Editor Interview: Lavender Rising Contests

Queer creators worldwide.

I admire other independent presses like Falstaff Books, Mocha Memoirs, and Gold Dust Publishing that promote diversity in their works. They help support aspiring writers and creatives, which is the goal of Once Upon A Queer Publishing.

Some of my favorite writers are Xiran Jay Zhao, S. A. Chakraborty, and Leigh Bardugo. I love reading queer fantasy and sci-fi, along with the occasional horror. In regards to artwork, I try to put the Starry Night by Van Gogh on all my things. The art we publish is wide-ranging.

We focus on being a platform for queer works with no genre, theme, or geographical restrictions. Lavender Rising Magazine is for queer creators to share their work, often getting published for the first time. We endeavor to one day have a large community that helps promote queer creators from all walks of life.

If you're submitting writing, make sure you've done some basic edits to look for spelling mistakes. For art, make sure the picture is high resolution. We get a lot of submissions, and we often don't have time to edit works that would otherwise be very good entries.

Short Stories: Edited, about 1k words, and with a coherent storyline.
Poems: Can be short or long, but need to have been spell-checked and not be confusing to read.
Art: Clear resolution. If you're submitting photography or a picture of a physical piece (a painting, sculpture, etc.), make sure no editing is needed for us to display your work. Everything should be in frame.
Essays/Articles: Edited, about 1k words with sources cited at the end.
*Bonus points if you make us cry!

Spelling and grammar are the easy answer. Please edit your work.
I also receive very short, sparse bios with no social media links sometimes, which is fine as long as that is a clear choice. We're here to promote you.

We don't need a super long biography or cover letter; we want a concise bio that lists whatever personal information you deem to share, any achievements, and where you want the readers to find you online. If you have a short bio, that's fine, as long as you're aware that it can make it difficult for readers to search you up again.

Again, spelling and grammar make a huge difference here! If the first few paragraphs aren't very coherent, I don't read further. We've published stories from all kinds of genres and varied styles of prose, so the content is not likely to push us away. Generally, we at least read most of the story, if not all of it.

We like to make sure nothing is published that's outright NSFW, since that isn't the focus of this magazine, though we definitely don't focus on catering to young adult audiences. Our goal is to be a platform accessible to as many queer creators as possible.

Reading a lot of poetry. A lot.
The magazine itself requires a lot of graphic design, so I spend most of the day hunched over my computer and giving myself back pain. It's loads of fun. :)

I do basic proofreading for works I've already considered publishing, but if something has too many problems, it's often skipped over. Most artwork gets its own page, unless it cannot fit the format (aka horizontal works, which is fine).

No, but that might change in the future as we scale up. Lavender Rising's goal is to one day be a thriving community of queer creators supporting each other's careers.

By the sales of Once Upon A Queer Publishing's books, which are on the website onceuponaqueer.com/catalog for anyone interested in seeing them.

Through social media, in-person events (like conventions), and our newsletter.