Foglifter Press is proud to announce Home is Where You Queer Your Heart, a new anthology edited by Miah Jeffra, Monique Mero-Williams, and Arisa White. This collection, organized around the four cardinal directions, encompasses poetry, prose, hybrid and concrete works, and highlights a diverse group of authors along the queer and trans spectrum. 

For LGBTQ+ people, it has often been a matter of survival to leave home and a matter of thriving to make it anew. LGBTQ+ people have a tradition of creating “logical” homes, to borrow Armistead Maupin’s term, when biological families, and therefore the states and territories that legitimize them, have failed to recognize, accept, and protect us. Yes, liberation movements have led to progress, to gay rights, however, with our changing economies, environment, and technologies, what was more equitable then is less so now. How do queer writers negotiate their feelings of home when their nation has further precluded them from a place of comfort? 

Narratives of departure and arrival have chronicled the formation of present-day communities built on radical acts of queer homemaking. Coastal cities like New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco are queer sites in our imaginary, but what if such places are inaccessible—you can’t make it there, you’ve been priced out or displaced, or you’re houseless? Because home is not “where you’re from, it’s where you’re at,” says rapper Rakim, we’re reminded of the mental and spiritual energies we harness to be present in the here and now. How are the conditions of the times affecting the way we make and write about home?

Foglifter Press has published poets, essayists, storytellers, and writers who delve within and in between these spaces. We are especially excited to present work that experiments with form in relation to themes of home. Most importantly, we desire to show how complicated these questions of home can be—we celebrate the multiplicity of definition with this anthology. 

“New anthology from Foglifter Press explores the complex and varied meanings of ‘home’ through poetry and prose from LGBTQ+ authors around the country, informed by the need and desire to create ‘chosen families’ and how those can be disrupted and inspired by gentrification and displacement.”

Featuring works by Andrea Abi-Karam, Sam Ace, Anastacia-Renee Jubi Arriola-Headley, Daniel Barnum, Kay Ulanday Barrett, Carson Beker, Britt Billmeyer-Finn, Luke Dani Blue, Cooper Lee Bombardier, Sionnain Buckley, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, KJ Cerankowski, Dorothy Chan, K-Ming Chang, Erica Charis-Molling, Jason B. Crawford, J DeLeon, Robin Reid Drake, C.W. Emerson, Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, t’ai freedom ford, Soma Mei Sheng Frazier, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Suzanne Highland, Luther Hughes, Kenan Ince, Stacy Nathaniel Jackson, Marlin M. Jenkins, Laura Jones, Michal MJ Jones, Bettina Judd, Donika Kelly, Jahan Khajavi, Benjamin Naka-Hasebe Kingsley, Afieya Kipp, Keegan Lawler, Juli Delgado Lopera, Joey Mancinelli, Maya Marshall, Airea D. Matthews, Clara McLean, Kate Arden McMullen, Gabriel Juan Membreno, Rajiv Mohabir, Tomas Moniz, Michael Montlack, Alicia Mountain, Gala Mukomolova, Mel Nigro, Romeo Oriogun, Holly Painter, Shelagh Patterson, James Penha, Baruch Porras Hernandez, Joy Priest, Claudia Rodriguez, sam sax, Maureen Seaton, J.G. Siminski, Kevin Simmonds, Benny Sisson, Christopher Soto, Travis Tate, Michael Todd, Milo Todd, Jason Villemez and Yanyi.

Cover by Mathias Jung, “Beim Kaffee dachte Claudine oft ans Meer,” 2020. Interior Artwork by Ayuna Collins.