Front Cover: Dreams by Irina Tall @irina1187_novikova

Irina Tall (Novikova) is an artist, graphic artist, illustrator. She graduated from the State Academy of Slavic Cultures with a degree in art, and also has a bachelor's degree in design.

The first personal exhibition "My soul is like a wild hawk" (2002) was held in the museum of Maxim Bagdanovich. In her works, she raises themes of ecology, in 2005 she devoted a series of works to the Chernobyl disaster, draws on anti-war topics. The first big series she drew was The Red Book, dedicated to rare and endangered species of animals and birds. Writes fairy tales and poems, illustrates short stories.  She draws various fantastic creatures: unicorns, animals with human faces, she especially likes the image of a man - a bird - Siren. In 2020, she took part in Poznań Art Week. Her work has been published in magazines: Gupsophila, Harpy Hybrid Review, Little Literary Living Room and others. In 2022, her short story was included in the collection "The 50 Best Short Stories", and her poem was published in the collection of poetry "The wonders of winter."

Expired by Sef @seaandfog

Sef is a queer neurodivergent artist and writer searching for poetics of transformation in the everyday. 

september 5th by von reyes @vonrxyes

von (he/him) is a durham, NC-based writer focused on illuminating masculinity and Asian diasporic identity through essays, poetry, and speculative fiction. he explores themes of surrealism, transexuality, existentialism, and ancestry. he attended East Carolina University and UNC Wilmington, where he received his MA in Sociology. his work is featured in Fruitslice, Same Faces Collective, A Coup of Owls Press, fifth wheel press, and more.
website: vonreyes.com ig: 

Origami by Harper Walton @harperwalton_

Harper Walton has a Master’s Degree in creative writing from the Paris School of Arts and Culture. Their work has been featured by Magma, 1883 Magazine, Whitechapel Gallery, Venice Architecture Biennale and more. They edited the anthology Carnival at the End of the World for Buoy Press.

Two Collages by Lin Frank @lin.illustration

Folkestone based artist/maker working with themes surrounding madness, queer femininity and magic. 

Extinction by Ali Liefgreen

I am a queer behavioural scientist living in London although I was born and raised in Italy. So far I been published in t'ART Press, Queerlings Magazine, Opia Magazine and Polari Press's anthology 'Creating in Crisis'.

made:unmade by Bee @beeillustrates

Hello!! I’m Bee (aka @beeillustrates) and I’m a queer visual artist based in East London. I’m primarily an illustrator, but over the past few years have branched out into a multidisciplinary creative and curator. I mostly make artwork centred around living with mental illness and figuring out my place in the world - but mainly I just like making art that makes you feel things.

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made:unmade (2024) addresses themes of generational trauma, heritage, belonging, and grief, and reflects on how memory shapes our understanding of identity and loss.

Inspired by a recently discovered photograph of my parents taken prior to my father’s passing, the piece is an intimate reflection on the emotional weight carried through familial spaces. 

There are several symbolic elements within the piece that reference the enduring impact of loss on identity and belonging, the strain that grief can put on the relationships between bereaved family members left behind, and the disconnect between those that would do anything to remember versus those that are longing to forget. 

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made:unmade takes its name from a line in Ali Smith's How To Be Both - one of my favourite books. It’s an ode to the often-painful coexistence of opposites: the feeling of being somehow both alive and not alive, embodying both male and female, and being bound to the past, present and future all at once – emotional ley lines connecting me to someone who is no longer physically *here*, yet continues to shape every aspect of who I 

The Witchery of Living by Bobby J. H. Draaijer

Bobby Draaijer is a twenty-one-year-old writer from The Netherlands pursuing a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing. Her writing intends to dissect the confusing condition of being human and how life moves around us. 

Skin-Deep by Net Warner @net.warner

Net Warner is a trans artist working between London and Southampton. They look at the plasticity of society, and the plasticity of the self.

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Their practice investigates how we are taught to see, and how the texture of categorisation melts, hardens, and abstracts under the heat of time.

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Skin-deep shows UV printed plastic stretched around an amorphous form, cracked and broken in two. In splitting apart, Skin-deep interrogates the space between perceived binaries of finality and process, creation and destruction, gender and sexuality, past and present.

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This persistent need to hold ourselves together, the shame in the break-down. This pressure stops us from causing mischief, from stretching the status quo, from finding ourselves, from being able to breathe. 

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In its initial making, Skin-deep broke, on a desperate day and in a desperate way, knocked onto the floor after hours of awkwardly melting its two halves together. It refused finality, split open, and lay there, gasping on the floor. 
I refused
I split open
My trans body shown before me.
I mourned what I had thought was destroyed, then I found what was created in its destruction.

