New Releases by Layne Johnson

This thesis is a full-length memoir written in prose. The Light That Captured Us Here follows the story of my life as a second generation gay woman growing up working class in rural Connecticut with no semblance of a queer community. Exploring themes of intergenerational trauma, loss, substance abuse, misogyny, and homophobia, among many others, this is a survival and redemption narrative that leans into the nuance and complicated story of resilience and of harm. The exploration and excavation of memory across landscape and time in the process of writing mirrors the process of healing in which the current Marissa is writing into. Using the intimacy of letters to one’s future self and the poetics of song lyrics, the narrative is woven with multiple literary and poetic devices. By exploring one life, the reader is able to explore the depths of queer pain &suffering alongside queer joy and what it means to imagine queer futurity, together.Welcome to The Light That Captured Us Here: a memoir, a soundtrack, an unfinished poem.

Will catches his runaway horse.

When a cowboy comes across a penned-up herd of wild horses, he vows to find a home where the horses can run free.