notes from a sweltering summer

global solidarity, writing & art opportunities, & more

August is a month of alliteration for me: Sizzling. Sealey Challenge.¹ Sweltering. Solidarity. [My dad’s death]. Soledad. Sunshine despite all of the suffering. Or maybe the sun is just the sun, and therefore indifferent to it.

The sun on my skin is a sign I’m alive, and I’m grateful for it. Yes, even the south texas heat, the way it feels like the air is pricking you with scorching pins.

I don’t have much else by way of introduction this time around, but I do have tons of things I’ve been saving for the next round-up, so let’s dive right in.

Solidarity with Palestine:

• Since my last newsletter, a war criminal with international warrants addressed us congress, he received dozens of separate standing ovations, and the democrat nominee for president took the time to criticize protestors, again. so much for saving democracy, right? there are alternatives to “lesser of two evils”²

• We are deep into olympics season— here is more info about the IOC’s refusal to ban israel

• Workshops4Gaza has tons of workshops you can attend (or lead your own) with all proceeds going towards Palestinians. The wonderful mónica teresa ortiz is leading “Poetry in Work” this Sunday, 8/11

• Check out this letter to Disability:IN about divesting from war profiteers

• USCPR is a good resource for engaging with us representatives.

• Check out the BDS site for up to date info on boycotting and other campaigns

• This site tells you if products you’re thinking of buying support the occupation

Writing & Art Opportunities:

• Shenandoah - CNF on language and identity, especially interested in work from marginalized writers - open until submission cap is reached

• here to complain - pays BIPOC contributors $50 - nonwriters welcome!

  • if you’re Black or brown with a work-related microaggression story to tell, we wanna hear it— because who among us doesn’t need to vent.

• LittlePuss Press

  • We are currently considering original manuscripts of fiction and non-fiction (including works-in-progress). We are also considering reprint proposals of literary/historical works of significance by transgender authors.

• Printed Matter is seeking artists books, zines, etc on Decolonization, Resistance & Solidarity

• just femme & dandy - THE DRAG ISSUE - open to queer fashion writing - closes TODAY 8/5

  • send me³ your work for the fat+furious section!

• beestung - open to work from non-binary, genderqueer, and two-spirit writers - closes TOMORROW 8/6

• Futurepoem - Other Futures Award - open for full-length poetry & hybrid, sliding scale fee - closes 8/15

• All My Relations - Volume 7: Rest - open to racially & ethnically marginalized, gender variant, & disabled creatives - closes 8/15

• Nightboat Books - Editorial Fellowship for BIPOC - closes 8/15

• Feminist Press - open to book-length fiction, nonfiction, and anthologies - closes 8/20

• Sundress Publications - full-length poetry collections - closes 8/31

  • free subs for BIPOC the entire reading period

• Lilac Peril - open to all genres from trans writers - closes 9/1

• fifth wheel press - light em up anthology - open to all genres from queer, trans, and gender variant writers - closes 9/15

  • fifth wheel press is also open to blog submissions for visual art only

• Annulet Editions - full-length poetry, prose, & literary criticism manuscripts - closes 9/15

• Literary Liberation - essays, interviews, etc on craft & writing, detailed guidelines here - closes 9/22

From around the internet:

• Queer Palestine is out with Pinko collective

• torrin a. greathouse guest-editing poem-a-day is the best thing to happen to my inbox. Check out “no one wants to be rough anymore” by Xan Forest Phillips, “anyways im radicalized now” by aeon ginsberg, and literally everything else from July’s poem-a-day series

• Electric Lit is releasing the Both/And anthology featuring trans writers of color

• Also from Electric Lit, an essay on transness and parenthood from Krys Malcolm Belc

• and an essay about traveling around the South as a gay trans man by Lane Michael Stanley

  • gays who are living resistance to a dominant red culture, communities of color and queers on the frontlines, and when we write off a region we leave them behind.

• Melissa McEver Huckabay has a great poem “Young Woman” in phoebe

• C. M. Green has three summery poems in Moist Poetry Journal

• sterling-elizabeth arcadia has new work in ONLY POEMS. I especially love the prompt at the end of this interview and how it relates to her chapbook Heaven, Ekphrasis

• Here on substack, check out

  Taco Bell Quarterly
  ’s essay on transitioning and writing

• Glenn Shaheen’s two poems in diode on complicity and capital

What I’ve been up to:

• New work: I have two very trans texan poems in smoke and mold. I’m a big fan of this journal, and I’m so glad my Texan Sonnet especially found a home with them.

• Virtual reading: I’ll be reading with Brooke Shaffner for her novel Country of Under’s launch with Split/Lip Press next Tuesday, August 13th! You can register for the zoom reading here. Keep an eye out for my interview with Brooke that day as well!

  

• FREE virtual workshop: I’ll be leading “Radical Revisions: One Poem, Infinite Possibilities” with Sundress Publications on Wednesday, September 11th, 2024, from 5:00–6:30 PM CT. You can learn more about the workshop here, and in future newsletters

• I’m SUPER close to my crowdfunding goal to attend the Roots. Wounds. Words. writing retreat in September. I’ll be working on a hybrid memoir about power dynamics, language, and how I’ve been making sense of it

• My new zine EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE is here. My zines are always free/pay-what-you-want to download. I’ll be participating in my first zine fest next month! It’s virtual (yay access!), so y’all will hear all the details first. I’ve been working on uploading/digitizing my two year backlog of zines, and I’m hoping to have a bigger poetry zine ready for the fest, too

Summer is a time of rebirth for me. A few summers ago, I wrote the line I wanted the Sun so bad I stole its name.

<3

Thanks for reading this far down! Trans poetica will always be free, but donations are greatly appreciated! I have three pay-what-you-want zines available here. I am available for editing, readings, workshops, and more through my site (though my fall is mostly booked).

If you have an opportunity for trans, BIPOC, disabled, otherwise marginalized writers or artists you’d like me to include, please let me know. If I’m platforming an institution that is doing wrong by our communities, please let me know that, too.

1. I’ve kept up with it so far!

2. I will not rant about how flawed this idea is even though I really want to

3. through the jf&d link!