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The Lyme Letters

Texas Tech University Press

The Lyme Letters by C. R. Grimmer Queer Crip Poetry Book Cover.jpeg

Selected by Series Editor Rachel Mennies as the recipient of the Walt McDonald First Book Award, The Lyme Letters is epistolary verse that spells out a memoir. R, a non-binary femme character, narrates their experience of disease and recovery through recurrent letters to doctors, pets, family members, lovers, and a "Master." R, in letter form and repurposed religious texts, also explores the paradoxical experiences of queer non-reproductivity, chronic illness and disability, and the healing that can be found in the liminal spaces between.

The Lyme Letters: Audio Edition

Texas Tech University Press

A community of readers collaborated to read the audiobook edition of The Lyme Letters, which is available for free on Libro.fm or for purchase on Audible:

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Woogee Bae 
John Beer 
Joshua Burton 
Ching-In Chen 
Rachel Mennies 
Stevi Costa, aka Sailor St Claire
Michele Glazer
Patrycja Humienik
Alonso Llerena 
Patrick Milian 
Katelyn Oppegard
Abi Pollokoff  
Timothy Rengers
Travis Snyder
Judy Twedt

I know of fewer invocations more intimate or private than the opening salutation of a letter–and to call the recipient dearest at one's outset, to choose the superlative over the conventional positive, the usual dear that defines our work emails or scrawled notes to neighbors, immediately marks them as beloved. Grimmer, who chooses dearest for each of the poem's salutatory titles, shows us in their ongoing use of the word what it means to choose, over and over, who and what becomes beloved, and the profound importance of that work to building a new world.

Rachel Mennies, Author of The Naomi Letters

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