Foglifter Press & Journal

The text says "Foglifter. Issue 11.1. We’ve reached our submission cap for fiction! Get your poetry in before we reach the genre cap. We remain open for hybrid/non-fiction/drama till November 1 💐🌈 foglifter.submittable.com/submit. Visual art and media accepted all year round.” The text is set in white on a multicolor background with rainbows and other shapes and lines and swirls.]

We have reached our submission cap for FICTION for issue 11.1 ✨THANK YOU TO ALL WHO SUBMITTED✨ Submissions for poetry and hybrid/non-fiction remain open💐🌈🤍 🥰

submission 🔗 in the bio.

Congratulations Eduardo Martinez-Leyva! 2025 Lambda Literary Award Winner. LGBTQ+ Poetry. For more of Eduardo's work, check out Foglifter 9.2.

Congratulations to Eduardo Martínez-Leyva, winner of the Lambda Literary Award in LGBTQ+ Poetry for "Cowboy Park!"

For more of Eduardo's work, check out Foglifter 9.2 (buff.ly/YKU1Kkh) (free ebook)

Congratulations Zefyr Lisowski! 2025 Lambda Literary Award Winner. Transgender Poetry. For more of Zefyr's work, check out Foglifter 4.2.

Congratulations to Zefyr Lisowski (@zefrrr.bsky.social), winner of the Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Poetry for "Girl Work!"

For more of Zefyr's work, check out Foglifter 4.2 (buff.ly/QopYbfT) (free ebook)

The image text reads, "Congratulations Saul Hernandez! 2025 Lambda Literary Award Winner. Gay Poetry." Foglifter Logo. For more of Saul's work, check out Foglifter 6.2.

Congratulations to Saúl Hernández (@elsaulhernandez.bsky.social), winner of the Lambda Literary Award in Gay Poetry for "How to Kill a Goat and Other Monsters"!

For more of Saúl's work, check out Foglifter 6.2! (E-book available for free)
buff.ly/CRDaGjC

The image text reads, "Congratulations Muriel Leung! 2025 Lambda Literary Award Winner. Bisexual Fiction." Foglifter Logo. For more of Saul's work, check out Foglifter 6.2.

Congratulations to Muriel Leung (@murmurshewrote.bsky.social), winner of the Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Fiction for "How To Fall in Love in a Time of Unnameable Disaster".

For more of Venita's work, check out Foglifter 5.1! (PDF available for free)
buff.ly/YokSaC3

Orange-pink glitter background with Lambda Literary Logo and Foglifter Logo. The text reads, "Congratulations to the 2025 Lammy Winners. Four of this year's winners have had work published by Foglifter."

Yesterday, @lambdaliterary announced the winners of the 37th Annual Lambda Literary Awards. 🌈 🏆🎉

With eleven former Foglifter contributors nominated across seven categories, we're OVERJOYED that FOUR of those contributors have been selected as winners. Congratulations, y'all!

#Lammys2025

Grayson Thompson Interview — Foglifter Journal & Press By Stephen Patrick Bell

🐊 More on our blog: www.foglifterjournal.com/grayson-thom...

"There are queer people here that aren’t stupid or hopeless for staying there, for loving there. There are Black and Brown marginalized and of the most marginalized people in that place; making sense of god in hurricanes."

"So many people pity this place, dismiss this place, write off its existence. That is one of the most dangerous ideologies - to pity or to forget. There are some of the most resilient, hilarious, big-hearted people in the American South."

"I grew up in a place that is underwater, literally, and Floridians, especially South Floridians, grow up with an awareness of this proximity. This chapbook centers this orientation and fondness I formed when I left that place and moved to California."

Grayson Thompson on gators, geography, and his new release A CONGREGATION OF ALLIGATORS with @stephenpatrickbell.bsky.social on the Foglifter blog 🐊

🔗 foglifterjournal.com/grayson-thompson-interview

Hey SF, come here me read some new work at The Stud on 10/16 with @foglifterpress.bsky.social

In honor of Foglifter's 10th anniversary, hear new voices from the most recent issue as well as voices from the last decade including Wayne Bund (@bundlandia.bsky.social), Janine Mogannam, Crystal Odelle, Rae Gouirand, Grayson Thompson and many more.