In cracking under the pressure to reach finality, Skin-deep’s rupture expressed a frustration and need to escape from the inevitability of moulding oneself within societal structures that never quite fit. 

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The plastic skin is now a mere surface revealing the form that it both protected and suffocated. What remains are the unanswerable questions of how we mould within and around society, and how we crack it apart.

The Underside by Kimberly Gibson-Tran @kdawn999

I grew up in Thailand because my parents were medical missionaries there for nearly two decades. I remember taking cross-stitching lessons from a nextdoor neighbor--there's something very satisfying about watching the little crosses slowly pixelating into a greater whole. When stitching, you're moving the needle between two planes--the world on the surface and the mess of the underside. I wonder how my dad feels about sewing people up, which is what he has done a lot of: that is, mending what he has broken. 

Morning 27/9/24 by Beth Macdonold @simplythebethpoetry

Beth Macdonald is a writer who started in 2009 and hasn't run out of things to say yet. She writes about emotions and how the world rattles against the softer side of the human experience. Sometimes, she can be found telling cats Big Stretch!

Fragments by Niv Fridman @niv_fridman and Alma Gershuni

Niv Fridman’s work explores the intersection of queerness, history, and identity, using self-portraiture and intervention to challenge dominant narratives. Through photography, performance, and mixed media, Fridman queers the past—disrupting the heterosexual, patriarchal lens that has shaped historical representation. His practice is rooted in disguise, reinvention, and archival subversion, embedding his own queer presence into canonical imagery. By manipulating historical texts, costumes, and artifacts, he exposes the ways history is constructed and who it excludes.

Alma Gershuni, an artist who focuses mainly on classical figurative painting. Alma paints from direct observation with natural light, uses the ancient traditional techniques of oil painting on mainly on wood, and deals with classical subjects such as portraits, still life and landscape. Her artistic observation goes deep into the subject until it becomes almost abstract. 

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The artist Niv Fridman and the painter Alma Gershuni created a series of 3 fragments of a broken body based on the casts made from Fridman’s body. The queer perception of the body is often fragmented and in this work, the artists reflected on the complex relationship between the perception of themselves and their physical presence. The work is inspired by Greek and Roman sculptures, which were often coloured in bright shades that faded over time. Both artists are interested in history and its current implications on our daily lives. As a child Fridman used to go near the beach where lies an archaeological site he grew up and collect old pieces of clay washed onto shore, imagining what they were like thousands of years ago. Gershuni is a figurative painter who is inspired by the work of the Old Masters and tries to find new ways of expression with centuries-old techniques.

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The body casts bear two different modern-like tattoos, thus blurring the perception between historical and fiction. The tattoos echo two homoerotic tales from mythology: That of the beautiful narcissus who fell in love with his image and turned into a flower and that of Zeus who disguised himself as an eagle to tempt the beautiful prince Ganymede.

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The work by Niv Fridman and Alma Gershuni featured in the Queer International Exhibition at Cookhouse Gallery on January 2024 (16 John Islip Street London) curated by Cheo Gonzalez. 

Spartan boy by Gale Aitken

Gale Aitken is a poet and archivist-in-training. He lives in Dublin and is the proud owner of over 500 playlists. Previous works have been published in Pride Poets: An LGBTQ+ Poetry Anthology, The Madrigal, Icarus, and Sweet Tooth Magazine.

Comparison Study | AIR / CAUTION | LEFTOVERS | SEALED by BEE LB @twinbrights

BEE LB is an array of letters, bound to impulse; an artist creating delicate connections. they have called any number of places home; currently, a single yellow wall on unceded Anishinaabe land in Michigan. they have been published in FOLIO, Figure 1, The Offing, and Harpur Palate, among others. their portfolio can be found at twinbrights.carrd.co and they can be found at patreon.com/twinbrights

Rudolphe by Lucie Arnoux @luciedrawsthings

Lucie Arnoux is a London-based illustrator, painter and comic-book author.

Triptych from Summer Instagram Grid by Enjay DeGuzman @enjaydeguzman

Enjay DeGuzman is a queer femme of Pennsylvania Dutch and Filipina descent living outside Philadelphia. Beyond her work as a writer and educator, she can often be found riding horses, winging her eyeliner, and looking at trees. She has a BSE in English education, an MA in English, and is currently an MFA student at Rosemont College. Her work has previously appeared in Fruitslice. You can find her on Instagram @enjaydeguzman. 

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by C.H. Lieberman @lieberman.christopher

C.H. Lieberman (he/him) is a writer, performer, and visual artist from South London. His work explores intimacy, heartbreak, and mental illness. His poetry has appeared in "& Change", "Trans Tongues", "The Amphibian", and "Carnations, Violets + Lavender". 

