Bryan Washington’s 2016 story “Navigation” tells the story of a taqueria worker who gives Spanish lessons to his wealthy white lover. Throughout the story, the narrator navigates lines of race, class, and queerness in Houston.
Washington’s story was a finalist in the 2016 Texas Observer Short Story Contest and appears in Lot, his highly-lauded debut collection. We’re pleased to announce that Washington is the judge for this year’s contest, the Observer’s tenth.
The stories in Lot take place in Houston, Washington’s home, and capture the city in a “meticulous, tenderhearted way,” Michael Arceneaux wrote in a review last year. Washington penned “Navigation” after witnessing an interaction at a local haunt—a flirtatious encounter between a cashier and an oil-and-gas type—and “wanting to explore the possibility of a story inside it,” he told Observer fiction editor David Duhr in 2016.
