Lucas Escoto is a 26-year-old trans Chicano man living in Rialto, California. Son of Mexican/Nicaragüense immigrant parents and the first in his family to receive an MFA in Creative Writing from the California Institute of the Arts. Where he studied under Brian Evenson and Caribbean Fragoza. During this time, he served as treasurer for his cohort’s reading series/anthology, May You Find What You’re Looking For. Ensuring that his cohort was able to read at Junior High and Whammy. While also printing the anthology and providing supplemental payment to participants. Lucas’ work appears in his alum’s literary magazine, Stripmall. And, this past summer, Lucas became a Macondista at Macondo’s Writers Workshop. Receiving tutelage under Sarah Schulman’s Nonfiction course. Alongside this, Lucas won an Albertina Tholakele Dube Scholarship to participate (fully funded) in Mendocino Coast Writers’ Workshop as a Masterclass student with Byron F. Aspaas. But one of Lucas’ proudest achievements is a coin with the Serenity prayer given to him the day he graduated from his mental health facility. One of the first in his family to actively seek help for his mental health and work towards undoing the devastating cycle of intergenerational trauma. Lucas writes because of the hopes the women in his life sacrificed for his future. A future where ICE no longer assaults, rapes, and murders the Latine community. Where names of trans siblings are not added to an already long list of those taken via anti trans hate crimes. Nor the black community’s names at the hands of police brutality. The bodily autonomy of AFAB people is upheld. And we live in a world where active genocide isn’t a political debate or capitalist gain, but humanity helps because it’s the right thing to do. Most of all, Lucas writes in spite of hatred, in hopes of bringing just a bit more light to the world.…Lucas Escoto is a 26-year-old trans Chicano man living in Rialto, California. Son of Mexican/Nicaragüense immigrant parents and the first in his family to receive an MFA in Creative Writing from the California Institute of the Arts. Where he studied under Brian Evenson and Caribbean Fragoza. During this time, he served as treasurer for his cohort’s reading series/anthology, May You Find What You’re Looking For. Ensuring that his cohort was able to read at Junior High and Whammy. While also printing the anthology and providing supplemental payment to participants. Lucas’ work appears in his alum’s literary magazine, Stripmall. And, this past summer, Lucas became a Macondista at Macondo’s Writers Workshop. Receiving tutelage under Sarah Schulman’s Nonfiction course. Alongside this, Lucas won an Albertina Tholakele Dube Scholarship to participate (fully funded) in Mendocino Coast Writers’ Workshop as a Masterclass student with Byron F. Aspaas. But one of Lucas’ proudest achievements is a coin with the Serenity prayer given to him the day he graduated from his mental health facility. One of the first in his family to actively seek help for his mental health and work towards undoing the devastating cycle of intergenerational trauma. Lucas writes because of the hopes the women in his life sacrificed for his future. A future where ICE no longer assaults, rapes, and murders the Latine community. Where names of trans siblings are not added to an already long list of those taken via anti trans hate crimes. Nor the black community’s names at the hands of police brutality. The bodily autonomy of AFAB people is upheld. And we live in a world where active genocide isn’t a political debate or capitalist gain, but humanity helps because it’s the right thing to do. Most of all, Lucas writes in spite of hatred, in hopes of bringing just a bit more light to the world.WWWW…