In 2023, I had the privilege of researching my book, Masculine Births: Milton, Women, and the Law, at the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA. The library, a treasure trove of rare manuscripts and documents, contains hundreds of personal records of the Egerton family (c. 1150–1803). With the aid of a magnifying glass, I studied the family’s marriage settlements, wil...

In times of crisis, I find myself turning to strangeness, opacity, unsettledness; we are always in crisis, and so I am always unsettled. I have always turned to the written word to produce in me certain intensities –– fear, shame, and sadness; pleasure, humor, and surprise –– though my own body of work more often reflects the former three. Mostly, I’m preoccupied with sites o...