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manyworlds.place
manywor(l)ds :: place
@manyworlds.place
740 followers 240 following 120 posts
a creative space for the place (in) between.
quarterly online space publishing works by queer/trans/Mad/disabled creators.

submissions currently CLOSED
paying market 💖

EIC: @cavar.bsky.social
Managing Ed: @joyce.fyi

https://manyworlds.place
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manyworlds.place
We're incredibly excited about all of the pieces in this issue, including Haley Bossé's piece, "A ( )en Body Comes to Shore."

manyworlds.place/issue-10/hal...
A ( )en Body Comes to Shore by Haley Bossé Because the shore is an alarm set just loud enough to break my fugue, I silence it but don’t go back to sleep. Because I wake with pounding everywhere, the doctor is unsure how to classify the ( ). Because I reclassify my ( ) as boring, I can’t rest long enough to unmatter it from my brain. Because I cannot rest, I muster up the anti-spoons to spiral out while workshopping. Workshopping, I spiral into pain until it pops and coats me with its whiteworms. My sister texts to let me know she’s visiting. I let her know she’s visiting without telling her I’m ( ). While visiting, she’s ( ).
November 15, 2025 at 10:45 PM
manyworlds.place
We are so excited to share issue 10 with you, featuring brilliant creatives like @blackcattales.bsky.social, @kathrynreese.bsky.social, @pleomorphic2.bsky.social, @dihyatamaghza.bsky.social, @rjaurand.bsky.social, and more!

(anti-war dinosaur courtesy of Emma Johnson-Rivard)
“Triceracopter,” a life-sized statute of a dinosaur-helicopter hybrid, lives in the University of Cincinnati Library. It was created by Patricia Renick, built out of a helicopter used and scarred in the Vietnam War.
November 15, 2025 at 10:36 PM
manyworlds.place
a huge congratulations to our nominees, C. Suttee, @spencerwriting.bsky.social, and Nathan Erwin, for Orison's Best Spiritual Literature award!

We're so honored to help give voice to so many complex & multifacted relationships with the universe and our place in it.
August 31, 2025 at 7:51 PM
manyworlds.place
Zoe Korte's flash pr/oem is evocative & nostalgic & deeply sensory. We love it. Find Zoe at @sundresspub.bsky.social, and their work in @newwordspress.bsky.social, @enbylife.bsky.social, @maudlinhouse.bsky.social, and more.

manyworlds.place/issue-9/zoe-...
Acid rain is an uncut song that emeralds our matte metropolis, slippery with dirt and chlorophyll, a bright black spot on God’s sweaty palm. I can’t write music, says my other dog, before vomiting carrot greens on the hand-me-down rug. Certainty is a Happy Meal toy in a landfill, proudly assembled in the factory employing all the folks in town. If you’re here, and I’m here, who is going to feed and water the dogstar? It has gone quiet with pain, but its one remaining eye can still see faraway shapes.
August 15, 2025 at 7:57 PM
manyworlds.place
endwell's anti-psychiatry collage, "neuroscience must reckon with the antipsychiatry movement."

endwell has also been featured in @beestung.bsky.social. Their novel, OLYOKE, is forthcoming with @tenebrouspress.bsky.social!

manyworlds.place/issue-9/endw...
Collage art with a poem featuring images from the “Innovations in Health Equity Incubator,” text about horrific conditions at Rikers in the 70s and a contemporary jail break, the Biodefense Commercialization Fund, and a paper about “control-averse behavior.” Poem reads: neuroscience must reckon with the antipsychiatry movement the important thing is that the more measurements we take, the better we can tell if your numbers are good or bad! right now it’s seeming like your numbers might be abnormal, so we’re designing a program of study to make sure every aspect of your biology aligns with the average for your sex/race/class/neurotype. We’re going to pull out all the stops. We are scrutinizing every aspect and we can confidently say that you’re almost certainly wrong, on an intrinsic biological level. We are making an obscene amount of money doing this and we’re opening a new center.
August 15, 2025 at 7:53 PM
manyworlds.place
We're so excited to announce issue 9, our TWO YEAR (!!!!) anniversary issue!

