CALL FOR COVER ARTWORK!

by Foglifter PressJan 8, 2020Editorial, News

Our covers are often the first thing that new readers comment on when they pick up the journal. We accept work from LGBTQ+ artists year-round (and we pay too!) with the hopes of finding unique, iconic art that speaks to the content of each issue. So, let founding editor and production manager Miah Jeffra tell you a little bit about why we chose the pieces that grace our previous issues, and then submit your own!

sale graphic for ebook

Volume 1 Issue 1

We wanted to introduce ourselves to the world by projecting joy, irreverence, gender-fuckery, and embody a true sense of queerness. Sean Mikula’s image is celebratory, ambiguous, and strange, which are all qualities that we look for in Foglifter submissions.

Volume 1 Issue 2

This joyful image is actually a photo of a performance by Melissa Koziebrocki, which captures a joyful and strange queerness that our inaugural image evoked, yet this does it in a completely different way: vibrant color, ephemeral identity, and—come on—glitter! It’s quite literally in your face. We like that.

Volume 2 Issue 1

This design of an all-gender restroom sign was chosen as a response to North Carolina’s anti-trans initiatives that year. Foglifter wanted to counter the messages of our nation’s current social and political hegemonies with a sign, an announcement of place. Our message? The true work for change is done on the ground, in the streets, in the office, in the school, not in the tower. Our message? Fuck the dominant cis hetero-patriarchy. We counter your reified proclamations with our own.

Volume 2 Issue 2

This one is a favorite. How does a marginal community galvanize to undermine oppressive cultural dominance? Well, first they must truly feel they are worthy of equity, and one way for that to manifest is to feel themselves. This cover by Paula Morales FEELS ITSELF. Love. Unabashed, confident, bold. Pose. And, to see this strength not just upon initial glance, but to turn over and see a different and equally fierce serving of feeling realness? Perfection.

Volume 3 Issue 1

This diptych by Marc Ohrem-Leclef moves into a more testimonial. The woman on the cover lives on property in a Brazilian favela that was scheduled to be bull-dozed to make way for freeway construction. She wasn’t having it, and she fought. I can’t think of a better symbolic narrative for Foglifter than this: the marginal standing their ground to make clear to the world—money is not the only mode for power.

Volume 3 Issue 2

This cover by the sibling duo In Rapture (Rachel and Alexander Newman) represented a shift in the tone for a lot of Foglifter submissions. Exhausted from the constant fight, the call out, the unsatisfied frustration and anger since 45’s inauguration, queers began turning inward and using writing more as a process for healing. Motifs of nature, the body, and self-cultivation characterize this issue. This too is a radical queer act, and the gauzy figures amongst the ocean shore embody this collective shift in our aesthetic.

Volume 4 Issue 1

The body returns with this photograph by Vivian Vivas, and asks the question: how do we perform our bodies—the multiples of our bodies—in an unsafe environment? This has been a question for all marginal identities for ages, but Foglifter writers made that question center-stage. In this issue, there is a focus more on seeking insight than expressing self. The dancer’s viscera moves along a plane, one of many incarnations. The writing in pages matches that action.

Volume 4 Issue 2

This abstract work by Madsen Angelo Minax was an inevitable choice: Foglifter’s writers are processing the experiences of our recent volatile history into wisdom. That wisdom is permeable, interpretive and amorphous, much like the composition—it has not yet fully coalesced into anything as defined as collective insight. This cover is once again a shift for the magazine, but necessary. How could we claim to be a truly queer publication if we did not reflect the radical changeability of our queer community?