The ocean is a place of queer possibility

In each essay in their debut collection, How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures, science writer Sabrina Imbler shares the story of an undersea organism and a story of their own journey as someone who, as they put it, came out twice in adulthood.

In one essay, they reflect on how a shape-shifting cephalopod helped them navigate their own questions about gender. In another, they celebrate queer dance clubs through the lens of the Yeti crab, a creature who “dances to live” in the crushing conditions around deep-sea hydrothermal vents.

“I really wanted to sort of take these creatures very seriously… to think about both of us as organisms,” said Sabrina.

“The creature’s existence in the world, and also the ways in which I am just, at the end of the day, another organism moving through the world, trying to eat and mate and survive.”

Outside/In host Nate Hegyi and producer Justine Paradis sat down with Sabrina Imbler to talk about their blend of science and personal writing, and about what we might be able to learn by looking closely at the lives—perhaps very different, very strange-to-us lives—of creatures in the sea.

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LINKS

Find How Far the Light Reaches at your local bookstore

Sabrina Imbler’s articles on Defector Media

Read “We Swarm” on The Rumpus

“It’s always ourselves we find in the sea” is a line from this poem by E.E. Cummings.

CREDITS

Hosted by Nate Hegyi

Reported, produced, and mixed by Justine Paradis

Edited by Taylor Quimby with help from Felix Poon

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Music in this episode by Loving Caliber, Autohacker, Valante, Silver Maple, Moon Crater, and So Vea.

Theme music: Breakmaster Cylinder

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

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