Volume 1, Issue 2: Queer Trash

Open until 18 October 2026.

… time to get trashy.

The terms “trash” and “garbage” have been weaponized against queer folks, sex workers, people of color, and other marginalized identities to denote a sense of worthlessness and disposability. This connotation has allowed the government to overlook issues such as HIV/AIDS, fair and equitable access to housing & healthcare, needs during natural disasters, and unjust placements of disposal sites.

Based in the premise that queer folks’ health is inextricably linked to the health of the land, this issue explores the emotional, physical, and cognitive impacts of trash on our community and identity. Topics can also include reclamation of the concept through ‘trashy’ queer icons— Kesha, Queen of Trash from Elmo in Grouchland, and Jasmine Masters “just as I thought…trash!”

Ecological counterparts such as weeds, dumpster critters & flies, Vultures that scavenge and pick carcasses clean, and Crawfish & Catfish, bottom dwellers picking up the bits on aquatic floors may just be an extension to guide your art or story. The origin of “refuse” and “faggot” both are tied to the language of the natural world and the debris we bring in.

With Queer Trash we invite you to recycle, recreate, and examine cycles, locations, and concepts of waste in vernacular, society, and ecosystem! Flotsam, jetsam, debris, junk, litter, rot, rubbish, dumpster fire, talking trash…

Pieces created can include, but are not limited to, written expression through prose, poetry, notes, essay (~850 word max.); visual expressions such as sculpture, paintings, drawings, and illustrations.

We encourage folks interested in partaking to feel comfortable collaboratively engaging with the team through the process.

Contributors will receive a complimentary copy of both Issue 2 and Issue 3 of the printed magazine, which will be formatted as companion publishings. Contributors will also have the opportunity to be listed on the website’s ‘ecosystem’ tab, and featured on social media.

Please email Milkweed & Oysters to let us know that you would like to contribute.

***An Introduction to Queer Theory: https://guides.libraries.indiana.edu/c.php?g=995240&p=8361766

Volume 1, Issue 3: Germinate

Open until 12 October 2026.

… time to grow together.

Brandon & seasonal co-editor, Abby Brown, have been dreaming a collaboration into existence for many moons now; sharing notes and questions with one another. What does germination feel like? Do all beings have names for other beings? If the moon’s gravitational pull is strong enough to move the ocean, how does life on Earth experience it?

With Germinate, we invite you to induce imagination, by exploring questions just out of our sensory grasp, and create (!) opportunities for wonder and connection, often innate to us as children. We ask of you to ponder the more-than-human world and subvert or queer* traditional ‘awe-inducing’/othering proses of transcendentalists.

Pieces created can include, but are not limited to, written expression through prose, poetry, notes, essay (~850 word max.); visual expressions such as sculpture, paintings, drawings, and illustrations.

We encourage folks interested in contributing to feel comfortable engaging with the editorial team through the process. We have a list of ~wondrous questions~ to help inspire pieces and thought, we are excited to foster the ideas of our creative collaborators.

Contributors will receive a complimentary copy of both Issue 2 and Issue 3, which will be formatted as companion publishings. Contributors will also have the opportunity to be listed on the website’s ‘ecosystem’ tab, and featured on social media.

Please email Milkweed & Oysters to let us know that you would like to contribute.

***An Introduction to Queer Theory: https://guides.libraries.indiana.edu/c.php?g=995240&p=8361766

Volume 1, Issue 1: Life in a Pod

Open from: 16 January – 27 February, 2026

We’re gathering original mini-works that explore what it means to be held, transformed. Think milkweed pods and oyster shells: life inside a pod or shell is intimate, microcosmic, ever-shifting. This volume asks – what happens in that small, protected space? What happens when you’re shucked or blooming?

We welcome writing on queer ecologies, coastal cosmologies, and ideas of transformation and seasonality, all within the confines of your perceived pod, that is: what holds you, what you exist within. We encourage the convergence of coastal + terrestrial: tidepools meet prairies, saltwater meets sap. Send in whatever shape your pod takes.

We’re seeking submissions at an intimate scale: poems, micro-essays, vignettes, hybrid forms; drawings, mini-prints, tiny illustrations, surreal visual experiments. Writing must not exceed 500 words, and handwritten submissions are encouraged. Art submissions must be mini – small enough to feel like they could live inside a pod.

Volume 1, Issue 1.5: PEARL!

Open from: 17 June – 30 June, 2026

Pearls – conceptually – symbolize resistance, resilience, and transformation. Mollusks such as oysters choose, instead of violence, to envelop the unknown in layers upon layers of nacre, transforming what might be considered an intruder into a precious part of themselves. This special mini-edition, PEARL!, explores identity, change, belonging, becoming, protection, and the possibility of seeing the unknown in kin.

PEARL! will be randomly placed in first edition copies of Milkweed & Oysters Volume 1, staying true to the presence of pearls in the ocean: rare and serendipitous.

You are invited to submit to PEARL!: please keep submissions pearl-sized (100 words max, or 4×4″). Besides that, feel free to explore the concept in whatever way you see fit.