Issue 2 is OUT NOW!! HAPPY PRIDE, Issue 2 is now live on our website!!!
That’s nine stories, six poems, and one essay—all by queer authors, which means this issue might just be the perfect Pride Month read. As ever… this issue is for you and because of you. We couldn’t do this without your support! Thank you!
The TOC in issue order, with links to each piece:
✉️ Letter from the Editors
🌒 “Masquerade.” – Chidera Offor (poetry, 22 lines)
🐅 “We Who Have Been Raised by Tigers” – P.V. Vamsidhar (fiction, 4000 words)
🍂 “Before She Knew About Magic” – Joshua Geller Schwartz (fiction, 700 words)
🤖 “Ganymede” – Gospel Chinedu (poetry, 41 lines)
🌊 “Two People” – Ben Francisco (fiction, 4000 words)
🛤️ “obsolesce” – Macey Levington (poetry, 29 lines)
🧪 “This Is C(lone)-Pop” – Lia Lao (fiction, 4000 words)
🕷️ “Spider Kiss” – Bree Wernicke (fiction, 3700 words)
🦅 “girl, flogged by a false-named whip.” – Amie Shen (poetry, 32 lines)
❄️ “Chī Kǔ” – J.Y. Zhang (fiction, 1700 words)
🌱 “First to Rot” – J.N. Howell (fiction, 2100 words)
🍠 “Crowns” – cee-cee manrique (fiction, 600 words)
☕ “Open Your Eyes Again” – Toby MacNutt (poetry, 35 lines)
🖼️ “Remade, Reshaped, Remembered” – Sydney Paige Guerrero (fiction, 4000 words)
🗺️ “As seen through the hole of the hag stone:” – Sienna Tristen (poetry, 20 lines)
☀️ “A Noose of Purple Silk” – Sidney Grady (nonfiction, 3300 words)
As we write in our editorial letter, when we say “queer stories matter,” we don’t just mean “because they’re fun to read.” They are! But we also know that encounters with queer stories can be transformative. OTHERSIDE is for everyone, of course—but we do what we do because we can’t stop thinking about the readers who need these stories, the readers who will remember these stories, just like we remember the stories that shaped us. Many of the pieces in the issue are linked by shared themes: unexpected connections, the search for a place to call home, the families we’re born into and the families we choose. Perhaps above all else, though, this is an issue about memory. What stories do you remember? How have they shaped you? How have they saved you?
All the ways you can read Issue 2:
The full issue is available on our website!
You can purchase the ebook version almost everywhere ebooks can be found: Weightless Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Ko-fi, and lots of other retailers. You can also purchase the ebook right here on Patreon (and paid patrons can download current and past issues at the same link).
You can get a print copy! Unfortunately, in a stroke of unlucky-newsletter-timing, we had to make a small change to our print files and now order links are temporarily down. However, if you check these links again in a few hours or tomorrow at the latest, you should be able to order print copies directly (for readers in the US and UK) or via Bookshop.org or Barnes & Noble. Print should also be available from more retailers soon!
And you can also request issues of OTHERSIDE from your local library, which helps other readers discover the magazine too!
If you enjoy this issue, the #1 best way to support us is to spread the word! Tell a friend to check out our site, share a link to your favorite piece on social media, or write a review! (Apart from social media, you can leave a review on Goodreads, StoryGraph, Amazon, and probably lots of other places too.) Word of mouth means absolutely everything for a new magazine, and in a moment when lots of people would like to make it as hard as possible to find queer stories, your help makes all the difference 🪐🗡️🌈
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