Featuring @sylvie-althoff.bsky.social, @gr8earlofhell.bsky.social, @mostlymosspoetry.bsky.social, and more.
Issue 9 Wenyi Xue god bless America endwell neuroscience must reckon with the antipsychiatry movement Chase Anderson C:\Users\gnight\Desktop\who am i\README.txt Ziqr Gödel and Me On A Dark and Stormy Night Benjamin Rodriguez Poem 91 nat raum if bpd could talk Troy Droussiotis GLAMOUR GIRL GLAMIFESTO (or A Manifesto in Non-Being) Glamour Girl Magenta GLAMOUR GIRL 2K Sylvie Althoff Last of the Cigarette Gremlins jp thorn Two Pieces mysticism for beginners fortune cookie aphorisms Zoe Korte O Aslan Valerie Babenkova Comfort in the Endless Forever of Underneath and Not kendall q lamb power fantasy, or sheepgulls
August 15, 2025 at 7:43 PM
manyworlds.place
and @odinmeadows.bsky.social's clever, ingenious "town towntown," which made both of us editors go, "omg...good satire is so fucking delicious"

manyworlds.place/issue-8/odin...
Town Towntown by Odin Meadows Note: This work is best viewed on a widescreen device. In Town Towntown, the people do people things that townpeople do. Now, townpeople not from Town Towntown are still townpeople but they’re not Town Towntown townpeople, but still townpeople. Now me, well, I’m not a Town Towntown people, not a townpeople neither. Nobody’s told me what I am.
May 16, 2025 at 2:32 AM
manyworlds.place
we're obsessed with @twospiritdyke.bsky.social's artwork and rich, textured image descriptions (click for alt!)

manyworlds.place/issue-8/myle...
(MY) LIGHT RECOGNIZES THE VOID (IN YOU), 2023. A digitally scanned black ink felt pen drawing. This abstract piece employs repetitive linework, stippling, and negative space to create striking contrasts and evoke a sense of connection and duality. The composition features two vaguely human-shaped figures standing side by side, holding hands. The left figure has an ovular, pure-black face with cut-out shapes. Its head is textured with stippling, where the density of dots is highest along the top border and gradually disperses outward. At its neck and chest lies a pure-black hole, which similarly disperses into stipples, creating a gradient effect. The body is composed of repeated curved lines, flowing in various directions, while straight, parallel lines emerge from the body, becoming denser toward the lower half. The figure’s left hand connects to the right figure’s right hand through a concentrated cluster of stipples, symbolizing their bond. The right figure features a face composed of parallel lines radiating outward toward the left figure from a larger black hole, which is defined by stippling along its outer edge. These lines extend outward from the back of the figure’s head in a triangular shape, beginning with a concentrated cluster and gradually spreading wider as they move away from the left figure. On the figure’s chest, a white hole is created using negative space and stippling, providing a striking contrast to the surrounding black elements. The stippling connects to the figure’s pure-black hands and feet, giving the impression that the stipples flow outward from these dark sources, thereby creating a dynamic interplay between light and void.
May 16, 2025 at 2:32 AM
manyworlds.place
....and Jennifer Jantzen's "Maternal Impressions"!

manyworlds.place/issue-8/jenn...
Maternal Impressions by Jennifer Jantzen In 1726, a poor peasant woman named Mary Toft claimed to have given birth to several rabbits. She was later branded a liar. The appearance of blue pigment in animals is an optical illusion. my head / is filled / with rabbits / / LIAR / my brain / imprinted / with shadows / / LIAR / my heart / wallpapered / a nursery / room / with an animal / pattern / / LIAR / no / the baby / took flight— / look! / a doctor has / seen it he (look!)s / at my soul through / an opening / opening / up / for rabbits / and crowds / and crowds / and crowds / now people shake heads / for reasons / to shake heads / is she serious? / no / who fuckd her? / no /
May 16, 2025 at 2:02 AM
manyworlds.place
We have a truly fabulous mix of forms in this issue - including @pinkpossumclub.bsky.social's Wordle-Ku pieces...

manyworlds.place/issue-8/cam-...
Wordle-ku #1211 A F T E R P O L L S C L O S E F R E S H B L O O D S T A I N Wordle-ku #1221 B E L O W G R A V E S T O N E M U T E D B O N E S S H O U T
May 16, 2025 at 2:02 AM
manyworlds.place
We're so excited to welcome issue 8 of manywor(l)ds into this particular world, featuring work by @bogiperson.bsky.social, @1159cowboy.bsky.social, @torpor-chamber.bsky.social, @sadeebee.bsky.social, + more!

