Casey Parks is a Portland, Oregon–based reporter for the Washington Post who covers gender and family issues. Diary of a Misfit: A Memoir and a Mystery (Knopf, Aug. 30) follows Parks’ decadelong research into the unknown life of her Louisiana grandmother’s childhood friend Roy Hudgins. After Parks came out as a lesbian, her grandmother shared that she “grew up across the street from a woman who lived as a man”—thus starting Parks on an exploration of Hudgins’ experiences as she, too, came to terms with her own sexuality and Southern identity. Kirkus called it a “memorable meditation on identity, belonging, and the urge to find understanding,” and it scored a spot on our list of the best nonfiction books of 2022. Parks answered some questions by email.

When did you realize that your life experiences would make for a great memoir?

I think that imagining my life as a book allowed me to cope when I was a kid. The bad things that happened weren’t painful; they were narrative tension. As I grew older, though, I let go of wanting to write a memoir. I became a journalist and thus became loath to write about myself. I tried for more than a decade to make Diary of a Misfit as a third-person project. I wanted to write about Roy, not myself. I never could figure out how to make that third-person book, though, and, eventually, my friends and grad school professors persuaded me to try writing a version that brought in threads from my own life. I felt a little queasy on the first write-throughs, but I kept writing, and I think turning the book into a memoir did make the book both bigger and better.

Who is the ideal reader for Diary of a Misfit?

I’m a little frightened for Southerners to read it, but they are my ideal readers. I’m afraid because I still fear people there will judge me, but I didn’t write the book to explain the South to other places. I wrote it, I think, because I wanted home to understand me and the other misfits who have lived there.

Were you able to do live events for the book this year? Any memorable highlights?

I think every Portland writer longs to read at Powell’s someday. Is there any greater honor than seeing your name on the marquee outside? I read there in August, and I couldn’t believe how many people came. Six of my exes were there, as were at least a dozen people I’d written about over the years. My book is about searching for my place in this world, and that night, I knew right where it was.

How has your perception of queerness in the South changed since writing your memoir?

Before I started reporting this book, I thought all queer Southerners should follow me straight out of the South and into Portland. Life is easier in Oregon, and I thought that unilaterally meant “better.” I was wrong, of course. Plenty of people have good reasons for staying, and I envy their bravery.

Now that your research is completed, how have you moved on after spending a decade researching Hudgins’ life?

I think I’m still grieving the end of the process. Roy and this story have haunted me my entire adult life. Who am I if I’m not digging for details? I don’t know yet, but until I find out, I’m happily spending my days writing about other people for the Washington Post. It’s a real relief to get to write in third person again!

What book published in 2022 were among your favorites?

I loved Lydia Conklin’s collection Rainbow Rainbowand wished so badly I’d had it to read when I was a teenager. I went into a little depression when Michelle Hart’s We Do What We Do in the Dark ended because I wanted so much to stay in the world she’d made. And Douglas Stuart’s Young Mungo is so beautiful and devastating and affirming, and I can’t wait to read it again someday.

Costa B. Pappas is an editorial intern.