Somewhere I must’ve mentioned that this past January I attended a one-day writer’s retreat for Philly trans writers, called The Philly Fictionists, but if this is the first you’re hearing about it from me, my bad. Led by Julian Shendelman, the group of us stayed in touch after the retreat, collaborating on a zine, culminating with a debut reading on May 15th at Giovanni’s Room, complete with a 50-count print edition of the zine, a chonky jawn that now exists for free digital download.
Glamouring is a zine-style anthology co-created by 10 members of The Philly Fictionists.
In this 68-page PDF, you’ll find 9 new stories, excerpts, and works-in-progress (as well as original artwork) by Philly-area trans writers. The collection is the culmination of a 6-month project by Collective Lit, made possible with funding from The Leeway Foundation.
Glamouring features:
- Kale Choo Hanson
- Marianne Agnes
- Jean Brigid-Prehn
- Rochel Goldman
- Alex DiFrancesco
- Julian Shendelman
- Victoria Garcia
- M. Téllez
- Rook Feld
- Malachi Lily
The zine release reading was packed, standing room only in the cozy upstairs of Giovanni’s Room, which is a long-running LGBT bookstore here in Philly. It was my first time reading there and that felt special. I stood there after the reading looking over the LGBT sci-fi/fantasy/horror bookshelves, remembering when dedicated sections like this didn’t exist, and being stunned nonetheless to find the anthologies I’m in there on the shelves. Wild how things change in just ten years time.
To our surprise, Nigel Thompson, a correspondent from KYW News Radio attended the event, so there’s thorough report back coverage with an audio segment for the curious.
As for the retreat itself, it was an extremely low key, well-balanced day of gathering and dispersing over food and writing prompts and various couches and tables and chairs, and I wound up writing the start of a new piece, more from my barely spoken about skater kid dark fantasy world. From what the other writers who attended have said, it seems like this simple gathering did us all a lot of good, and so once again shout out to Julian and everybody for making this the nourishing coalescing that it’s been.
Leave a Reply