They're planning to publish in 2027.

It's good to get something out into the world.

I sold a couple of Transgender Cubes graphic Ts earlier this month, which was exciting, but because Redbubble only pays out if you make more than £10, I wouldn't have seen the £6.77 that theoretically earned me. So I decided to do some promotion and be open about the fact that I wanted to get over the threshold to actually get paid.

And people bought things! Not a lot, but I eventually got to just over £12 of the artist's margin!

Today my Internet friend, Mike, posted a picture of the Chuthlu Christmas throw pillow he bought 💕 Mike is in Australia! A cushion with my design exists and is in Australia! And I will be paid a few quid for its existence 🙂

I often get bummed about how impossible it seems to make money outside of the traditional work environment that I can no longer engage with, and this doesn't really change the reality of that, but it's really nice to know that people have objects with my art on, and that those objects give them pleasure.

Anyway, if you, too, would like an object with my art on, you can find them over here:

This is the cushion my friend bought 🙂 (not his actual cushion, because that's not my photo, but Redbubble's promo image of it):

<3 Thank you so much! I certainly have a widely varied approach to naming my files. While some are poetic, others are deeply silly, lol!

'The Garden where Music Weeps' is a short story I wrote in 2004. It's about a forgotten god who is no longer worshipped and feels drawn to the Garden, where an otherworldly harpist binds his essence to her music and he slowly drifts away.

It is poetic, and has gone down well at open mic readings and in writers' groups, but when questioned, readers/listeners tend to not be able to say what it's about, which may explain why I've never been able to sell it.

I'd be tempted to release it as an audio piece, as it does seem to go down well as a performance, but I have so few spoons these days, and it's way down the list of priorities.

An excerpt:

Carpet Life. Ro Smith, 2024.

Photo of the inside of my vacuum cleaner.

The Great Resignation, by Ro Smith

The third in my series of angry poems.

This goes out to everyone who can’t buy their own home no matter how many avocados they skip. Everyone who worked through the pandemic without a break. Everyone who went on Furlough but barely had enough to get by. Everyone who got COVID and had to struggle back to work while they were still sick. Everyone with long COVID. Everyone who’s not had a holiday that wasn’t a ‘staycation’ in years.

Everyone who’s done.

Everyone who wants out.

I'm still angry about the state of the world. And in particular being asked to be nice about it when we ask to retain our human rights.

This is a reading of a poem I originally wrote during the Black Lives Matter protests, about the toppling of the statue of human-trafficker and general shitstain, Edward Colston. And the way there was such pearl-clutching that people who had to walk past insult to their existence, heritage, and rights every single day didn't express their outrage politely enough.

I'm done with polite. And I need my representatives to be done with it too. It isn't enough to vote, when the people you vote for won't act.

In the UK, I need her majesty's opposition to stand up for my human rights. In the US, I need the Democrats - who are in charge - to stop texting fundriving messages and do something now for everyone who just lost their bodily autonomy.

Occasional reminder that if you like me and my stuff you can always buy me a cuppa.

My story, 'Just Me' has been published by Underland Arcana!

It's about a genderfluid person straddling the mundane and the arcane, and struggling to connect to their parents.

It's poetic and uses existentialist philosophical ideas to explore a sense of connectedness and individuality within the natural world. All stuff that makes it a little experimental, and I'm thrilled that Underland Arcana have published it in their Fall 2021 edition.