Lydi Conklin — author of “Rainbow Rainbow,” which celebrates the queer and trans experience in all of its aspects — visited Colgate University as part of the Living Writers series Thursday, Nov. 7. The collection of stories challenges the mainstream definition of being queer. Conklin wanted to write narratives that have not been previously discussed and go past the one or two accepted narratives of queerness. Conklin hopes that by writing about all types of queer experiences, they can spread awareness about queerness and create dignity for all queer journeys.
“These stories are an ode to queer life,” said Olive B. O’Connor Creative Writing Fellow Kanak Kapur in her introduction of Conklin. “These stories expand and invite you to expand with them.”
While some of the stories in the collection are more autobiographical, many of these stories are an amalgamation of experiences that Conklin and others in their life have had. Conklin has lived in various parts of the world and drew from this for “Rainbow Rainbow,” basing each story in a different part of the world and in a different period of time.
Conklin does not outline while writing because they do not find writing a story with a fixed ending interesting. The process of discovering where the story is going while writing is exciting to them. They explained that endings appear to be easy, but in reality are deceptively hard. They just let the story run its natural course and focus on building the characters and relationships present in the story.
Each protagonist in “Rainbow Rainbow” is imperfect, messy and fundamentally human. Conklin wanted to show the humanity in each character and highlight how this humanity can lead the protagonists to do things the reader would never do. Currently, in mainstream media, queer people are often portrayed as perfect heroic people. Conklin wanted to break this stereotype and show that queer people are regular people too: they also make mistakes and do unsavory things. Conklin explained that while they find it easier to write about characters similar to them, they still try to write about all kinds of people.
“You have to give humanity to everyone,” Conklin said when talking about their character-building process.
Writing helps Conklin understand the world around them and why people might commit specific deeds, especially when they might be different from what Conklin would do.
“Creative writing is an exercise in empathy,” Conklin said.
First-year student in the Living Writers class Helen Reichert enjoyed Conklin’s visit to campus.
“I loved having [Conklin] on campus to read their collection of short stories,” Reichert said. “Their short stories depicting queer life with all its human flaws create stories full of heart. Conklin put it perfectly when they said, ‘Creative writing is an exercise in empathy,’ and I hope we get the chance to continue to have authors on campus who so beautifully depict characters who act in ways the reader never would, yet still connect to readers on a truly personal level.”
During the Living Writers event, the audience heard an excerpt from Conklin’s brand-new unreleased novel “Songs of No Provenance.” It was the first time Conklin had read from this book, which focuses on Joan Vole, an indie musician struggling with self-doubt and self-searching. From the part of the story read aloud, it was clear that the writing was beautiful. This reading helped the audience contrast how Conklin writes short stories in “Rainbow Rainbow” to how they write a long and detailed novel in “Songs of No Provenance.”
Currently, Conklin is an assistant professor of fiction at Vanderbilt University. Stay tuned for their upcoming novel “Songs of No Provenance,” which comes out June 2025.
