Foglifter Press & Journal

1. foglifter logo. cover of "Hound Triptych." headshot of Dani Janae. header text "Reviews" followed by text "Gossamer Hauntings in Dani Janae’s Hound Triptych"

2. Text reads, "In Dani Janae’s debut poetry collection, an honest and spirit-cleansing lyric traverses the difficult ground of the Black transracial adoptee experience, giving language to a narrative gap in Black lineages of suffering and survival, in all its difficult beauty. – Erin Noehre, on Hound Triptych by Dani Janae]

Erin Noehre reviews Hound Triptych by Dani Janae for the Foglifter blog

🔗 www.foglifterjournal.com/review-hound...

1. header text: Foglifter Online Exclusives Issue 1.1 Winter 2026. cover art shows two people embracing in a tangle of bare skin and arms against a hot pink and black background. text is placed around them: "you are" "stuck" "with" "me" "remember" "hold me close" "home is whereever we are"

TABLE OF CONTENTS Cover Art by Henry 磊磊 Roark | From The Body Eclectic series Cal Calamia | body anarchy Francis Dylan Waguespack | Tooth Gaps In The Archives Tom Nutting | soil-memory.silicon-dream | excerpt from Ecologizing Machine Mac Murray | Tender Cuts Tom Nutting | posthuman benediction [afterscript/aftercare] | excerpt from Ecologizing Machine JG Orudjev | Radiculopathy JG Orudjev | Allerleirauh Sandra Dolores Gómez Amador | I have the urge to be a girl, Manuel A. Melendez | Nastiness Manna (Part II) Christian Bancroft | Early Drag Ball Culture Luka Buchanan | Arp Dana Ysabel Rashid | Flowers for Jennifer TinyNightmare | Selections from Fucked by the Universe series Katherine Oung | Summer Camp Manuel A. Melendez| Brief Encounters Shae | MILK LOGIC Cass Garison | Baby Bull Michael Cuervo | Skeleton Closet Henry 磊磊 Roark | From The Body Eclectic series Luka Buchanan | Untitled III (red & cyan) CJ Scruton | Suite For Hallucinated Voices

Henry 磊磊 Roark | From The Body Eclectic series Delilah McCrea | (de)realizations Francis Dylan Waguespack | In which the Southern transsexual poet reflects on the precarity of his 20s as a formerly homeless, part-time Craigslist sex worker Azad Namazie | The Softest Technology MP Vare | Departures 2 MP Vare | Evidence Katherine Oung | It was summer, and Cassandra Myers | WHALE SONG FOR TOUCH FEARING MAMMALIA¹ Lee Baird | Time/Feeling banah el ghadbanah | banati Despy Boutris | #3 Henry 磊磊 Roark | From The Body Eclectic series Katherine Oung | you kept telling me the west isn’t wild anymore Johnny Alvarez | Performer 93 Bryana Dawkins | S C O R P I O N H E A D Ayodeji Otuyelu | Ungodly Feeling | Outlandish Francis Dylan Waguespack | Novel Ecosystem Luka Buchanan | For Tess Delilah McCrea | One Must Imagine Sisyphus Exhausted Henry 磊磊 Roark | From The Body Eclectic series ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The wait is over. ✨ Our first ever online exclusives issue is now available on our website. We wanted to showcase queer art that punts the constraints imposed on queer bodies out into the stratosphere and plays with the rules of print media like a jump rope.

🔗 www.foglifterjournal.com/oe-issue-11

Cover of Foglifter Journal featuring two cowboys embracing, wearing blue jean jackets, pink scarves, and white cowboys hats.

