Edge of the World

An inclusive LGBTQ+ travel anthology, Edge of the World explores what it means to be a queer person moving through the world.

These lively essays by luminary writers offer a queer perspective on how people experience other cultures and how other cultures receive queer people. This anthology of essays includes the perspectives of gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, and trans American authors from multiple ethnic identities, showcasing the travel writing of both established and emerging authors across a wide age spectrum to address these central questions.Contributors include Alexander Chee, Edmund White, Daisy Hernndez, Putsata Reang, Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, Denne Michele Norris, Garrard Conley, Andrew Ellis Evans, Nicole Shawan Junior, Raluca Albu, KB Brookins, Genevieve Hudson, Zoe Sprankle, Sara Orozco, and Calvin Gimpelevich. Their essays take the reader to different areas of the world including Spain, Ukraine, Florida, New York City, Mexico, Cambodia, Russia, Senegal, Berlin, and more.

"Edge of the World brings readers to the cusp of longing. At the heart of this collection of travel essays is a queering of narrative, of point of view, of relationships between people as well as the relationship queer humans have to the nonhuman world around them. Underneath tourism an entire universe exists that teaches us how to see each other and the planet differently. This book will open eyes and hearts in the most astonishing, beautiful ways."—Lidia Yuknavitch, author of Reading the Waves and The Chronology of Water

"Edge of the World is one of those rare anthologies that will live alongside you for ages. What a joy to walk through so many worlds with our most gifted writers. Whether in Senegal or Cambodia or Holland or Key West, the insights and revelations in these essays offer endless food for thought. The travel is not just multi-geographic dalliances, of course—instead we are the tourists exploring the psyches of these authors from all kinds of backgrounds. Alden Jones has brought together essential voices who span half a century in age and are rooted in all kinds of distinct cultures, concerns, inclinations, and styles. The result is a dazzling gift to our queer communities and a most loving invitation for all kinds of wandering souls to walk through the world on our too-often-overlooked magical margins."—Porochista Khakpour, author of Tehrangeles and Sick

"In the pages of Edge of the World you'll find much more than travel advice. Each of these incredibly vulnerable and beautifully written essays remind us that our identities can affect where we go, who we are expected to be in those spaces, and that beauty (and heartache) can be found almost everywhere. I'm grateful to each of this anthology's contributors for their stories, and I believe you will be, too—queer or not."—De'Shawn Charles Winslow, author of In West Mills and Decent People

“If, like most queers I know, you're more yourself when you're not at home, and your sense of home itself is fraught, and most days find you simultaneously restless and dreamy and anxious about your thirst for adventure, these stories are your stories. Candid, wise, and filled with longing, Edge of the World is an essential compendium of the unique discoveries we've made on our most unforgettable journeys. I'm shocked this vital book hasn't existed until now.”—Christopher Castellani, author of Leading Men

“If I were curating a cohort to accompany me on my travels I could hardly do better than the writers assembled in this collection. Witty, intelligent, gossipy, and wise, these writers remind me of why I love to travel. Their essays beautifully trace the different ways queerness interacts with being a stranger in a strange land, alive to possibility and reinvention.”—Alysia Abbott, author of Fairyland

“Edge of the World is a mesmerizing feat. It honors the exquisite complexity of queer travel with immediacy, tenderness, and ferocious curiosity. I’m so grateful for these 16 authors who chart paths through cultures and languages, along the Baltic Sea, from Mérida to Amsterdam, across class strata, and even into the past, through family lineages and memory. This collection offers a new cartography of becoming, alert to the ways queerness shapes how we see, seek, and find. This collection is a vital contribution to the discourse, arriving at a crucial moment when the illusion of virtual 'connectivity’ makes the nuance of travel more important than ever."—Margot Douaihy, USA Today bestselling author of Scorched Grace and Blessed Water

Alden Jones is the award-winning author of The Wanting Was a Wilderness, The Blind Masseuse, and Unaccompanied Minors. A professor at Emerson College and long-time travel educator, she has visited more than forty countries. Her writing has appeared in AGNI, New York Magazine, the Boston Globe, and Best American Travel Writing.

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