Events

Stories can be based around any facet of the season, whether it’s the weather or Christmas (or any other seasonal holiday). As ever, there is one main rule. It must make us laugh!

What is home to you? Each of us encompasses a unique definition. Whether it’s the refuge of a childhood room, an emotional attachment to a physical item, or a memory; home is anything we cherish in our hearts.

We’re asking about the risks you’ve taken, the risks you’ve avoided, and the risks you can’t avoid. 

Taken on its own, “gibbous” represents a concept still in the works, under construction, nearly-there. Perhaps this is what it means to live in a gibbous phase of the decade: something swollen, marked by tension and possibility.

For this issue, we'd like you to send us work that reflects on the idea of mending as a slow process of repair. To us, mending feels physical, intentional, and patient; what does mending feel like to you?

Some people aren’t human. Actually, mostly people aren’t: cats, sharks, trees, rocks, and everyone in between each hold histories and vital relationships that are too often sidelined in favor of anthropocentric narratives.

For this issue we invite work that traces the edges of intimacy and illusion. We seek longing projected across distance, the distortions of connection, and the gifts of being alongside – with or without perception and recognition.

We are looking for queer protagonists in any setting or genre where the narrative fits any of the above themes (defiance, survival, hope, love).

For this issue, we are open exclusively for our BIPOC Writers project.

Send us your strangest, sexiest, thirstiest, poems that, broadly speaking, fit with or interrogate the theme of queer pastoral.

Send us your beautiful wreckage, your quiet detonations, your elaborate ruses, and your betrayals of self. We’ll be listening for the sound of gears grinding, the machinery silenced. 

Send us your poems of insomnia, moonlight,  shadows, and dreams…

Submit a poem/flash prose of 30 lines/200 words (or less) responding to one of our four prompts.

How can slowness, reciprocity, and rest operate as radical acts of survival?

We invite pieces that capture the spirit of Aurora: radiant, reflective, and full of gentle transformation.

We're looking for fiction and poetry about the people who work in airports and for airlines, such as passenger service agents, ramp agents, TSA agents, airport engineers, baggage handlers, air traffic controllers, flight attendants, pilots, and so on.

What does butch-femme mean in lesbian and queer communities today?

Taken on its own, “gibbous” represents a concept still in the works, under construction, nearly-there. Perhaps this is what it means to live in a gibbous phase of the decade: something swollen, marked by tension and possibility.

Homemade and handmade—crafting a life.