Open Call for Transmissions

Image “Decommissioned Airbnb” courtesy of Helen Grundy @helen_grundy_artist

Topic/Theme – Queer States: Queer Theories of State vs. Queer Anarchy

Attention writers and artists! We’re launching a new special theme edition of Transmissions: Queer States: Queer Theories of State vs. Queer Anarchy, presented through Pup and Tiger, a queer-run art space in Canterbury, UK. 

This unique Transmission is a space for queer and queer-friendly writers or practitioners to engage with ideas of queerness, ideas open to all of us, to whatever depth and degree you see fit. In 2023, historian Samuel Clowes Huneke, published a slim, but useful book, A Queer Theory of the State. The book begins as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the m-pox vaccine, and then offers a contextual reflection back on public health during the start of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. In light of imminent politics, Huneke expresses in the introduction that “Much of queer theory suffers… from an inability to think constructively, hamstrung by reflective critique.” Thus, his need to propose a queer theory of state, while also acknowledging that a cornerstone of queerness has always been an oppositional stance to the status quo. 

Our theme is a chance to engage with this topic from either end, and however you see fit and to perhaps consider new ways of being or explore a re-envisioning of this current moment and experiences. We invite you, the creator, to bring to this publishing space whatever offering carries you into this conversation even if it doesn’t carry you through or out. 

Should there be a queer theory of state, or should queerness always be a stance born out of anarchy, a social anarchy without hierarchies or institutions? And if so, how do we approach this or reflect it in ways that enrich our ways of being? We want works that ask these questions literally or as whisperingly, gaspingly, airily tangentially as the artist sees fit. From private gestures to vast imaginaries, what does it mean to inhabit queer states? We want this to be as fun and or as serious as people need to be personally to find comfort in the discourse. This is also a chance to reimagine the world we want to live in.

Think of this as an experiment, a flirtation, or a map drawn in invisible ink, a place where serious ideas can still dance a little or propose the stances needed.

We’re looking for writers and expanded practices who are thoughtful, curious, and unafraid to take risks. Surprise us, whether your work is textual, time-based, sound-driven, playful, hybrid, or still emerging.

Queer States: Queer Theories of State vs. Queer Anarchy is curated and edited by Jared Pappas-Kelley, artist, writer, and co-founder of Pup and Tiger, and Jordan A. Rothacker, novelist, literary scholar, and educator. Pappas-Kelley’s work has appeared in Art Monthly, The Guardian, 3:AM Magazine, Cabinet, and The Rumpus. He is the author of Solvent Form: Art and Destruction, To Build a House That Never Ceased, and Stalking America. He has curated exhibitions internationally and has led several independent art spaces and collaborative initiatives, including Critical Line, Tollbooth, and Don’t Bite the Pavement. Rothacker’s books include the novels: And Wind Will Wash Away, My Shadow Book by Maawaam, The Death of the Cyborg Oracle, The Pit, and No Other Stories, and The Shrieking of Nothing; the short story collection, Gristle, weird tales; and the anthology in tribute to the Comte de Lautreamont, The Celestial Bandit. His journalism and literary essays have appeared in publications as diverse as SPIN Magazine, Brooklyn Rail, Literary Hub, The Believer, Bomb Magazine, Guernica, The Flagpole, Athens Banner-Herald, Vegetarian Times, and International Wristwatch Magazine.   

Please submit your work to [email protected] and we’ll be in touch! 

We kindly ask that any visual material be sent via Dropbox or Google Drive links to preserve the quality of your work.

The Submission window for this issue of Transmissions closes on December 1, 2025. Please respect our time and deadline.