Jayne A. Quan

Jayne A.Quan is, in no particular order, a queer, transmasculine, non-binary Asian American who received their MA in Creative Writing from University College Dublin and works as the Social Media Manager of Video at Vox. They are also the author behind All this happened, more or less, a collection of essays looking at their life to date and examining how loss, grief and love can be expressed through the lens of their transition.

Jayne will be joined in conversation by poet and author Seán Hewitt, whose own memoir All Down Darkness Wide looks at his own experience of loss and love, told against the backdrop of his partner’s depression. While examining his own history, Hewitt enlists the ghosts of queer figures and poets before him to look at a society that too often sets happiness and queer happiness at odds. 

In this stunning debut collection, Jayne A. Quan writes with raw honesty and humour about key moments in their life and transition. With lyric insight and quiet clarity, Quan navigates the intersection of loss, grief, memory and the power of love and healing through the lens of a body in motion. Courageous and poignant, these essays deftly explore what it takes to live your own truth and carve a place for yourself in a world that offers no blueprint.

Seán Hewitt was born in 1990. He is the author of the poetry collection Tongues of Fire, which was awarded the Laurel Prize, and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize, and a Dalkey Literary Award. He is the recipient of a Northern Writers’ Award, the Resurgence Prize, and an Eric Gregory Award. Hewitt is a book critic for the Irish Times and teaches Modern British and Irish Literature at Trinity College Dublin