I have been reminded again that much of my work focuses on forgotten things. Queer history, abandoned buildings, and orphan photographs are some of the things I've written about, and all are neglected or forgotten in their different ways. Perhaps the flip side of this is the work of imagination: in order to recuperate or excavate lost things, we must have the imagination to wonder about them, and the curiosity to seek them out. These things are on my mind because they are the topic of two of my essays that have just been published or come out soon. I touch on the imaginary and its importance to transformations (and queer marriage) in my essay "Imaginary Futures", which has just been published by the beautiful Kill Your Darlings. And I have just read the proofs of my essay about exploring abandoned buildings in Detroit with DetroitUrbex. The essay will appear in the December issue of Meanjin, with some of DetroitUrbex's stunning photographs. I am desperate to see the issue.
I wonder if this is my writerly preoccupation, the subject that will in some way haunt all of my writing. They say all writers have one, but I'm not sure if that's true. If it is true, I wonder how much of the preoccupation is subconscious, and how much it is an everyday presence in the writer's life.
And most importantly, once you have an obsession, is that it, for life? For me, that idea appeals and terrifies in equal measure.