"...DENNE MICHELE Norris delivers a collection of queer short stories that read like a gospel, a prayer, like words that crackle and ignite and transform themselves with every consecutive read."
—T Kira Madden. Author, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls
Bio
Photo courtesy of Hilary Leichter
Denne Michele Norris is the editor-in-chief of Electric Literature, winner of the 2022 Whiting Literary Magazine Prize. She is the first Black, openly trans woman to helm a major literary publication. A 2021 Out100 Honoree, her writing has been supported by MacDowell, Tin House, and the Kimbilio Center for African American Fiction, and appears in McSweeney's, American Short Fiction, and ZORA.
Her short story Last Rites appears in Everyday People: The Color of Life, an anthology published by Atria Books in 2018, and her story Daddy's Boy appears in the new anthology Forward: 21st Century Flash Fiction. Her fiction has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her story Where Every Boy is Known and Loved was a finalist for the 2018 Best Small Fictions Prize. She is a 2019 Peter Taylor Fellow at The Kenyon Review Fiction Workshop.
She is the former Fiction Editor for both Apogee Journal and The Rumpus, and is co-host of the critically-acclaimed podcast Food 4 Thot. Her debut novel, When The Harvest Comes, is forthcoming from Random House.*
An abbreviated bio can be found here.
* Denne is represented by Robert Guinsler at Sterling Lord Literistic for writing, and by Leslie Shipman at The Shipman Agency for speaking.
“It's an uncomfortable story, but it's written with a crisp spareness that's continued to haunt me from the first time I read it.”
—Note from the guest editor, Rion Amilcar Scott, about Daddy's Boy, which appears in Issue 51 of SmokeLong Quarterly
Writing
Writing
Writing
I Know How This Dream Ends
McSweeney's
“Mama’s worried about me. She looks at me, eyes wide and round. She pulls me close, hugging me so tight I can’t breathe. I complain. She says what Old Teacher used to say: ‘Sometimes a boy needs to take a deep breath and let it happen.’”
Read more here.
Audition
American Short Fiction
“But it didn’t change the slow realization, as the Reverend stood watching, waiting, and listening, that Davis, though desperately wanting to be free of his father, simply wasn’t ready. He was bruised; by whose hand was of no importance.”
Read more here.
When Black Women Are Punished for Being The Best
The Undefeated
“Simone Biles, widely considered the greatest gymnast of all time, has made a career of mastering skills that no other woman dares to try. […] She has advanced the technical side of gymnastics in unprecedented ways, yet two of her skills are undervalued by the Code of Points.”
Read more here.
The Queer Syllabus: The Outing by James Baldwin
September 2018, The Rumpus
"Two black boys, Johnnie and David, are holding each other. They have stolen a moment of privacy, and are looking out upon the water from the uppermost desk of a ferryboat."
Read more here.
A Starr on The Rise
March 2018, Shondaland
"I wish I could tell you that I remember every second of my performance at Nationals because people keep telling me how well I skated..." —Starr Andrews
Read more here.
Awst Collection—Dennis Norris II
February 2018. Awst Press
"You were several hours from home when you started on the road, your stomach unsettled as though you knew something had happened. The traffic was heavy because the roads hadn’t been cleared."
Read more here.
Where Every Boy is Known and Loved
Excavating Honesty: An Anthology of Rage and Hope in America.
paper nautilus
"The classroom had no windows and every day one of the boys would close the door. Another hit the lights. In the darkness, they surrounded me, wanting to become men. In their eyes, I was nothing but the closest thing they could get their hands on."
Read more here.
The Reverend
Issue 07. Apogee Journal.
"Someone will come. Sirens will sound in the distance. Lights will rise from darkness like seraphs, dancing red and blue. Salvation will be brought by men sent from God."
Read more here.
Finding Michelle Kwan: A Black Boy's Childhood on Ice
Awesome Sports Project
"Long before it actually happened, I tried to tell the world I was a figure skater. I tried on Saturday afternoons, back in the nineties, when skating was on TV every weekend. I tried by..."
Read more here.
Daddy's Boy
Issue 51. SmokeLong Quarterly
"Open your mouth. Sing boy. Rise up from your pew and praise Him.Take your hands off your hips. Don't dance, don't smile, just clap. Firm up those wrists and sing. Your mouth is His."
Read more here.
Ungrateful, Unafraid
Issue 03. Madcap Review
"Joanne wore a pink circle skirt and a ribbon in her hair the day her sister disappeared. She was proud of that skirt, proud that it came all the way from the sixties, dusty but intact..."
Read more here.
Featured Events
Featured Events
Services
Services
Services
I provide freelance services for editing, copywriting, sensitivity reading, and manuscript development.
Please inquire for rates.
Testimonials:
"Worrying that some racially charged scenes in my novel, Carnegie Hill, might offend readers, I hired Denne as a sensitivity reader. She edited my novel carefully and lovingly, highlighting and extrapolating on what I got right, and helping me see my blind spots without making me feel foolish. I had written parts from the perspective of a gay black man, and Denne helped me reshape the character in places where he seemed too naive or otherwise not believable. Denne helped me revise my novel so that it portrayed, but did not condone, micro- and macroaggressions."
—Jonathan Vatner, Carnegie Hill, St Martin's Press
"Denne’s editorial work on my essay was invaluable. She has a keen eye and, as the best editors do, brought my essay to that next level I couldn’t quite manage on my own. And as a white writer whose story necessarily touched on issues of race and racism, I thought I’d done my homework. But Denne found some spots that I could address to avoid alienating readers of color. I highly recommend her services."
—Jennifer Niesslein, Before We Were Good White, named a Notable essay in The Best American Essays 2017
Press
Press
Press
Editor in Chief of Electric Literature:
EIC Announcement • Publisher's Weekly Interview • Them
Food 4 Thot:
Gay Times UK • Brooklyn Magazine • NYT • Time Magazine