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Meredith Talusan (she/they) received a Creative Capital Award, MacDowell Fellowship, and Pushcart Prize Special Mention for fiction in 2023; her stories appear or are forthcoming in Guernica, Kenyon Review, Boston Review, Epoch,The Rumpus, Grand, Catapult, and BLR. Her debut memoir, Fairest, was a 2020 Lambda Literary Award finalist and named a best book of the year by multiple venues. She has contributed to ten other books and written articles for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and WIRED among many outlets. She has received journalism awards from GLAAD, The Society of Professional Journalists, and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. She is also the founding executive editor and current contributing editor at them., Condé Nast’s LGBTQ+ digital platform.

“Talusan breathes new life into the well-worn body of the transgender life story”
— The Boston Globe

Press Highlights

Featured
On Being a Trans Woman, and Giving Up Make Up
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On Being a Trans Woman, and Giving Up Make Up
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“Whether I grow my hair or cut it short, wear makeup every day or none at all, it would be an expression of the specific woman I am at that point in time.” —The New York Times

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Unflinching Honesty: An Interview with Meredith Talusan
Interview
Unflinching Honesty: An Interview with Meredith Talusan
Interview

“Because the memoirist’s entire job is to expose inconvenient, difficult, tortured truths about themselves—otherwise one would just be left with a simple narrative in which the memoirist emerges as a character of virtue, and what does the reader get from that?” —The Paris Review

Interview
‘Would You Be My Kiss‑in Partner?’
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‘Would You Be My Kiss‑in Partner?’
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During a protest at Harvard, Josh Oppenheimer’s kiss shook me into the awareness that I was not quite a man. —Vulture / New York

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Meredith Talusan On Her New Memoir
Interview
Meredith Talusan On Her New Memoir
Interview

“it was more important for me to know what possibilities are out there for me as a woman than to stay in a relationship in which I would never know what those possibilities are.” —Weekend Edition on NPR

Interview
“Even for avid readers of memoirs, Talusan’s debut will stand out from the crowd”
— Library Journal

Review Highlights

Featured
From the Philippines to Harvard, Boyhood to Womanhood, a Coming-of-Age Across Borders
From the Philippines to Harvard, Boyhood to Womanhood, a Coming-of-Age Across Borders

Recounting her coming-of-age as a transgender Filipino-American person with albinism, Talusan sails past the conventions of trans and immigrant memoirs. Rather than flaying her identities one by one, she examines the links between them to illustrate that it is here, in the messy overlap, that a person is made. —Rawiya Kameir, The New York Times

'Fairest' Reinvigorates the Trans Memoir Tradition
'Fairest' Reinvigorates the Trans Memoir Tradition

“By painting her life in such exquisite detail, Talusan breathes new life into the well-worn body of the transgender life story, showing the reader deep wells of complexity where, in a less truthful or less talented writer’s hands, oversimplification and cliché might reign.” —Kai Cheng Thom, The Boston Globe

A Memoir Reflects On What Happens To The 'Fairest' Of Them All
A Memoir Reflects On What Happens To The 'Fairest' Of Them All

“This nuance, this careful attention to looking and attempting to understand this journey not just from her own perspective, but also from those affected by it, gives a welcome maturity, depth and resonance to Talusan's memoir.” —National Public Radio

"A compelling story for a wide variety of readers."
"A compelling story for a wide variety of readers."

“Even for avid readers of memoirs, Talusan’s (journalist and founding executive editor of them., Condé Nast’s LGBTQ digital platform) debut will stand out from the crowd, not only because of the author’s unique experiences, but also because she presents them with a rare, frank vulnerability. “ —Sarah Schroeder, Library Journal

"A captivatingly eloquent memoir"
"A captivatingly eloquent memoir"

“The author examines queer otherness with relentless honesty, and she investigates how accidental whiteness did not automatically lead to the fairest outcomes, either for herself or others. A captivatingly eloquent memoir.” —Kirkus Reviews