The Guide

Melissa Febos and Jamie Hood are two of the most astute essayists working today on the subject of trauma and embodiment. In this conversation moderated by 2025-26 Shearing Fellow Isle McElroy, Febos and Hood will discuss queerness, embodiment, trauma, and the narratives we create to make sense of ourselves.

This conversation opens a space to celebrate the rich perspectives of Black artists, social change makers, and everyday folks who’ve deepened our capacities to feel, observe, and be present to natural worlds that are often weaponized against us as Black people shaped in various ways by the U.S. south (east/west).

Coming from a range of disciplines and movements—music, poetry, oral history, birding, land stewardship, water protection, sobriety, demilitarization, and more—guests Lazarus Letcher, Erica Vital-Lazare, Claytee D. White, and host Saretta Morgan will reflect on their personal eco-histories and share literature, songs, photos, and ephemera that speak to how they’ve come to understand their sense of place and possibility in ever-shifting and contested geographies.