Thomas Dai is the author of the essay collection Take My Name but Say It Slow (W. W. Norton, 2025). He has been awarded fellowships from Lambda Literary, PLAYA, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Recent essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Electric Literature, The Georgia Review, Longreads, and many other publications, and Thomas currently serves as an associate editor for the feminist theory journal differences. He holds an MFA from the University of Arizona and a PhD in American Studies from Brown University. Born and raised in East Tennessee, Thomas now lives in the Inland Pacific Northwest, where he is an assistant professor of English at the University of Idaho.

Photo credit: Elle Davidson