NEW GLUE: Lauren Mantis
"I always thought my dad was depressed, because for years he played the same Radiohead CD over and over. I knew all the lyrics to all the songs. I’ll never, ever buy a fake plastic tree."
Lauren Mantis is a southern lesbian living in Portland, Oregon. Her writing has been featured in Harbor Review and more. She writes poems and prose about love, community, and queer futures.
1) What is the first thing that burned you?
I’m sure it was some kind of hot oil. I grew up in the south, so that’s hard to avoid in most kitchens.
2) What do you smell like?
Frenshe lavender-cloud linen spray from Target, that I use as perfume. I always want to smell like I live somewhere clean.
3) What do you feel is more true: Every crazy person is a movie, every movie is a crazy person, or neither?
I think movies without plots are crazy people. I generally avoid them to keep my sanity.
4) How does your heart feel?
Now that I take a bunch of Lexapro, it feels mostly settled. Before that, most days it felt like the dog in Homeward Bound.
5) What was it like to ride in your parents car as a kid? What about now—or equivalent?
My mom was clinically bipolar, and sometimes when she was driving, she liked to do things like throw up her hands and start singing, “Jesus take the wheel,” with her very thick, natural southern accent, as we drifted into the oncoming traffic lane. I always thought my dad was depressed, because for years, in the car, he played the same Radiohead CD set over and over. I knew all the lyrics to all the songs. I’ll never, ever buy a fake plastic tree. Now I drive myself.
6) Does your misery love company?
My misery loves sad songs and watching itself cry in the mirror.
7) What does a potato chip mean to you? What does it taste like?
Road trip!
8) What does touching feel like?
Before Covid, I had to touch everything. Statues, fuzzy bushes along the sidewalk, cereal boxes, water in fountains. But post germ-panic, I mostly keep my hands to myself. It’s hard, because I get bored very easily, and I want to experience things fully. Touching can feel like a conversation.
9) Do you belong to and on Earth?
Yes. I feel compelled to care for it like a child—pick its berries, comb its hair. I think I belong to it like a mother. I like feeling instincts, remembering I’m a mammal. I go a little crazy when I live too much in my head.
10) What is your first memory and what does it mean to your work?
The first thing I think of is a cold day in fall when I was standing outside of my grandma’s house. The wind blew the leaves everywhere, and it gusted a butterfly into my mouth. The butterfly got stuck—it couldn’t fly against the wind. I turned around, and the wind pulled it off my tongue. So I guess that was a first memory, and kind of my first kiss too—french kissing a butterfly. That’s probably why I’m a lesbian.
Luke Goebel is an award-winning author and screenwriter known for his novel Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours, and his screenwriting work on the films Eileen and Causeway.
His novel, Kill Dick (RHP) comes out in Spring 2026.
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