Poet
Maine Transgender Anthology 2024: Trans Survivor Survival Guide
New Words {Press}: My Gender is a Funeral
Deep Water: Your Queer Body
Jelly Bucket: It’s just a phase and i am
Beyond Queer Words: Where Grief Sits After Maya Williams
Writer
John Preston offers a rich roadmap for queer life in Portland
Check out Sampson’s reflections on historically queer life in Portlnad, Maine in the Portland Press Herald
“The vibrant color of my life was found in the rich tapestry of queer and trans people who I’ve come to tell I love every day. I looked at my queer family with such fondness and really questioned what I would be leaving behind if I left out of frustration with things that I could change.”
QUEER LOVE IN THE TIME OF CORONA
Check out Sampson’s article on the Speak About It blog
“I realized that I was bogging myself down in self-judgement about the intensity of my feelings for someone I hadn’t yet met in person. What if, instead, I thought of our digital relationship as an advantage or relished in the resilience we had built over distance? So, I started to see our distance and our digital communication as the keys to working through my insecurities.”
HOW MY MENTAL HEALTH JOURNEY WAS ACTUALLY MY SEX LIBERATION JOURNEY
Check out Sampson’s article on The Pulp Magazine
“My definition of what sex could be suddenly changed; I realized it could continue to evolve and grow as well. My eyes were opened wide to a whole new understanding of what pleasurable, consensual, vulnerable sex could look like with partners who saw me as a whole self.”
HOW ELLIOT PAGE COMING OUT INSPIRES TRANS ACTORS LIKE ME
Check out Sampson’s article on Salty
“Maybe it wouldn’t have been as complicated to transition and stay in acting, but when your voice is dropping, you don’t feel comfortable in your skin, and you’re basically going through a second puberty. The last thing you want to do is have people staring at you and trying to fit you into a box.”
LIFESONGS PROJECT
In a matter of less than 10 days, Sam co-wrote a song for Palaver String’s Lifesongs Project in honor of sharing stories for Pride Month. Lifesongs Project was created 5 years ago to “celebrates and shares the experiences of LGBTQ people in our community through the medium of songwriting and music; the results are powerful stories of love, loss, courage, and affirmation.”
Sam’s song, “Ready for the Revolution,” was created to inspiring revolutionary change for the Queer community and beyond. Check out the performance here.
Or listen to the studio version on SoundCloud.
You can read about his experience on the Palaver Strings blog.
PINE & ROSES
Sampson is a contributing writer with the Maine Democratic Socialists of America’s Portland based online publication, Pine & Roses.
Read their work:
Tenants Union Fights Landlord at Rent Board Meeting
Black artists work set ablaze in Portland
Abortions Are Not Just for Women
Racist “Proud Boys” not welcome in Portland
Portlanders rally for COVID hazard pay
The Great American BurnOut
Check out this series Sampson is co-authoring with Eric Wefald about burnout for Mainers in the service industry.
“It took the COVID-19 pandemic to shed light on the full breadth of the injustices that workers in these professions have been subjected to forever: long hours of hard, underpaid work, abusive customers who are ‘always right,’ forced overtime, and poor management that itself qualifies as abuse.”
“Workers are beginning to see that what employers call ‘self care’ is often a cover for their own inability or refusal to address major stressors that impact their employees. Often it feels that employers put the burden on the individual to take care of their stress without addressing the system that causes it in the first place.”
Hundreds turn out in Portland for emotional pro-abortion rally
Sampson had a chance to cover Portland, Maine’s rally for abortion justice on October 2nd.
Read the story on the Beacon website.
THE SOCIAL EDGE
Sampson has previously written fast paced pop culture news with The Social Edge. Check out his work here:
Inflow
Sampson has been sharing what he’s learned about their ADHD diagnosis through the Inflow blog. They also worked as Community Guide, hosting weekly co-working sessions, and writing researched essays for the Inflow app modules.
Check out their work for the blog:
Hypersexuality and ADHD: What I Wish I Knew Before I Had Sex
Task-Switching with ADHD: is THAT why showers are so hard?
I Found Out I Have ADHD From TikTok. And My Experience is Valid
Picking, Cracking, Scratching: How ADHD Leads to Impulsive Body Behaviors