My ideas for this anthology, The White Picket Fence: Stories of Individuality as Rebelliousness, first spurred on March 17, 2024, while I interviewed Professor Brandi Wells on my radio show, The Collective. Wells came onto the show to discuss their recent novel, The Cleaner, and shared how the main character was queer, and their love interest is nonbinary. Wells made a point to share that the story didn’t focus on the characters’ sexuality or gender identities. The characters lived their lives without the trauma of homophobia or transphobia. Why would they need to when there were more important things like sinister CEO’s? It was a stimulating interview about transformation—analyzing how coming out as nonbinary affected Wells’ life while growing up in a rural Georgian town. We discussed how people want to fit in and how some people, like me, rebel against the feeling of sameness, rejecting conformity and societal norms. It was because of this conversation that I recalled when my little sister wanted to do everything I did, which inevitably led up to an encounter with The White Picket Fence.

-Gina Rae Duran 

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Palestinian War Protest Photograph 

Photograph by Gina Rae Duran, featuring Andy E. Ramirez lying on the cement of the Chaffey College quad in silent protest with duct tape with the word “dead” across his mouth during a staged demonstration against the (now century long) “conflict,” in Palestine, digital photography, December of 2015.