PUBLICATIONS
ONE MAN’S TRASH
A thoroughly postmodern monster finds kinship in mutability and endurance. A restaurant critic meets his match in a tale of telepathic tongues. A put-upon middle-manager dreams of bloody revenge against the puerile Big Babies. A courier chases an impossible connection across a city that doesn’t exist. Seeking solace in queer lives and landscapes, these fables of loneliness, love and liminality delight in disgust, discover joy in daily junk, and create wild unexpected treasures from the most unusual of leftovers.
“If you are a fan of the weird fiction genre (think Octavia Butler, Neil Gaiman, or Stephen King), One Man’s Trash is for you.” - Lambda Literary
“There’s an engrossing sense of terrific unease at work in all of these stories that’s seductively tense. Romance in its emotional and physical form is intertwined throughout these tales of the unexpected.” - Starburst
“These stories are unsettling in the best way: they get under your skin and take root.” - Rachel Plummer, author of Wain
“A freakish, festering, and occasionally beautiful collection of stories.” - Laura Waddell, author of Exit
Order direct from Lethe Press
WE WERE ALWAYS HERE:
A QUEER WORDS ANTHOLOGY
(CO-EDITED WITH MICHAEL LEE RICHARDSON)
From drag queens and discos, to black holes and monsters, these stories and poems wrestle with love and loneliness and the fight to be seen. By turns serious and fantastical, hilarious and confrontational, We Were Always Here addresses the fears, mysteries, wonders and variety of experience that binds our community together. We Were Always Here is a snapshot of current Scottish LGBTI+ writing and a showcase of queer talent.
Order direct from 404 Ink
MINOR MISHAPS
A zine of collected writings that aren’t entirely fit for public consumption, but also not quite so past their use-by-date that they had to be thrown away. Spans a 9 year period of experiments, false-starts and oddities. Includes some infrequent forays into poetry, a longform piece that lands somewhere between autofiction and Irish mythology, and some of the best cuts from a long-defunct blog, The Dolby Apposition, which used songs chosen at random by an iPod Shuffle as the starting point for microfictions.
Order from Good Press, or if they’re sold out, email me using the form at the bottom of the page!
The Queen's Head
2010 - 2016
The Queen’s Head, issues 1-5
Originally intended as a one-off zine between Glasgow friends, the first issue of The Queen's Head was edited and compiled at a cabin on the east coast of Scotland, printed on borrowed sugarpaper and bound by string and beads.
It soon, however, grew legs, arms, many other unidentifiable appendages, and by its fourth issue was home to some wonderful, weird and really rather intense writing and illustration from all over the world. An unpredictable publishing schedule, non-existent budget and constantly evolving purpose were by turns charming and infuriating, but one thing held true across all eight issues: a delight in championing new writers with a knack for brilliance.
A labour of love in the truest sense of the phrase, it was an honour to select and showcase all the work that made it into the zine,
and I thank all our featured writers, illustrators and multitudinous supporters for getting involved.
Our eighth and final issue was online only, and is downloadable as a PDF below. Issues 1 - 7, meanwhile, are still available to purchase in print while stocks last. Just drop me a line using the contact form at the bottom of the page, stating which issues you'd like. Print issues are all £4, postage and packaging included (UK only - for further afield, get in touch and I'll see what I can do!)
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Issue 8 - PDF ONLY
Grave misuse of industrial-grade rubber; media-savvy murder ballads; post-decomposition literary deconstruction; birds and bellies; denial, drugs, Dune and death; the secret lives of furniture; old world, fresh eyes, new.
Camillus John - The Elastic Wedding Band
Sara Walters - Caged
Elliott Simpson - New Chair
James Hodgson - Exit Strategies
Rachel Plummer - Birdhouses / Midsection
Elaine Gallagher - A Life Examined
Jenny Terpsichore Abeles - Delia Bacon Does Not Exist
Issue 7 - PRINT COPIES SOLD OUT!
Ballardian viscera; paranoid fatherhood; interdimensional gaming and grief; hallucinogenic escapes; doomed voyages; a conference of AI; radiation sickness; digital labyrinths.
