🥁🎺ZINE LAUNCH at @typewronger.bsky.social TOMORROW!! 🎺🥁 Collaborating with @eadaoinlynch.bsky.social on this archive-based poetry project has been a true gorgeousness, and I'm so thankful for their generosity in bringing me on board. Come help us celebrate! www.eventbrite.com/e/remember-h...

We chat with Christina Neuwirth, bookseller at beloved radical bookshop Lighthouse Bookshop, about their favourite Edinburgh things 📚

'Nowhere else in modern life, whether urban or rural, is there a public space where anyone can enter and remain without the expectation of payment or labour.' Check out @eadaoinlynch.bsky.social's 🔥 report on public libraries for Scottish Book Trust. www.scottishbooktrust.com/uploads/stor...

Come along tomorrow & see me wax lyrical about mystery book lesbians, sparkling wine, & my recent collab with @eadaoinlynch.bsky.social at the #LavenderMenace Archive! 🍾 (Also the delectable @katherinewyers.bsky.social will be showcasing her new saxophone composition, because she's fab like that.)

This research has been my juggernaut for 1.5 years and I’m glad it’s finally out in the world. Libraries are essential!

If you’re an LGBTQ+ bookworker - organise with us. By building our collective power as workers, we can transfer power away from those in charge and into the hands of those working to make our industry better and safer for all. DM or email us at [email protected] to get involved.

Our response to fascist policies which seek to erode our rights and divide society needs to be one of collective solidarity and action.

Attending literary festivals this year? Then write to them asking they affirm the safety and dignity of trans guests and audiences. If you’re a member of the SoA, demand that they release both a statement of solidarity and practical guidance to support trans authors, translators and illustrators.

Write to your union representatives and leaders, asking that they support their trans workers and publicly oppose the implementation of the EHRC’s interim guidance.

So what can we do to be unequivocal in our support for trans people? Bookshops, publishers, festivals, venues and other literary spaces can make a clear public statement that you will prioritise the safety & dignity of trans writers, readers and workers, and won't adhere to the interim guidance.

The EHRC interim update for organisations is not legally binding. This means there’s currently no legal obligation for businesses and organisations to implement trans segregation policies. It also means we can – and must – fight for a more just interpretation of the law.

We stand in solidarity with our trans siblings and are united in our anger at the Supreme Court ruling & EHRC update. Trans, non-binary and intersex people are facing exclusion from basic aspects of public life. Please read this thread that contains recommendations and calls to action.

Yeah baby yeah! Blurbs are in - check this out from the multitalented Em Prendergast. Preorder here! www.fourteenpoems.com/shop/eff-able-a-spicy-anthology-of-queer-crip-poetry

📢 Every poet belongs in their union! 💸 2024 was a record-breaking year for poetry book sales. Despite this giving poets more power in the market, so few make money from sales. 💪 Being a poet today remains precarious, and you deserve a trade union that will better serve you as a worker. [1]

📢 Every writer of colour belongs in their union! 💸 Research commissioned by ALCS in 2022 shows that pay for writers of colour is 51% lower than for their white counterparts (in real terms). [1] www.alcs.co.uk/news/why-wri...

💥FREE EBOOK!💥 This book is a transfeminist call for collective liberation. Because there's no liberation without trans liberation Download your copy here: www.plutobooks.com/978074534941...

IT’S ONLY 2 MONTHS UNTIL PORTY PRIDE ‘25 And we are back with… The prom dog walk, swimming, dancing, films, crafting, art, ales, books events, climbing, cycling, nature walking, the makers market, music, running and of course, THE PORTY PRIDE BALL 🪩🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 Dates, times + tickets coming soon #portypride

“Last year was not the first time writers boycotted Hay over its sponsors. In 2019 Hay ended a five-year sponsorship with Tata after protests from writers including Arundhati Roy. In 2002 writers boycotted Hay over Nestlé’s sponsorship” www.thebookseller.com/comment/on-s...

🖋️calling all trans/nb folk who enjoy writing 🖋️ With conFAB and LGBT Youth Scotland I’m facilitating 6 *free* intergenerational writing workshops, over 6 weeks, aimed at any trans/nonbinary people in or around Edinburgh. (1/2)

The Issue 16 deadline is fast approaching! Send us your queerest poems by Jan 12th. All details are at fourteenpoems.com/submit. Can’t wait to read your poems!

