“An eclectic and sometimes edgy space in which queer lives and queer bodies are neither periphery nor feature, but a sustained and celebrated norm, Foglifter speaks with many voices and affirms our shared humanity.”
A little bit about us
Foglifter is a queer journal and press, but more than that. We publish powerful writing, intersectional writing, that queers our perspectives; writing that explores the sometimes abject, sometimes shameful, but always honest and revelatory experience; writing that calls into question the things we believe to be true, the things we believe to be known, and turns them on their head for—at least—a moment of consideration.
What we do
We currently publish a biannual literary journal, and full manuscripts by emerging and dynamic writers. We host free, accessible launch parties for each issue’s release at Strut, a community center located in the Castro District of San Francisco, as well as other free readings around the Bay and beyond. In addition to our own programming, we co-produce events with other community organizations. Recent events include TransAction: Trans Writing as Activism reading and panel discussion, Bay Area Writers Resist, and Lucha Libro, a literary wrestling match.
Additionally, we actively promote authors by nominating their work for yearly Best Of anthologies, as well as provide opportunities for reading, interview, and collaborative community discussions. The success of these queer writers is the driving force behind everything we do as a press.
Why we do it
Our commitment to underserved queer writers and readers is deeply rooted in the editorial and Board of Directors individual identities as marginalized queer writers and readers. Holding the space for freedom and possibility within the pages of our journal and at our events is a direct response to our ongoing experiences of minimization and tokenization within the broader writing community.
Our Board
Chad Koch
Editor-in-Chief, Foglifter Press
Miah Jeffra
Founding Editor, Production Manager
Monique Mero
Production Editor
The Staff
Luiza Flynn-Goodlett
Editor-in-Chief, Foglifter Journal
Dan Lau
Managing Poetry Editor
Wesley Olivia Cohen
Managing Prose Editor
Tara Rose
Community Outreach Coordinator
Irwan Iskak
Web Coordinator
Kayla Neer
Assistant Poetry Editor
Melton Cartes
Contributing Production Editor
D. A. Powell
Contributing Editor
Stacy Nathaniel Jackson
Contributing Editor
Rowena DeSilva
Art Consultant
Jason Villemez
Guest Editor, Prose
Dino Foxx
Guest Editor, Poetry
Madeline Gobbo
Guest Editor, Prose
Chad Koch
Editor-in-Chief, Foglifter Press
Chad Koch recently received his MFA from San Francisco State University, where he was editor-in-chief of Fourteen Hills. He’s the recipient of the 2010 Miriam Ylvisaker Fellowship and the Leo Litwak fiction award from Transfer Magazine. He was assistant editor on Lawfully Wedded Wives: Rethinking Marriage in 21st Century. He is a 2016 fellow at The Grotto in San Francisco. His most recent stories were published in The North American Review, The East Bay Review (for which he received a Pushcart nomination) and Sparkle & Blink.
Luiza Flynn-Goodlett
Editor-in-Chief, Foglifter Journal
Luiza Flynn-Goodlett is the author of the chapbooks Unseasonable Weather (dancing girl press, 2018) and Congress of Mud (Finishing Line Press, 2015). Her work can be found in Third Coast, Granta, Quarterly West, DIAGRAM, The Rumpus, and elsewhere.
Wesley Olivia Cohen
Managing Prose Editor
Wesley O. Cohen is a writer and editor living in Davis, California. Her work has been featured by Joyland Magazine, Entropy, Sparkle & Blink, and others. She is a 2017 Writing By Writers fellow. Wesley’s work lives at wesleyocohen.com.
Dan Lau
Managing Poetry Editor
Dan Lau is a Chinese American poet from Queens, New York. A Kundiman fellow, he is the recipient of scholarships and grants from The Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown, Queer Cultural Center, and San Francisco Arts Commission. His poems have been published in Generations, Cape Cod Review, Gesture, RHINO, CRATE, Colorado Review and others.
Lisa Galloway
Development Director
Lisa Galloway is a queer San Francisco-based poet with an MFA from Pacific University. A 2014 Lambda Literary Fellow, she’s the author of the chapbook Liminal: A Life of Cleavage published by Lost Horse Press. She directs and teaches poetry for Litquake’s Elder Writing Project, and serves as a poetry editor and the Development Director for Foglifter Press. She works full-time for the Disability Communications Fund as a Grants Program Associate where she writes poetry on smoke breaks. In her spare time, she enjoys riveting conversations with her best editor, a wily orange cat, named Snacks.
