a bitter argument on Christmas Day in Père Lachaise cemetery and then couldn't get a flight back to the US for a month. When I finally returned home, my electricity was cut off and I ended up abandoning my apartment and becoming homeless for half a year. During this time I wrote a poetry collection titled In a January Would. I started working as a counselor at an agency for LGBT youth. I was invited to spend the night inside MoMA PS1 with a group of artists who filmed a pornographic fantasia, including a scene of me jacking off in a shower, which was then exhibited to museum guests the following day. Someone I met during this project swept me off to Fire Island afterward.
2014: My mental health issues and drinking problem escalated in the years following my mother’s death. My debut poetry collection, Death & Disaster Series, was published. The short films We Are Not Here and Petit Lait were based off my stories. A Russian filmmaker adapted one of my stories without asking permission or giving me credit. I hosted a panel event called The Queer Gaze, at which I met the poet Rijard Bergeron.
2015: I spent the first half of the year sober. Failed novel attempt. My chapbook Crush Dream was translated into Spanish and I went on a tour with the poet Jacob Steinberg that included readings in LA and Tijuana as well as visits to Palm Springs and Disneyland.
2016: Rijard Bergeron and I moved in together and we adopted a dog named Lucille Ball. I brought Endymion Dreams the Moon to Toronto (with Matt Landry) and San Francisco (with Kevin Killian). My work with queer youth developed into a position as a full time case manager at a Harlem drop-in center for homeless LGBTQIAGNC populations. I discovered a special interest in HIV/AIDS services and activism. Through this work I developed a personal praxis committed to sex positivity, social justice, and anti-racism. I created the curriculum for an undergraduate level media studies group called “Somebody Blew Up America: investigating the poetics of dissent,” which I facilitated with my clients for thirteen sessions. My poetry was anthologized by Charles Bernstein and Tracie Morris in Best American Experimental Writing and translated into Ukrainian for a primer on new American verse. I began work on a long project about the poet Hart Crane.
2017: My first novel, THERE, was released to zero critical attention and a minor controversy among the fanfiction community who resented an interview I gave for Lit Hub that mistakenly implied the genre was not "academic." I quit drinking and smoking cigarettes then started therapy and psychiatric medication, which helped stabilize my mental health.
2018: The director’s cut of MOM premiered as part of the NewFilmmakers Series and AltFest at Anthology Film Archives. Roof Books published my poetry collection The Resignation. My play about Hart Crane, Voyages, was presented at La MaMa Galleria as part of the Experiments Play Reading Series.
2019: My play Endymion Dreams the Moon was revived at Dixon Place, starring Tony Torn and Stephen Ira. Quit smoking cannabis, becoming "sober." Rijard Bergeron and I co-hosted the winter season of the Segue Reading Series at Zinc Bar, curating such luminaries as Sarah Schulman, Samuel R. Delany, and Cynthia Carr, as well as younger writers. Following the death of Kevin Killian, the Evergreen Review hired me to write a long-form career retrospective for him titled "Kevin Killian: I Can Explain Everything."
2020: I founded Inter Poets Theater, a community organization to promote performance-based work by poets. Roof Books published my poetry collection In a January Would.
CURRICULUM VITAE
LONELY CHRISTOPHER
BOOKS
Full length
In a January Would
Poetry, Roof Books, 2020
The Resignation
Poetry, Roof Books, 2018
THERE
Novel, Kristiania, 2017
Death & Disaster Series
Poetry, Monk Books, 2014
The Mechanics of Homosexual Intercourse
Stories, Akashic Books, 2011
Chapbooks
Tu casa en llamas
Poetry in Spanish translation by Dante III, Kodama Cartonera, 2015
Crush Dream
Poetry, Radioactive Moat Press, 2012
Poems in June
Poetry, The Corresponding Society, 2011
Wow, Where Do You Come from, Upside-Down Land?
