Against Equality is putting together a new anthology of erotic fiction, so we need your help!  We’re looking for submissions of original, unpublished stories between 1500 – 2000 words that incorporate our political agenda of challenging mainstream gay and lesbian politics (ie. marriage, military service, and hate crimes legislation) into the storyline.  We’re always trying to find new ways to animate our politics; what more fun and sexy way to share our political project than with naughty tales of queer debauchery and gender terrorism!?

from “Born in Flames” publication by Kaisa Lassinaro

We want to hear about your wildest fantasies of raucous anti-war organizing, lesbian wolf packs fighting to end anti-queer violence (Born in Flames tribute anyone?), trans prison librarians organizing erotic poetry writing groups, seducing marriage equality interns to the dark side, and lots more!  These are just a few examples to get all your juices flowing.  And remember: political erotica (when is erotica not political?) doesn’t have to be dull and didactic – let your imaginations run wild!  Facebook event page for the Call for Submissions available here!

Submissions are due May 15th by email to againstequality<at>gmail<dot>com; we hope to complete the editing process early in the summer.  Each contributor selected for publication will receive two copies of the book as compensation.  Submissions should be formatted as either .doc, .docx, .pdf, or .txt files. Please include a short 50 – 100 word bio.

image by New York artist Buzz Slutzky for AE’s first postcard series

Once again, Against Equality is looking for your sassiest, snarkiest, silliest and most sarcastic designs for our second postcard project.  On our website, we have continued to archive critical writing that encourages others to rethink the rhetoric of equality and inclusion as deployed by the mainstream gay and lesbian organizations and campaigns around gay marriage, hate crimes legislation and military inclusion.  Sadly, we have had a bit more difficulty finding critiques that employ visual culture (photography, video, print, performance, painting, film, etc), so we thought we would encourage more creative work around these through this postcard project.

A few selected designs will be printed on 4” x 6” postcards and the images will be added to the AE digital archives.  These postcards will be distributed internationally through our low-cost online store.  Designers whose images are selected will be compensated with a stack of fifty of their own postcards as well as a handful from the rest of the designers!  Submissions should directly address one or more of the themes from our digital archive (italicized above).  All entries must be received by email on March 31, 2012 as 300dpi .pdf files with all colors converted to CMYK.  And don’t forget to leave an 1/8” bleed on all sides!

Send questions, comments and submissions to: againstequality@gmail.com
or visit us online at www.againstequality.org

available now!

Our newest anthology of archival writing and images critiquing gay and lesbian investments in overturning Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and militarism more broadly is now available directly through our distributor here.  The wonderful folks at AK Press are once again supporting us with their amazing book distribution skills, so please support them before you go running off to other mega-corporations like amazon to buy the new pocket-sized book, Against Equality: Don’t Ask to Fight Their Wars!

Due to increased printing and shipping costs the new lil’ book will cost you ten bucks.  That’s a small increase since Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage hit the shelves, but we are doing all we can to keep costs low and our work financially accessible to most folks.  Also note, all the books we sell underwrite our policy of making all our published work available to queer and trans prisoners at no cost!

We’ve re-launched our website this week in hopes of organizing our web presence and archives in a more accessible format.  In the coming weeks, we will be rolling out the second phase of our website re-launch to make our archives searchable by keywords, dates, location and authors.  This is a huge task for us as our archive has been growing rapidly and the core collective members are working entirely on a volunteer basis.  So be patient with us as our site shifts and grows; it is our hope that by the new year our archival work be much more easily accessible.  If you love what we do and want to support our work or see the fruits of our collective labor materialize more quickly, consider making a donation by clicking the pay pal button on the sidebar below!

Also our new book went to the printers today and will be available from our distributor, AK Press, shortly!  We can’t wait to share it with y’all!

So take a stroll through the the new site, check out our upcoming events, and prepare yourselves for a new postcard series, a call for art poster project, a new Against Equality t-shirt and tote bag, and a scantily clad fundraiser auction to support our policy of providing free books to prisoners!

Image by Mr. Fish (clowncrack.com)

As the policy of DADT, which bars gays and lesbians from participating openly in the US Military, expires today we don’t find ourselves celebrating.  Instead we are trying to imagine what a renewed, multifaceted anti-war movement could look like while busily plugging away on our latest archival anthology of writing and visual culture that critiques the prioritization of overturning DADT as well as  gay and lesbian investments in militarism more broadly.  We hope that this anthology will serve as a historical reminder proving that not all us queer and trans folk were banging on the doors of the war machine begging to be rainbow colored cannon fodder.  We also hope it will serve as yet another starting point for imaging other futures without war (including the material conditions that make wars “justifiable”) and conjuring actions that will bring us closer to that reality.

The anthology, Against Equality: Don’t Ask to Fight Their Wars features writers like Yasmin Nair, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Kenyon Farrow, Tamara K. Nopper, Erica Meiners, Therese Quinn, Bill Andriette, Larry Goldsmith, Jamal Jones and more!  The book will be available in late October from our distributor, AK Press.