In a context of ever-present change, our planet’s ongoing experiments with Life have been “a big, joyful party”* of diverse approaches to the varieties of challenges every life form experiences. Take radial symmetry—cool stuff, and adopted by a lot of plant flowers, from lilies to roses, as well as oceanic animals like the sea anemone who also chooses a plant-like sessile life, nutrients coming to them from any direction, rather than having to hunt for sustenance. In my childhood, looking for sea stars in tidal pools gave such a jolt of pleasure, finding these creatures so different from ourselves.  We didn’t consider our bilateral symmetry as hierarchically better, only better at different challenges. Life likes to try endless variations on a theme, and from parrotfish to slender loris to African elephants, the bilateral pattern has played many different tunes, answering to different needs presented in various environments over changing times.

My gratitude goes out to libraries and librarians who understand the world’s real lessons in diversity, who stand up for readers and writers in all kinds of contexts who need different things from the words of the world, in all its vibrant variety. “Biological life is a spiraling diffusion of possibilities, fractal in its profusion.”** In our recent arctic temperatures, my pleasure in different kinds of books has not just warmed my heart, but sharpened my mind, hearing the variety of contexts, experiences and insights emerging from my old favorite historical novels of resistance to contemporary struggles in Australia, a country and a continent I seldom considered in my limited childhood. Those who stand up for diversity stand up for all of us in the dominant culture at least as much as for the many who retain understandings and lifeways that enabled survival in many contexts over millennia.

A recent insight surfaced in my current Work in Progress regarding a college-age character, who connected with a lgbtqia+ affinity group during her first year away from her northern MN home. Although I haven’t worked with people who felt most at home knowing themselves as asexual, I’ve been exploring what Ivy is learning from her new best friend. Given the number of lesbian and gay parents, these two young people think their own insistence in not reproducing, either via sexual activity or technological options, might be one answer among many to the biodiversity crisis created by the overwhelming impact of one overwhelming species. They understand that a definition of success needs to be adjusted when it goes out of balance with the source of its own survival. This little-understood piece of the human sexuality spectrum might be an adaptation that gives a social benefit larger than itself. Clearly nothing in their deliberations can be called sexually explicit—and I look forward to working with publishers and librarians to ensure this human adaptation is available for readers to consider.

*Orion magazine quote from announcement of the NEA grant for their upcoming Queer Biodiversity issue

** from Zoe Schlanger's recent book The Light Eaters--