"No Offense catalogues the thousands of small ways that mainstream, heteropatriarchal society can make queer people feel unwanted, surveilled, or even simply annoyed. Jackie Domenus recounts their coming-of-age in New Jersey with equal parts humor and heartbreak, and their honesty about their fluid path of self-discovery is refreshingly frank. This book is an ode to compassion, one that will inspire readers to look inward and find new ways to embrace themselves and others around them." --Sabrina Imbler, author of How Far the Light Reaches When Jackie "came out" in 2014, right as the Trump era was revving up, she began paying closer attention to the inappropriate questions, uncomfortable reactions, and pointed assumptions about sexuality and gender she was witnessing and now experiencing firsthand. NO OFFENSE: A MEMOIR IN ESSAYS takes a magnifying glass to subtle moments that many people don't recognize as homophobic or transphobic, exploring the impact of microaggressions on LGBTQ+ folks. Blending personal essay and cultural critique, the collection confronts society's reactions to queerness at poignant moments in Jackie's life, from wedding planning to OBGYN appointments to the Pulse Nightclub Massacre, and beyond. Revealing the complex and tender moments that sculpted their identity from a tomboy adolescence to gender exploration as an adult, NO OFFENSE analyzes the loaded conversations queer and trans folks face every day on topics like labels, haircuts, Halloween costumes, and more. Jackie Domenus (she/they) is a queer writer from New Jersey. Their first book, NO OFFENSE: A MEMOIR IN ESSAYS, will be published with ELJ Editions in 2025. A 2021 Tin House Winter Workshop graduate, Jackie's work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Offing, The Normal School, Pidgeonholes, Foglifter Journal, Variant Lit, Entropy, Bullshit Lit's Second Anthology, and elsewhere. She has formerly served as publishing assistant at Guernica Magazine, associate editor at Glassworks Magazine, and contest coordinator at Philadelphia Stories. You can find Jackie on Twitter @jackiedwrites and on their website www.byjackied.com.
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