BIANNUAL LITERARY JOURNAL & PRESS

CREATED BY AND FOR LGBTQ+ WRITERS & READERS

Amina Cruz

- Recent news & Events -

Foglifter is looking for a Print Production Manager! The responsibilities are as follows:

The Print Production Manager collaborates with the production assistant and the web team to design print publications. They liaise with print/digital contributors, managing publication content; procuring bios, contracts, final agreements from contributors; and confirming final versions of pieces with contributors. They manage the copy-editing of print publications and work with our copy-editor. A portion of this role also requires working with the managing editor and current Start A Riot! winner by producing the annual print chapbook.

This role requires familiarity with Adobe Photoshop and InDesign (access provided).

This role requires familiarity with print production and design. Strong adherence to deadlines is a must.

The estimated time commitment for this role is 2–4 hrs per week during non-production times, and 8–10 hrs during production times. It includes a yearly honorarium of $5,000 (half to be paid in the spring and half in the fall).

Residence is the San Francisco Bay Area is not required, but would be ideal.

Multi-marginalized individuals are encouraged to apply.

- nea grant termination statement -

To our beloved community,

We are writing with a fierce commitment to transparency and care.

On Friday, May 2, alongside many other arts organizations, Foglifter Journal & Press received an email from the National Endowment for the Arts notifying us that our $15,000 NEA grant award has been terminated, effective May 31.

This loss is not just a budget line — it is a real and immediate blow to our ability to support emerging queer and trans writers and publish the groundbreaking literary work that keeps Foglifter alive.

In the face of this uncertainty, we are launching a fund dedicated to sustaining the critical work that the NEA funds would have supported. 

This initiative reflects not only our urgent need, but our collective commitment to artistic sustainability and mutual care. Because this isn’t just about Foglifter—this is about the effect this withdrawal of support has on small presses, arts organizations, and marginalized writers, editors, and readers who rely on grant funding to survive, let alone thrive.

We’re grieving this shift in national priorities, but we remain grounded in our purpose and undeterred in our mission. This moment calls for resilience, creativity, and collective care—and we know our community is built for exactly that. We believe in the transformative power of literature. We believe in queer and trans stories as both urgent and enduring. Together, we’ll keep building, keep creating, and keep showing up for each other.

In defiance, in hope, and in collective action,

Marina, Dior, and Milo

Foglifter Journal & Press May 12, 2025


- start a riot! 2025/2026 -

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 chapbook author is awarded publication, a $3,000 prize, and $1,000 to support their book tour/promotion.

Judges:

  • Grayson Thompson, author of 2024 Start A Riot! winning chapbook Sand Bodied Florida Boy

  • Dani Putney

  • Zara Jamshed

Eligibility:

  • Submitter is a QTBIPOC+ literary artist

  • AND is a current resident of the larger San Francisco Bay Area (Alameda, Napa, Santa Clara, Contra Costa, San Francisco, Solano, Marin, San Mateo, Sonoma counties)

  • AND does not have a previous full-length poetry book publication

Manuscript Details:

  • Poetry (Literally anything that falls under the verse genre—prose poetry, hybrid, etc. We want all your wild experiments!)

  • 25 pages max; 15 pages minimum

  • Remove all identifying information, including acknowledgments. There should be one title page with the name of the chapbook only.

  • Microsoft Word doc preferred; PDF also accepted

Important Dates:

  • Submissions: September 1 to December 1, 2025

  • Results Announced: January 2026

  • Chapbook Release: June (Pride Month) 2026

See photos from Sand Bodied Florida Boy launch here

Order Sand Bodied Florida Boy Now

- 2025/2026 judges -

Grayson Thompson

Dani Putney

Zara Jamshed

- Foglifter Online exclusive submissions open aug 15 - oct 15 -

As Foglifter revitalizes our website and digital production, we are interested in creating and holding space for works that may not fit within the constraints of our print edition. We are now accepting submissions for our new  Online Exclusive Issue dedicated to showcasing queer voices across a wide spectrum of creative forms. 

As always, we are seeking art that aligns with our mission of promoting queer, transgressive, and original work. The themes will change from issue to issue. For 1.1, our theme is Body Politics. Bodies are sites of power, protest, pleasure, oppression, transformation, and resistance. They are legislated, labeled, liberated, and loved. In a world where bodies are constantly scrutinized, marginalized, and controlled—especially queer, trans, fat, disabled, racialized, and reproductive bodies—we want to create a space for work that responds, reclaims, and reimagines.

Please submit work that engages with themes that may include gender expression and transition, reproductive justice, disability and chronic illness, surveillance and censorship, body modification culture, fat liberation and anti-ableism, queer desire and sexuality, the racialized body, and performance and protest. We invite works that grapple with the political, personal, and cultural dimensions of the queer body. 

Pieces must be original, unpublished work in genres including, but not limited to: poetry, fiction, nonfiction, drama, comics, visual art, scripts, and multimedia (video, audio, music, interactive pieces, experimental work, etc.) that align with the current issue’s theme.

This online exclusive issue will be published as a winter issue on our website. We’re especially interested in pieces that experiment with form, push boundaries, and reflect the complexity, joy, rage, beauty, and multiplicity of the queer experience.

Why Online Exclusive?

Our print publication has limits—page counts, dimensions, ink. This digital issue is a space without borders. We want to uplift work that can’t—or won’t—fit in print: multimedia projects, audio pieces, visual art, and performance pieces  that demand to be seen and heard in digital space.

General Submission Guidelines:

  • We accept only first rights to publication.

  • We do accept simultaneous submissions, however please withdraw pieces that have been accepted elsewhere.

  • Please include a short bio, description of your work, any past publications, and applicable trigger warnings in your cover letter.

  • Visual and [multi]media work must be web-viewable—please include links or uploads through Submittable and include content warnings if applicable

Genre Specific Guidelines

  • Please submit up to 5 pieces

  • For video and audio submissions, please limit to 5 minutes

  • We accept art created via all mediums (except AI -- no AI art submissions). This includes, but is not limited to, photography, painting, digital, ink, pencil, collage, etc.

  • Acceptable file types: .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .tif, .tiff, .png, .svg, .pdf, .doc, .docx, .txt, .rtf, .odt, .mp3, .m4a, .wav, .mp4, .mov, .avi, .mpg, .3gp, .wmv

  • All applicable artworks submitted will be considered for cover art for the online exclusive issue

  • We love experimental work, feel free to submit hybrid forms that blend genres

  • For grant purposes, we cannot consider submissions that do not include a completed demographic survey with their submission