Poetry, The Corresponding Society, 2009
Gay Plays (US Edition)
Plays, Small Anchor Press, 2009
Gay Plays (Bilingual Edition, China)
Plays, translated by Xinyao Huang & Julia Chang, Small Anchor Press, 2009
Satan
Poetry, Small Anchor Press, 2007
Archival copies of Lonely Christopher's chapbooks are in the collection of Poets House in New York City
Print Anthologies
Anthology of Young US Poetry (Ukraine), Best American Experimental Writing 2016, Brooklyn Poets Anthology, Divining Divas: 100 Gay Men on Their Muses, Future Perfect, Into, Satanica, The Sonnets: Translating and Rewriting Shakespeare, Wealth
Print Journals
Correspondence, Fence, The Lifted Brow, Supermachine, The White Review
FILM
MOM
Dramatic feature length, original screenplay and direction, Cavazos Films, 2013-2019
Crazy House
Dramatic short, directed by Aaron Mirkin, original screenplay, independent, 2015
Petit Lait
Dramatic short, directed by Francois Choquet, adapted from the short story “Milk,” La Banquise Films, 2013
We Are Not Here
Dramatic short, directed by Aaron Mirkin, adapted from the short story “The Relationship,” independent, 2013
PLAYS
Directed by Lonely Christopher unless otherwise noted
Endymion Dreams the Moon
Dixon Place, New York City, independent, 2019
Alley Cat Gallery, San Francisco, independent, 2016
Videofag, Toronto, independent, 2016
Pete's Candy Store, Brooklyn, independent, 2011
Jalopy Theater, Brooklyn, Institutionalized Theater, 2010
Voyages
La Mama Galleria, New York City, dir. Alexandra Zelman-Doring, Throes Theater, 2018
Pages from a Course in General Linguistics
Bar on A, New York City, dir. Teddy Nicholas, Everywhere Theater Group, 2010
Gay Plays
The Bookworm, ChengDu, China, dir. Jen Hyde, independent, 2009
The Bowery Poetry Club, New York City, Institutionalized Theater, 2008
I Am Happy
Sellers Bookstore, Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, independent, 2009
MAD DEADLY WORLDWIDE GANGSTER COMMUNIST COMPUTER GOD
The Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, adapted from a letter by Francis E. Dec, Institutionalized Theater, 2008
Thoughts on the Atomic Bomb
The Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, adapted from a text by Gertrude Stein, Institutionalized Theater, 2008
Retardo
The Bowery Poetry Club, New York City, Institutionalized Theater, 2007
OTHER WRITING
Articles & Reviews
Evergreen Review, "Kevin Killian: I Can Explain Everything" IV. Ghost Parade, May 2020,
Evergreen Review, "Kevin Killian: I Can Explain Everything" III. Phantom of the Opera, March 2020
Lit Hub, "How Kevin Killian Used Italian Horror Movies to Understand the AIDS Crisis," February 2020
The Poetry Project Newsletter #259, "Don Yorty's Spring Sonnets, review by Lonely Christopher," January 2020
Evergreen Review, "Kevin Killian: I Can Explain Everything" II. Chain of Fools, January 2020
Evergreen Review, "Kevin Killian: I Can Explain Everything" I. Bachelors Get Lonely, October 2019
career retrospective on author Kevin Killian in four parts
Haus Red Vol. 2, "The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities: Place and Samuel R. Delany,"
academic essay on Times Square Red, Times Square Blue by Samuel R. Delany, Fall 2019
The Fanzine, “In a Mirror Maze,” review of The Well-Dressed Wound by Derek McCormack, December 2015
TheThe, “The Beautiful Pool Is Empty,” review of Cool Limbo by Michael Montlack, June 2011
TheThe, “Glory Pee,” review of Pee on Water by Rachel B. Glaser, January 2011
TheThe, “Memorial Day,” review of The Salt Ecstasies by James L. White, November 2010
TheThe, “Some Sort of Truth,” review of Black Life by Dorothea Lasky, April 2010
The Corresponding Society, “The Ambiguities,” review of Pierre by Herman Melville, 2009
Blurbs
Before You Kneels My Silence by Jacob Steinberg
The Story of My Accident Is Ours by Rachel Levitsky
Boneyard by Stephen Beachy
FEATURED READINGS & TALKS
Selected Venues