Ever Dundas - Wire
Shona McCombes - Bluebeard 2.0
Arike Oke - Those are Pearls that Were His Eyes
Paul McQuade - Starchildren
Katie McDermott - Omega
Emma Cleary - Moonsuit
R M Graves - Albie's War
Elaine Gallagher - Cassiel Falls
All illustrations by Ross McAuley
Issue 6
A transaction of souls; interior designs; mouths like watering holes; amber trinkets; hirsute hominids; theological powerpoints; cataclysm, flippantly.
Lara C Cory - Bottle Brown
Brennan Burnside - Therapeutic Waiting Rooms
Kiare Ladner - OMG!
Les Bernstein - Beelzebub’s Fundamentals for Success /
What The Great Almighty Carries In Her Purse
Jon Wesick - The Problem Has Always Been People /
Palanga, Lituania
Giselle Leeb - Moonlighter
Anstey Spraggan - A Hairy Tale
Valentina Cano - Beach Day / Mouth
All illustrations by Tawny Kerr
Issue 5
Pensioners, fighting dirty; antennae; an obsession with heartache; frozen cities; a village without children, a forest with a secret; forgotten man-made monsters; zero open, zero closed; queer representation in underground comics; a most beautiful slaughter; several selves; on chewing.
The Walk Home - Andrew Blair
Outlines of Stacks / /Image Date May 2012 - Andrew Taylor
The Trouble with Belle and Sebastian - R. A. Davis
Icepoems: Paris & Athens - Dic Edwards
Silent Village - Vivien Jones
Dounreay // Tyre Dump - Steven Devereux
Family Self Portrait // [k j zero one] - Mike Saunders
Sex & Gender, Love & Rockets - Steven Garrard
Artemisia - Charlie Saben Fox
A Question of Honesty - Tami Vibberstoft
Hey, Fatboy // Relieving Orders at Mealtimes - Arundati Dandapani
Illustrations
Headlouse - Suky Goodfellow
Trouble - Tawny Kerr
Little Man - Sophie Casimira Kromholz
Trans-Siberan Tentacle - Nadine Khatib
Artemisia - Sophie Casimira Kromholz
Issue 4
Courting rituals; lonely giraffes; atomic grace; papier-mâché people; a sun that never sets; a big bird in a small cage; mythical lumberjacks; shiny red clicked-heel shoes.
The Birds and The Bees - Andrew Blair
You Will Meet a Tall, Spotted Stranger - Sophie Casimira
Oak Branch & Tree Warbler // Pushkar - Samuel Tongue
Early Train - Alex Tobin
The North, 1883 // Foreign Bodies - Angela Meyer
The Cage - Bethany Williams
His Name Was Paul - Liam Fogerty
Torryburn Jean - Susan MacDonald
All illustrations by Hazel Gore
Issue 3
Feminism, craft and rebellious grandmothers; fond remembrances; minotaur (singular), breaking and entering; wrestlers and bluesmen.
Anna Fisk - Patch Work
R. A. Davis - St. Andrew’s Day // Advent
Ryan Vance - Asterion
Paul Smith - The Freebird Rule
Also ships with a special Triptych Chapbook - three mini-zines showcasing material from Stephen O'Toole, R. A. Davis, Elaine Gallagher and Tawny Kerr
Issue 2
Welsh Odlaws; fingers and sausages; auditory epiphanies; flying marine biology; monkeys and masks.
R. A. Davis - When Was Wally?
Katie Nail - Jelly Fish
Stephen O'Toole - Happy People (OR: U SAVED ME, R KELLY)
Sean McCormack - A Cephalopod Too Far
Cara English - Two Poems, Untitled
Ryan Vance - Forgetta
Also ships with two illustrated postcards by Tawny Kerr
Issue 1
The lyrical narratives of breakups; shaving trees and sad cyborgs; Jose Saramago's socialist agenda; possession, skin and a tug-of-war mixtape.
R. A. Davis - The Parting Glass
Stephen O’Toole - For Shiona
Ian Kenneth Macbeth - Let’s Howl, Said the Dog
Ryan Vance / Daniel Baker - Ori
Aimee Williamson & Kate Montgomery - Agony Aunts (Poster)