Hello Dear Readers!
A lot has been happening over here at Gertrude! Kate, our CNF editor, won the Ippy for her second book, The Authenticity Experiment; Cooper, our fiction editor, spent a good deal of time as the Writer-In-Residence at Pacific Northwest College of Art (when not in Nova Scotia); and I just started my book tour for Sugar Land. As matter of fact, I'm writing this to you from a hotel room in Philadelphia with my clothes scattered on the bed around me because it was so humid in New York—where I had the honor of reading at the Bureau of General Services Queer Division and the Cornelia Street Cafe—that all my clothes are damp. Damp and smelling like the awful room deodorizer in my East Village AirBnB. Un-pleasant, folks.
Despite the wafting, I am delighted to introduce this issue, featuring four poems by Oliver Baez Bendorf, an insightful piece from Sam Hunter, and a poetic exploration with ali lanzetta. Because of time constraints, instead of running contributor fiction this time, Cooper asked Nikki Darling and Erin Wunker if we could publish if we could publish excerpts from their books, which we gleefully did, alongside a Q&A with Chelsey Johnson, Matthew Griffin, and Hilary Zaid as they go into the last leg of their debut book tours. Enjoy.
And before I rush off to another reading, a big thank you to everyone who donated during our Pride Fundraiser! Our goal is to be able to give all of our contributors a small payment for their work, and you helped put us closer to that goal. It's critical not only that we see ourselves and our lives in art and writing, but that we support the creators.
Sit back now and enjoy the impending hot cocoa weather with some truly amazing creatives in this, our 27th issue in our 20th year!
xo - tammy
A lot has been happening over here at Gertrude! Kate, our CNF editor, won the Ippy for her second book, The Authenticity Experiment; Cooper, our fiction editor, spent a good deal of time as the Writer-In-Residence at Pacific Northwest College of Art (when not in Nova Scotia); and I just started my book tour for Sugar Land. As matter of fact, I'm writing this to you from a hotel room in Philadelphia with my clothes scattered on the bed around me because it was so humid in New York—where I had the honor of reading at the Bureau of General Services Queer Division and the Cornelia Street Cafe—that all my clothes are damp. Damp and smelling like the awful room deodorizer in my East Village AirBnB. Un-pleasant, folks.
Despite the wafting, I am delighted to introduce this issue, featuring four poems by Oliver Baez Bendorf, an insightful piece from Sam Hunter, and a poetic exploration with ali lanzetta. Because of time constraints, instead of running contributor fiction this time, Cooper asked Nikki Darling and Erin Wunker if we could publish if we could publish excerpts from their books, which we gleefully did, alongside a Q&A with Chelsey Johnson, Matthew Griffin, and Hilary Zaid as they go into the last leg of their debut book tours. Enjoy.
And before I rush off to another reading, a big thank you to everyone who donated during our Pride Fundraiser! Our goal is to be able to give all of our contributors a small payment for their work, and you helped put us closer to that goal. It's critical not only that we see ourselves and our lives in art and writing, but that we support the creators.
Sit back now and enjoy the impending hot cocoa weather with some truly amazing creatives in this, our 27th issue in our 20th year!
xo - tammy