fifth wheel press

An independent community-focused publisher of art and writing by queer, trans, and gender variant creatives.

fifth wheel press is an independent community-focused publisher of art and writing by queer, trans, and gender variant creatives.

Lenscratch publisher spotlight

Chill Subs interview

Run Amok Books spotlight

nat raum

Rebecca Herrera

Angus Sakkestad

Aden Weisel

Dhwanee Goyal

Hannah Chaney

Bella Rotker

Only open to submitters in the queer/lgbtqia+ community

Make you feel at home: cozy, meme-friendly, a sense of community, all that stuff

Active on social media

Pays for anthology contributions!

Accept previously published

Offer expedited response: $3 - response within 72 hours

Promote writers even after publication - hype hype hype

Available in print

Helpful: reposting other opportunities on their Twitter:)

"Very vocal supporters of their writers - really awesome about championing past contributors & their new works through Fifth Wheel social media channels."

light 'em up anthology

doomscrolling • sad clown • above the influence flat couch girl • dissociation • tv static • melting • tinnitus • bars and tone • daycore • a million tiny spongebobs running around • skipping records • buffering • obsession • hyperpop • damaged hard drive • decay

brainrot

Guest editor: Connor Frew

"For this issue of GARLAND, I am looking for work which might approach the body from the *outside* (the subjectivities which make the quilted collective, are responsible for the production of meaningful life, which chafe against structures of power and push the limits of what is possible) or the *inside* (cities-unto-themselves, organs and waste and cells and failures and wetness and strangeness, infinitely-dense and unpredictable and errant and beautiful)."

GARLAND Issue 4

bubbles • sparkles • glitter • seltzer • spiked seltzer • lightness • queer joy • rising upward • LaCroix • bubbly • radiance • fizzy lifting drinks • prosecco • euphoria • boozy brunch • exuberance • lively • ecstatic • frolicsome

effervescent

unthemed submissions for publication on the fifth wheel press blog (no print component)

blog submissions (unthemed)

Guest editor: Sadee Bee

"Unwanted letters espousing last minute love, questionable voicemails, drawn out texts you can’t seem to delete? Erase them, not literally, but let’s turn them into something new.

Give me your erasure poetry of the midnight text, the "I’m so sorry" soliloquy emails, the possibly unhinged 2am voicemail from your blocked folder, love notes, and more. Tell me what they really meant to say, what you really heard, or even what you wanted to hear the most."

Erasing You

Until all slots are full, we are accepting 12 book reviews of queer, indie books to run on our blog from April 2025–March 2026. Criteria below:

Review must center on an indie/small press book. No Big 5, not even imprints.
Book must be written by a queer author.
Review must be under 2000 words. This is a hard limit—our blog is online-only and long pieces don’t do well on the web.

2025-2026 reviews

Guest editor: Cavar

"Some people aren’t human. Actually, mostly people aren’t: cats, sharks, trees, rocks, and everyone in between each hold histories and vital relationships that are too often sidelined in favor of anthropocentric narratives. For this call, I want to see stories in which the idea(l) of human individualism is narratively and poetically challenged. Stretch and break the bounds of who is typically afforded a voice; who matters; who counts as an ally in the struggle for collective liberation; and who determines what it means to be a person at all. In addition to more conventionally multispecies/nonhuman narratives, I’m particularly interested in works by/featuring alterhuman characters and themes, and am looking for the complex, imaginative, thoughtful over the polemic/educational."

Alterhuman/Multispecies

Emily Perkovich (she/her) is from the Chicago-land area. She is the Editor in Chief of Querencia Press, a poetry reader with Split Lip Mag, and on the Women in Leadership Advisory Board with Valparaiso University. Her work strives to erase the stigma surrounding trauma victims and their responses. She is previously published with Horror Sleaze Trash, Harness Magazine, Rogue Agent, Coffin Bell Journal, and Awakenings among others. She is the author of the poetry collections Godshots Wanted: Apply Within (Sunday Mornings at the River), The Number 12 Looks Just Like You (Finishing Line Press), baby, sweetheart, honey (Alien Buddha Press) Manipulate Me, Babe—I Trust You (GutSlut Press), & lamb/&/slaughter (forthcoming, Fifth Wheel Press, 2024) as well as the novella Swallow. Em is Otomí & learning ways to reconnect with her kin. You can find her on IG @undermeyou or Twitter @emily_perkovich or at www.emilyperkovich.com

5.24.24

Emily Perkovich (she/her) is Otomí & from the Chicago-land area. She is the EIC of Querencia Press & a poetry reader with Split Lip Mag. Her work strives to erase the stigma surrounding trauma victims & their responses. Find her on IG @undermeyou or Twitter @emily_perkovich or at www.emilyperkovich.com

short bio

Sadee Bee (They/Them) is a queer artist and writer inspired by magic, strange dreams, and creepy vibes. Sadee is the Visual Arts Editor for Sage Cigarettes Magazine. Bee can be found on Twitter @SadeeBee, on Instagram @sadee__bee, and on the web at www.sadeebee.com  

