Our story, founders + editors, and frequently asked questions.
The Story of Milkweed & Oysters
Like tide pools or warm summer wind, everything that is meant to will eventually swirl together. We met in the fall of 2024 after moving to New Haven from Chicago and Ithaca for a master’s program, and quickly entered each other’s orbit—through coursework, queer community, and a devotion (!) to queer ecology.
Milkweed & Oysters was born from: a house party, a porch, a final paper, and snail mail sent from Ithaca, NY to Beaufort, SC.
Last year, Mia hosted a Mermaid and Fisherman-themed party. Brandon, in a secondhand light blue leather skirt and shimmery pink top, swam through the streets to get there; Mia wore waders. Weeks later, we sat on Mia’s porch – on robin’s egg blue ground, coffee in wide-mouth jars – and talked about water. Brandon wrote a paper titled but what if, we grew gills: a merfolk’s guide to queering climate adaptation & trans/formation. Mia was cited in it. We talked about how in large bodies of water, we get close, congregating instead of dispersing.
That summer, Brandon returned upstate to their queer restorative ecology site, Marshy Garden, while Mia worked in South Carolina among Spanish Moss and Cicadas. A year later, we came back together, and Milkweed & Oysters surfaced.
Queer Ecology lives in the words and art of queer people everywhere. These micro-relations with species, organisms, and so-called “inanimate” beings have kept our communities afloat through ongoing sociopolitical hardship. We gather, we collect, we celebrate.
This project is a queer love note, not only between Mia and Brandon, but with our kin species: milkweed, the native plant that sustains monarchs; and oysters, companions for millions of years, tracing our shores and sustaining us in return. Perpetual lovers and friends. Both pods cradle little lives, allowing sand and seed to slip through its cracks like whispers.
Milkweed & Oysters, conceptually, is our collective pod: of community, creation. It is our attempt to give back to the pods that grew us.
We welcome you into our pod, and we thank you wholeheartedly for reading.
With a smooch,
Mia + Brandon
Who are Mia and Brandon?
Mia Ambroiggio has eight years of experience publishing writing: from writing on climate and justice for the Loyola Phoenix, to producing a weekly column in the South Portland Sentry (Portland Press Herald), to writing for The Overstory, Yale Forest School’s publication of forest-centric news. In academic endeavors, Mia examines community and cultural cohesion within disaster and coastal resilience landscapes.
You can reach Mia here:
Brandon Hoak is an avid self-publisher! Brandon’s first self-published text, Queer Belongings (2025), is a Risograph ‘zine that was shown at the “Queer Visions, Queer Voices” exhibition in Ithaca, NY. Since then, Brandon has published Slow Summer (2025), on queer restorative ecology, and How the Desert Feels When the Skin is Parched in Memory; Southwestern Queer Ecology (2026) as part of a collaboration with Rathaus Press.
Previously, Brandon served as the design editor for Understory (2022) a co-led Indigenous and non-Indigenous magazine on relationship to Land and Place, as well as the co-editor of Yale’s SAGE Magazine (2026). Outside of publishing Brandon is a professional gardener focusing on native plants, pollinator health, and biodiversity. Brandon’s art and writing centers these ecological relationships cultivated in practice.
You can reach Brandon here:
Our Seasonal Co-Editors
Abby Brown (she/her) is an interdisciplinary researcher and designer. In another life, she lives where mountain sorrel grows, exploring the world through watercolor and pyrography.
Abby is the seasonal co-editor of M&O Issue 3, Germinate.
Sofia Spillane is a student and writer. They like to talk and eat and enjoy and tell stories that often, don’t make sense.
Sofia is the seasonal co-editor of M&O Issue 1.5, PEARL!, and Issue 2, Queer Trash.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Milkweed & Oysters printed?
The magazine is printed in Ithaca, NY. The first issue was designed by Mia Ambroiggio & Brandon Hoak and printed by Kaleb Hunkele at Ithaca Print Commons. PEARL! was designed and printed by Sofia Spillane and Brandon Hoak at the Ithaca Print Commons.
These colors are really unique… what is the printing method?
The magazine was printed using a Risograph machine, which works with special colored inks, many based with soy. It has long been used by artists and comics for its special luster, expediency, and user-friendly machine interface.
How many copies are usually created?
The edition size varies. The first issue was an edition of 400; PEARL! was an edition of 180. Each issue is hand-numbered: you can see what special copy you have on the back!
Why the name Milkweed & Oysters?
Brandon is a gardener of native plants, and has long loved all varieties of Milkweed, the host species to the Monarch caterpillar and many other beautiful fuzzies & buzzies! Mia grew up shucking and slurping – which has brought her to Louisiana, Maine, and more – and has a special devotion to oysters: for ritual, for resilience, for their role as a connector between people + coasts.
How many contributors are usually featured in each issue?
This number varies, but so far 14-18.
Are all the contributors queer?
No, but majority are! Our submissions are inclusive of everyone who feels called to the theme, and wants to join us in ~queering~ ecology.
Why make a magazine?
Wikipedia defines a magazine as a “periodical publication, issued in print or digital form at regular intervals, that contains a collection of articles, essays, stories, photographs, illustrations, or other content.” Where a journal is “written by experts for experts,” a magazine, supposedly, is made to “entertain, inform, or educate a general audience.”
But what is an “expert?” What constitutes a “general audience?” The word “expert,” etymologically, comes from expertus: to “test, attempt, experience.” In our many and varied lifetimes, we have all tested, attempted. So, why should we not be experts of our own experiences?
Milkweed & Oysters is a means of allowing our Queer expertises — and therefore, our Queer lived experiences — to naturally, creatively, and beautifully intersect. The chosen genre of this project (a magazine) should not diminish the rigor of the novel questions and (self-)investigative work brought up in our featured contributions.
Magazines are to be passed around, left on a table, read at the beach, with short stories and works to be felt in moments! We hope these stories are shared, dispersed, and enjoyed in this format.