WHAT WILL I BECOME? (my debut feature documentary) is en route to public television. ITVS supports storytelling that frequently premieres on programs like Independent Lens, POV, American Masters, and FRONTLINE. We chose to collaborate with them not only because of their reputation for integrity and community-led projects, but also because it will allow this story to be widely accessible, free to different audiences through broadcast and streaming. We will be continuing the post-production process over the next year, and are looking at a premiere likely in 2026. You can learn more here,
ITVS
What Will I Become? - ITVS
content
To be candid - this news arrives so bittersweetly after four years of working with the project and four years before that of working up the courage to start it. In many ways, this film should have never had to be made. We making this, people in front of the camera, people behind the camera, and the people lost to suicide we are remembering - Blake and Kyler - are real. It has been incredibly hard up to this point being in the position of having to convince others that this work was important. And, with this breakthrough, there is now no more convincing. We can just do the work. And with that work, I feel the big responsibility, the grief, and the deepened awareness this is all just as much about life as it is about death.
I don't always know why I am alive, but I can say with a certainty I am determined to do the most holding I can with it, in it. My heart breaks every damn day, but I think our community deserves nuance, a fold beyond statistics and news clips and 101s. To trans boys (and enby people navigating your own relationship to masculinity!) reading this, may you continue to surprise yourself. May you not lose the parts of yourself you love in the journey of being affirmed. May you know that you don't gotta go at life as a lone wolf.
Collage inspired by an early draft of “The Ship We Built,” called “In The Bloodstream.” It was inspired by my childhood fantasy that there were whales living inside my bloodstream and bellybuttons were akin to their blowholes. Was special to sneak that nugget into a novel so many years later.
"The Ship We Built" feature film, which I wrote based on my debut middle grade novel, is now in partnership with Randan Productions! A small, but mighty Scotland-based, award winning production company celebrating queer and trans-led content.
Thankful as heck to have a more official jump into this with Jack G and Annie R and Reece C after what has already been a several year journey. Together we are taking on big themes such as loneliness, imagination as a tool for survival, incarceration, and what we rely on before we have the words (for a person, a feeling, an identity, a source of abuse, or even our own names). Some of the projects inspiring me the most include "Room," "Beasts of the Southern Wild," "Close," "Boyhood," "My Life as a Zucchini," "Perks of Being A Wallflower," etc. Reach out if you wanna know more ⚓
