On May 4, renowned author Casey Plett visited Las Positas at the invitation of the Sexuality and Gender Alliance (SAGA) club. She discussed her 2014 short story collection, “A Safe Girl to Love”, with students and faculty in the club. She also delivered a lecture preceding the SAGA club’s lavender graduation and gay prom.
Plett’s work often explores vividly realistic experiences of transgender people, narrated by characters born out of a deep understanding of the euphoria and struggles faced by queer individuals.
The author spoke about her experience as a trans woman and how it informed the realism of her characters, describing them as “a mélange, (of) at least a couple people that I know.”
“This is (also) me trying to work something out for myself, my own life,”she said.
Her character-driven stories work in part because she allows the people she invents to reach “escape velocity,” as she explains it.
“There comes a point where it reaches out of the atmosphere, and the boosters fall away. Now she’s her own person. She is actually doing things, and she’s not a person I know in real life.”
LPC’s SAGA club distributed free copies of Plett’s “A Safe Girl to Love” to students and faculty members attending the event.
Plett’s writing in the book is not only deftly engaging and rightfully acclaimed, but also novel in the context of transgender literature and publishing. LPC geology professor and SAGA club advisor Dani Blatter introduced Plett as the club’s Lavender Graduation commencement speaker, identifying her as “part of the very first group of transgender people to write stories about and publish them about transgender people.”
During the ceremony, Blatter addressed the SAGA’s graduates on the value of queer history.
“It’s really important for us to understand all of the queer people who came before us and lived queer lives, and created queer culture and queer history,” Blatter said. “We’re inheriting that, whether we realize that or not, and reading stories are one really important way for us to connect with that, even if we are settling into our identity as we go.”
Plett said creating art that authentically represents the period and climate in which it was created is important.
“I never wrote fiction as a learning or awareness tool, I made it to make art,” she said. “I wanted this to be a record.”
When asked what she hopes students take away from her visit, Plett said that she wanted people to simply connect.
“I think [there’s] something really beautiful in connecting over a book. Where, even if you’re taking away different things from it, you can manage to connect with other people.”
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TOP PHOTO: Author Casey Plett delivers a guest lecture to students and faculty at LPC on May 4. Plett was hosted by LPC’s SAGA club to discuss her book, “A Safe Girl to Love.”
Daniel High is a staff writer for The Express. Follow him on Instagram @danielhigh05.