Gray Agpalo (@kalam4nsi) Hannah Keziah-Agustin (@quichesiya) Rayan Al-Awar (@l0tswife) Mya / Matteo Alexice (@myamatteoalexice) Matthew Torralba Andrews (@mtmdrews) Kristen Arnett (@kristen_arnett) Atusa Assadi Alex Bortell (@alexbortell) Haley Bossé (@haleyb____e) Wayne Bund (@bundlandia) Rivka Clifton (@cutratebreakfast) Dakota Collins (@dcllins) Sara Daniels Meredith Macleod Davidson (@mairmacleod) grace (ge) gilbert (@g_eva_) Rae Gouirand (@rgouirand) Maria Gray (@gariamray) Ranundi Gunawardena (@girl_gone_wilde) Hunter Hazelton (@hunterlhazelton)

David Hopson Ellie Howard (@umbra_ellie) Anthony Hurd (@anthonyhurd) Jojo Kaeiolu (@kaeiolu) Ai Khanoum (@ai.khanoummm) Jana Malkia Lang (@planetcrab) Keenan Lew (@keenanspictures) Andy Lopez (@andylopezwrites) Zander Moreno-Lozano (@cactidad) Cloud Lu Dylan McNulty-Holmes (@dyl.amh) Nino McQuown (@allsoils) Mikah Meyers (@lordwhalepig) Janine Mogannam (@hey_miss_j_) Jenny Molberg (@_jennysue_) Erin Noehre (@erin.rosecheek.renee) Crystal Odelle (@crystal_ography) Molly Olguin (@mollyolguin)

Lee Paehler (@leepaehler) Chen Poyu Lalini Ranaraja Rahul Singh (@fook_bood) Sarp Sozdinler (@sarpsozdinler) Lane Michael Stanley (@lanemichaelstanley) Luke Sutherland (@lukejsuth) Fernanda Coutinho Teixeira Ide Amari Thompson (@ifeille) Carla Torres (@cargoots) Marion Eames White (@marioneames) Nicholas Wong (@citiesofsameness) Joshua Zeitler (@the_jayest_of_zees)

Now available on our site: the ebook for Issue 10.2! We sold out of this issue so quickly that we're upping our print run for Issue 11.1, so thank you for subscribing to Foglifter and supporting queer and trans literature!

🔗 www.foglifterjournal.com/shop-102

I have a story in this!

Catch my essay "The Moscow Rules," alongside all these incredible writers!

☀️ The ebook for Foglifter 10.1 is now available for free on our website! ☀️

🔗 www.foglifterjournal.com/shop-10-1

Thank you to all our contributors and a special thank you to our cover artist Jeffery Sun Young Park!

1. blue starry sky with large blue planet, griffin, transgender glyph, goddess figure, and foglifter logo. text reads, "Queer Mythologies. Call for Submissions. Online Exclusive Issue 1.2. February 15 - April 15."

2. blue planet background. text reads, "Call for poetry, fiction, nonfiction, drama, scripts, visual art, multimedia. foglifter.submittable.com"

3. blue starry sky with blue and purple planets, purple dragon, and foglifter logo. text reads, "Queer Mythologies: a celebration of spirituality, folklore, and queer cosmologies. This open call seeks dreamlike, symbolic, and otherworldly explorations that reimagine mythology through a queer lens—queering gods and monsters, rewriting origin stories, and uncovering hidden lineages of desire, transformation, and devotion. We welcome interpretations of tarot, astrology, ritual, and divination that challenge binaries and expand spiritual narratives beyond the normative, embracing fluidity, mysticism, and personal myth-making. Submissions may be visual, textual, or hybrid, and should evoke a sense of the uncanny, the sacred, and the speculative—worlds where queerness is ancestral, cosmic, and divine."

Call for Submissions: QUEER MYTHOLOGIES: a celebration of spirituality, folklore, and queer cosmologies.

📌 foglifter.submittable.com

[image description: background is a Castro St intersection shot from above with rainbow crosswalks. foglifter logo at top or bottom. text and images are in the center for each slide. 1. text: Issue 11.2 Call for Submissions! February 1 - April 1. Art, fiction, poetry, nonfiction, hybrid, drama.

[image description: background is a Castro St intersection shot from above with rainbow crosswalks. foglifter logo at top or bottom. text and images are in the center for each slide. text: Meet our Issue 11.2 Guest Editors" with three photos.

[image description: background is a Castro St intersection shot from above with rainbow crosswalks. foglifter logo at top or bottom. text and images are in the center for each slide. 3. text reads, "Fargo Nissim Tbakhi. Guest Hybrid, Nonfiction, and Drama Editor. Fargo Nissim Tbakhi is a Palestinian performance artist, and the author of TERROR COUNTER (Deep Vellum, 2025) and ANTIGONE. VELOCITY. SALT. (Deep Vellum, 2027).

