Fall 2025: The Desire Issue
Featuring a portfolio of New Trans Writing, this issue includes work by: Cynthia Carr, Terese Marie Mailhot, Alissa Nutting, Leslie Zemeckis, Jai Dulani, Ell Peck, Ilana Masad, Skyler Melnick, Luca van der Heide, Ben Freedman, Fayssal Bensalah, Lane Michael Stanley, Migwi Mwangi, Sharon Olds, David Calogero Centorbi, David Hopson, Elizabeth Metzger, Ted Kooser, Mag Gabbert, Christian Bancroft, John Surowiecki, Thomas Kneeland, Aishwarya Sahi, Rebecca Griswold, Timothy Schaffert, Oliver Evans, Apollo Chastain, Oliver Brooks, Zoe Tuck, அவ்ரீனா AVRINA, James Brunton, Ava N. Winter, Joan Tate, and Alyson Favilla.
Cover Photo: Candy Darling on Her Deathbed, 1973. © 2025 The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Essays
On the Cover: The Story of Candy Darling on Her Deathbed
Cynthia Carr
Can We Meet Again?
Terese Marie Mailhot
Cooties | Clown Cardio
Alissa Nutting
“Everywhere They Talk Only of You”: The Celebrity Courtesans and the Writers Who Defiled Them
Leslie Zemeckis
The Love Affair(s) of Tennessee Williams and Oliver Evans
Timothy Schaffert
An Essay on Shadows in Alphabetical Form
Jai Dulani
A Paper Lantern Over the Light: Becoming Blanche DuBois
Ell Peck
Fiction
Hollow
Ilana Masad
Sisterhood of Dirt
Skyler Melnick
Halina’s Guest House
Luca van der Heide
That Summer
Ben Freedman
Your Son Is with Pollen and Dust
Fayssal Bensalah
Heel Toe, Grapevine, Twist, and Hide
Lane Michael Stanley
Poetry
Like So, Like So
Migwi Mwangi
Sex in Public | The Kisses | Breakdown | Afterwards Backwards | East Across the Atlantic
Sharon Olds
The Twinkle in Your Eye | Prayers
David Calogero Centorbi
Aubade
David Hopson
Keep Me Together | Stop the Cocoon
Elizabeth Metzger
The Fabulous
Ted Kooser
[Some people believe, if you] | [Da Vinci was known for]
Mag Gabbert
Sexting with JimMorrison86 on AIM | Angels Are Invisible. Only Demons Make Themselves Visible
Christian Bancroft
Le cygne noir
John Surowiecki
The Calabash Drum | Across the Gulf
Thomas Kneeland
Essential Language | Desire and Its Consequences
Aishwarya Sahi
Wing Chord | Polyglot | Verse Hen, Song Bird
Rebecca Griswold
Rodeo
Oliver Evans
Pastoral
Apollo Chastain
Self-Portrait as the Left Son of Laocoön | Self-Portrait as the Right Son of Laocoön
Oliver Brooks
[What if a portal, rather than birthing new humans, was simply a squeezing holding mediator of inside and outside?] | [Muted in color and faintly scented, you were of little interest to bees or men.]
Zoe Tuck
burning cycle i | reading fine print for details of my ownership
அவ்ரீனா AVRINA
At the Rolla-Rena | What Our Bodies Could Do
James Brunton
What I Want to Call, Imprecisely, Love | The Planet without Music | Refraction Grating
Ava N. Winter
Coma Cinema | Boy Leading a Horse (1905)
Joan Tate
Up Next on Animal Planet | Epithalamion (Sandhill Crane)
Alyson Favilla