Two weeks left to apply to become one of StAnza’s 2025 Poets in Residence! Full details here: bit.ly/4g0nQG4

Trust me, stop scrolling, click the link, go to "infinite view," and just *be* for a while.

As we’re all starting out, here’s a Starter Pack of LGBTQIA+ writers to enrich your life and feed. Will update as more folk arrive. 🌈 📖 ❤️ go.bsky.app/UD2Hf7Wa

I can not stress enough that a few literary festivals losing funding has NOTHING to do with authors mostly earning terrible money. Nothing.

Cuts to local government budgets devastated festival grants as well as social services like housing benefit, making it harder to write & driving festivals into the arms of funders they didn’t want to scruntinise (Eg BG Prizes’s 2nd sponsor is run by a dude currently under sanction by Ukraine) >

The Guardian has published another article today about declining author wages (true), this time blaming FFB for this trend (not true). Festivals and authors have both become poorer poorer for the same two reasons: austerity and wealth hoarding by the publishing industry. >

I'm slowly adding to this starter pack of BIPOC poets in the UK as they join bsky / as I find them. follow & share these brilliant writers 🌱🔮 go.bsky.app/51rVEPJ

Delighted to say I’m now listed on the Scottish Book Trust’s Author Directory 🥳 If you’re in an org that wants to book an author for a workshop, reading or anything else, you can reach out via the directory & potentially also get Live Literature funding 📚 www.scottishbooktrust.com/authors/eada...

“As arts organisations turn to corporate sponsorship to fill these funding gaps, more often than not, they take on the agendas of their sponsors […] This financial reliance filters out critical or risky voices who might upset funders” skindeepmag.com/articles/art...

New issue of TENTACULAR magazine i.m. Gboyega Odubanjo www.tentacularmag.com

✨submissions are now closed✨ Thank you all for your interest and support of the eff-able project! 💜 We can’t wait to read all your gorgeous sexy queer crip poems and shortlist with our publisher fourteen poems. We’ll get back to you in the new year. Until then, stay safe and stay sexy! 😍

5th person to be cured of HIV “Today, researchers announced the Dusseldorf patient still has no detectable virus in his body, even after stopping his HIV medication four years ago.”

Friendly reminder that eff-able submissions close at MIDNIGHT TONIGHT! (U.K. time) Our subs folder is running HOT with sexy poems, but we want more, so get your queer crip erotica to us NOW! effable.uk/submissions

Only taking submissions until tomorrow 🚨 Get your poems in! effable.uk/submissions/

Get your poems in! @eff-able.bsky.social is accepting submissions up until 10 December ✨

Our free poetry workshops are now available to watch back on our website and YouTube channel effable.uk/blog/ Huge thanks to @sallrock.bsky.social & Gayathiri for delivering such warm nurturing creative spaces for our queer crip bodies.

I am absolutely living for my poem a day in @annierutherford.bsky.social’s Poetry Advent Calendar. Such poems! All donations will go to Médecins Sans Frontières. Still time to sign up! book.benefacthq.com?id=poetry-ad...

So pleased to see Peter Mackay announced today as Scotland’s new Makar. A brilliant choice. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Today is International Day of Persons with Disabilities. It’s also 1 week to go to send us your sexy queer crip poems for the eff-able anthology! effable.uk/submissions Here are lines from some of our favourite queer erotic poetry to get your creative juices flowing.

I’m so thrilled to be commencing a Typewronger residency next month 💥 Huge congrats aswell to @rakelrank.bsky.social as the other resident of the Typewronger studio!

Get your poems in! @eff-able.bsky.social is accepting submissions up until 10 December ✨

MILF = Manuscript I’d Like to Finish

via @pamenarpress.bsky.social On Nov 29-30, presses, poets, writers, & translators will hold a 24 hour Global Reading for Freedom of Expression & Solidarity with Palestine and Lebanon. Poetry knows no borders & can speak powerfully for the right to free expression. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxJN...