We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful London Alexander. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with London below.
Hi London, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
My purpose? My purpose is to have fun. To create things that make me laugh and to go on adventures that make me say “I can’t believe I just did that.” And if it pisses some people off along the way, even better. When I tell people that I travel around the U.S. full time exploring queer communities in each state for my Queer Across America channel on YouTube, people are shocked. I always get things like “I wish I could just get up and leave” or “must be nice not to have to work” or other condescending comments. I like living out of spite. Those kind of people have fueled my purpose. I like proving to myself that if I want to do something, I can go do it. Does it mean it’s easy? Of course not. But neither is working a 9 to 5 and being miserable with life. I can either struggle while paying for overpriced rent in my hometown or I can be struggling while traveling. I’ll take the travel.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
First and foremost, I’m a writer. I write for queer publications, I write television scripts, and I’ve published a memoir called The Downtown Underground which tells the story of my coming-of-age in Los Angeles with the underground drag queens. But writing is a long process and it can take a long time between the release of books, so I decided to go on an indefinite adventure five years ago, traveling around the U.S. to explore queer communities in each state. To satisfy my need to create and to create a digital queer community, I started filming my travels as vlogs for my Queer Across America channel on YouTube. It’s been an incredible pleasure to have the support and curiosity of my community of viewers. It’s lonely on the road so having that digital connection really keeps me going.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Being crushed by student loans, or guilt-tripped into staying near family, or waiting to save “enough” money, or working too many hours at a day job to where you’re too tired to work on your art when you get home can all suck the fun out of life. Learning not to listen to other people telling me what I should be doing was liberating. Getting up and doing what I wanted showed me just how simple it was to be happy. And being flexible has allowed me not to be discouraged when things don’t go a certain way.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I would love to collaborate with queer folks and allies not only around the U.S. but also around the world! I love learning about what makes a local queer community special. Send me songs from local queer bands, queer book recommendations, podcasts, helpful travel apps, new events, anything you can think of! Queer Across America is gaining traction right now, so it would be awesome for me to get on podcasts or other queer travel vlogs, or for me to interview people in the same realm.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/londonalexanderx/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@londonalexanderx
Image Credits
Olivia Graves
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