Michael Lowenthal on being a queer traveler and lover seeking orientation and belonging

Michael Lowenthal is the author of a story collection, Sex With Strangers, and four more novels. His writing has appeared in a slew of prestigious publications, including Tin House, Ploughshares, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Guernica and The Southern Review. Plus, he’s taught creative writing at Boston College and Hampshire College and, for more than 20 years, he was a faculty member in the low-residency MFA program at Lesley University. He splits his time between Boston and Pittsburgh. We first made contact when Michael submitted an excerpt from Place Envy, his latest memoir, which he calls a “quest-in-essays.” In that piece, titled “Estrangeiro,” he details a serendipitous encounter with a young man in Salvador, Brazil, while he was on an artist’s retreat. I was excited to discuss that story and the way the rest of the essays in the collection—which span decades of his life—came to be shaped. The memoir spans locations from a Mexican cruise for blind gay men to a remote Scottish island, so I was curious to find out how traveling to “un-queer” or unfamiliar spaces provides a better “orientation” for his own identity than staying in established queer hubs. Michael had a great response, so I’ll hope you’ll listen/watch to find out more. Then we went deep on that whole Amish experience in the essay titled “Ligature.” You’ll definitely want to hear about how he’s maintained a friendship with his Amish friends since his college days. Thank you Michael Horvich, Lynette D'Amico, and many others for tuning into my live video with Michael Lowenthal! The Queer Love Project is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Queer Love Project at queerloveproject.substack.com/subscribe