Zefyr Rose Lisowski

Uncanny Valley Girls “A poignant, innovative, and urgent blend of memoir and criticism that has replenished my belief in how art and love can save your life.”—Torrey Peters “I&#...

Available to preorder here:

The cover to Uncanny Valley Girls: Essays on Horror, Survival, and Love, featuring a woman with a distorted face and a blurb from Torrey Peters.

Hopping back onto this site for the first time in months to say that my forthcoming essay collection about horror movies, intimacy, and love, Uncanny Valley Girls, has an official cover :) She's so beautiful! Forthcoming from Harper Perennial this October!

A poster that says Friday March 28th 2025 , Trans Horror, a list of readers, and Creature Comfort Brewing 1124 San Julian St, Los Angeles, California. There is a skull with the trans colors in the middle.

#AWP25 people! if you are free that Friday night, check out this stacked line-up — @nicanstett.bsky.social @cdeskilson.bsky.social @eveharms.com @cavar.bsky.social @mariahdarling6.bsky.social @brigonzalez.bsky.social @zefrrr.bsky.social @olivasthewriter.bsky.social

Such a sweet and astute review 💗

This is such a sweet and astute review! Thank you so much for reading 💗

this is SO fucked!!

Sharing this essay I published in 2019 on caring for trans youth as an ethical practice since there is a global crackdown on trans care. I wrote this essay to also reflect on my experience transitioning as a teen, since I truly think it made my life better. philpapers.org/archive/MARG...

boy did i pick a year to become a Public Trans Writer

Galley Brag #4 Grace Byron on pitching reviews, Brat Girl Summer, and the debut author's role in publishing a book <3

I went on @ezrakupor.bsky.social's new series Galley Brag to talk about book reviewing, pitching, publicity, and my upcoming book Herculine.

galleybrag.substack.com/p/galley-bra...

It turns out that life and art are always intertwined 🫨🫨🫨

Annoyed once again at the pablum of writing as self-care, but honestly this transsexual lesbian werewolf novel I'm working on is unclenching some things that 10+ years of therapy haven't shaken out

Trans Fem Literary Springtime - Notes - e-flux McKenzie Wark provides a roundup of forthcoming fiction and literary nonfiction by and about trans women.

I wrote about new books from @jeannethornton.bsky.social @torreypeters.bsky.social @harronwawker.bsky.social @veryhotmomm.bsky.social @xbennyboo.bsky.social @thedennemichele.bsky.social @cuteflesh.bsky.social @vivianblaxell.bsky.social and more!

Home | Substack Discover and discuss great writing with the world’s smartest readers on Substack.

For my first newsletter post, I wrote about running, pain, naming, and blood 🖤 I’d love if you read—more to come soon 🩸

(Screenshot from St Maud, one of the most beautiful films I’ve seen about pain, faith, and lesbian desire, and one of the origin points of this project tbh)

a screenshot from st maud, a woman bending backwards and hovering in the air

i’m starting a newsletter! focusing on film/book crit and personal essay, thinking thru intersections of violence + desire, things that are done to us and things we do in turn, + revolutionary desire vs the representation of that desire in the media we consume. more information to come!

The ending sequence had me literally vibrating

Not doing a year-end best-of list but just watched The Devil’s Bath and hands down it’s my favorite film that came out this whole year

Winter 2025: *Dean Spade, Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell, Together, Jan 2025 *Edgar Gomez, Alligator Tears (memoir in essays), Feb 11 Emily St. James, Woodworking (novel), March 4 *Torrey Peters, Stag Dance (a novel + 3 novellas), March 11 Spring 2025: Jamie Hood, Trauma Plot (nonfiction), March 25 Vivian Blaxell, Worthy of the Event (essay), April Anton Solomonik, Realistic Fiction (short stories), April Jeanne Thornton, A/S/L (novel), April 1 Aurora Mattia, Unsex Me Here (fiction), April 1 Andrea Long Chu, Authority (essays), April 8 *Denne Michele Norris, When the Harvest Comes (debut novel), April 15 Issac Fellman, Notes from a Regicide (novel), April 15 *Niko Stratis, The Dad Rock that Made Me a Woman (memoir in essays), May 6 Mac Crane, A Sharp Endless Need (novel), May 13 Harron Walker, Aggregated Discontent: Confessions of the Last Normal Woman (essays), May 20

Not that you asked, but here's a big roundup of upcoming books by trans authors that you can preorder now! :)

Links to individual books below. (Asterisks indicate that this author has been interviewed on the cool podcast Gender Reveal.)

Hi new followers :) I don’t love social media :) So will only be posting around my upcoming book really :) But will be posting around that soon regardless :)

I Loved “Texas Chain Saw Massacre” Before I Loved Myself - Electric Literature With each rewatch, I got further from the me I was in high school and closer to my truest self

For Electric Literature, I wrote about my favorite movie, learning to love the South, and doing things that hurt as self-care: electricliterature.com/i-loved-texa...

Cis Gender Studies — Cleveland Review of Books Why shouldn’t we ask for more?

For
@clereviewbooks.bsky.social I wrote about the recent How The Clinic Made Gender, a book that’s not just insidious, but poorly written to boot: www.clereviewofbooks.com/writing/cis-...

(i recently watched the jack nicholson is a werewolf book editor movie Wolf (1994))

with every year that passes, the popularity jack nicholson experienced gets more befuddling

I have an agent now :)

oh my god the barbie movie is gonna yield soooo many terrible final papers for intro gender studies classes this fall

women are meant to receive secrets bc it satisfies our primitive desire to gather nuts (gossip) + berries (forbidden truths)

Assigned Womb at Birth: An Essay on Trans Motherhood Ahead of Trans Pride in London tomorrow, AnOther publishes an essay by Grace Byron on the topic of transness and pregnancy; the cultural weight of being told to be a mother and of being told you canno...

do we share here? on twitter? both? idk but I wrote about womb transplants, Jacqueline Rose, Sheila Heti, and trans motherhood. feel free to retweet it there here or just send it out by carrier pigeon
https://www.anothermag.com/design-living/14986/assigned-womb-at-birth-an-essay-on-trans-motherhood

just got some cute news that I can’t wait to share :) send good vibes :)

Zefyr, a white trans femme wearing plaid pants and a silk shirt, posing in the mirror of an opulent bathroom

Another photo of Zefyr, a white trans femme wearing plaid pants and a silk shirt, posing in the mirror of an opulent bathroom

many things I miss about the artist retreat I went on last month, but foremost among them is one of the best selfie mirrors/lighting combos I’ve ever seen