Adobe Books, Anthology Film Archives, Apexart, Barnes & Noble, Barney Savage Gallery, Bennington College, Book Culture, Book Soup, Books Inc., Bowery Poetry Club, BRIC House, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn Public Library, Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, Cake Shop, California College of the Arts, Charles Bank Gallery, City Lights, Club Cumming, Codex Books, Cornelia Street Café, CUNY Graduate Center, Dixon Place, Eugene Lang College at the New School, Fort Greene Park, Giovanni’s Room, Harvard University, House of Yes, Josée Bienvenu Gallery, Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania, KGB Bar, Louisiana State University, McCarren Pool, La MaMa Galleria, Moe’s Books, MoMA PS1, Nomadic Press, Omi International Arts Center, Pete’s Candy Store, Powell’s, Poetry Project, PPOW Gallery, Pratt Institute, Rizzoli Bookstore, San Francisco Public Library, Small Press Distribution, St Mark's Bookshop, Tijuana Cultural Center, University of San Francisco, Unnameable Books, Webster Hall, Zinc Bar
Selected Co-Readers
Penny Arcade, Christian Bök, Ana Božičević, Anselm Berrigan, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Billy Cancel, Wo Chan, CAConrad, Samuel R. Delany, Andrew Durbin, Kate Durbin, Ben Fama, Robert Fitterman, Adam Fitzgerald, Robert Glück, Michael Gottlieb, James Hannaham, Christian Hawkey, Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Patricia Spears Jones, Saeed Jones, Rami Karim, Joseph Keckler, Kevin Killian, Wayne Koestenbaum, Jee Leong Koh, Shiv Kotecha, Dorothea Lasky, Paul Legault, Rachel Levitsky, Richard Loranger, Trisha Low, Dante Micheaux, Stephen Motika, Uche Nduka, Elizabeth Nunez, Trace Peterson, Tommy Pico, Ariana Reines, Emji Spero, Bianca Stone, Jennifer Tamayo, Edmund White, Don Yorty, Rachel Zolf
SELECTED PRESS
Hyperallergic, "A Poet's Symbolic Resignation" by Ben Tripp, February 2019
Lit Hub, DW Gibson interviews Lonely Christopher, "Beyond Fanfiction: Rewriting and Distorting The Shining," February 2018
The Fanzine, "We Are Not Here: An Interview with Aaron Mirkin," March 2015
Lambda Literary, Jameson Fitzpatrick reviews Death & Disaster Series, January 2015
The Volta, “In Review: Best Books of 2014” by Amy Lawless, December 2014
The American Reader, Adam Fitzgerald reviews Death & Disaster Series, November 2014
Brooklyn Poets interview, October 2014
Boston Review, “Forget O’Hara” by Felix Bernstein, June 2014
Bookish, “10 Small Press Poetry Books You Have to Read in 2014” by Jordan Scott, April 2014
The Fanzine, Joyelle McSweeney reviews Death & Disaster Series, April 2014
Publishers Weekly reviews Death & Disaster Series, March 2014
The Wild Magazine, “Artist of the Week: Lonely Christopher,” February 2014
The Lawrentian, “Lonely Christopher’s ‘Mechanics’ a study of human nature” by Bryan Cebulski, February 2013
Next Magazine, “Lonely Christopher’s Poetry of Death” by Jameson Fitzpatrick, September 2012
The New York Times (online), “Bed-Stuy Writer to Film Movie in Fort Greene” by Wesley Middleton, April 2011
Publishers Weekly reviews The Mechanics of Homosexual Intercourse, February 2011
Vice interview, January 2011
AUDIO
Lonely Christopher’s audio archives are maintained online by PennSound, a project of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing at the University of Pennsylvania
ORGANIZATIONS
Inter Poets Theater
Theater company, founding artistic director, current member
Democratic Socialists of America
Political group, current member
The Writers' Collective of Kristiania
Writers’ collective and press, charter member, 2012-2018
The Wilde Boys
Queer salon society, member, 2010-2012
The Corresponding Society
Writers’ collective and press, co-founder, editor, 2005-2012
The Institutionalized Theater
Theater company, co-founder, 2007-2010
SELECTED AWARDS & FESTIVALS
Official Selection
Crazy House, dramatic short: HollyShorts Film Festival, Los Angeles, 2016; GAZE Film Festival, Dublin, 2016; Gimli Film Festival, Manitoba, 2016; Lago Film Festival, Italy, 2016; Palm Springs International Film Festival, 2016; Inside Out Film Festival, Toronto, 2016; Vancouver International Film Festival, 2015
A&E Short Filmmaker’s Award for Best Film
We Are Not Here, dramatic short, National Screen Institute, Canada, 2015
Best Experimental Film
We Are Not Here, dramatic short, Toronto International Short Film Festival, 2013
Official Selection
MOM, dramatic feature length film: Distrital Film Festival, Mexico City, 2012; NewFilmmakers Series and AltFest at Anthology Film Archives, New York City, 2018
Thesis Award for Fiction
THERE, novel, The Pratt Institute Creative Writing Department, Brooklyn, New York, 2009
EDUCATION & EMPLOYMENT
Available upon request
CONTACT
