Brent Calderwood

About me:
I mainly work as an editor and writer but maintain alter-egos as a singer-songwriter and erstwhile comics illustrator. I was a 2007 Lambda Literary Foundation fellow and a 2007 Chancellor's Fellow at the CUNY Grad Center. At the first annual Lambda Lit Writers Retreat in Bel Air last summer, Dorothy Allison said I was "handsome" and "wonderful"; I haven't washed my ego since. I also got to eat three square meals and pretend to be middle class while I was there; more writers retreats and residencies are sure to follow. Fellow writers, illustrators and songwriters are encouraged to write. Let's share information about workshops, conferences, open mics and fellowships!
More about me:
I grew up feeling like a unicorn--strange, misunderstood, mythical, invisible. Unicorns are also beautiful, though that was a feeling I came to later in life. Unicorns are an appropriate metaphor since, in addition to the obvious phallic overtones, unicorns are collected by seven-year-old girls. This is appropriate since my appreciation of romance, earnestness, and florid poetry show up in my songs as often as they do in a seven-year-old girl's diary. So what can I say?--I aim for heart and optimism. Cynicism isn't really any smarter; it's just easier.
"Lovemaking is the consolation for living in the body, just as art is the consolation for living in the world." --Laura Argiri