Transcending Shadows Publishing

I’m submissive but only when I want to be. You hurt me only when I want you to. I want to close my eyes and let you see how much I love it when you touch me. I want you to find my gender in my dark places. Sometimes it likes to hide from the light.

paleness is beauty now. I wonder why...

2 AM birds sing a love song for the drunkard stumbling home – not by the moon’s light, but by the faded yellow emanating from flickering street lamps. 

All the fullness I once had was sucked out of me by addiction’s sweet and hungry lips. It left me pretty on the outside, seemingly full, but completely empty and hollow on the inside. Still, I had everybody fooled. After all, I was such a pretty shell. 

And with your mouth, you worshipped me. Curve of maroon, honeydew, blood-sap. The wet of my thighs drew your scarred hands.

There was work, yes. Chisel and pan and corkscrew. I watched your sweat

climb the thickening veins there.

New piece by Taylor Houston!

“ None of us were taught this. I tell people I like girls. I don’t use the L word, ever. I take a deep breath and – nothing. It burns the back of my throat like the name of a former lover I obviously don’t have because who could ever love me if I don’t even know who I am?”

Hello friends!

We have only received and accepted TWO art submissions in the past FIVE MONTHS! Please send us your art! We need art expressing LGBTQ identity, experiences with forms of oppression, abuse, assault, trauma, healing, recovery, mental health, self-love, childhood and adolescence, anything on identity, or really, anything that was empowering for you to create!

You can submit up to 5 (five) works of (visual, still) art as either PNG or JPEG files, 

one video up to 5 (five) minutes long as a link either through Vimeo or another third party server, 

or up to 2 (two) recordings as .mp3 files through links with a third party server.

This means that you can submit paintings, drawings, collages, blackout poetry, animations, short films, spoken word videos, songs, multimedia art, and more! 

“I want new skin, I say. Why? my friend asks, soy sauce staining her lips. I want to have white skin, I say. like the celebrities on TV.”

We are considering making a print version as a zine. However, to do this, we need more submissions. We are looking for general lit mag stuff like prose, poetry, and creative non-fiction. But we also want your mixed media art, your collages, your blackout poetry, your memoirs, your letters to loved ones or to your past self, your screen-prints, your essays, your photography, your flash fiction, your comics... We want creative expression in any form that can be published in a print zine. 

We want dissident, queer, genderfucked, countercultural, decolonizing, anti-capitalist, inclusive, intersectional, mentally ill, poor, vagrant, immigrant, oppressed, abused, woman, feminist, non-binary, polyamorous, disabled, indigenous, marginalized voices. We want stories. Send us yours.

The Transcending Shadows zine will have themed issues with deadlines as follows:

Issue One: Genderfuckery. Work by anyone who does not identify as a cis female or cis male surrounding topics related to gender identity, transphobia, political womanhood, coming out, the gender binary as a tool of colonialism, etc. Deadline is March 31st.

Issue Two: Voices of Gold. Work by LGBTQ+ people of colour. Open to any topics. Deadline is April 30th.

Issue Three: How to Cure a Trauma Survivor. Work by survivors about trauma, abuse, sexual assault, the aftermath of those, and the steps to healing and recovery. Deadline is May 31st.

Issue Four: (Dis)order. Work about experiences with mental illness and/or suicide, the stigma of mental health, critiques of the professional mental health system, what is means to be mentally “ill” or mentally “healthy”, self-care tips, etc. Deadline is April 30th.

Issue Five: Sapphic. Work for and by women who love women, pertaining to topics such as queer love, feminism, womanism, homophobia, non-binary lesbianism, etc. Deadline is June 30th.

In the future there may be more issues. You can submit either through our general submissions (if we feel your work would fit an issue of the zine, we would ask to include it) or directly to the zine as described below.

Zine Submission Guidelines:

Email zine submissions as attachments to [email protected].  In the subject area, specify your last name and what issue you are submitting to. It should look like: “[issue number] SUBMISSION/[last name]”.

Include a cover letter in the body of your email – it doesn’t need to be formal. Just tell us about yourself and your submission, including the names of your pieces. If it is accepted, we will ask for a short, third-person biography for our website.

We accept previously published material as long as you own the rights to it and you properly credit the previous publisher(s).

Simultaneous submissions are accepted.

At this time we are unable to pay for accepted work. Contributors can receive a copy of the zine provided they pay for shipping (this zine is being made by one lonely queer living off disability).

Rights remain with the author.

All pieces accepted for our zine will also be published on the Transcending Shadows Review website.

If an issue to which you submitted fills up before your work can be included, we might still accept it and save it for a future print issue.

What Makes a Person by Micheal Cordero

I'm still learning how to pronounce my name. Some days it feels as if every letter is a fire escape trapped in flames. As if its syllables are riding shotgun in every passing car. I've been trying to catch up ever since I learned to talk. Other days it feels as if it's the only thing I know how to say. It pours from my mouth like a stuttering sunset; I'm always saying it like I'm saying good-bye. But the way I introduce myself is the same way one would light a candle. Carefully, but the way she said it, made it sound like a wildfire. Like my fingers were forests smoking too many cigarettes and putting them out on my sagebrush arms. She could whisper my name and I'd feel my veins catch fire like branches that decided to wrestle lightning. It's a good thing I don't have to say my name in a poem because my poetry dances like its legs were violins making every word a symphony. If you knew me when I was younger, you'd know that I'd shine my silver tongue with rap battles against the devil. But silver wasn't good enough so I sold my soul and he dipped them in gold. I guess he ended up winning because I'm a lot better at lying but all I do is write them down now. Maybe that means I'm just lying to myself these days. Maybe I'm just scared of anyone who stays longer than a day. Maybe my gold has so much weight behind it that it's bending itself. Maybe it's making a noose for itself. Maybe I'm trying to write myself a noose. Lately I've just been starting poems and they all seem to end with you. What's makes me, me? they ask. Stick around long enough, it won't be hard to figure out. After that, you'll leave, no girl wants to find out her love poem wasn't about her. This is what I am, an apology letter knocking at all the wrong doors. She said stop apologizing all the time, maybe you'll get somewhere. I said apologizing was the only way I knew how to move on. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that this, is who I am. I am a poetry book spoken in volumes that refuse to turn down. I am loud and I will always say sorry. I am the tornado inside a whisper or the shadows from trains whose footsteps echo across walls. If you rip my insides open, you'll find out why God put hearts in cages. I'm still learning how to say my name but when my tongue wraps itself correctly around the music my parents named me after, I'll never stop singing that song.

BIO: ​Micheal Cordero is an 18 year old attending the University of Nevada-Las Vegas to attain his Bachelor's degree in Psychology. He's entered several poetry slams and views spoken word poetry as a release from the stress of his college career. The biggest influences in his writing include spoken word poets such as Rudy Francisco and Sarah Kay, to classical poets such as Charles Bukowski and Robert Frost. The poem he is submitting is titled "What Makes a Person," as a form of self-discovery and confidence in oneself.

Dissociative Identity Disorder

Manic Depressive or Bipolar Disorder

Trauma Response

Bio: Molly Kat lives in her sketchy white van and spends most of her time volunteering with at risk youth, writing, adventuring in the woods, singing, block printing patches, making zines, and explaining systemic oppression to cis men. She's an intense kid, she doesn't buy into the gender binary, and she smiles a lot. You can follow her adventures, writing, and photo/gonzo journalism at madtolivemolly.tumblr.com.