Bathing with Moshi by Spencer Eckart

Spencer Eckart is a hybrid poet with work published or forthcoming in Ghost City Review, Apocalypse Confidential, and elsewhere.

Want to Break Free | Together by Gessica Carbone @carbonegessica

"I am a self-taught ceramic artist based in London, I first started to hand-built small creatures representing feelings and emotions during the first lockdown for the Covid pandemic, and since then I have deepened the use of clay to explore my inner world and shared with others everyday experiences and beliefs around ourselves and the way of being in this world. In my Art I try to represent the deep and complicated journey of the unconscious from the Wounds of our Inner Traumas to the Relief of Healing."

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Want to Break Free
Maybe one day she will Feel Free.
I don't mind the blue oxide falling on her skin from those birds around, as it resonates with her inside feelings; it's the blue she carries inside. I don't even mind the patchy back, the imperfection of the birds and the piece itself, a bit thick and invasive; it might represent something painful she is going through, something that is taking her peace away.
Maybe one day she will Feel Free.

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Together
The Closeness, the touch, the smell, the breath of a moment spent together.

Apple Crumble by Matt Leonard @That_book_aesthetic

I am a queer writer and practitioner psychologist living in London. Like my practice, my poetry focuses predominantly on the intersectionality of identity, sexuality and faith.

Healing by Emma Wells @ewellswriting

Emma is a mother and English teacher. She has poetry published with various literary journals and magazines. She writes flash fiction, short stories and novels. She is currently writing her sixth novel. 

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between songs 0 by So Mayer

So Mayer is a writer, editor, bookseller & organiser, and their most recent book is Truth & Dare (Cipher Press, 2023) which was longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize and the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. 

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Tortillas and Coffee by J. Camarena @persephonesprose

J. Camarena is a published author with pieces featured in various literary magazines. Her days are spent with far too much coffee and a multitude of books as she works on her novel.

And Here We Are by Aullar Mateo @aullarmateo

Aullar is an artist and educator who identifies as trans non-binary and is based in Brooklyn, NY. They work with various mediums, but for the last five years, they have been dedicated to working in glass, specifically pâte de verre. Through glass sculptures and installations, they explore the multifaceted meaning of the word transition along with its physical and emotional elements. Their artwork explores queerness, the body, and the emotional journey of transitioning. They aim to start conversations about the common experiences we all share with our bodies - the desire for change, the joy of acceptance, and the beauty of understanding each other. With their work, Aullar seeks to create a space to update oppressive definitions of gender and identity, while challenging the public’s perception of the body. They strive to make invisible emotions a tangible experience, thereby pushing the limits of societal norms of contemporaneity and sexuality.

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My artistic exploration delves into the ever-changing nature of the human form. I draw inspiration from the natural aging process and the transformative potential of medical cosmetic surgery. Both forces highlight the body's continuous state of flux, its inherent impermanence, and its capacity for change. Through my work, I aim to challenge the oppressive and limiting definitions of gender and identity that society often imposes. I seek to disrupt the public's perception of the body, encouraging viewers to question their own assumptions and biases. My art is a call for acceptance, a celebration of diversity, and a testament to the power of self-definition.

She is me, Failing by Em Prendergast @emprenempren

Em is a deaf, trans actor and writer. They are currently working with Deafinitely Theatre on their tour of ‘Barriers’ a play centering two deaf lesbians and their journey with language, connection, and survival, that is coming to Camden People’s Theatre in November. 

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Alongside this they are participating in this years Soho Writers Lab to develop their new play about hearing loss, class and identity.  

Have Some Faith | Belonging by Lindsey Wagner @lindseywagner

Lindsey is a chronically ill multi-media artist (see also::analog photoshop) and poet based in Brooklyn. Her focus stretches horizontally across the intersecting planes of art and science. 

Lindsey received her bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Political Science from the University of Wisconsin and began her career in policy and strategy verticals attentive to how systems construct, fortify, and survey the pediatric body. Now she considers how frameworks such as abolition, anti-carceral strategies, and subjectivity can be applied to the remaking and reimagining of the body, systems of care, and our collective care futures. Informed by an expansive canon of anthropology, affect theory, and her praxis as a care worker, these topics remain central to her writing, art, and research. 

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Lindsey’s art is influenced by spectral intimacies and liminalism as she considers how the inter-zone of nostalgia, grief, and desire can be imprinted on everyday objects, sourcing her materials from discarded objects like guest checks and lists. Her work opens the doorway between what is sacred and common, showcasing the moments that occupy the interstitial spaces of our lives, those part of fleeting and momentary interactions, and the awkward intimacies that manifest from their recollection. 

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Her recent collage layouts were for Venus in Pisces, a book of poems published earlier last year. Her work is forthcoming in the March 2025  issue of Vagabond City Literary Journal.  

Lindsey is a first-year medical student in New York. 

