Color and texture are often perceived as “wallpaper” – a humdrum backdrop against which the action of a literary work unfolds. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper; Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls…; and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, among many others, purposely and effectively challenge such perception. This creative session (re)considers the author as artist, (re)casting color and texture as deliberate, meaningful components of literary experience. Open to considering a variety of authors and genres in relation to its theme, this creative session particularly welcomes papers highlighting color and/or texture as relate to either Gilman, or Shange, or Walker.

 As a preamble to this call for abstracts, we want to specify that we are using the terms “transgender” and “trans identities” as umbrella terms for people whose gender identity and/or gender expression differs from what is typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth. Our use of “transgender” or “trans identities” thus encompasses a variety of experiences within and outside the gender binary, and a range of expressions, as trans individuals pursue many different options (medical changes, clothing, make-up, etc.) to bring their appearances into alignment with their gender identity, or may choose not to.