Call for Submissions: Infinite Branches: Queer, Speculative Disability Poetry in Conversation

Interstellar Flight Press is seeking poets who are both queer/trans and disabled for a special collaborative series in 2025, to be published at Interstellar Flight Magazine. Our guest editor for this call is Toby MacNutt. This call is different than our past calls: Please read the guidelines carefully.
Guest Editor’s Biography
I’m queer, nonbinary (they/them) trans-masculine, chronically ill, autistic, and a speculative poet. I’m a white person living in rural Vermont (US), and also a textile artist, teacher, and dancer. I won’t be choosing your poems — I’m here to facilitate the process. I’m an experienced facilitator, and my goal is to support your work in the way you want it to be read. I can provide access support for group conversations, prompt questions for writing your statement or explore it in conversation for transcription, facilitate group conversation, help with files and sharing. I’ll also be working with poets to create content warnings as needed, and can offer feedback or light edits on work.
You can find out more about me on my website, www.tobymacnutt.com or say hi on Instagram @tobymacnutt or mastodon @tobymacnutt@wandering.shop
Description
In this round-robin series, the poems are selected by the poets and positioned in the context of one another. One poem leads to a responding poem from another poet, with a short statement on the reasons for their choice and whatever else they’d like to share about it. Each pod of six poems concludes with a group discussion of what we see when our work sits next to each other (and we’re still there with it, still in the room). What themes and variations emerge? What unique things are we doing with the form? What about your work is understood by your peers in ways out-group editors can’t keep up with? Let’s find out!
We’re looking for speculative poetry from poets who are both queer/trans and disabled, with all these categories being broadly defined:
speculative poetry: poetry that includes some element, large or small, outside of what is generally considered reality, whether it be fantasy, science fiction, slipstream, fabulism, surrealism, alternate history, or something else entirelyqueer and/or trans: the whole queer umbrella, including bi and pan, gay, lesbian, ace/aro, demi, and more, and the whole trans umbrella, binary and non, transitioning and non, including agender, bigender, genderfluid, genderqueer, two-spirit, and othersdisabled: including but not limited to poets with chronic illness, neurodiverse poets, Mad/mentally ill poets, d/Deaf and hard of hearing poets, mobility disability, sensory disability, developmental or intellectual disability, communications disabilities, limb difference, and so many more, whether lifelong or acquired. We will not ask you to disclose any diagnoses or medical information to participate. We will ask you about your access needs so we can best support your participation.Please make sure you meet all three categories’ criteria for this project and are comfortable with your work appearing in the context of queer, trans, disabled identities. If you would like to use a pseudonym for this project, that’s fine.
How It Works
Poets will be sorted into three groups of six. At your turn, you’ll be sent the poem that came before you and have a week to submit a poem from your own body of work (not written for this publication; unpublished or reprint is fine; it does not have to be a poem you submitted in your questionnaire).
After confirming your poem, you’ll need to write a response statement about your choice — we can support or guide this process in a way that works for you. Once all six poets in your group have submitted, you’ll each see the full chain of poems and responses, and have a discussion about it on the platform that most suits the group’s needs, likely Zoom or Discord. That discussion will be lightly edited for clarity as needed, and you’ll have a chance to check it for accuracy before publication. Poems will be released in the series one by one every two weeks, with their written responses accompanying, and then the group discussion as a separate post after each pod. At the end of the series, we will collect it into an anthology.
What We Want
Queer/trans & disabled poets who are excited to share work with one another!Poets who like to talk/share about their workPoems that aren’t about being queer or trans or disabled; poems that are about itPoems that are joyous and unashamed; poems that struggle in the hard places; and everywhere in betweenPoems that get misunderstood out-group (but your award-winners are welcome here too)Poets from all over the world, including immigrant and diaspora poetsPoets with layers of intersecting identities, including BIPOCOld poets, young poets, unpublished poets, established poets, newly-out poets, community-elder poetsPoets who get excited about poetry :)Editor’s Statement
I am looking for poems that are grounded in a queer disabled perspective — whatever that may be for each poet. That does not mean the poems need to be about queerness and/or disability or even reference them explicitly. I am, in particular, looking for poets who feel the queer disabled perspective is inherent or fundamental to their work, and who are eager to discuss what that means to them, and make connections — and contrasts! — to other poets working from these perspectives. Poets should have some existing awareness of their own queer and disabled identities, whether those have been discussed publicly or not. They should have enough speculative poetry under their belt to allow them to choose response pieces from work they’ve already written (whether published or unpublished).
I especially want the poems written from your bodymind and your being in the way that only you can write, in worlds only you — or perhaps we — could imagine. I want to find out what those poems mean to you, and to us, together.
What we don’t want: almost no topic is off-limits with adequate content warnings, but please, no “AI” generated work, no hate speech/promotion of fascism (n.b., making a dominant group uncomfortable is not hate speech)
Guidelines for Submission (What to Submit)
2–3 poems by queer, disabled poets. These submitted poems are not binding choices; selected poets will choose their poems at their turn in the round-robin structure. Instead, these are intended to give us a sense of your work in general. They can fall anywhere within the broad label of “speculative” (see call) and do not have to explicitly involve queerness, transness, or disability, though they certainly may do so.A short bio (50–100 words)Submit in .doc, .docx or .pdfPlease use 12pt font with each poem beginning on a new page.Please provide content warnings in the document for potentially triggering/traumatic content as applicable.Please use the submission form (below) to submit. Submissions sent via email will not be read.Please answer the following questions (on the submission form)Is there anything about you, including but not limited to specific identities or intersections, that you’d like us to know about when considering your work?What interests you about these particular poems? For example, are there certain details you are proud of, themes that resonate for you, important life experiences you drew from, or questions you wish you could ask your peers about them?When thinking about discussing your work with other queer/trans & disabled poets, what do you yearn for? What excites you?What access needs or other support might you require to participate in this kind of discussion process? For example, live captions, deadline reminders, or prose editing support. It’s fine if these needs change or emerge during the process.At publication, poets will be paid a $50 honorarium.
About UsInterstellar Flight Magazine publishes essays on what’s new in the world of speculative genres. In the words of Ursula K. Le Guin, we need “writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope.” Visit our Patreon to join our fan community on Discord. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram
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