[image description: background is a Castro St intersection shot from above with rainbow crosswalks. foglifter logo at top or bottom. text and images are in the center for each slide. text: Maya Salameh is the author of Mermaid Theory (Haymarket Books, 2026) and How to Make an Algorithm in the Microwave (University of Arkansas Press, 2022), winner of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. Salameh is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship and the Markowitz Award for Exceptional New Writers. Her work has appeared in The Offing, Poetry, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, AGNI, Mizna, and the LA Times. She can be found @mayaslmh or mayasalameh.com.

Call for submissions! 📢

Foglifter welcomes daring and thoughtful poetry, fiction, nonfiction, drama, and art that is cross-genre, intersectional, marginal, and transgressive.

🔗 foglifter.submittable.com

orange cover with alligator illustration and text, "Sand Bodied Florida Boy" and "grayson thompson" in script.

For Anyone Holding Their Breath this is a love poem for all boys who have never been told they were beautiful for people who do not know they smile in their sleep for the adult children who can’t call home this is a page in a story that places bets on the weight on bobcats heavy handed with a softness each pound a metaphor for you are not alone I want to tell you in the same century grief was first spoken so was breviary a word for hymn and this is a truth, god honest some of us have applied for the vacancy of being alive since before we were born

our resumes half spent lifetimes never making it to the top even if we stopped ourselves from being propelled by everything that hates us I do not know who interviewed you but in that round, the one where you painted yourself a crisis someone should have told you the job responsibilities were never to hold it all in grayson thompson from sand bodied florida boy

Sand Bodied Florida Boy is a love song to the first moment you felt believed in, when hope wasn't a question, but an answer in every breath you chose to take. grayson thompson. available from foglifter press.

Sand Bodied Florida Boy is a love song to the first moment you felt believed in, when hope wasn't a question, but an answer in every breath you chose to take. - Grayson Thompson

Available in our shop: buff.ly/kGWnb41

Cover Art by Frankie Sanchez

aquarius symbol and foglifter logo. text reads, "creative prompts for aquarius season."

yellow half circle graphics. text reads, "aquarius as a creative energy. the urge to question, challenge, experiment, reform, rebel, disrupt, liberate, be unique, invent, organize with others, imagine the future, break free, radicalize, QUEER THINGS UP."

text reads, "creative prompts. aquarius season invites you to consider liberation. AQUARIUS: liberation as a gesture, expression, or movement. PISCES: liberation as dreams or messages from ancestors. ARIES: liberation as uniting for a common good. TAURUS: liberation as the role(s) people might play. GEMINI: liberation as beliefs, philosophies, or sacred entities. CANCER: liberation as grieving, intimacy, or mutual aid."

text reads, "creative prompts. aquarius season invites you to consider liberation. LEO: liberation as relating or relationship. VIRGO: liberation as service, work, or ritual. LIBRA: liberation as joy, play, or fun. SCORPIO: liberation as loved ones and what feels like home. SAGITTARIUS: liberation as neighbors and neighborhood. CAPRICORN: liberation as values & what someone has to offer."

in honor of aquarius season, creative prompts on liberation for your sign. 🌠 ♒ 🏺

purple graphic with teal circle and Foglifter logo. The header reads, “Save the Date.” text reads, “Call for Print Issue 11.2, Feb 1 - Apr 1”

purple graphic with teal circle and Foglifter logo. The header reads, “Save the Date.” text reads, “Call for Print Issue 11.2, Feb 1 - Apr 1”

This year, we’re trying something new! We’ll be moving up our submission periods by one month: so save the dates and start thinking about what work you might like to send our way!

✨ Print Issue 11.2 ✨
February 1 - April 1, 2026

✨ Digital Issue 1.2 ✨
February 15 - April 15, 2026

✨ foggie flashback ✨

"it's easily lost, our principle magic"
- Arisa White, "We've Been Shaped By Instruments" (Issue 1.1)

for the rest of this poem and issue 1.1, check out ebook, available at no cost on our website.
www.foglifterjournal.com/shop-11

cover art: Now We’re Strange

Text reads, “Thank you to our judges! Zara Jamshed. Dani Putney. Grayson Thompson.” Includes headshots of judges.

