Yesterday I joined Jerry Portwood of The Queer Love Project as a guest for a live interview about my new short film Coming Out Polyamorous for Thanksgiving, my memoir Entwined, queer family-making, relationships with metamours, and the importance of polyamorous storytelling and representation.
If you aren’t familiar with The Queer Love Project yet, run and subscribe! It’s full of beautiful stories, and they published this excerpt from my memoir last year.
And if you haven’t seen the short film, it is now available on Youtube (watch it below).
What we talked about yesterday’s live interview
how I adapted an essay/chapter from Entwined into my first short film,
and why Coming Out Polyamorous for Thanksgiving was the perfect story to dip my toes into filmmakingthe real Thanksgiving dinner that the film is based on: the tensions, the stakes, and why it mattered so much for my partner and I to invite my metamour to this family dinner
how the limited non-monogamy representation on screen relies on jealousy tropes, and why I wanted to showcase a story in which the conflict comes from outside the polycule, not within it
why metamours became central to my life, and how “entwined polyamory” shapes the way I think about family and networks of care
the broader cultural conversation around polyamory, including some recent books and films, and why we need a lot more narratives than the handful that exist now
navigating hierarchy, marriage, power, and the practical realities of living non-monogamously within structures designed for couples
coming out as polyamorous, why secrecy creates shame, and the exhaustion of having to “come out” again and again across all my identities
my journey with self-publishing, creating Quilted Press, and why I envisioned a collective of independent authors instead of pursuing gatekeepers or waiting years for a traditional book deal
how readers often share deeply personal stories with me, and the community care embedded in this work
redefining “success” in relationships and in art, and why endings shouldn’t always be seen as failures
the elasticity of queer and polyamorous relationships, how they evolve, and how that fluidity expands our definitions of love
the creative projects I have in the works, including my desire to write a polyamorous romcom (with actual metamour love!) and teach more classes on writing non-monogamy and self-publishing
Jerry guided such a thoughtful conversation, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks to everyone who tuned in live.
A little note about Entwined Mag
If you’ve been here a while… thank you.
Many of you joined while I was preparing to launch Entwined Mag, and even as I kept pushing the date forward, you stayed. In the meantime, life has been very full: bringing my book into the world, connecting with readers, teaching classes, becoming a step-parent in my expanding polyamorous family, and producing a short film I hadn’t planned but felt compelled to make.
The magazine is still coming. I’m choosing the launch date with care so that once it begins, I’ll have the space to sustain it—for myself and for the community I want it to serve. Thank you for your patience, your trust, and for being here even before there was anything to read.
More soon.
Alex
