Lane Stanley

Nov 8, 2024 | therumpus.net | Lane Stanley

The agave plant, like me, comes from the deserts of Southern California. When I am born in a hospital in Escondido, my cries fill the air and the first thing I hear is my father’s happy shout—“it’s a boy!” And as the rest of me follows: “oh—no—wait.”Teeth line the leaves of the agave, protecting fleshy, leathery spined crescents that open like a bowl to the sky. Perhaps I would have a higher tolerance for flowers as vaginal metaphors if their petals had teeth. One day, the agave will bloom.

Aug 19, 2024 | howlround.com | Lane Stanley

Before community was a core part of my artistic practice, it saved my life. I first started writing plays on my way out of recovery housing. I lived in a recovery house for six months, after my fiancé died suddenly in 2016. I survived my early sobriety and my early grief because I was around people: people who were also in crisis, who were always game to go to a meeting when you needed one, who showed up for each other. And, people who relapsed, and died, and went back to prison.

Aug 5, 2024 | memoirland.substack.com | Lane Stanley |Mark Mann |Simon Wu |Gloria Alamrew

Welcome to Memoir Land—a newsletter edited by , now featuring four verticals:Memoir Monday, a weekly curation of the best personal essays from around the web brought to you by Narratively, The Rumpus,  Granta, Guernica, Oldster Magazine, Literary Hub, Orion Magazine, The Walrus, and Electric Literature. Below is this week’s curation. First Person Singular, featuring original personal essays. Recently I published “The Doctor Will See You Now” by .

Aug 1, 2024 | electricliterature.com | Lane Stanley

Personal Narrative The safety I feel as a passing trans person doesn’t extend to my intimate relationships with other men Los Angeles, California. Him: Jess, elder millennial from Los Angeles. Me: millennial, born in San Diego, raised in Maryland, three years on Testosterone. Jess takes me on our first date on Valentine’s Day, to a vegan Thai restaurant. We’ve been in love for a year and we can finally be together. He’s starting to come down with the flu but pretending he isn’t so we can hold...

Apr 24, 2024 | talkhouse.com | Lane Stanley

My first day in San Quentin was filled with hugs. We walked the yard in street clothes, my cinematographer and I trailing with handheld equipment behind our documentary subjects, Dwight, Billy and Richie. It turns out that walking a prison yard with guys who have gotten out is what I imagine hanging out with a movie star to be like. All three of our subjects were paroled in 2020: Richie after 34.5 years, Dwight after 18 years and Billy after 17 years of incarceration.