To read Jeddie Sophronius is to witness a writer unmaking silence in real time. His Lammy-winning Interrogation Records does more than excavate a national trauma— it expands the emotional and political vocabulary available to queer writers who have been told their truths are dangerous, inconvenient, or unspeakable. Sophronius writes at the crossroads of history and the body, where the state’s violence dissolves into intimate reckonings with desire, childhood, exile, and the fragile architecture of becoming.
What astonishes most is not simply the formal intelligence of his work, but the courage required to write it. Raised between countries, cultures, and the boundaries of faith and queerness, Sophronius has forged a poetics built from risk: the risk of being seen, the risk of disobedience, the risk of telling the story that could not be told in his youth. His book feels like a lighthouse carved from archives, wounds, and glimmers of unapologetic joy—one that guides readers toward the landscapes official histories have intentionally erased.
Our conversation took place shortly after his recent 2025 Lambda Literary Award Winner in Bisexual Poetry win, at a moment when the recognition was still settling over him like a long-delayed blessing. What follows is an intimate dialogue about liberation, responsibility, the wilderness of identity, and the futures he is writing toward. Sophronius speaks with a clarity that ruptures the distance between past and present, revealing how writing can become both a reckoning and a refuge.
Darius Phelps: As you wrote Interrogation Records, was there a moment when you felt yourself crossing from concealment into true liberation? What happened in your body, your language, or your spirit that told you, I’m finally writing beyond the fear that shaped me? And how does that transformation continue to shape the way you move through the world now?
Jeddie Sophronius:I love how you frame it as liberation, because so much of the book was exactly that—trying to reclaim a history that my country has buried, trying to push back against propaganda that still defines public memory. It was a very solitary process. I didn’t have a community doing this kind of work alongside me; it was just me, my books, my notes, and occasionally reaching out to close friends when I felt overwhelmed.
For a long time, I didn’t even think of what I was doing as “a book.” It was just a Word document I’d been sitting with for years. I didn’t imagine the world would want it, or that it would ever become something I could hold. It wasn’t until after publication—after I saw people reviewing it, talking about it—that I understood I had been working toward liberation the whole time. That external recognition allowed me to see my own intentions clearly for the first time.
There was fear about backlash. Even the publisher and I didn’t know how to promote a book like this, especially in Indonesia where conversations about the 1965 massacre are still suppressed. But the backlash never came. Instead, there was support—from queer friends back home, from my community here, from people who understood what I was trying to do.
Now I’m more open, more willing to say plainly: this is my work. This is the kind of docu-poetry I write, this is the kind of political language I interrogate. Publishing the book made me realize this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.
DP: Your collection reads like a radical remapping—desire, lineage, exile, and return moving together in ways that feel both intimate and insurgent. Now that the book has been honored with a Lammy, how do you envision your poetics shifting the landscape of queer literature? What new terrain of voice or embodiment do you hope your work opens for queer writers who’ve been mistranslated, silenced, or told their stories were “too much”?
JS: I had been writing “borderline queer” work for years, even before Interrogation Records. My first nonfiction piece was about the body, desire, and even exorcism—but I couldn’t share it publicly. My father was still in ministry then, and because I come from a collectivist culture, my actions reflect back onto my family. I didn’t want to jeopardize his life or his livelihood. Publishing in the U.S. gave me some distance—this sense of a wall between the life I lead here and the expectations of home. But even then, I found myself asking: “Can I post this? Can my family see this? Should they?”
Once the Lambda was announced, the fish was fully out of the water. My extended family knows I’m bi. To my surprise, the reaction wasn’t nearly as catastrophic as I’d imagined. Growing up, I was surrounded by fear—fear of exposure, fear of being seen, fear of disappointing people. The Lammy didn’t erase that, but it forced a kind of reckoning. It showed me the dangers I feared were real, yes, but also that I’m surrounded by people who want me to be true to myself.
So how is my poetics shifting? I’m expanding the scope. It’s no longer just about my country’s history or my personal narrative—it’s about community. My close friends back home are all queer. I know if I call, any one of them will pick up. That sense of community changes the way I write. I hope existing as myself—publishing this work, being visible—shows others that hiding isn’t the only way to survive. You can find your people. They might be under a few stones, but they’re there.
DP: When you think about your younger self—the one who didn’t yet have language for queerness, longing, or possibility—what do you imagine moves through him now as he watches you receive this recognition? And what truth, blessing, or permission do you hope he hears from the person you’ve become?
JS: I don’t talk about my childhood often. I was a very sad kid—isolated, bullied, without a sense of belonging. It was just me and my mother. She was the one person who loved me without condition, the one person I never had to hide from. When she died, that safety disappeared, and I had to rebuild my life entirely.
If the child I was, looked at me now, he might judge me. He’d ask why I’m putting a target on my back. Why I stopped going to church. Why I’m no longer hiding. From where he stood, hiding looked like survival.
If I could tell him one thing, it would be: It’s okay to be afraid. Fear makes sense when you grow up alone in a foreign country, when the church is the only community feeding and housing you. Leaving that safety was a symbolic transformation—I was stepping into the wilderness.
But the wilderness isn’t empty.
There are other people wandering. There are people finding themselves. There are people trying to build lives that reflect who they are. I’d want him to know: You won’t be alone forever. You will find people who hold you. Some of them will become family.
And yes, you’re one of those people, Darius.
DP: Looking ahead, what conversations are calling you next? Are there new forms or freedoms you’re beginning to write toward—work that feels riskier, louder, or more tender than what came before? What is the next evolution of your imagination asking of you now?
JS: With everything happening in the U.S.—the ICE raids, the shifting immigration policies—I’ve been working on a new collection about citizenship and the impossibility of citizenship for certain people. I had hoped to build a career here after my current contract. But with the new H-1B visa changes, that’s not possible anymore. I’m going back to school instead. I’m privileged to have a backup plan. Many don’t.
So my imagination is asking: Where am I going? What does a future look like for someone like me? How do I make a corner of this world more bearable—for myself and for others who are afraid, displaced, or in danger?
It’s difficult to stay hopeful when the news is what it is. Going home isn’t simple either—Indonesia is facing its own crises. So the new work is me trying to envision a future that isn’t guaranteed, and a world where I can still choose generosity, courage, and connection.
Dr. Darius Phelps (he/him) is the author of My God’s Been Silent (Writ Large Press, 2026) and The Holy Ghost Lives In Her Laugh (Kith Books, 2026). A poet before anything else, his work bears witness to grief, faith, and the act of becoming—offering language as a form of liberation and light. Through the lens of poetic inquiry, Dr. Phelps explores how verse can function as pedagogy, healing and survival. Rooted in Black literary traditions and personal testimony, his poems navigate silence, ancestry, and resilience, creating sanctuaries for voices too often unheard. His work has been featured by Diode, Een Magazine, School Library Journal, and many more across platforms that champion the power of story to honor every body, every history, and every voice.
Jeddie Sophronius is the author of the poetry collections Happy Poems & Other Lies (Codhill Press, 2024), Interrogation Records (Gaudy Boy, 2024), Love & Sambal (The Word Works, 2024), and the chapbook Blood·Letting (Quarterly West, 2023). A Chinese-Indonesian writer from Jakarta, they received their MFA from the University of Virginia. The recipient of the 2023 Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize and the 2025 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry, their poems have appeared in The Cincinnati Review, The Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. Read more of their work at nakedcentaur.com.