CONTRIBUTOR SPOTLIGHT:
Interview with Sam Greene

Rappahannock Review Nonfiction Editors: We love how your essay “Between the Folds” is personal but also informed by contemporary gender theory. How did you approach writing about your experiences alongside academic ideas?

Sam Greene: I was deeply inspired by the form of Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts. When I first read it, in 2016, I felt immersed by autotheory, that is the combination of autobiography and theory as methodological tools to explore deeply human experiences. My then partner was a trans man undergoing medical transition, and I was just starting to identify as non-binary and to explore my gender feelings and expression. Reading The Argonauts was the first time I saw theory being used to reflect values, ideas and feelings I could strongly relate to. I felt heard and represented, as if someone had peered in my own diary and decided to analyse my most intimate thoughts. This sense of connectedness and mutual understanding with the author led to my eventual obsession with the form of autotheory as valuable in one’s journey of self-discovery while using meaningful theoretical tools in a self-reflexive, constructive way. Autotheory reflected my own thought processes and mechanisms—my head was filled with theory, and the way I could best express my thoughts was through creative writing. When I first started my PhD, it was something I knew I wanted to do. I started reading socio-philosophical concepts and wondering how they related to my specific experiences, then wondered how I could use them so people both alike and different from me could relate to my world. This possibility of (dis-)identification within memoir and autotheory is, I believe, the form’s greatest power. This reminder that we are all tiles in the great mosaic of humanity.

RR: Media surrounding queer culture pops up routinely throughout the piece. Have you found any new works that inspire you the way Archive of Our Own or Orange is the New Black did?

SG: To be honest, I tend to get stuck on older works that have already given me comfort in the past. I have recently gotten into writing queer and trans fanfiction about BBC’s Sherlock, critically exploring notions such as queerbaiting, gender identity etc. in the ever so contested TV series. I guess chasing subtext really intrigues me. Newer works that inspired me and captivated my interest were Undone, which visually represented mental health struggles and neurodivergence in a revolutionary way, and Tales of the City, which filled me with warmth with the prospect of a queer community based on care.

RR: Your piece is filled with rich descriptions and evocative language that immerses us instantly. Can you tell us a little bit about your process working on an essay like this one, and how do you decide what to include?

SG: I daydream a lot. Ever since I was a kid, I would listen to music in the car and imagine intricate universes as video clips. When I was a teenager I went through a brief phase when I wanted to be a film-maker—even though I knew nothing about films—just as a way to give life to the images in my head. I soon realized I could do that with writing. I once wrote a three-hundred-page fanfiction about Les Misérables and modern-day Paris. I had visited Paris, fell in love with it, and wanted to show the world every detail about how I experienced the city. How I write, to this day, is essentially through daydreaming. I put a song on repeat, come up with a scene, and then try to capture every tiny detail of it, chasing fleeting words.

RR: Have you seen any positive changes in terms of cultural acceptance in Greece now?

SG: Greece is full of contradictions. On the one hand, I would say that politically, things have gotten worse, with the rise of the right into power. The right wing government legalized same-sex marriage in 2024, responding to years of European pressure, but the Prime Minister later said he thinks there are only two genders, and in general the government, as well as a big part of the population, continues to be deeply homo/trans-phobic. At the same time, though, queer studies, literature and art movements have expanded, following recent years’ international trends. Overall, Greece remains a very hostile place to young people who often face poverty, employment precarity, a growing housing crisis, a crumbling social state, police violence, and the complete disregard of the government for their needs. In 2023, a train crash at the region of Tempe cost the lives of fifty-seven people, most of them students, and the trial is still ongoing, while the state does everything to conceal any responsibility. The tragedy led to unprecedented protests, with over five hundred thousand people of all ages and backgrounds gathering in the centre of Athens on the two-year anniversary, and multiple demonstrations taking place all over the world.

RR: With recent changes in U.S. politics and legislation, strategies and stories of queer survival feel very needed right now. Do you have any advice, books, or writers to recommend for people who may be looking for support?

SG: I always find comfort in the works of José Esteban Muñoz, Roland Barthes, Maggie Nelson, Richard Siken, and Andrea Gibson. Whenever I feel the dread of existing in today’s world I resort to raw poetry, or to grounding myself with arts and crafts. I indulge in handiwork, I build dollhouses, I mix my perfumes, I make a mess. When words are not enough, I try my best to find solace in the same things that comforted me as an eight-year-old. The world is in shambles—it is important not to lose our enthusiasm for things, our appreciation of the passions, ideas, people, and animals we love.