Foglifter is celebrating ten years of groundbreaking queer and trans writing at @litquake.org and we hope to see you there! 🎉🌈

📅 Thursday, October 16, 2025 from 7-9 PM | Doors open at 6 PM
📍The Stud @ 1123 Folsom St, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA
🎟️ Register here: buff.ly/N5t9VBE

We'll be joining our other small press friends at @litquake.org's newly revived Book Fair in Yerba Buena Gardens this weekend! We hope to see you there.

📅 Sunday September 28, 2025 from 11:00am - 4:00pm
📍Yerba Buena Gardens (761 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA)
📍 litquake2025.sched.com

A flier with a tumbler of wine in a hand, plus a hand holding an open book that says "with the best writers in the Bay area!". Text says: Writers With Drinks: A Literary Variety Show. Caro de Robertis (So Many Stars) Michal "MJ" Jones (Hood Vacations) Frida Sierra (Santa Cruz Comedy Festival) Annalee Newitz (Automatic Noodle) Charlie Jane Anders (Lessons in Magic and Disaster) Renée Swindle (Francine's Spectacular Crash & Burn) Friday, September 19 7 to 9 PM Strut/Magnet, 470 Castro St.

Next Friday: Writers With Drinks returns to San Francisco! It's your chance to hear some incredible queer and trans writers.

Caro de Robertis
Michal "MJ" Jones
Frida Sierra
Annalee Newitz
Charlie Jane Anders
Renée Swindle

7 PM at Strut, 470 Castro. FREE, donation requested. Masks required 😷😻

📌 Start A Riot! Chapbook Prize (Sept 1 - Dec 1)

📌 Foglifter Journal Print Issue 11.1 (Sept 1 - Nov 1)

📌 Foglifter Online Exclusive Issue 1.1 (Aug 15 - Oct 15)

🍃 It's the season for submissions, and Foglifter has several opportunities open for your literary work🍃

foglifter.submittable.com/submit

📌 Foglifter Online Exclusive Issue 1.1 (Aug 15 - Oct 15)
📌 Foglifter Journal Print Issue 11.1 (Sept 1 - Nov 1)
📌 Start A Riot! Chapbook Prize (Sept 1 - Dec 1)

Meet Our Issue 11.1 Guest Editors! Edgar Gomez. Hybrid & Nonfiction. Charlotte Joyce Kidd. Fiction. Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes. Poetry.

Our three guest editors for this issue are: Edgar Gomez (Hybrid & Nonfiction) (‪@otroedgargomez.bsky.social‬), Charlotte Joyce Kidd (Fiction), and heidi andrea restrepo rhodes (Poetry). ❤️‍🔥

Foglifter Issue 11.1. Call for General Submissions! September 1 - November 1. foglifter.submittable.com/submit. Poetry. Fiction. Nonfiction. Hybrid. Drama.

Foglifter is officially open for submissions for Issue 11.1! Calling all #queer and #trans writers to send us their most transgressive, tender, and imaginative work. ✨⁠⁠🌈⁠

foglifter.submittable.com/submit

Previous winners of the Start a Riot! chapbook prize include:

"Sand Bodied Florida Boy" by Grayson Thompson (2024)
"Congo, seen from the heavens" by Cianga (2023)
"The Way Back" by Edward Gunawan (2022)
"fist of wind" by nefertiti asanti (2021)

Shop past winners at our store:
buff.ly/8Tr80q8

Zara Jamshed (they/them) is a queer, trans, disabled Pakistani and Indian American poet from New York City living in the East Bay. They are the winner of the Penrose Poetry Prize for LGBTQIA+ writers and have work published in The Arrow, Foglifter, Keppel Health Review, and others. Zara has had their work supported by Anaphora Arts, Asian American Writers Workshop, Kearny Street Workshop, Periplus Collective, Queer Ancestors Project, Still Here San Francisco, Sundress Academy for the Arts, Tin House, THEYFRIEND, The Writer’s Grotto and others. Their debut poetry collection Neither Created Nor Destroyed was a semifinalist for the Pamet River Prize, a finalist for the Stories Award for Poetry, and is available now with Game Over Books.

