Nino Cipri

Nino Cipri is a queer, nonbinary author. Their story collection Homesick won the Dzanc Short Story Collection Contest.

Quotes
"[E]verything I write is queer, and pretty much always has been. I was lucky enough to find queer books when I was a young teen in the late nineties–authors like Poppy Z. Brite and comics like HotHead Paisan, Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist, plus tons of zines and poetry collections — that reassured me I wasn't the only gender-confused weirdo who got crushes on multiple genders and the occasional monster. I'm lucky that I encountered queer lit when I did; it was a place where I could see myself reflected back, or that articulated questions that I was fumbling through. It's important to me to keep writing in that space, with characters that reflect the community I know."

"After a lot of thought (years of it! wow!), I realized that I was transgender and wanted to transition. But transition to what? Nonbinary is a nice word for folks like myself that fall outside or shift between male and female identities and appearances. 'Nonbinary' complements exploration and experimentation, and has a dash of defiance. I can be a little of column A, a little of column B, and sometimes I can just wander off the page entirely."

"People die because the world refuses them entrance based on perceived deviance from 'normal.' We are refused healthcare based on that deviance. We're hounded out of public places through ridicule and refusal. We face violence (like all monsters inevitably do) and commit or consider suicide in higher numbers (because the world has no room for us). But 'human' has a high entrance fee. Traveling from monster hood and assimilating into humanity demands stripping out the most essential parts of yourself. I would rather be whole and a force to be reckoned with. I'd rather be a monster, aligned with other monsters."

Works

 * Homesick (2019)
 * Finna (2020)