Throughout my life, relationships, all platonic and familial, have shaped who I am today and how I aspire to achieve my goals. I am aromantic and an aplatonic-spec individual, who does not experience romantic attraction, and rarely experiences immediate platonic attraction - or the desire to form a strong platonic bond, or deem a new friendship as important. I have experienced this lack of attraction my entire life. Still, the relationships I have made or already have (like with family) have helped me further my ambitions and achieve more than I thought possible. I have always wanted to become a professional writer and earn a Bachelor of the Arts in English language and literature. Still, the motivation was not as strong as I had hoped. I went to Elizabethtown Community & Technical College to earn my Associate of the Arts, and I had only the fleeting desire to transfer to a four-year college, that is, until my sister started attending Western Kentucky University to earn a degree in visual art. I watched as my sister went out of her way to connect with the right people and get accepted into her dream college, and I knew that if she could do it, I could, too. The few friends I have, and people who have made for pleasant platonic situationships or acquaintances, have spurred me on in other pursuits. The theater is a marvel that I have cherished since childhood, and creating bonds - even if fleeting - with people in high school and outside of it has helped me regain my spark for acting and creating for theatrical sets. My feet gracing the stage once more, ever since the 4th grade, wasn't something I thought was going to be reality for me, since my anxiety around this time was at an all-time high because of my academic career. But seeing all of my friends who struggled the same way I did, yet pushed themselves out into the light in their roles or to help build a community through their involvement, helped me do the same. I have regained my desire to appreciate and understand art. My friendships online and the queer community, with whom I frequently interact, were another source of inspiration to fight for my future actively. Most of my friends whom I can only speak to through Discord, Whatsapp, text messages, or on forums, are almost all from different countries, and seeing how their world has shifted and changed drastically this past year, and yet keep on going on like perhaps there is a tomorow, has proven to me that no matter how shaky things are in the United States, I have to keep striving and living for - not only those who care about me - but for myself. I learned that I cannot let people silence me; I cannot be meek. How all of my relationships and the experiences from fleeting interactions play a role in my long-term personal/professional goal is that they have ignited the flame of advocacy and action within me, especially in pursuing creativity and putting my work out into the world. I want to amplify marginalized and minority voices by listening to their creative ambitions and aiding them in the publication process. I want to work with publishing houses to make this possible. And at the end of the day, the only thing I wish for is for readers of my work to not only feel less alone but also to feel like they can connect with someone for once, without feeling like a burden or an impossibility due to societal norms. All my life, I have felt as though my lack of romantic attraction was impossible, due to amatonormativity and allonormativity (the belief that everyone wants a romantic relationship, and the assumption that everyone experiences romantic-sexual attraction), and finding out that I can live a fulfilling life outside of these rigid binaries of thinking was freeing. I hope to allow anyone else to feel the same, regardless of whether they are aromantic or not. My friends and family have done that for me. I would love to extend the courtesy.

The theater has always enraptured me ever since I was a child. I was involved in plays and musicals when I was in elementary school, and although my middle school did not have such clubs offered to its students, when I entered into high school, I fell back into the scene. As I grew up, my love for theater not only grew but my appetite for narratives as well. Soon enough, I was engaged in watching or listening to other musicals, or any theater medium, and eventually found myself watching Wicked for the first time. I was enthralled by the hard and stunning work of Idina Menzel's and Kristin Chenoweth's acting, and was captivated by the original novel by Gregory Macguire. I was moved by the story of outcasts, pain, loss, acceptance, and love, that I knew I would enjoy the film Wicked with the actresses Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. I am a fan of Wicked, primarily for the thematic elements of the story, such as: prejudice, identity, and the boundaries of what is "good" and "evil," and the grey that lays in-between. I love myself a story that does not have to have a plot to have themes, though Wicked gives us the very phenomenal story of the Wicked Witch of the West. I connected with this musical, and overall story, through my own identities and struggles I have gone through in my life, and seeing how we can still build community and thrive despite these hardships, is touching to witness in a beautiful, fantastical film.

My preferred name is Memphis Lucas (they/it), and I am a writer, lover of any and all kinds of food, an avid D&D player, and a melomaniac, who also likes hyper-fixating on far too many different kinds of content/media. I have been writing ever since I was little, and mainly dabble into short fiction and poetry. I grew up with a passion for theater, although I mainly worked with tech crew, and only officially acted in plays or musicals throughout elementary school and my junior-senior years in high school. I also have an obsession with collecting and reading all kinds of books! I am queer, and the identities that are more important to me (for lack of a better word), is being non-binary and aromantic allosexual. The difficulties I have faced pertain to both identities, with my social transition causing some stress in a few familial relationships, and me coming out as aromantic to a select few friends and family members is often forgotten about; or my aromanticism is conflated with asexuality. I am visibly trans, and so I often get misgendered on a daily basis; although I do not plan on transitioning any further, and sometimes I like the fact that I am visible. I live in a world where romance/romantic relationships is/are advertised as the most important kind of relationship, or way to happiness, and it is often an unconscious belief (this is called amatonormativity) to where my being non-partnering is equated to being depressed, undesirable, or lonely. I also struggle with the outside assumption that everyone experiences romantic and /or sexual attraction, and that these attractions are what make us "human"; this is called allonormativity. I am considered an impossibility within society at large. Everyone must be able to fall in love, and if you can't, or do so rarely or under specific circumstances, then what are you? Sometimes I am told that I haven't "met the right person yet," or that I should "try harder" at falling in love - essentially being told to fix myself. I experience this both within and outside of the queer community. Sometimes unintentional discrimination can happen within the aromantic or asexual communities as well. I am not only aromantic, and so prioritize familial and platonic relationships, but I am also aplatonic-spec. Aplatonicism, much like aromanticism and asexuality, is a spectrum, and it means when someone experiences little to no platonic attraction. Sometimes I do not typically experience the feeling of wanting to make a friend, or that my friends are important to me, and so on occasions I am isolated from conversations held by my fellow aros who value friendships in a way that is used to humanize themselves. Me being aromantic allosexual - where I experience sexual attraction - is also a struggle, in that if I pursue sexual relationships then I am considered "predatory" because of my lack of romantic attraction; I am actually sex-averse, to which sex-averse aroallos are also rarely discussed in a-spec spaces. I would love for others to feel seen and heard by sharing my experiences through writing, and by creating stories that help bring aromanticism, and the nuances within the community, to light. It was dear to me to have found others who had similar experiences to me, and connecting with others helped me on my queer journey. I would love to extend the same kind of help in return.

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