Talking about Kristen Stewart, gems, lesbian tropes, Girl Scout crushes, swine flu, the apocalypse and more with award-winning queer writer Carmen Maria Machado.

Topics include The Olive Garden, Harvey Weinstein, domestic violence, Kink.com, Dirty John the con artist, an immersive Casper mattress experience, essential oils and more!

“To read a piece about lesbian e e cummings, you have to fully commit, but you could tell Dr. Brown was scared.”

Topics include the heroin epidemic in West Virginia, really expensive weddings, eczema, sexual abuse in a Baptist mission, Panda Express, teaching while black, A League of Their Own, the murders of TWOC in Detroit and so much more.

KOKUMO blasts through the bullshit rhetoric and tokenism that too-often engulf queer and trans communities in order to expose the raw struggle to survive at their heart.

“Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones” is the kind that shakes and wakes that brave, mad, dangerous girl I used to be.

Runaways, witches, and girl gangs: a review and conversation with Kai Cheng Thom on her new book, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars.

“So, are menstrual bags good, or are they bad? Do they empower women, or further constrict them? It becomes obvious that this is not a zero-sum game, and Moore illuminates the coexistence of multiple conflicting truths.”

“One way we can change the narratives around our sexuality and our erotic bodies is by taking up space as sexual beings and celebrating other women and femmes doing the same.” This zine is on it.

This election shook me to my core. That’s undeniable. I am still grieving and I don’t know that I ever won’t be. I am so fucking angry and I don’t know that I ever won’t be. But I refuse to be scared, or cowed, or defeated.

There Should Be Flowers is a healing map, a compass that shows us back to the world after having left it for too long – that allows us to live inside the pain and love ourselves anyway.

Literary ASMR, exclamation points and emoji, queer retellings as reclamation, Zadie Smith, recordings of Black women poets and more.

“If I saw my writing career through the eyes of a mediocre white man I’d be, like, that dude would be fucking high on himself constantly.”

Why is that people of colour have to bear the brunt of speaking out about racism while white people enjoy the privilege of remaining silent? What happens when the tables are turned?

“In the words of Notting Hill, “I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.” Or more realistically, I’m just a girl, standing in front of KFC, praying that it’s open.”

Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts doesn’t have an index, so I made one for it. I can promise that it is both longer and shorter than you think.

Topics include Munchausen by proxy and murder, Shop Jeen, every restaurant in Epcot Center, Joanne the Scammer, housing segregation, little people in Hollywood and so much more!

Everything you want to read.

“I think I feel a little less desperation to be liked and a little more “fuck you if you don’t like me.” I think I enjoy flaunting my monstrousness.”

AfterEllen is a part of a legacy of brilliant publications created by passionate lesbian, queer and bisexual women that unfortunately no longer exist, but were cool for a while.