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This series addresses the small intimacies of the both rejection and union in private spaces.

after amen by Cara Pleym @polar_truths

Cara could tell you many things about herself, most of which are true but few that would make sense. Her work is often uncomfortably, brutally honest and interrogates trauma in a way which might not be completely healthy. The poetry is melancholy and angry but tells the story of evolving identity and the ever-present spectrum of mental health. You can find her and her sadness @polar_truths on Instagram.

It happened when I was 10 by Casey Chan @caseycly

Casey is a second year student reading English with Film at Kings College London. They are an aspiring writer and photographer with a love for the theatre, psycho-thrillers and Sylvia Plath. Their favourite quotes about writing are "you have a calling, an urge, a delusion, an unfortunate habit" (Lorrie Moore) and "I wrote my way out" (Jeanette Winterson). They hope, wherever you are, your hands and heart are warm. 

Dance Monkey by Judith Shapiro @JudysModernLife & @GutterLoveTravels

Judith Shapiro spends half the year on the opposite coast, confused about which way is north and marveling at the sun that sets on the horizon instead of rising. When the novel she’s writing looks the other way, she secretly writes anything else. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her work appears in The Citron Review, The New York Times, The Sun and elsewhere. See more at PeaceInEveryLeaf.com.

For the Days Your Feel Nothing by Hannah Therese Drury @Hannah__Therese

"I am a writer based in London.  My work explores queer love in all of its myriad forms, mental health, addiction and the psychology of work.  I am finalising my first novel this year, but poetry will always be my first love."

Diagnostic Criteria by Johanna E. Hall @johannahallwrites

Johanna is a mostly-poet from Virginia, USA whose writing generally features lesbianism, God, disability, and/or various troubled pasts. Find more at johannapoet.com.

Open Your Mind | Pain Breaks the Rhythm by Dakota Noot @dakotanoot

Dakota Noot is a Los Angeles-based artist and curator. Originally from Bismarck, North Dakota, he continues to show in both North Dakota and Los Angeles, including solo and two-person shows at Highways Performance Space, MuzeuMM, and PØST. Noot has exhibited in group shows at Charlie James Gallery, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Torrance Art Museum, and LAST Projects. His series of cutout drawing-installations have been shown at LA Freewaves, Cerritos College Art Gallery, and Otis College. Noot has been featured in Hi-Fructose. 

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Painting and self-portraiture is an expression of gender fluidity. I translate my own body, femininity, and humor into the paintings - as the forms morph, mutate, and grow both hair and extra limbs. These appendages are an androgynous take on body horror: fusing both testicles and breasts. As an artist, I become a mad scientist as I refashion the body and either paint or cut extra canvas for body parts. I am like a femme version of Gollum: sewing myself together.

Sour Grapes by Cristina Lezcano @peruvianfaerie

Cristina Elida Lezcano (she/they) is a New Jersey native and lover of ladybugs, mirrors, and oudh. They edit for Ephemeras Literary and bring an air of vulnerability with them wherever she goes. 

Witch’s Hat by Deborah Nash @deborahnashhasted

Deborah Nash lives in Brighton. She studied visual art at the École des Beaux Arts, Bourges, and at Nanjing College of Art, China. She writes for The New European, The Wire, Apollo and Selvedge magazine while also making art, usually using fabric and collage. She had a piece exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2021. 

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WITCH'S HAT: In America, hazard warning traffic cones are called witches' hats. I found an abandoned cracked cone and bandaged it with my shirt of spells. I layered my shirt with pieces of text and egg shell mosaics. I then photographed the wrapped witch's hat on a broken road and next to a broken dolphin lamp to work its magic. If this oracle could speak, it would say: 'Don't worry about the future, it's bound to be terrible!'

Back Cover: Re-Born by Sue Gascoyne @sue.gascoyne

“As an artist I enjoy using textiles, stitch, painting, mark-making, mixed media and interactive installations to explore relationships, identity and belonging. Sustainability and giving people a voice are central to my practice. Coming to art only recently after a life-changing event I am relishing my explorations with materiality and pushing boundaries. I am on the 2024/25 TOMA cohort. Reimagining humanity as a beautiful fragile and fractured egg, Re-Born is a material exploration of what it means to survive vulnerabilities and trauma; experience safety and repair, to emerge stronger, enriched and emboldened."

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Sue Gascoyne is a socially engaged artist, whose sensory-rich and immersive work are explorations of what it means to be human. The hand of the maker is intentionally evident in the plethora of practices used by Sue to bring sculptures and work to life. Greatly influenced by her background as a child psychotherapist and a strong environmental ethic, Sue’s investigations with materiality, particularly humble textiles, inform her approach to exploring and interrogating issues around equality, safety, agency and identity and gender.