D/Annie Liontas

What are your research interests?

As a trans-genderqueer writer and an immigrant who experiences disability, I write to resist erasure; I ask what it means to be seen as foreign in one’s own body and nation. In 2025, my deeply researched crip-queer memoir, SEX WITH A BRAIN INJURY, was awarded the ALA’s Stonewall Award for Nonfiction, and The New York Times published my op-ed on disability justice and the criminal justice system.THIS BOY'S LIVES, my new work of hybrid creative nonfiction, grapples with transmasculine visibility and selfhood in America and abroad. Excerpts from the collection have been published in The Atlantic and The New Review.

What classes are you teaching at Lehigh?

Creative Nonfiction; Fiction

What degrees do you hold and where did you earn them?

Bachelor of Arts in English (Rutgers University); Master of Education (Rutgers University); Master of Fine Arts (Syracuse University)

What was your previous institution?

George Washington University

What do you enjoy most about teaching?

Having taught both undergraduates and graduates for nearly twenty years, I have come to learn that teaching, like writing, is a reflexive practice one tries each day to fail better at. In the nonfiction classroom, I aspire to enact the teachings of Annie Dillard, who asserts that the literary essay is a moral exercise that involves direct engagement with the unknown, whether exploring a foreign civilization or your own mind, and what matters in this is you. I am awed by the stories that emerging writers tell. At Lehigh, I aspire to serve as a model and mentor for students seeking faculty whose experiences resonate with their own. As a first-generation-to-college immigrant who learned to speak English, a trans/queer person, and an individual living with disability, I hope to make visible the experience of living in the margins.

Why did you choose Lehigh?

In 2026, the integrity of a university matters more than ever, and I am honored to join an institution that resists erasure and promotes social justice, encourages genuine collaboration, and values creative thinking. Lehigh University stands behind its principles to affirm the inherent dignity in all people, and I am proud to be in this fight with you. We keep the fires lit 'till morning.