Lynette D'Amico w/ Chelsea Williams, MEN I HATE: A MEMOIR IN ESSAYS

Examining love, marriage, and identity in light of a spouse’s transition, asking what happens to us when the people we are closest to change
About this Event

Writer Lynette D'Amico visits the store for her new memoir, Men I Hate: A Memoir in Essays, examining love, marriage, and identity in light of a spouse’s transition, asking what happens to us when the people we are closest to change. She is joined by Chelsea Williams, co-founder of Salon, a Seattle-based community centered on fashion, design, and connection.

A rare spouse's perspective on a partner's transition that asks what happens to us when the people we are closest to change.

Can a lesbian who loves a trans man still call herself a lesbian? Against the backdrop of a traditional Sicilian American upbringing, Lynette D’Amico identified as a lesbian despite the expectation that her future hinged on the man she married. As a teenager, she fled her St. Louis home in the dark of night to escape her fate. No boys allowed, until one day D’Amico’s life was completely upended when her lover and spouse of twenty years—P. Carl, the acclaimed author of Becoming a Man: The Story of a Transition—told her he was a man.

Seemingly overnight, D’Amico no longer recognized her spouse in photos of past vacations or of the couple celebrating their legal gay marriage. In Men I Hate, she asks: What happens when the people we are closest to change? As D’Amico tries to engage more deeply with the man she is married to, she looks at all the men—historical figures, politicians, men in her family—in search of clear dividing lines between good men and bad, between the men she loves and the men she hates. These lines dissolve as she writes her way toward an understanding of the words marriage, husband, and home—and how we reconcile who we are with who we become.

Lynette D'Amico is an essayist and fiction writer whose work has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Ocean State Review and at Brevity, Slag Glass City, Short Reads, and Guernica. Her memoir in essays Men I Hate, won the Gournay Nonfiction Prize and was published by Mad Creek Books in 2026. She is a recipient of fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center. She holds an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She makes her home in Rhode Island with the writer P Carl, but she has a prairie eye.

Chelsea Williams is the co-founder of Salon, a Seattle-based community centered on storytelling and connection, with events rooted in a love of fashion and design. Fashion is one of her native languages, something she uses to express, question, and understand herself, and to honor where she comes from. Outside of Salon, Chelsea has a background in global health, where she has designed programs focused on nutrition, mental health, and HIV prevention. She currently works as a Project Manager in the Global Health Division at the Gates Foundation.

About Salon:
Rooted in design, fashion, and thoughtful living, co-founders Priscilla Ward and Chelsea Williams create spaces that inspire connection, conversation, and care. They curate events that highlight the stories of bold women taking risks to create the lives that they want. https://www.instagram.com/salonarchives?igsh=bXZlYnc3aGN4YWFh