if you’re new here: i’ve decided to introduce my books here on a monthly basis! next up is my first full-length collection, you stupid slut.
i call this one a hybrid memoir because it’s hard to pin down a genre here. i worked with poetry, but i also included some flash prose pieces and experimental forms, as well as photographs and scanned ephemera. it’s hard to truly capture this period of my life as a traditional memoir given how blurry parts of it are. writing this book dredged a lot up for me, and really made me come to terms with what emerged as the core themes while writing. writing this book is why i am sober and why i hold such firm personal boundaries. i haven’t made so many personal breakthroughs while making a book since my undergraduate thesis, and i do consider these titles related for more reasons than just that. you stupid slut is almost the “hindsight” version of eventually i will learn to stop saying sorry.
praise
Reading raum’s memoir is like shedding skin: with each page, a tough outer layer falls, revealing a hot patch of red. Flirting with poetry, prose, graph, and photography, “you stupid slut” creatively assembles intimate moments into a reckless, rewarding collage.
—[sarah] Cavar, author of OUT OF MIND & INTO BODY (Ethel Press, 2022)
nat raum reaches right through their ribcage and wrings their own heart out right in front of your eyes in you stupid slut. Authentic, captivating, and emotional, each word will keep you on the edge of your seat, feeling like you're right there with raum as their mind unfolds before you.
—V.L. Parz, author of HOLLOW BODIES + FALSE IDOLS and founder of Jetpack Magazine
press
Chosen for the Sundress Publications Blog series The Wardrobe (links below)
selected works
you can find selected pieces from this book published in the following places:
“skeletons” in Kissing Dynamite Poetry, Issue 37: Shutter Speed
“and wander midst fog” in the gamut mag, issue 1: white
“stop signs” in Impossible Archetype, Issue 11
“i, medusa” in Kissing Dynamite Poetry, Issue 40: Linger
“swiper no swiping” in Hearth & Coffin Magazine, Vol 2 Issue 1: What You See Is What You Get
“at the bewitching hour” in trampset
“white sangria” in perhappened, issue 16: sweet
“mourning or requesting ‘agnes’ at karaoke forever” & “swiper no swiping” in corporeal lit
“in the interest of transparency” in CLOVES Literary
“the clock or mr. greenside” in Vocivia Magazine, Issue 2: Chronos
“ready for your next entry” in Bullshit Anthology 01 edited by Veronica Bennett — Selected for BOOB (Best of Our Bullshit) Awards 2022
“i, medusa,” “in the interest of transparency,” “white sangria,” “amber ale whirlpools,” & “the evolution of a beast” on the Sundress Publications blog as part of The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed series
you stupid slut can be purchased from dream boy book club.