Dani Putney (they/them) is a queer, non-binary, mixed-race Filipinx, and neurodivergent writer originally from Sacramento, California. They’re the author of Mix-Mix (Baobab Press, 2025) and Salamat sa Intersectionality (Okay Donkey Press, 2021), finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Poetry, as well as the poetry chapbook Dela Torre (Sundress Publications, 2022) and creative nonfiction chapbook Swallow Whole (Bullshit Press, 2024). They received their Ph.D. in English from Oklahoma State University and live in Reno, Nevada.

Grayson Thompson [he/him] is a Black, Jamaican-American, queer transgender cowboy poet who moonlights as a therapist. A mouthful, Grayson is Foglifter Press' 2024 Start A Riot! Chapbook Prize Winner with Sand Bodied Florida Boy and Winner of Write Bloody Publishing's 2024 Jack McCarthy Book Prize for his full-length collection A Congregation of Alligators. Grayson has been featured in Cathexis Northwest Press, Foglifter, Cleaver (nominated for Best of the Net Anthology), Poetry Online, and other homes for poetry. As a performer for the Exhibit B Literary Variety Show in Kansas City during the 2024 AWP Conference. He was able to open for the badass Kansas City Poet Laureate, Melissa Ferrer Civil, and a hero— the amazing, Donika Kelly. Grayson is a teaching assistant for poet Buddy Wakefield’s Writer’s Anonymous where he supports emerging and established word assemblers. A wanderer, he lives in Northern California where you can find him hiking, curating salad recipes, and in awe of the ocean. He chooses madness, honesty and full-heartedness. He hopes you can find some in his poems.

Our three fantastic judges for the 2025 Start a Riot! Chapbook Prize are:

😍 Zara Jamshed
😍 Dani Putney
😍 Grayson Thompson, winner of the 2024 SAR! chapbook prize for "Sand Bodied Florida Boy"

*P.S. By greater Bay Area, we're including the following counties: Alameda, Napa, Santa Clara, Contra Costa, San Francisco, Solano, Marin, San Mateo, and Sonoma 🌉

Winner receives publication + $3000 + $1000 for tour. Start a Riot! call for poetry manuscripts from greater Bay Area QTBIPOC+ literary artists who have not yet published a full-length poetry collection. September 1 - December 1. foglifter.submittable.com/submit

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 $3000 prize, and $1000 to support their book tour/promotion.

📣 Calling all QTBIPOC+ poets in the greater Bay Area*📣

Submissions for the Start a Riot! chapbook prize open on September 1!

⭐winner receives: publication, $3000, and $1000 for book tour⭐

more info here on Sept 1:
buff.ly/OkLaUPE

What is Queer Food? How We Served a Revolution by John Birdsall author of The Man Who Ate Too Much. Cover includes illustrations of vibrant cakes.

"John Birdsall’s new book "What is Queer Food?" illuminates another under examined avenue that brings queer communities together: the simple art of making delicious food."

A conversation with @johnbirdsall.bsky.social and @brendanpmchugh.bsky.social:

www.foglifterjournal.com/john-birdsal...

"There Are Reasons For This" A novel by Nini Berndt. red abstract background with yellow text.

"The world is so precarious right now it feels hard to want—so much of what we want isn’t allowed...And I think the lack of want is akin to our loss of intimacy. We are reliant upon desire, but it’s also terrifying to want."

Nini Berndt in conversation with Jules Fitz Gerald"
buff.ly/iaqmdKN

foglifter issue 10.1 on a book shelf. cover features an orange-red steel sun artwork on a white background.

Hello friends! What are you reading this week? 👀

Are you signed up for our newsletter? 👀 You might be missing out on some good literary news!

CHEERS, QUEERS! is our new roundup of the latest publications, awards, and other literary wins submitted by members of the Foglifter community.

Join the party:
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