Text reads, “Start a Riot! Chapbook Prize. In response to rapid gentrification and displacement of QTBIPOC+ literary artists in the San Francisco Bay Area, and in celebration of these communities’ revolutionary history, Foglifter Press and Still Here San Francisco joined forces to create a poetry chapbook prize for local emerging queer and trans Black writers, indigenous writers, and writers of color. Each year, one poetry chapbook author is awarded publication, a $3,000 prize, and $1,000 to support their book tour/promotion.”

Thank you to our amazing judges Zara Jamshed, Dani Putney, and Grayson Thompson!

Text reads, “Start a Riot! Chapbook Prize Results. finalists. Artie Patel. I WONDER IF BOYS CAN SING. Eden Julia Sugay. Bakla.”

Header reads, “Artie Patel" with author bio. Artie Patel (they/them) is a trans nonbinary mixed South Asian American born and raised in Santa Clara County. They attended UCLA, where they were on the senior staff of FEM Newsmagazine. They are currently a graduate student and teacher at San José State University in the English department.

5. Header reads, “Eden Julia Sugay" with author bio and headshot. Eden Julia Sugay (they/them) is a QTPOC writer and editor based in Oakland. They hold a BA in Creative Writing from Mills College and MFA in Writing from University of San Francisco. Their work has been supported by Kearny Street Workshop, Berkeley Poetry Festival, The Writers Grotto, Folkways Press, Four Leaf Collective, Kissing Dynamite, and The Walrus.

Please also join us in congratulating our wonderful finalists, Artie Patel & Eden Julia Sugay! ❤️🔥

Text reads, “Start a Riot! Chapbook Prize Results. Selected for Publication. Reggie Edmonds-Vásquez, ECOLOGY OF THE HOOD. Forthcoming June 2026.”

Header reads, “Reggie Edmonds-Vásquez" with author bio. Reggie Edmonds-Vásquez (they/them) is a poet, educator, and cultural curator from Richmond, CA. Their work explores Black, queer, and gender-diverse identities and has earned recognition from Nomadic Press, Afro Urban Society, and the Museum of the African Diaspora. A two-time Berkeley Grand Champion and national finalist, they direct programming at Rich Oak Events.

📣 Congratulations to our 2025 Start A Riot! Chapbook Contest winner, Reggie Edmonds-Vásquez! 📣 We're excited to publish their chapbook, ECOLOGY OF THE HOOD! 🎉

[image description: Cover of Foglifter Journal featuring two cowboys embracing, wearing blue jean jackets, pink scarves, and white cowboys hats. 10.2. text reads, "We're sold out of Issue 10.2."]

That's all folks! We're officially sold out of Issue 10.2! 🤠🌵

A very special thanks to our cover artist Anthony Hurd, our guest editors Summer Farah (Poetry), Steven Archer (Fiction), & Noam Keim (Hybrid/Nonfiction); all of our contributors; and the Foglifter team!

orange graphic with abstract confetti. Header reads, “Cheers, Queers!” Footer reads, “Want to share your good news? Subscribe to our newsletter.” Foglifter logo. Text reads, “Cheers, Queers! ICYMI: good literary news from the foggie community”

✨🎉 Subscribe to our newsletter & share your good literary news! We want to celebrate your work! 🌿🎉

Cheers, Queers! is a celebratory roundup of good news submitted from our Foglifter community.

🔗 buff.ly/P6aLFJG

foglifter logo with abstract blue, teal, and cream colored graphics. header reads "meet our staff"

header reads "Lee Baird. Print Production Manager" followed by Lee's bio. Lee Baird (they/them) is a yonsei artist and craftsman raised on rural Miwuk land and based in the bay area, ca. Their work, which dissects transness, grief, and japanese-american incarceration, has been featured in the Shade Journal, Winter Tangerine, and Violet, Indigo, Blue, Etc. Magazine. They are a triple virgo, and you may find them at www.baird.carrd.co.

header reads "Who or what inspires you creatively?" followed by Lee's answer. "I owe much of my politic and education to other japanese-american writers and artists, especially fellow descendants of those incarcerated in the second world war, who are always re/imagining what our community might move towards in the face of repetitive instances of state-sanctioned trauma. I want to make a well at which we might all drink... I like to look back at the past; I like to repeat things over and over again! For these reasons I also find inspiration in natural history museums, digital family trees, the loop function on my music app, microblogging platform archives, romantic love, and sashiko mending."

meet our staff! ✨ Lee Baird recently joined Foglifter's team as print production manager!

foglifter logo. cover of "boy maybe." headshot of W.J. Lofton. header text "Reviews" followed by text "Review of BOY MAYBE by W.J. Lofton by Gabrielle Grace Hogan"

"The poems within these pages are like breaths in a chest as it rises and falls: a reminder that life is happening, that within us is its fierce capacity."

