Image by Tom or Judy Moore
Dear writers, readers and friends,
We’ve had an amazing response to the feedback form (https://forms.gle/NaiKLaM37AffoxkH6) , thank you. If you haven’t filled it out, please take a moment to have your say. We will digest and report in good time but it has already been so helpful to see your ideas and understand the needs and wishes of our writing community.
And now, February! Allow us to unveil these tech-savvy little pigs courtesy of Tom or Judy Moore (https://www.instagram.com/ignatzhoch/) , a multifunctional artist and busy little bee based in Berlin. They’ve exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, ICA London, and Whose Museum. They sing and teach drawing in Berlin, co-curate the Visual Verse Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/visualverseanthology/) and create the comic Everything is Somewhat Repaired, a phenomenal body of work and continual source of inspiration, humour and humanity for us this past year. Read it on Insta (https://www.instagram.com/everythingrepaired/) or, if you subscribe to their Patreon (http://patreon.com/tomorjudy) you can get it and other exclusive content straight to your inbox and you’ll be supporting a talented trans artist.
We are thrilled to launch with a brilliant line-up of LGBTQ+ writers as LGBTQ+ history month gets underway. With these four wonderful lead pieces, and our fabulous image prompt, we honour the historical struggles of LGBTQ+ people. And we also wish to celebrate the full capacity of human love and be reminded to keep our hearts and minds open to those who are most vulnerable in contemporary society.
First up, we welcome Elizabeth Chakrabarty, an interdisciplinary writer exploring themes of race and sexuality. Her debut novel Lessons in Love and Other Crimes will be published by The Indigo Press in April 2021, and is on pre-order here (https://www.theindigopress.com/lessons-in-love) . Her poems have been published here at Visual Verse (https://visualverse.org/writers/elizabeth-chakrabarty/) , and she co-wrote ‘The Fiction of the Essay: of Abstraction, Texts, Communication and Loss’, published in Imagined Spaces (https://uk.bookshop.org/books/imagined-spaces/9780995512344) . Under her full name, Namita Elizabeth Chakrabarty, she has been published in the area of Critical Race Theory (https://www.routledge.com/Critical-Race-Theory-in-England/Chakrabarty-Roberts-Preston/p/book/9780415713078) , her story Eurovision was short-listed for the Asian Writer Short Story Prize, and published in Dividing Lines (http://dahlia-books.kong365.com/en-gb/products/dividing-lines) , and recently her poems
were chosen for the new anthology The Kali Project: Invoking the Goddess Within/Indian Women’s Voices (https://www.bookdepository.com/Kali-Project-Candice-Louisa-Daquin/9781951724061?ref=grid-view&qid=1611168944417&sr=1-1&fbclid=IwAR1EasUA6Y5UOwiZ0767VbKsTEWhHFNsAzKEQZsHRbXLpr-WXpWSyzY1_5M) .
On page 2 we feature Sy Brand, a queer non-binary poet living in Edinburgh, Scotland. They write through the haze of cat-/child-induced sleep deprivation to try and make sense of gender, relationships, and ADHD. Their work has been published in Popshot Quarterly, Capsule Stories, and ZARF Poetry, among others, and you can find some of their ekphrastic writing in the Visual Verse archives (https://visualverse.org/writers/sy-brand/) . You can find them on Twitter @TartanLlama (https://twitter.com/TartanLlama) and their publications at https://sybrand.ink (https://sybrand.ink/) .
Page 3 welcomes Siobhán Carroll to Visual Verse. Siobhán is a writer and performer based in Edinburgh. They live in Leith with 2 cats and a growing number of books. They write poetry, prose and personal essays. You can follow them on Twitter at @siobhanclaude_ (https://twitter.com/siobhanclaude_) or visit their website (https://www.siobhanclaudevandamme.co.uk) .
Eleanor Capaldi (https://emcletters.wordpress.com/) is a writer, director and researcher based in Scotland. Her work has been published by Gutter Magazine, The Interpreter’s House, Mechanics’ Institute Review, the Skinned Knee Collective, and in anthologies, The Edwin Morgan Centenary Collection (Speculative Books), Reel to Rattling Reel (Cranachan Press), and Queering the Map of Glasgow (Knight Errant Press). Short film Glue screened in competition at SQIFF, Roze FilmDagen and QueerVision Film Festival, where it was nominated in the category ‘Best of British’.
You know the drill now writers, it’s over to you. What will you make of our two little pigs? As always, you have until the 15th to write 50-500 words, in one hour. The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.
Kristen, Preti, Lucie, Luke and Isabel.
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