Untangling the Knot: Queer Voices on Marriage, Relationships & Identity

Untangling the Knot: Marriage, Relationships & Identity, an anthology of essays and creative nonfiction, delves past the mainstream focus on marriage equality--beyond the knot-- to examine the broad scope of issues facing members of the LGBTQ community. The collection sheds light on what marriage equality actually means for queer communities. By confronting the concept of tradition through personal discourse, this volume seeks to create conversation amongst the diverse members of the LGBTQ community and their straight allies to prompt a larger, grander, and more realistic vision of what marriage equality really means for those living in the United States. Untangling the Knot: Marriage, Relationships & Identity includes the voices of many individuals who are underrepresented in the modern discourse surrounding LGBTQ rights, and these unique perspectives may change the direction of that conversation for good.

Carter Sickels is the author of the novel The Evening Hour, a finalist for the 2013 Oregon Book Award, the Lambda Literary Debut Fiction Award, and the Publishing Triangle Debut Fiction Award. He is the recipient of the 2013 Lambda Literary Emerging Writer Award, a project grant from RACC, and an NEA Fellowship to the Hambidge Center for the Arts. His short stories and literary essays have appeared in a broad range of periodicals and anthologies, from Appalachian Heritage to The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard. He’s been awarded fellowships or scholarships to Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the MacDowell Colony, and VCCA. He teaches in low-residency MFA programs at West Virginia Wesleyan University and Eastern Oregon University. He lives in Portland, Oregon.