(pictured below is Aylli Cortez's "in this viral struggling")

manyworlds.place/issue-8/
A blue wall is overlaid with pink and white strips at its center, alluding to the transgender flag. The words ONE THING YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE WITHOUT are pasted on top of it. On the top-left corner, a person looks out their window. The words MARCH 2020 are attached. On the left side, several pink drops fall onto the found-collage poem. On the bottom-right corner, a person’s face is obscured by the cut-out of a phone screen, from which a plant bearing pink and blue leaves blooms.
May 16, 2025 at 1:57 AM
manyworlds.place
don't miss our awp-debut! we'll be out like slutty little lambs with @altmilkmag.bsky.social, @fifthwheelpress.bsky.social, and @querenciapress.bsky.social on Wednesday 3/26!
March 23, 2025 at 7:30 PM
manyworlds.place
issue 7: Se Sonhar é Uma Flor (If Dreaming is a Flower) by C. Suttee

manyworlds.place/issue-7/c-su...
The Hubble Space telescope turns off passing over my head as I prune cosmos flowers.1 They are little orange radio telescopes and my body intercepts the signal.2 I am feverishly, barely awake, a spinning compass.3 Tonight I will dream another one of those famous radioactive dreams of the sun.4 I leave the heads of the flowers on the ground. Eventually I sleep. The particles5 that slip through the weakened atmosphere seed the soils of sleep-consciousness, unfold in me a flower… . . ˜*•. ˜”° •. ˜”°••°”˜. •°”˜˜”*°•.˜”° ••° ”˜. • ° * ” ˜• •//// . • *˜ Snip!6 Waking like shears. I dress in dawn, quiet as the satellites that drift overhead, and sift through the fallen petal minutia for meaning. I give water to the cosmos flowers, alien bright. And the dreams, pruned by waking, decompose, finally, into something earthy, digestible. I tremble, a little, for experience is illuminated and our star is conscious.7
March 6, 2025 at 11:53 PM
manyworlds.place
issue 6: Plastic-eating fungus caused doomsday by @slashnburnett.bsky.social

manyworlds.place/issue-6/emma...
Plastic-eating fungus caused doomsday[2][3] by Emma Burnett Originally published in Nature:Futures This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the End of Plastic (2029) article, about the Tremella purgare fungus, released into the Gulf of Mexico following the TransAm War Oil Spill, and the knock-on impact of the attempted bioremediation. This page has been listed as a level-3 vital article in Earth. If you can improve it, please do. Deadly fungi? Can an expert in this field please expand on or link to the meaning of ‘deadly fungus’ in the opening sentence. Deadly fungi is a disambiguation page and as a non-expert I am uncertain whether it applies here. —8ditor Update details There’s some updated research explaining the spreading mechanism the fungi used to move from sea to land. The spores eject hard, and once airborne, can latch on to any oil-based synthetic material, and then they grow and digest it. Here’s the ref: (Spread of mycelium oil to plastics) —jamirazzz Dumping an untested fungus into the environment like they’ve learned nothing from biological pest control. —8ditor I think it was tested (Lab Results - FUNGUS.PDF). Just not well enough, I guess. —SamePanicDifferentDisco Article name Doomsday doesn’t seem like a good fit for this article. It’s supposed to focus on the introduction of the oil-digesting fungus introduced into the Gulf of Mexico. —Kinoko It does that in section one tho, look: Development and introduction into the ecosystem. It’s causing major chaos. —DoraTheExSpora Chaos isn’t the same as doomsday. Suggest re-naming to ‘Unintended consequences of fungal petrochemical control.’ —Kinoko
March 6, 2025 at 11:49 PM
manyworlds.place
issue 5: TRANS NDN ARCHIVE by Kai Minosh Pyle

