S.F. literary journal wins coveted honor
San Francisco’s Foglifter Journal and Press, a literary magazine centered on queer and trans writing, will receive a Whiting Literary Magazine Prize, a coveted annual award that celebrates emerging literature.
The publication, founded in 2016, is one of five recipients of the award and the only awardee outside of the East Coast. Other recipients include One Story (Brooklyn, N.Y.), Conjunctions (AnnandaleonHudson, N.Y.); Kweli (New York City), and Nat. Brut (Burlington, N.C.), organizers recently announced.
Each award comes with a cash prize based on the total budget of the magazine. Foglifter was awarded $15,000.
“Having some financial security is super important, but it’s really a validation and recognition of what we’re trying to do,” said Editor in Chief Luiza FlynnGoodlett, a poet who, like the rest of the staff, works on a volunteer basis.
Rooted in the Bay Area, Foglifter is a platform that provides representation for a broad cross section of LGBTQ voices, centering on queer and trans literary artists of color, youths, elders and those beyond traditional LGBTQ identities.
“We’re making space in the larger literary world, where LGBTQ voices can be marginalized or tokenized,” FlynnGoodlett said. “It’s an act of love and service to our community, but we want people who do not identify as LGBTQ to read this, too.”
Like the Whiting Awards for Writ
ers, which have been presented since 1985, the magazine prizes (introduced in 2018) are sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation. The Whiting judges shared high praise for the magazine, writing that “a passionate commitment to building community, a collaborative editorial project and an unflagging sense of imagination are Foglifter’s abiding trademarks.”
In addition to its biannual literary journal, Foglifter publishes chapbooks by emerging writers and anthologies through partnerships with Bay Area literary organizations like Still Here and Queer Ancestors Project. They also host free release parties for each journal issue at Strut, a community center in the Castro District, as well as other free readings around the Bay Area and beyond.
In its nine issues, Foglifter has published dozens of emerging writers, along with a roster of wellknown authors such as Eileen Myles, Jewelle Gomez, Molly Giles and Ana Castillo. Contributors as a whole have won two Pushcart Prizes along with praise from Best American Essays, the Lambda Literary Awards and the CLMP Firecracker Awards for magazines.
Foglifter and partner Radar Productions are accepting submissions though Nov. 1 for their Start a Riot! chapbook contest. The series, for local emerging queer and trans writers of color, awards $1,000 and publication each year to one author. The winner also earns a spot on Sister Spit, a longrunning spokenword tour.