GenderWild Press is pleased to announce that we are now working with four brilliant authors! This is a big announcement for such a tiny press. But it is also a celebration, a long pre-party, and a hopeful gaze into the gorgeous future we’re building alongside our trans, intersex, genderqueer, and nonbinary writing community.
We are absolutely ecstatic to welcome Jo Christian, Jude Jones, AJ Howell, and Phoenix Birch to the GenderWild family!
It takes a phenomenal amount of energy to write, create, and publish real books. Your support of GenderWild Press makes it possible for us to dream bigger and louder. We’ve got two major funding goals:
- Fund the creation, printing, and distribution of our books so that a world of readers can find them, and
- Pay our authors!
When you support GenderWild Press, your money goes straight to those two items. We’ll be launching a crowd-sourcing fundraiser soon, but in the meantime, we welcome your donations to support this vital work.
Meet our authors, get to know their writing, and consider supporting our early work on the path to publishing.
Jo Christian (they/them), author of Recovering Trans Mystic, is a PhD student and poet whose words shine a light on family origins, the joyous mystery of nature, and the recovery of self and identity through vulnerability.
Remember the star
you see is a dying light—
burgeoning further away—
further than you can fathom.
We never stop becoming—
a lightning bug lives in minutes
not years— and still the green ghost
of its lantern haunts our back yards
like a promise. There will always be
more— even if you can’t see
them before they bloom
emerald—
alive.
Jude Jones (they/them) is the author of Everything is Temporary and editor of Tiny Memoir. They write about identity, mental illness, trauma, and the process of writing, all through the very real lens of living in the moment whilst maybe not being in love with it right then and there.
Once, my husband and I decided to sit on the front steps of our house. Notice how I say “once”, because that was the only time. Soon after we sat down, we noticed a mouse trapped in the AC structure, hanging head up through the grills with the fan whirring below it. We had to use tongs to get the poor thing out. When we were done, my husband said “that’s about as much outside time as I can take,” and we slinked back indoors away from nature.
Phoenix Birch (they/them), author of Becoming Phoenix and Pigeons of Brooklyn, expresses incredibly heartfelt prose about the flora and fauna of our interconnected humanness.
Among the few humans we’ve passed by, two were perched on folding seats, sketching among the tombstones, surrounded by paints and brushes. Each time we see another of our kind, we regard each other with an unspoken understanding of silent reverence. We are here for the serenity, the respite, among the dead and among the living urban wild.
Sometimes we don’t know what we’re lacking or how undernourished we are until we encounter what we need and drink deeply of the offering. And the offering of this cemetery is one I know I’ll drink from as often as I can, as long as I live in this Brooklyn neighborhood. A reminder that, if I’m open and willing, I might find enough of what I need wherever I am planted.
AJ Howell (he/they) is a raging nerd, advocate for human rights, and usually the funniest person in the room. Their fantasy stories focus on speaking truth to power from a queer perspective. They live with their unconventional family in Indianapolis.
All Arryn could do was focus on the warmth pressed against their cheek, close their eyes, and whisper to themselves, This will end soon. This will end soon. The heat spread to Arryn’s other cheek as if the friend in their mind held their face like a parent has a child’s, reminding them that they were safe. Arryn couldn’t help but smile, letting the illusion of time fade into oblivion.
Oblivion—Arryn’s safe place.
When Arryn came to, it was as if they had never been in the tunnel to which they succumbed. The crew that had been kicking them were running away, not in amusement, but with a franticness about them. They were tripping to get away from Arryn. Arryn didn’t care why they were leaving, only that it was over. The sun was setting, and Arryn was alone, lying in the dunes on the outskirts of Gab. As Arryn lifted themself, they felt dull aches on both sides of their face. Something crusted had formed a thick crack from the corner of their left lip to their chin. Their teeth were sore, breathing was painful, their left eye was throbbing and swelling, and their favorite gray and scarlet dashiki was torn to shit.
These four authors will be bringing their books to life over the coming months, during which subscribers will have a front-row seat for all the latest information and announcements. This will include author interviews, cover art reveals, and presales before they show up anywhere else. Subscribe to get the latest!
For those of you who are subscribers, you can also help by sharing us with the people in your life who would love great trans/queer books and their authors.
A big thank you to everyone who is joining us in this amazing journey. Community is the reason this press started, and it’s the one place I always return to share these joys. Please also consider subscribing to each of these authors to learn more about them.
Robin, GenderWild founder and friend
GenderWild Press 
Awesome news and congrats to these authors — and you too, Robin, as you’ve been working so hard on GenderWild!
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