Miah Jeffra
Founding Editor, Production Manager
Miah hails from Baltimore, and has deep connections to the South. Miah is author of the essay collection The First Church of What’s Happening (Nomadic Press 2017). They have been awarded the New Millennium Prize for fiction, the Sidney Lanier Prize for fiction, The Oregon Writers Colony Award for nonfiction, the Clark-Gross Novel Award, and a Lambda Literary Fellowship for nonfiction. Residencies include Ragdale, Hub City Writers Project, Arteles and Red Gate. Miah Teaches Writing and Cultural Studies at Santa Clara University and San Francisco Art Institute.
Monique Mero
Production Editor
Monique Mero is an east bay native. She graduated from San Francisco State University with a MA in Creative writing, was the Editor-in-Chief of Fourteen Hills: The San Francisco Review and is currently a member of the Red Light Lit team. Monique is also a full-time English Instructor at Chabot College where she has the honor of working with the Daraja Program, which focuses on the African Diaspora. It is important to Monique to give back to the culturally rich community she comes from by helping the people in her community have a voice and accomplish their goals.
Tara Rose
Community Outreach Coordinator
Tara Rose is a genderqueer, San Francisco-based poet who often writes about love. Her works have been included in Quiet Lightning, Plunge Magazine, Red Light Lit, and Writing Without Walls.
Irwan Iskak
Web Coordinator
Irwan sporadically writes about being a gay agnostic muslim immigrant from Malaysia, dealing with issues of identity, memory and mothers who haunt their errant children regardless of where they go.
Mark Milla
Distribution Coordinator
Mark was born and raised in Los Angeles. He is a Production Coordinator for Pixar Animation. He cycles, cooks and watches reruns of The Golden Girls in his spare time.
Melton Cartes
Contributing Production Editor
Melton Cartes is an advertising agency art director/graphic designer and animator. His heroes are Saul Bass, Stanley Kubrick, and Bill Bernbach, to name a few. He’s also an aspiring screenwriting with 25 scripts under his belt, 13 of which he considers completed and market-worthy, 3 of which reached the semifinals in the Nicholl Fellowships and the Austin Film Festival. He loves languages.
Celeste Chan
Contributing Editor
Celeste Chan is a hybrid writer, filmmaker, and arts organizer. She is a queer student of experimentation, schooled by DIY and immigrant parents from Malaysia and the Bronx, NY. She’s received residencies and fellowships from Hedgebrook, Lambda Literary, Soaring Gardens, SF Writer’s Grotto, and VONA. Her writing can be found in Ada, As/us, AWAY, cream city review, Feminist Wire, Glitterwolf, Hyphen, Matador, and in anthologies: Glitter & Grit: Queer Performance from the Heels on Wheels Galaxy (Publication Studio), and Writing the Walls Down: A Convergence of LGBTQ Voices (Transgenre Press). Her short films have screened locally and internationally. Alongside KB Boyce, she co-directs Queer Rebels, a queer and trans people of color arts project.
Stacy Nathaniel Jackson
Contributing Editor
Stacy Nathaniel Jackson was born in Los Angeles and attended Ramona Convent College Preparatory School for Girls in a former incarnation of his life. He is a Cave Canem fellow and was the recipient of an individual artist’s grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission in 2011. Author of the chapbook Camouflage published by MaCaHu Press, his poems, plays, and visual art have been published in Black Arts Quarterly, Lodestar Quarterly, Enizagam, and New American Writing 25 among others.
D. A. Powell
Contributing Editor
D. A. Powell’s books include Repast (Graywolf, 2014) and Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys (Graywolf, 2012), recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry. Powell has taught at Harvard, Columbia University, Davidson College, University of Iowa, Stanford and, most recently, at University of San Francisco.
Rowena De Silva
Art Consultant
Birmingham, England; Sri Lankan; queer; brown; big, curly hair; can talk about decolonization any day of the week; afraid of cats; BA in art history (…in progress); San Francisco / Chicago
Submit to Foglifter
Foglifter is currently open for submissions. Please send us your prose, poetry and anything in between. Submissions close December 1st!
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Help us continue our mission of providing a platform for intersectional queer writing. Donate today!
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UPDATE: We originally stated that the event would go on despite air quality. After further consideration, we’ve decided to postpone the event. We’ll let everyone know ASAP when the new date will be, and we deeply apologize. If you're a reader, be on the lookout for an email from us about rescheduling.
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In a new installment of The Queer Syllabus, @vianneyfriducha writes on the 2017 documentary CHAVELA by Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi. https://t.co/V25gygfNb4
Happy Queer Syllabus day from @foglifterpress and @The_Rumpus ! Read the brilliant @vianneyfriducha's piece on the 2017 documentary on Chavela Vargas by Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi: https://t.co/gZzaXCcQQR
