Things We Saw Today: Daniel Mallory Ortberg’s Interview on Coming Out as Trans

“The Merry Spinster” by Mallory Ortberg

Ortberg, co-founder of the much-missed website The Toast, sat down with writer Heather Havrilesky to discuss his new identity.

Ortberg announced his transition just days before the release of his new book, The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror, a collection of strange and wonderful short stories based on fairy-tales. Where Ortberg’s first book, Texts From Jane Eyre, delighted and beguiled like a flurry of boudoir tricks, The Merry Spinster goes much deeper, brilliantly undermining our crustiest assumptions about gender, cultural expectations, and the wide world around us. I met him last weekend in Pismo Beach, California, for a conversation about the mysteries of gender, attraction, identity, and the joys of realizing “I can want things,” as he put it.

Both Ortberg and Havrilesky are among my all-time favorite writers on this here Internet, and to have them paired up on this piece is a gift. You should set aside a good amount of time to consume the whole important and illuminating interview in New York Magazine’s The Cut.

(via NY Mag, image: The Merry Spinster/Holt Paperbacks)

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  — Miranda Bailey (@mirandambailey) March 13, 2018

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What did you see today, Science Bros.?

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Kaila Hale-Stern

Kaila Hale-Stern (she/her) is a content director, editor, and writer who has been working in digital media for more than fifteen years. She started at TMS in 2016. She loves to write about TV—especially science fiction, fantasy, and mystery shows—and movies, with an emphasis on Marvel. Talk to her about fandom, queer representation, and Captain Kirk. Kaila has written for io9, Gizmodo, New York Magazine, The Awl, Wired, Cosmopolitan, and once published a Harlequin novel you'll never find.

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