manyworlds.place/issue-5/kai-...
TRANS NDN ARCHIVE by Kai Minosh Pyle in the aftermath of everything indigenous scientists discovered ways to determine the precise shade of depressionanxietyadhdautismcptsdschizoborderline-induced delirium trans ndns were experiencing at any given moment. the scale only came in dsm certified flavors because that was the language we used at the time. still, we must recognize that the indigenous scientists of their time thought they were doing a service for trans ndns. they believed, however strange it may seem, that if only they could assign a specific hexadecimal triplet to the emotions of the trans ndns when they experienced suffering, then they could induce some kind of public empathy or maybe even healing.
March 6, 2025 at 11:49 PM
manyworlds.place
issue 5: DAWN SHATTERS THROUGH MY SPLINTERED GUTS AND THROWS SPARKLING LIGHT ACROSS THE WALLPAPER; OR, ON TRAUMA AND ITS CONSEQUENCES by Nora Hikari

manyworlds.place/issue-5/nora...
II. Dialogue with a Lover (an Intra-System Discourse) <The past cannot save you. It holds an infinite amount of wisdom to be mined, but that wisdom can only be put to use in the present, as a way of directing the course of the future. You cannot go back. The inevitable march forward of time is a trauma that every single human in history has had to contend with and either overcome or succumb to. Will you march into the future, stalwart, unyielding, into that roiling unknown? Will you take those brave steps into the void of absolute possibility? Will you free yourself from the chains of your sentimentality? Or will you perish like a fucking dog?> It is so hard, and I am so tired. <Say that you are tired. Say that you need to pause. Pause but do not stop. Rest but do not waver. Stumble but do not falter. It is by love that I hold you to a higher standard. It is by love that I expect more from you. By love I am disappointed when you fall short. By love I am frustrated when you are petty. By love I ask you for your kindness when you are cruel, for your wisdom when you are slipshod, your patience in your haste, your bravery in your fear, your strength when you stumble, your love when you are hateful, your anger when you are wronged.>
March 6, 2025 at 11:49 PM
manyworlds.place
issue 4: Thirteen Ways I Might Misrepresent My Transfemininity to Suit a Heroic Narrative That Reassures Us Both by Callie Jennings

manyworlds.place/issue-4/call...
It's Kind of Like I'm James Bond With all the gadgetry? You really think I'd fling a barb that missed? I've a reputation to uphold. Inimitable style. Invulnerable remove. When you're a thousand people, all real, you need never say never to any of them. It's Kind of Like I'm Doctor Who Would you look at that!? Survived again! Or rather resurrected—sturdily enough! Alors! We're off to meet the miracles at the margins of space-time. And be one! It's Kind of Like I'm the Hero with A Thousand Faces Dear friends! Today I venture forth From the Categories assigned on common days Into a Transition of supernatural wonder. Dysphoria and Transphobia will there be encountered And a decisive Surgery won. Soon I shall return from this Mystery With the Power to make you truly benevolent If you would but use the Right Pronouns. It's Kind of Like I'm Neo Obvi.
March 6, 2025 at 11:49 PM
manyworlds.place
issue 3: pov: a commenter on your r/ptsdhumor meme has just alerted you that you have tinnitus by @gr8earlofhell.bsky.social
all i said was what if you wanted to relax your back and shoulder muscles but god said the body keeps the score? & all of a sudden i am paying attention & i’ve got all this ringing in my ears. i shouldn’t be surprised— i still can’t tell if heat is friend or foe or maybe frenemy, as my shoulders only relax into spasms on the holy heating pad. one eardrum whines especially sharply & then blacks out for a minute or so like god or whoever took a spike to my cochlea. i am half vibrations, half empty room, all born of things i wish i didn’t have to remember still. then as fast as stop hearing, i find sounds again, still tense, still tingling. & i teem with the source of the tension, waiting for the rancor, for the ringing.
March 6, 2025 at 11:40 PM
manyworlds.place
issue 3: Lavender Festival Ephemera by Allison Masangkay (audio!)
[00:00:00] Person’s voice: s- s- s- s- s- s- ♪ ocean waves crashing ♪ [00:00:02] Person’s voice: s- s- su- (distant voice): Oh! [00:00:03] (click from tea steeper) Person’s voice: sugat [00:00:04] ♪ lush sustained chord of synthesized ambient pads with a thick, bright tone ♪ [00:00:09] ♪ series of quick, bubbly, fluid notes ♪ [00:00:14] ♪ lush sustained synthesized ambient pads with a dark chord progression ♪ [00:00:21] ♪ more quick, bubbly, fluid notes ♪ [00:00:28] ♪ more quick, bubbly, fluid notes ♪ [00:00:29] ♪ several tones of clicky, bouncy noises ♪ [00:00:31] ♪ lush sustained synthesized ambient pads with a deeper but brighter chord ♪ [00:00:41] ♪ more quick, bubbly, fluid notes ♪ ♪ ocean waves crashing then fading away ♪ (distant voice): Over there! [00:00:49] ♪ lush sustained synthesized ambient pads with a darker, deeper chord progression ♪ ♪ repeated tones of clicky, bouncy noises ♪ ♪ faint moving lasers shooting ♪
March 6, 2025 at 11:40 PM
manyworlds.place
issue 2: The Languages of the Tower of Babel by @lilliekoi.bsky.social
The Language of the Tower The language of the Tower has room for only one truth: The Tower of Babel must rise even higher. In this sense, it is the perfect language. To know it is to understand not only it, but the world itself. The Earth becomes a birthplace for clay and stones. Trees become ladders and ramps to scale its heights. And most important of all, I become a pair of hands with a beautiful task to do. The task must be beautiful, because it is the only language we share. It is the tower itself which teaches us this language. It is vast, greater than anything except the Earth, which was made to supply it. Therefore, it is important. Its immense encircling wall is jagged and covered with ladders and scaffolds. Therefore, it is incomplete. The Quiet Language We are supposed to speak only the language of the Tower. But of course, it was always more complicated than that. When two people came at the same time to a place where only one could cross, the Tower cannot tell them how to get across. It cannot decide who was to carry bricks and who was to place them and who was to haul them up by pulleys from the world below. We aren’t allowed to create such a language. Only the Language of the Tower was allowed. And so, we make a quiet language. In the quiet language, we smile at each other across the gap, and you step aside to let me pass. I look at you, and, without words, thank you for it.
March 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM
manyworlds.place
issue 2: these two wolfgirl moments by Adele Nwankwo

