Platica Y Poetics S3E11 w/ Diamond Braxton

Diamond Braxton My plática with Braxton just lacked a cafecito and a sliver of pastelito as we divulged into queer legacy, creative intuition, and building literary home. I opened with a reading of ‘Sobre La Mesa’, my personal prose vignette ‘Like Water for Chocolate’ queer version, knowing the culinary connection would take us down a sensory lane. Diamond, from the Gulf Coast, has shaped her work by matrilineal memory and storytelling is both a personal ritual and collective act. Diving into her acclaimed works like “Sugar Rush” and “Dreams of the Fam Who Came Before Me,” she spoke to how her writing weaves together queerness, history, and hauntings into narratives that are both expansive and emotionally precise. In discussing “Sugar Rush,” Braxton revealed how a deceptively simple moment—a tasting of cake—transforms into a meditation on mother-daughter love, body image, cultural critique and inherited silence. Food became a metaphor for unspoken care and longing, as well as a tool to excavate desire and familial complexity within queer narratives. She invites listeners into her sensory world, where ritual and intuition guide as she reflects on the spiritual and emotional origins of “Dreams of the Fam,” and how her identity as a queer, mixed-race Southerner informs the themes she returns to—embodiment, memory, and resistance. Her time as a Tin House and Lambda Literary fellow, she notes, granted her permission to take creative risks, affirming the urgency of telling stories that live beyond binaries. Braxton shared her insights into her novel-in-progress: a collection of interwoven Texan queer stories, speaking to the desire to archive lives that are often overlooked or misrepresented, and to create a literary space, making room for storytellers from historically excluded communities. As founder and director of Abode Press, her role extends far beyond the page. Abode’s editorial vision is unapologetically expansive, welcoming voices that challenge dominant literary norms. Through both her fiction and her stewardship at Abode, she hopes to contribute to a future of Southern queer storytelling that is lush, layered, and liberatory.