Doing Too Much: Samantha Josephs on Carrying

Samantha Josephs, a semi-retired drag queen and USC screenwriting graduate, discusses her debut novel Carrying, published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in October 2026. The book follows Martha, a stealth trans woman in Los Angeles whose husband is unaware of her past, who develops an unnamed illness leading to an impossible pregnancy. Josephs explains that the impossible pregnancy was the story’s core concept, with the title drawing from ballroom terminology meaning to perform extravagantly. She employed close third-person present tense narration to maintain distance from Martha while keeping readers inside the scene. The novel deliberately avoids naming the illness’s cause or invoking supernatural explanations common to pregnancy horror. Josephs discusses how her background in drag, erotica, video games, and screenwriting informed the book’s timing, appetites, and nerve. She notes the challenge of adapting the novel into a screenplay with Tommy Dorfman directing, particularly in conveying Martha’s interiority without narration.

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