manyworlds.place/issue-2/adel...
March 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM
manyworlds.place
issue 1: Dara by Gla4.

manyworlds.place/issue-1/gla4/
March 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM
manyworlds.place
here are some of my personal favorite pieces we've published at manywor(l)ds to give you a bit of inspiration.

issue 1: I AM NOT AFRAID OF TRANSSEXUALS by @jestintzi.bsky.social. Our first ever best microfiction selectee.

manyworlds.place/issue-1/john...
As a new emergency law goes into effect, a step toward making my existence illegal, I walk into a sporting goods store in Liberty, Missouri and buy a semi-automatic target pistol. The woman behind the counter doesn’t mind my lavender nails. The spoon rings on my fingers. She puts pistols in my hands. She upsells me. I buy three cartons of rounds. I’m in and out in fifteen minutes. South on Highway 71, five miles over the speed limit, I cannot tell which part of me is paranoia and which is pattern recognition. The gun sits in my lap, in my hand, pointing at the empty passenger seat. The safety is on, but yes: she’s loaded. She smells amazing. I’ll name the gun Liberty and she’ll sleep beside me in bed. I’ll walk her with my dog, every day, through a neighborhood that has always felt safe. I’ll bring her to the gym where I’ll learn Muay Thai from a local flyweight champion. She’ll wait for me in the locker room where I’ll pretend to be a man. I’ll reach for Liberty nervously, at first, then habitually, in the way one learns to reach for a cellphone. I’ll begin to long for the country, where I can plink cans any time of day. I’ll long to print out little photos of fascists to put on the face of every can I plink. I’ll clean Liberty every week, even the rare weeks I do not fire her. I’ll get on a first name basis with a man at a shooting range in Raytown. I’ll put on lipstick. People will give me looks, but I’ll become a markswoman. I’ll cap every angel on the head of a pin. As I drive home, the world widens. Sharpens. There’s a future for me, and people like me, somewhere out here. It smells of gunmetal.
March 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM
manyworlds.place
This issue features some new and returning beloveds, including @sweatermuppet.bsky.social, @amberdawnwrites.bsky.social, @ewenglass.bsky.social, @aporianautics.bsky.social, and more!
Cosmological Touch by Amber Dawn To mitigate this pain you must massage the void. Nevermind glossing the abdomen in almond oil, hot compress, menthol temples, fine milled licorice root, nevermind fascia and muscle. It’s all carnal noise. It’s all racket and backache, spasm and babble. To mitigate this pain you must massage the void. Anything of clay or split fruit, egg or hominid— let go. You’re already reaching for the unreachable. These are not directives of nihilism and despair. In negative decibels, in intangible density, rejoice. To mitigate this pain you must massage the void. Emptiness is an erogenous zone, a collapsed star, black with absence and oxytocin. Sanctify and toy, lubricate the dark energy. A body transposed by pitch and edge. Love transforms you into what you love. To mitigate this pain you must massage the void. name change, new apartment, 2024 oh, you heavy thing, you hard life that swings & swings. stuck on hold for 7 minutes while the nearest star like an egg yolk runs her slow marathon across the kitchen table. everything waning. a type of brutal wanting. today, everything requires a phone call. do what you will with automation, it does not know your name. it does not remember the bulb screwed into the ceiling, tethered by one chain, dancing. the receptionist laughs, she says “aren’t you old school.” no one expects you to show up. all the buildings empty. dust & hissing neon, these cardboard towns you drive through & never stop in. to pay rent, you’ll be charged $60. to pay for parking, they want a good finger cut off at the furthest joint. today, everything walks right out on you. money leaping from the countertop. your parents dying & knowing they’re dying & no one admits it. someone is calling you the wrong thing. calling to collect bills & credit & you wait by the mailbox for a new name. you wait like a dog.
February 15, 2025 at 9:08 PM
manyworlds.place
Congrats Kai Pyle @greatlakesqueer.bsky.social + Frances Klein @fklein907.bsky.social - our nominees for Best Microfiction 2025!

