Memoir or Musical? When Life Inspires Art in Too Many Formats

When your life is full of trauma, glitter, tragedy, and punchlines… you’ve got options.

You can write a memoir.

Or a musical.

Or if you’re me — you do both. At once. With feeling. Probably barefoot. In Costa Rica.

I used to think I had to pick a format. That a story either lived in prose or in a prologue. But it turns out, some lives are too big — too loud, too funny, too tender — for just one container.

And when I finally found my voice, it overflowed. Into books. Into ballads. Into both.

Here’s how it happened.

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The Chicken That Broke the Dam

Notes From a Sissy, my memoir, started with a story I told at dinner.

It was the “Crazy Chicken Lady” story — a real moment from my childhood that’s as hilarious as it is heartbreaking. I told it to friends one night, and everyone laughed. Then got quiet. One friend said, “You know… this could be a book.”

And I realized: maybe the chaos, confusion, and queerness I’d been carrying around for decades was worth writing down. Not just to purge it — but to share it. Maybe someone else needed it.

The moment I gave myself permission to tell the truth — the weird, beautiful, painful, fabulous truth — the floodgates opened.

The sissy spoke. And hasn’t shut up since.

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The Queer Speakeasy That Lived in My Head Since High School

Then there’s Speakeasy, my Broadway-style musical.

It’s been living in my journals since AP English, when we read Romeo & Juliet and dissected it like emotional surgeons. I remember thinking: what if Juliet had agency? What if Mercutio wasn’t comic relief but a fully realized queer character? What if this tragedy could also be about joy, found family, and community?

What if we made it queer as hell — with drag, jazz, and rebellion?

The story stayed with me for years. Characters evolved. Lyrics took shape. And when I finally started writing it in earnest — as a late-deafened adult — it wasn’t just about love. It was about visibility. Resistance. And rewriting the canon to include us.

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Different Forms, Same Heart

Memoir and musical might sound like two totally different beasts. But for me, the process taps into the same place: truth.

Both are about:

• Making sense of my story

• Giving voice to the things I wasn’t allowed to say out loud

• Turning pain into something powerful

• Centering joy without erasing what came before

The differences are mostly logistical. With the memoir, it was about rhythm and pacing and how to move between dark humor and real trauma without whiplash. With the musical? It’s writing scores, crafting character arcs, and feeding sheet music into software loud enough for me to feel the vibrations — because I’m deaf, remember?

That’s a whole story in itself: the deaf guy writing a jazz musical by feeling it in his bones.

And somehow, memoir or musical, both formats let me tell the same truth in two radically different ways.

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Why Both Matter

To the agents, producers, and creative conspirators reading this: I want you to know that my multi-format storytelling isn’t a side effect of indecision. It’s a feature. A strength.

Some people ask: “Why write it both ways?”

I ask: “Why wouldn’t I?”

• Notes From a Sissy is raw and intimate — the whisper behind the curtain.

• Speakeasy is loud and public — the jazz hands revolution.

• Together, they tell the whole story.

I’m not one thing. I’m a memoir and a musical. A punchline and a protest. A sissy and a showstopper.

So no, I don’t choose between prose or performance.

I choose all of it. Because my story deserves every format it demands.

💬 Want more?

• → Read Notes From a Sissy, my memoir of trauma and sequins

• → Explore Speakeasy, my original queer musical rebellion

• → Request materials, follow me, or just say hi

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