The midyear Bent Street – a special issue on trans and gender diversity issues, edited by Sam Elkin and Yves Rees – is almost ready for publication. Just tying down the various loose ends. Drawing on the creative endeavors of the Spilling the T writing collective, and other creatives from around Australia, we are looking forward to a moving, insightful and celebratory issue. Samuel Beatty has provided our cover image – ‘Vessel’. The issue will also feature images by Jamie James, good judy, Sav Zwickl, Guy James Whitworth, and Tazz Hislop.

Castlemaine poet and bent street contributor Rob Wallis is launching his new collection of poems Down Rainbow Road.

When: 2.30pm, Saturday 22 May

Where: Northern Arts Hotel, 359 Barker Street, Castlemaine, 3450

Free event. Drinks available at bar prices. To be launched by Nathan Curnow.

Down Rainbow Road includes two new sequences of poems by Rob Wallis. Inheritance is a multi-voice history of Australian gay experience from the earliest days of exploration and settlement. Muscular Flirtations gathers more personal reflections on a life-struggle towards acceptance and love. The selected poems present the variations of Rob’s poetry through five earlier collections. The cover is by regular bent street contributor and Sydney Sentinel columnist Guy James Whitworth.

ISBN: 9780987403773

RRP: $29.95

Published by Clouds of Magellan Press

Available now (walk-in and buy + online) at Hares & Hyenas bookshop, and The Bookshop Darlinghurst – also online from the usual globe-straddling behemoths.

We are now calling for submissions for Bent Street 5.1 (midyear 2021)

This edition will bring a special focus to trans and gender diverse issues. Guest editors for this edition are Sam Elkin and Yves Rees, who are convenors of Spilling the T Collective, a trans and gender diverse peer support writer’s workshop. The publication is supported by the City of Maribyrnong, the City of Melbourne and a Transgender Victoria SPARK grant.

Call for submissions: please send artwork, stories, non-fiction, poetry, comic, essays, performance piece, extract from work-in-progress, and whatever tells your story to cloudsofmagellanpress@gmail.com by 30 April 2021. We can receive material up to 14 May if you contact us first with a proposal. We aim to publish in early June.

Please send also email any general enquiries to cloudsofmagellanpress@gmail.com

Visit the Submissions page for further detail.

NOTE

Bent Street 5.2 (end of year) is also open for submissions on any LGBTIQA+ theme until October 2021. More announcements later.

Bent Street contributing artist and writer Guy James Whitworth has proven himself to be a canny lad yet again with this article in the Sydney Sentinel.

Bent Street: a crucial avenue for queer arts, literature and ideas

‘Sydney artist and author Guy James Whitworth’s career experienced a major upswing after his work featured in Bent Street. Here, he profiles the journal, which has become a literary and artistic force since its 2017 debut.’

So – read all about us!

The Sydney Sentinel is ‘a progressive new voice in Sydney’s media landscape, the Sydney Sentinel offers a different take on Sydney. Arts, features, news and opinion sections are joined by dedicated queer and vegan sections, in an online publication for the 2020s. The Sentinel was founded in September 2020 by Sydney journalist Peter Hackney, who is its editor-in-chief.

Bent Street 4.2 is now available from Hares and Hyenas in Fitzroy and The Bookshop in Darlinghurst – follow these links to order online; or else visit the bookshops in person. Think Globally, Buy Locally.

News of online availability and ebook version soon …

LAUNCH.  Bent Street 4.2 will be launched at Adelaide Feast on 25 November (7pm Adelaide time; 7.30pm AEDT) with a Zoom event: https://latrobe.zoom.us/j/81240279094

Free and open event.

Proceeds from the sale of this edition will be donated to Many Coloured Sky (support for LGBT asylum seekers and refugees) – read about their work in Bent Street.