Managing Editor Lisa Ampleman: A month or two ago, we had someone reach out and say that Writers’ Day Jobs is their favorite feature on the site. “You lift the veil on . . . all the practicing writers who are proudly making a living in other professions,” they said. And we’re glad to do so! We realized we hadn’t published a post in that series recently, so I reached out to Gabrielle Grace Hogan, a poet in our spring issue (read her poem “The Last Animal to Arrive in the Kingdom” here), to find out more about her work off the page:
How would you describe what you do?
I work as a barista at a coffee shop in Dallas (stereotype), and on the side freelance-write for Autostraddle on topics related to queer/lesbian pop culture and news. Much of my weekly schedule consists of five days a week of the (very early) morning shift, with my evenings and days off often slated for speed-writing Autostraddle articles, or other pieces for other websites such as The Rumpus or Write or Die.
What do you enjoy about those jobs and what are their detractions?
Publishing an article with Autostraddle had been a career bucket-list item well before my editor Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya first contacted me. Being able to practice my essayist muscle and highlight gay artists and activists in interviews and articles is an absolute gift. I have had the pleasure of writing articles on the lesbian erotica magazine On Our Backs; the burgeoning underground lesbian party scene in Texas; and, for some overlap with The Cincinnati Review, recommendations for queer poetry even non-poets can love. The diversity of topics, all of which queer and many of which may be rejected by other major publications, is a breath of fresh air every time I get to work with this amazing website.
My remote, freelance position works great with a service work life, because I can come up with my own ideas for articles and write them at my own pace. Unfortunately my schedule is a bit kooky because of these things, so my social life and sleep schedule isn’t quite in tune with my girlfriend’s or my friends’, but for the most part I am able to make it work!
How, if at all, does your work inform—or relate to—your writing life?
Whether directly or indirectly, my work is very queer. Everything I write is through a lesbian lens—participating in that fully through Autostraddle provides an opportunity not just to inform myself on the goings-on of the queer/lesbian world around me, but to think more critically about how to engage with my lesbianism in my work in a way that is truthful, nuanced, original, and community-oriented.
What creative projects are you working on right now?
I’m currently working on my debut poetry collection, which I hope to finish by the end of the year, especially with the kindness of a residency from the Hambidge Center in the fall. The collection engages with the question poised by Michael Walsh’s anthology Queer Nature (Autumn House Press, 2022), “Who or what gets to be natural?” As we all know, an oft-cited antigay talking point is that queerness isn’t “natural”—by implication, “natural” would mean inherently morally good, when in reality nature is morally neutral. In these poems I examine the idea of queerness as natural versus unnatural, and nature as moral versus immoral, with the goal in mind of a thesis that positions queerness as a natural, and therefore neutral, state of being—and in that naturality one of the most enjoyed, divine experiences of my life.
I also have a Substack, updated very infrequently, that I’m using, again, to practice my nonfiction skills as well as to remind myself that the point of my writing is not to be published but to enjoy the process of writing. I’m also dabbling in the beginnings of an essay collection, but it’s too soon to tell exactly what that may look like.
Gabrielle Grace Hogan (she/her) received her MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. Her work has been published by TriQuarterly, The Journal, Salamander, and others, and has been supported by the Ragdale Foundation, Tin House Workshop, and the Hambidge Center. She has published two chapbooks, Soft Obliteration (Ghost City Press, 2020) and Love Me with the Fierce Horse of Your Heart (Ursus Americanus Press, 2023). She is a team writer for Autostraddle and an assistant poetry editor for Foglifter. Find more information on her website, gabriellegracehogan.com. For now, she lives in Dallas, Texas.
