here is the flap-copy for my novel, Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl:

It’s 1993 and Paul Polydoris tends bar at the only gay club in a university town thrumming with politics and partying. He studies queer theory, has a dyke best friend, makes zines, and is a flâneur with a rich dating life. But Paul’s also got a secret: he’s a shapeshifter. Oscillating wildly from Riot Grrrl to leather cub, Women’s Studies major to trade, Paul transforms his body at will in a series of adventures that take him from Iowa City to Boystown to Provincetown and finally to San Francisco—a journey through the deep queer archives of struggle and pleasure.

Andrea Lawlor’s debut novel offers a speculative history of early ’90s identity politics during the heyday of ACT UP and Queer Nation. Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl is a riotous, razor-sharp bildungsroman whose hero/ine wends his way through a world gutted by loss, pulsing with music, and opening into an array of intimacy and connections.

possibly interesting publication history: 

Paul was first published in 2017 by Rescue Press, as part of their Open Prose series edited by the brilliant Hilary Plum & Zach Savich. In 2019, Vintage/Knopf reprinted Paul in the US (edited by Margaux Weisman & Maria Goldverg) and Picador UK released Paul as a hard-cover in the UK & Ireland (edited by Kishani Widyaratna). Covers in order of publication: Rescue (designed by Sevy Perez), Vintage (designed by Strick & Williams), Picador UK & Picador UK paper  (designed by Mel Four). No translations yet but I'm still hopeful! 

read an excerpt at Brooklyn Rail & also LitHub

Buy at bookshop.org or your local independent bookstore!

a few tidbits: 

the tumblr I kept while writing

a spotify playlist I made