- Gabrielle Grace Hogan's review of BOY MAYBE by W.J. Lofton

buff.ly/UKclG1u

Help lift up the next decade of queer and trans writers with an end-of-year gift or an auto-renew subscription to our journal.

That, and other ways to support our work, are linked here:
linktr.ee/foglifter

📣 Open to Bay Area LGBTQ+ Writers (Ages 18-26)
🗓️ Thursdays from 6:30-8:30pm. January 29 through April 16.
📍 San Francisco, CA

Applications open until Jan 12th @ 11:59pm PT:
🔗 buff.ly/XJdDlRh

3. Text reads, "Submissions are open. The Yearning Hour. Poetry workshop for Bay Area writers ages (18-26). Deadline: Jan 12th. Writers of all genres welcome."

3. Text reads, "Submissions are open. The Yearning Hour. Poetry workshop for Bay Area writers ages (18-26). Deadline: Jan 12th. Writers of all genres welcome."

4. Text reads, "12 sessions (1x/week). Jan 29 - Apr 16. Participants to be published in Issue 11.2. foglifter.submittable.com/submit" ]

✨ Introducing The Yearning Hour—a poetry workshop for Bay Area LGBTQ+ writers (ages 18–26) led by poet, community birth worker, and Foglifter 7.1 contributor Briana Grogan (she/they).

gray-green background. orange foglifter logo at top left. header text reads, "REVIEWS." 1. cover image of "Elixir" by Aaron Shurin. text reads: "The Many Secret Joys of Aaron Shurin's Poetic Legacy by Anthony Zedan.

2. Text reads: “Aaron Shurin the alchemical poet who found his place and voice in mystical San Francisco has discovered the Elixir of life—it is found in an amalgamation of imagist poetry mixed with philosophical wanderings inspired by the wonders of male lovers and being out in nature... - Anthony Zedan, on Aaron Shurin’s poetry collection Elixir"

“Gay poets, we never wanted to be equal with straight desire—we aspire to exceed it and celebrate our uniqueness. - Anthony Zedan, on Aaron Shurin’s poetry collection Elixir”

Anthony Zedan reviews Aaron Shurin’s poetry collection ELIXIR for the Foglifter blog.

🔗 buff.ly/KMgoAWd

10. Graphic includes a headshot and bio of the poet Jenny Molberg white with a selection from their poem "Grape Jelly."

Jenny Molberg white with a selection from their poem "Grape Jelly."

9. Graphic includes a headshot and bio of the poet marion eames white with a selection from their poem "clever boy."

marion eames white with a selection from their poem "clever boy."

8. Graphic includes a headshot and bio of the poet Haley Bossé with a selection from their poem "In Which Water Becomes Audible."

Haley Bossé with a selection from their poem "In Which Water Becomes Audible."

7. Graphic includes a headshot and bio of the poet Gray Agpalo with a selection from their poem "Hole Theory."

Gray Agpalo with a selection from their poem "Hole Theory."

6. Graphic includes a headshot and bio of the poet Ranudi Gunawardena with a selection from her poem "Rituals of August."

Ranudi Gunawardena with a selection from her poem "Rituals of August."

5. Graphic includes a headshot and bio of the poet Ellie Howard with a selection from her poem "Rolling Cinder Blocks in the Summer."

Ellie Howard with a selection from her poem "Rolling Cinder Blocks in the Summer."

4. Graphic includes a headshot and bio of the poet Rayan Al-Awar with a selection from his poem "Let Me Hold It While You Pee."

Rayan Al-Awar with a selection from his poem "Let Me Hold It While You Pee."