Description
STAY
Hybrid—flash essay by Sarah Leamy
ISBN: 978-1-956440-43-0 paperback $19.95
ISBN: 978-1-956440-44-7 ebook $9.99
May 2023
STAY is a hybrid visual story of a British tomboy & clown negotiating place/identity, trauma/neurodiversity, friendship/play, sexuality, and violence. Mixing illustration, photography, and narrative non-fiction, this experimental work transcends the binary, bravely imagining a world that makes space for all of us. What happens when an awkward and shy tomboy doesn’t always feel safe at home or at school? Leamy has fantasies of another life—and at 18 she finally takes flight. She leaves her small town to study languages and migration patterns in London before setting out with a rucksack, teddy bear (John), and juggling toys to hitch across Europe and the States. Leamy begins to wonder: Will she ever find her people, her place, her purpose? Or will each new home be forever as inconsistently hospitable as the first?
STAY received an honorable mention from Red Hen Press for their 2020 Quill Prize.
What people are saying about Stay:
Stay offers an eloquent exploration of the need to stay in motion and of the emotional and psychological forces that allow us to stay centered and afloat even amid great turmoil and change. Leamy’s eclectic yet carefully cultivated style casts a story not bound by ordinary expectations.—David Deutsch author of Once Before Sunset
Sarah Leamy knows that all good writing starts with questions and that all excellent writing maintains the questions, enlarging and propelling them from page to page.—Nance Van Winckel, author of Sister Zero (2022, Slant Books)
Sarah Leamy’s work is remarkable in its execution, asking the difficult questions of who we are and who we could be. A truly astonishing piece.—Monica Prince, author of Roadmap: A Choreopoem
Sarah Leamy is a gender-queer writer, editor, and non-traditional academic, currently living on the road. She is the author of When No One’s Looking (2011), Lucky Shot (2012), Lucky Find (2014), Van Life (2016), Hidden (2021), and G’Dog (2022). http://www.sarahleamy.com/
kpdavis –
This flash memoir, or whatever you want to call it cuts surprisingly deep. All of us who have read it have cried. It’s beautifully written, weaving strands of the author’s life culminating with events I won’t give away. Highly recommended.