Reading & Conversation: CE Mackenzie "Achy Affects" w/Sam Corfman

We are thrilled to host local writer and multidisciplinary humanities scholar, CE Mackenzie, to celebrate the publication of their trans-genre memoir that explores the intersections of healthcare, capitalism, and affect studies. They will be in conversation with local writer and professor, S. Brook Corfman.

Achy Affects is a trans-genre memoir that boldly reimagines the emotional costs of living through the intersecting crises of healthcare, late capitalism, and identity. The book emerges from Mackenzie's advocacy in community drug outreach, their trans personhood, and their ongoing research in late- capitalist rhetoric. Specifically, Mackenzie explores how drug users, as well as queer and trans people, are asked to perform healing for others — or to arrive at a coherent, marketable self. Achy Affects then goes on to explore ways of rejecting such demands, inviting us to live alongside pain, not as something to be fixed, but as something to be understood without judgment or expectation. It has been called “groundbreaking” and “a breathe of fresh air.”

Praise for ACHY AFFECTS

“The book cleverly examines the experiences of drug users and queer and trans people to show how both groups are pushed to reach ‘aspirational’ outcomes, whether sobriety or ‘the fully gendered self.’ Instead, Mackenzie turns toward concepts from the world of harm reduction and affect theory that present drug use and gender as neither positive nor negative, but chronic and ‘achy.’ They do so through a complicated Maggie Nelson– esque blend of their own formative experiences, dense critical theory, and literary references, ranging from Anne Carson to Leslie Feinberg. . . it’s an admirably ambitious attempt to overcome ‘narratives not of our own making.’” —Publishers Weekly

“Achy Affects ranges widely . . . from Plato to Audre Lord (with more than one tip of the hat to beloved indie singer-songwriter Elliott Smith). But much of the book comes down to emphasizing the benefits of being open to new experiences, and not simply thinking one knows it all, or needs to.” —NPR

S. BROOK CORFMAN is the author of the poetry collections: My Daily Actions, or the Meteorites, one of The New York Times Best Poetry Books of 2020, and Luxury, Blue Lace, chosen by Richard Siken for the 2018 Autumn House Riseing Writer Award. In 2024 she received the Lyric Poetry Award from the Poetry Society of America.

CE MACKENZIE is an accomplished, award-winning writer of over twenty years. From essays exploring the nostalgic potential of trans personhood to critical scholarship on the opioid epidemic, Mackenzie’s writing spans (and reimagines) many genres, topics, and forms. Their debut book, Achy Affects: Crisis and Compositions of Selfhood, releases June 2025 from the University of Pittsburgh Press. Mackenzie has a PhD in English and Rhetoric from the University of Pittsburgh, a doctoral certificate in gender studies, as well as an MFA from Bennington College.

Also check out other Arts events in Pittsburgh, Literary Art events in Pittsburgh, Music events in Pittsburgh.