Both use speculative tactics to interrogate contemporary life - Pyle, gender + settler colonialism, and Klein, the labor of motherhood.

cc: @bestmicrofiction.bsky.social
Guide to Interpreting Dreams III I send my son to school and call in sick so that I can sleep. I dream that I send my son to school and call in sick so that I can sleep. After my son leaves, something that looks like my son remains in the house. The Not-Son walks around the house in my son’s clothes, plays with his toys. The Not-Son does everything my son would do if I hadn’t sent him to school so that I can sleep. I am not sleeping because my husband wants me to care for the Not-Son. It is not safe, he says, to leave him unsupervised. He does not say whose safety is at risk. I try to tell him that the Not-Son is not our son, but he does not care. I do not know what I will do, whether going forward I will have two children: a son and a Not-Son. I wake to a still house. All day, around each corner, just out of sight: a presence. Not my son, but not exactly not him, either. in the aftermath of everything indigenous scientists discovered ways to determine the precise shade of depressionanxietyadhdautismcptsdschizoborderline-induced delirium trans ndns were experiencing at any given moment. the scale only came in dsm certified flavors because that was the language we used at the time. still, we must recognize that the indigenous scientists of their time thought they were doing a service for trans ndns. they believed, however strange it may seem, that if only they could assign a specific hexadecimal triplet to the emotions of the trans ndns when they experienced suffering, then they could induce some kind of public empathy or maybe even healing. luminous in their splendor, the trans ndn rainbow spectra filled rows upon rows of circular beadwork designs. they radiated outwards and inwards on star quilts. they even lived in the gradients of earrings sold on the latest exploitative crafting site. what began as a purely scientific endeavor spiraled into the leftover worlds until beautiful trans ndn trauma was dangling from the necks and ears of even the cheapest d-list celebrity. until the remnant department stores had copied the designs of trans ndn madness into the latest seasonal plastic. they were everywhere and nowhere at five cents a pop. feeding frenzy came and went and trans ndns were still there, still screaming, each sound crystalizing in a string of beads. and after the strings withered away the beads were still there. in the middens, the superfunds, and the plain old burials. in rivers and in microfibers and eventually in the lining of cells in our bodies. it would take centuries for us to realize it, but this too was a kind of resilience. eventually the indigenous scientists gave up on their work. they blamed the trans ndns for polluting the earth with their pain. but this was nothing new for those who were used to living in a world built out of their invisible aching presence. the only difference was that now everyone could …
December 12, 2024 at 12:55 AM