Alumni Feature – Mike DeSocio
Mike DeSocio (COM’17) has been busy since graduating a few years ago.
Beyond his freelance journalism, with pieces featured in The Washington Post, The Guardian and BBC, and writing regularly for CNET, the Kilachand Honors College alum recently went around the country on a promotional tour for his first book, Morally Straight: How the Fight for LGBTQ Inclusion Changed the Boy Scouts — And America, published June 6, 2024.
How did Kilachand programs or classes inform your post-grad decisions?
I mean, the thing that comes to mind first is the Keystone project that I did, which definitely pushed me in the direction of narrative writing and long-form journalism, which I really hadn’t done at all up until that point. It pushed me to be more ambitious than any of my previous journalism work, which was mostly confined to the Daily Free Press or classes, and [mostly] short-form articles or shorter photo projects. That particular piece was on LGBTQ youth homelessness in Boston. So I ended up profiling someone who I spent about six months shadowing, and then I used her story to illuminate a lot of the bigger issues that were at play. In terms of the bigger picture of the type of work I care the most about, KHC kind of set me on that path.
When and how did it become clear to you that a book would be the medium for telling your story and the broader story of LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Boy Scouts?
I eventually realized that the written word was kind of the only way to get at this history, because I had touched this story in various ways over the years, even while I was at BU. I remember one summer, I was desperately trying to figure out how to tell a story about this, and I was like, ‘What if I do a fictionalized version?’ I had all these weird ideas, and nothing really came about. As time went on in my professional life, I was like, ‘I’ve got a little more experience writing, and because this story is primarily historical, the only way to get at this is [through] research and writing. It was a big leap for me to go from having written like one magazine piece for my Keystone project, and then doing daily news reporting [as a journalist], to doing something that was 100,000 words [by] the end of it.”
Did all of that research and writing change the way that you reflect upon your own experiences when you were in the boy scouts?
One of the biggest things I learned was that so many people had the same experience that I did. Growing up, I really thought I was the only one. I know it sounds silly, but I [felt] like no one else is struggling in this way. I felt very alone in the experience of discovering my queerness. And then I started interviewing people for the book, and almost every single person’s story followed the same beats as mine. I felt this real connection to a lineage of Scouters, of activists, of queer people who all loved the organization the same way I did, and were really grappling with their place in it.
Now that you’ve gotten to release the book and bring it to a wider audience, what has been the most rewarding part of going on the book tour and engaging with your audiences in person?
The book tour was really magical. A lot of the people who came were people I already knew, even that was really special, because some of them I hadn’t seen in a long time, and then there were also complete strangers who showed up. So many of them came up to me and, like, yeah, shared their own experiences of scouting, or told me how they felt really seen by this story. I did one particular event over the summer in Colorado that was during a big boy scout event, so a lot of Boy Scout people were in town. So many of them never knew this history. Now I feel like I’m connected to this bigger thing.
At this moment in time, do you have the desire to write another book at all?
After the first, knowing how much work goes into it, I needed to be really sure before I really dive in. And then in the fall, I started tossing around the idea of doing a memoir, and then for National Novel Writing Month in November, I was like, “Oh, okay, I guess I have a memoir now.” It was in really rough shape. Now I’m in a second class that’s helping revise and make some big changes. Whether it gets published is another question. So it’s still early days, but I do feel comfortable saying that I’m working on it, and it’s been really fun so far.
How does writing a memoir and reflecting on your own life differ from doing a more narrative research piece?
The thing that’s easier [about a memoir] is I don’t have to do any reporting, right. The first book took so long because I had to do so much interviewing. The challenge [now] is more so being really honest with myself, because I think we all have a tendency to craft a narrative that makes us look good, or that’s more palatable, and maybe that’s what came out in my first draft. It’s going to be subjective, it’s my memory, but even within that subjectivity, I want to make sure I’m at least being honest with myself and with the reader. There are elements of my first book that are first person, and I weaved it in a little, but to have a whole book about that, it’s like, “Wow, how do I keep it interesting?”
How do you think writers and journalists can best contribute to, like, fostering more inclusive and empathetic conversations?
Storytelling breaks down so many barriers. It’s one thing to talk about a political topic in the abstract, but at the end of the day, we’re actually just talking about people, and I find that storytelling is a way to get people into that more empathetic zone. I don’t think it can solve every problem, but I do think we need to have that shared humanity and understanding of each other, and I don’t know a better way to do that than sharing stories.
If you could go back and give advice to your college self, what would it be?
I would want to tell my college self to not be so scared and that it’s all gonna work out in a way. I think I was really worried in college that I wouldn’t be able to combine all my interests and passions into a career. I was always like, “Do I want to be a writer or a photographer?” I was also just worried, because I didn’t really start coming out until halfway through college. That was all very fresh. I want little college me to know that I can be my full, queer, authentic self, and have a really successful career doing the things I love.