Story of Keshen

About

About My Work

My stories are an anthology chronicling the history of groups of people and their searches for a home. I do not know how long it will take for me to finish it all, but I absolutely do not want to rush it. My big inspirations for the contents of the stories are Jewish and Hungarian history, culture and folklore; things that have fascinated me for years.
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The main goal of this project is for me to just do something I enjoy. I am not trying to make this profitable (though if you want, I do appreciate donations). Apart from my own enjoyment, I want to write stories that educate. Specifically, I want to encourage my audience to think critically about what they read, why it is written the way it is, and who in the world of the story benefits from the way it is written. On the monetary aspect of this project, I also understand that a lot of people are struggling to get by, and I do not want anyone in my audience to spend money on me for as long as I am able to sustain myself.
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Another goal of this project is to speak on important social issues of the modern world. Being American-born, Jewish and Hungarian, I am not well represented on the world stage (given that the U.S., Israel and Hungary are countries that range from “led by psychopaths” to “designed for genocide and imperialism”). As such, I want to both give people outside of these communities a positive representation of my cultures and to reach out to people within them, even if they do not share my political beliefs. I hope to communicate with people like this to encourage them to think about what is going on in the world, what they are supporting and what alternatives there are by presenting allegories of real-world events that would be meaningful to them.

Lastly, I want to talk about the quality of my work. I do not see myself as some genius wordsmith. While I have gotten good feedback on my writing in the past, I expect a lot of what I write might be bizarre or poorly worded. If this is the case, please reach out and let me know if the wording is too confusing or a part of the story seems unnecessary.

About Me

I was born in Austin, Texas to two teachers. Most of my childhood was spent reading and being read to, consuming story after story. After my family moved to California, I discovered an interest in writing. This interest turned into a passion, and I kept reading fantasy stories and other types of fiction to inspire myself.

In middle school and high school I also developed a fascination with history and cultures. Part of this was fueled by my background. My mom was born and raised in Hungary and my dad in the United States as a Jew. This made me feel unique when I was growing up, and I wanted to learn more about these two cultures. I went through a few rough phases with this interest (going down problematic rabbit-holes such as revanchism and irridentism), but I came out with a better understanding of myself, my culture and my family. With this knowledge I felt able to write more personally, using stories as outlets to learn about and explore my special interests.

I grew up with (late-diagnosed) autism, meaning I have always felt isolated, regardless of who is around me. As such, I try to reach out to people like me and give them some kind of comfort in community. Having autism, I think I also ran out of books that satisfied me, since I have unrealistically high standards for stories, worldbuilding and more. Since I am trying to write stories that I would enjoy reading, I try to add a level of detail I would be satisfied with. There are plenty of complications I have encountered as a neurodivergent person, and I am trying to work some of these into my writing, both to show others with these issues that they are not alone as well as to talk to neurotypical people and show them what it is actually like to live with these kinds of disorders.

I also grew up in the closet due to the fact that most of my media consumption was comprised of very straight-coded characters and a few gay stereotypes. I attribute much of my teenage depression to my inability to understand myself and how I feel about others, and I believe that if I had been able to see a more diverse array of queer experiences I would not have felt so isolated. I want to provide these options to people who are in the same position I was so that they can live life to their fullest without confusion. I understand that this will concern some more conservative parents, so I will put something below.

I believe that a natural extension of a fascination with culture and language is attention to world affairs. I was largely isolated in my childhood, since I grew up in suburban America, but my family was attentive enough to current events that I became politically active at a young age. My first interaction with politics was attending a march on the day of the presidential inauguration in 2017. At that time I was only twelve years old, and writing this biography nearly a decade later, I can’t help but see how far I have come: now I am a staunch socialist, diasporist and anti-assimilationist (and more broadly anti-imperialist), and I do my best to help everyone I can regardless of who they are. I hope that through my works I can show future generations what mistakes we are making in the world today, show people in my communities the realities they may be blind to, and broadly encourage learning and critical thinking. I welcome any and all constructive criticism or comments of any kind, and I hope that my work is enjoyable for my audience.

About My Name

You are probably wondering how to pronounce my name. The name Nechemye comes from Yiddish while Keszthelyi comes from Hungarian, so it is only normal for non-Jews and non-Hungarians to be confused by the pronunciation, so here it is:

/nɛˈxɛm.jɛ ˈkɛst̪.hɛ.ji/

If you can’t read IPA, I understand, so here it is in more English-friendly writing:

neh-KHEM-yeh KEST-hey-yi

Or, if you find the kh more difficult to pronounce, it is fine to replace it with either a k or an h.

About Queer People

If you are concerned about me being queer, just know that I am asexual (I do not have much sexual/romantic interest), and sexuality itself is not the focus of my work. This is not to say that any other queer people are focused on sexuality; being queer means more than that.

Grooming is a largely overblown concern that is being amplified by billion-dollar propaganda campaigns. Large corporations only pushed marketable queer symbolism like the rainbow because it was profitable to appeal to the majority opinion of us in the 2010s. In fact, a lot of queer people have gotten tired of everything designed to appeal to us being covered in an almost obnoxious amount of rainbow imagery. Now that conservative groups have taken power, though, those same corporations have eagerly dismissed our community. If you want proof, think about this:

1. So many queer people are struggling to get by, often living in poverty, while the people talking about how degenerate we are are rarely seen without a full set of first-hand clothing and/or tailored suits. If you think there is a big money campaign pushing us on you, look at where all the money is.
2. In fact, the reason there are so many queer and trans people in sex work is because those are the only jobs a lot of us can get.
3. Trans shooters are rare, while cisgender shooters (particularly cis male shooters) are the overwhelming majority. Queer people are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators
4. Most sex offenders are cis, especially cis men. People do not transition because it is “cool” or because it allows them to win at sports; transitioning involves a lot of big changes in one’s life and often incurs a lot of discrimination, harassment and abuse.
5. If you think there is some connection between being queer/trans and being neurodivergent, you are right, but it is because neurodivergent people have a different way of viewing the world and the rules of society. We tend to understand things differently from you. Not in a wrong way, just in a different way.
6. Lastly, if you think your child is depressed because they are trans or queer, ask them how the people around them behave (i.e. whether they are bullied), try to fix their environment, and then see how their mood changes.

I care about the well-being of children. That is partly why I am writing my stories: to give them similar kinds of actual, genuine media to what I was given growing up. There is a massive push from the government and giant media corporations to try and keep us uneducated. Everything is being done to ensure that your child grows up dumb enough to be subservient to a system that will never benefit them. All I can do is write and encourage you to find or create stories or media (without AI) to inspire your children to be creative and curious.