Call for Submissions:
Femme to Femme
Femme to Femme is a literary non-fiction,varied anthology seeking to explore femme* identity in the 20th and 21st century through poetry, prose, essays, stories/narratives, illustration/art and photography. It was inspired by conversation with young femme* folks of color and Joseph Beam’s 1991 collection of writings edited by Essex Hemphill: Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men.
Beam’s Brother to Brother gave me voice and a vision of self-making and self-determination in my search of media that examined and politicized race, class, identity, sexuality, culture and relationships. It also motivated me to further explore my own ideas of self, and to imagine and create media that reflects all parts of me.
Likewise, Femme to Femme seeks to challenge public discourse about and around femmeness because it often has a white, classed, cis-gender woman center, and is only discussed in relationship to masculinity– never each other. It is a project that prioritizes the lives, needs, and desires of femmes of all lived experiences (sans white); it is a call to action and celebration of the personal, political, and transformative self; it seeks to build upon legacies of black and brown queer, feminist trouble makers, and literary and artistic geniuses; it seeks to breathe new life into our current queer and trans political movement looking for submissions from femme* self-identified folks, including: gay/queer, bi, asexual, pansexual, trans*, gender non-conforming, and others along the gender and sexual orientation spectrums.
I am specifically seeking stories, letters, narratives, critical analyses and essays, illustrations, and photography capturing the essence and nuanced expressions of black and brown femme* personhood across gendered and embodied differences; How you interpret these is up to you. I welcome first-person narratives (of your experiences and relationships to other femme folks — mom, sister, grandma, auntie, girlfriend, partner, etc), photos essays, remembrances, reviews of significant literature or films, anything that you’d like to add to the conversation of what femmeness means to you, and how definitions and expectations of it is changing…or not.
Topics might include:
– Re-imagining the Combahee River Collective: A Manifesto for Black and Brown Femmes
– Black Feminism in the Age of Social Media and Beyonce
– Forging Femme Selves and Identities
– Gender Hurts Everybody: On Gender Liberation and The Carceral State
– Trans, Cis, and Gender Non-Conforming/Non-Binary Femmes in Conversation
– Remembering The Fabulous Sylvester
– Memoir of A Sissy Boy/Girl
– Butch Queens, Femme Queens, and Everything in Between: A Look at [Femme] Performance in the House-Ballroom Scene
– Femme to Femme Solidarity, Sex, and Desire
– Biographical and critical treatments of Assotto Saint, Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera
– The Politics of Respect, Consent and Bodies
– A Dedication to Mark Aguhar
NOTE: SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW BEING ACCEPTED UNTIL NOVEMBER 1, 2015. SUBMIT TO: FEMMETOFEMMEPROJECT@GMAIL.COM.
— Jamal Lewis, Editor