The inaugural collection in the new VERVE Voices series, Queerphoria is a joyful and defiant queer-authored anthology proudly supporting Switchboard, the national LGBTQIA+ support line.
Four housemates welcome the reader into their home for a birthday party. An elderly widow visits her first queer bar, beneath the flat she shared with her husband. A couple invite a shipwrecked sailor into their isolated lighthouse on the stormy night of their thirtieth anniversary. A single woman embarks on a romantic relationship with a sex robot. A married couple secretly prepare for their baby's arrival in a world where procreation is controlled by the Establishment.
Through prose, poetry, essays, illustrations and more, thirty-one writers bring their visions of euphoria to life. These pages celebrate, subvert, expand and reimagine what joy can look like, even in uncertain times.
Dylin Hardcastle (they/them) is an award-winning author, artist, screenwriter and former Provosts Scholar at the University of Oxford. They are the author of four critically acclaimed books. Their work has been translated into eight languages. Dylin is the co-writer and co-director of Cloudy River. Their most recent novel, A Language of Limbs, has been optioned by Sony Pictures and is in development.
SETH INSUA is an Anglo-Spanish writer and artist. He was born in Kent in 1989. He graduated from the University of Oxford with a First in English Language and Literature. He has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and The London Magazine's Short Story Competition and was a semi-finalist in the BlueCat Screenplay Competition. He lives with his husband, David, between Newcastle upon Tyne and Madrid. Human, Animal is his first novel.
ELLE NASH ;is a British-American author and editor known for her fearless exploration of desire, identity, and the human condition. Her most recent novel, ;Deliver Me, was published by VERVE Books in 2024 and was longlisted for the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year. Her work appears in ;Guernica, ;Adroit, ;The Creative Independent, ;Hazlitt, ;Literary Hub, ;Cosmopolitan, ;New York Tyrant ;and elsewhere. She is a founding editor of ;Witch Craft Magazine. She currently lives in Glasgow, Scotland.
Chloe Michelle Howarth was born in July 1996. She grew up in the West Cork countryside, which has served as an inspiration for her writing. Chloe currently lives in Brighton. Her debut novel, Sunburn, was shortlisted for the 2024 Polari First Book Prize, the 2024 Book of the Year: Discover Award at the British Book Awards and the 2023 Nero Book Award for Debut Fiction and longlisted for the 2024 Diverse Book Awards.
