Lonely Christopher
Career Timeline
2007: My first chapbook, Satan, was published by Small Anchor Press. I co-founded the Institutionalized Theater while a creative writing undergraduate student at Pratt. I helped form the Corresponding Society, a writer’s community and press, which published poetry chapbooks and a journal. We also hosted a well-loved literary salon in my Brooklyn apartment.
2008: I attempted an ambitious staging of the bad quarto of Hamlet that became such a disaster it was canceled. 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.
2010: My play Endymion Dreams the Moon premiered at the Jalopy Theater. 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 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 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. I became homeless for six months following a calamitous month in Paris. During this time I wrote a poetry collection titled In a January Would. I started working at the Ali Forney Center as a youth counselor in an emergency shelter. I was invited to spend the night inside MoMA PS1 with a group of artists who filmed a pornographic fantasia, which was then exhibited to museum guests the following day.
2014: 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 Venn Daniel.
2015: 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: Venn Daniel 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). I was promoted at the Ali Forney Center to the position of medical case manager at their Harlem Drop-In. 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."
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. I edited Uche Nduka's poetry collection Living in Public.
2019: My play Endymion Dreams the Moon was revived at Dixon Place, starring Tony Torn and Stephen Ira. Venn Daniel and I 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." Venn and I moved to Sunset Park, Brooklyn and married.
2020: Roof Books published my poetry collection In a January Would. I had to cancel my entire promotional tour because of the pandemic. The final iteration of my film MOM was completed and released by surprise on Mother's Day, streaming free for a week on Vimeo. It was then added to the catalog of the international arthouse streaming platform Filmatique. Venn Daniel and I hosted the fall season of the Segue Reading Series (on Zoom). I founded Inter Poets Theater, a community organization to promote performance-based work by poets. Our premiere play was The Rapture by James Sherry and Mark Wallace, presented on Zoom.
2021: Be About It Press published my poetry chapbook Double Rainbow. Inter Poets Theater presented my video play about Andy Warhol, I Am Happy, which premiered at the Welcome to Boog City Arts Festival. MOM became widely available in the US and UK to stream, rent, and purchase. Roof Books published a revised 10th anniversary edition of my poetry collection Death & Disaster Series. I co-curated (with Venn Daniel) and hosted the Segue Reading Series for the third year, now at Artists Space, featuring Edmund White, Stacy Szymaszek, Wayne Koestenbaum, Charles Bernstein, and more.
2022: I joined the staff of the Segue Foundation as Managing Director and an editor of Roof Books, working with founder James Sherry. Segue Foundation also acquired my production company Inter Poets Theater. I edited and published SCISSORWORK by Uche Nduka and Jacob Kahn's debut poetry collection, Mine Eclogue. I hosted a Segue reading for the AWP conference (off-site) in Philadelphia at Vox Populi Gallery and a double launch for Roof Books at the Lab in San Francisco. James Sherry and I hosted the winter season of the Segue Reading Series at Artists Space. I left my job at the Ali Forney Center after nearly a decade as a social worker.
2023: I performed for the Poetry Project’s 49th Annual New Year's Day Marathon. I edited and published three titles for Roof Books: I, Boombox by Robert Gluck (SPD bestseller, book launch at the Poetry Project); Bainbridge Island Notebook by Uche Nduka; and Mammal by Richard Loranger. I traveled with a group of Roof Books authors to participate in the New Orleans Poetry Festival. I presented a scene from my play Voyages (starring Kyle Dunn) at the South Street Seaport as part of an event honoring Hart Crane. I started working as an HIV navigator at Safe Horizon’s Streetwork Project, a drop-in center for homeless youth. For Inter Poets Theater, I produced a staged reading at KGB Red Room of Cammisa Buerhaus' adaptation of The Well-Dressed Wound by Derek McCornack. Spiral Editions published my poetry chapbook Lavender Silk. James Sherry and I hosted the winter season of the Segue Reading Series at Artists Space.