Team Pick: “Nancy” Goes To A-Camp

feature image by Robin Roemer

I don’t mean the person (though I’m sure there were many Nancies there). I mean the podcast. Nancy is like gay This American Life. Kathy Tu and Tobin Low create a sound-venture of queerness from the perspective of two Asian-American homogays. I’ve been listening to Nancy since the first episode happened. I teared up; it’s everything I love about podcasts and radio shows with its slice-of-life sensibility, calm intonations, and also it’s 100% gaygaygay content. They have an episode about the “ring of keys” moment. They have an episode about the Pulse shooting. And now, they have an episode in which Kathy Tu, half of team Nancy, goes to A-Camp for the first time.

Now, as you may have gathered from my thousands upon thousands of complaints, I did not get to go to Camp this year; my wife was graduating from law school. This podcast audio, and Kathy herself, was super endearing and it really alleviated some of my sorrow at not being able to be there. I couldn’t stop smiling while listening to everyone being silly and laughing and making cool shit (and Jenny singing!). I loved hearing all my friends talk; the friends I haven’t met yet (I’ll be back at Camp next Spring, so I’ll meet you then!) I already loved Nancy — I’ve been listening since it started. But my love burst forth like a thousand suns.

Kathy Tu and Maggie the Mailperson!

You should listen to this episode if you, too, were sad about not being able to go. Or if you’ve never been and you don’t know what Camp is. Or if you were there and you want to have the cool, cool water of happy queer folks drip dropping upon your heart. Ugh. I’m tearing up a little, guys. I can’t. I’m listening to it right now as I type this and “Heaven is a Place On Earth” is playing and I’m crying LISTEN TO THE THING.

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A.E. Osworth

A.E. Osworth is part-time Faculty at The New School, where they teach undergraduates the art of digital storytelling. Their novel, We Are Watching Eliza Bright, about a game developer dealing with harassment (and narrated collectively by a fictional subreddit), is forthcoming from Grand Central Publishing (April 2021) and is available for pre-order now. They have an eight-year freelancing career and you can find their work on Autostraddle (where they used to be the Geekery Editor), Guernica, Quartz, Electric Lit, Paper Darts, Mashable, and drDoctor, among others.

A.E. has written 542 articles for us.

14 Comments

  3. Absolutely love this podcast & glad to see the collab with autostraddle! I especially loved the ring of keys segment. So adorable.

  5. this is so sweet! I’m always sad camp is so unaffordable for me, because it sounds wonderful. </3

  9. I love Nancy! The ring of keys story in episode 2 and the inter-generational conversation between two HIV pos gay men in ep 6 are my personal faves, but it’s all worth listening to. Yay.

  10. This episode solidified my v extreme FOMO and has prompted me to include attending A-Camp in my 5-year financial prospectus.

  12. Love Nancy. Loved this episode. Really want to be able to make A-Camp work for my schedule next year

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