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Meredith Talusan

“When you grow up in rural Philippines where learning English is a privilege, or having access to books is a privilege, you think of the time and ability to write as an absolute gift. I feel like there's this American cultural standard that writing is tortuous and I am going to admit that it has never been that for me, at least not internally even when I've experienced many years of the world not really getting my writing. For me writing has always been a safe, loving place, and I'm grateful for that.”

Creative Capital Award

MacDowell Fellow

Pushcart Prize for Fiction

LAMBDA Literary Award Finalist

 

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“A marvel of a story wrought with near-archeological precision and deep inquiry into history, hope, joy and human redemption. An artist’s statement that offers new ways to think and feel in bodies cast ashore, Fairest is a ball of light hurled into the dark undertow of migration and survival. It is also funny, utterly alive, and fashioned with care and hope.”
— Ocean Vuong
“Meredith Talusan’s Fairest is a story of crossing boundaries—of race, of gender, of convention. In this wise and brilliant memoir, she travels from one side of the globe to the other—but more profoundly, she takes us to the center of her passionate, fiery heart. Fairest is a gorgeous, gnarly addition to the canon of transgender memoir.”
— Jennifer Finney Boylan
“Talusan sails past the conventions of trans and immigrant memoirs.”
— New York Times Book Review
“This elegant memoir examining whiteness, womanhood, and the shaping of identity will resonate with readers of any community, LGBTQ or no.”
— Publisher's Weekly starred review

Meredith Talusan is the author of Fairest (Viking Press, 2020), a widely praised memoir which Kirkus Reviews called, “captivatingly eloquent.” It was excerpted in the New York Times, selected as a most anticipated book of 2020 by O: The Oprah Magazine, and is the People and In Style Magazine Pick for June. Meredith is founding executive editor of them., Condé Nast’s first-ever platform devoted to the queer community. An award-winning journalist and author, Meredith has written features, essays, and opinion pieces for many publications including The Guardian, The New York Times, The Atlantic, VICE Magazine, WIRED, The Nation, Mic, BuzzFeed News, and The American Prospect. Her fiction is also published or forthcoming in Guernica, Boston Review, Epoch,The Rumpus, Grand, Catapult, and BLR. She is the recipient of the 2017 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism, and has contributed to many books, including the New York Times Bestselling Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture.

Meredith grew up a boy in the Philippines, moved to California at 15, and medically transitioned in her 20's. She embraces a gender-nonbinary identity, and considers herself an intersectional journalist. When asked about this in an interview with Catapult, Meredith explained, “It means that I'm someone in the position of telling other people's stories, when people like me don't usually have that power; we're usually the subjects of stories, but not storytellers. Or, if we're lucky enough to get to tell stories, it's only our own we can tell and not stories of other people. One of my key influences is Diane Arbus, known as a photographer of freaks. When I saw her photographs of female impersonators and circus performers as a freshman in college, including an albino sword swallower, I thought to myself, "Why are there no albino sword swallowers taking pictures that go in museums?" So I guess in a way, my career has been all about becoming that albino sword swallower in the writing world, that freak who gets to tell her own and others' stories.”

Meredith graduated from Cornell University with an MA in Comparative Literature and an MFA in Creative Writing; from California College of the Arts with an MFA in Visual Art; and earned a BA in English and American Literature from Harvard University.  

She lives in Barryville, NY.

 

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