Main Simple Bio  

jp thorn is a queer, neurodivergent artist raised in and returned to the south. you'll usually find them in a peaceful flow state of adhd hyperfocus or ping-ponging between cat parent and hobbyist. they believe in de-stigmatization and open communication as means to bridge divides between folx from varied backgrounds. their work is largely inspired by reframing traditionalism, therapeutic processes, unlearning patriarchy, and global patterns.

third person bio

Mac Murray is a writer, dog walker, and gender upender currently living and working in NYC by way of Seattle. Their work has been published by Bricolage, Fish Barrel Review, and fifth wheel press. They earned their BA in creative writing from the University of Washington, where they were also awarded the Eugene Van Buren prize for fiction.

Regular

cw; death

(...)

My mind still dips its paintbrush into wrong colors– for a moment, 
my mother’s voice sounds like someone else. For a moment, I expect 
ghosts to come out of the room whose vacancy I’ve occupied, 
time to rewind itself back to wh

the graveyard always hungers for more

I have to ask myself if I am willing to be hurt by you

Do your nipples think they are in some long-distance relationship?

								Yes, and— 

On Learning to Live with Puppet Strings

7. You must dance when the song comes on. Make your boobs jiggle so hard everyone thinks you’re a mixologist.

Guide to Finding an Infinite Number of Selves

You Told Me You Killed Her

West Wittering

When We Are Looking At the Same Moon

I turn my head toward sunlight with closed eyes and try to burn the world away,
maybe try to set myself alight too,
hoping the crawling spring will grant me the small mercy of disappearing

before I settle for the calamity of summer.

(...)

staring at the sun (until I see the real you)

GSA: queer desire at a small, restrictive high school

Hey, Big Spender: a debaucherous summer of sex, drugs, and yoga (as one does)

two stories: GSA & Hey, Big Spender

"Your world never ends how you think it will."

Cambridge

Heart Emoji (Pink w/ Sparkles), Heart Emoji (Broken)

i think yr real cool like blue lemonade real pretty like bluebells i'm underwater drowning and still i take time to admire the backlit outline of you [...]

Feature: three works by Zoe Adrien Lapa

When They Foretold Our Futures

"We sit on a splintered teak bench,

shaded in a cloister of soft white petals"

'menil park (kissing a girl)'

 -.-. --- -. ...- .. -. -.-. .     -- .     ..     .-- .. .-.. .-..

I was boiling with color and ancient the day I knew life—
Supernovas don’t last long.

Telegraph to a Constellation

Poem published digitally. After Joy Harjo. Not quite sure what this poem is about, but it's one of my favorites.

She Knew The Moon

Catching Light

Ten Years of Hell

fait accompli

against impossible odds

VII-2. [Vodka Mutini]

mermaid bible

how to construct a breakup poem

Stormsong

i tried to cup you in my hands but could only watch you leak through

In Monstro

An acrid puff of smoke I inhaled deep in my lungs for some semblance of feeling. In essence, a comfort I held dear.

You Showed Me All Your Colors

Challenging the idea that a fast writer = a good writer. Why I enjoy slow drafting and the lessons I've learned from it.

The Joys of Slow Drafting

Were she to unveil the mirror, Niamh imagines she might find the portrait of Dorian Gray — something old and shriveled and haggard. Something that would reflect her true nature back to her instead of seastorm eyes gone crimson...

White Squall Reel

This poem of mine was published in the gorgeous dreamland anthology, so give it a read!

27°C, Lincoln, England

For this blue, is a remnant of the sky, the ocean; of vast expanses and depths, aching to be explored. I am only a mirror of such stark things, yet only a fraction of the beauty. 

Devouring the Deep Blue

like a prayer i've already forgotten / who we're pretending for

fantasia

A poem written after Qiu Miaojin and Larry Mitchell.

collapse (reprint)

"let's pretend reckless / wasn't a verb" 

funeral for losing another barbie at the beach

Violet Stains on Violet Trees

mouth full of maple leaves

i dream of // eve babitz LA // sticky motel // hallways strewn with jacaranda blossoms //

motel

"I'm a two-dollar boy, but there's nothing worn about me. 
Nothing unholy about a body built from scratch.
Sound!                            with the silent beat of wings,
                                       on the bed frame, on back of man."

Prophet's Head Cold

I Am Being So Normal About Desire

For most of her young life, Belinda dreamed of future occurrences. Small happenings that would rent her unconscious to use as a stage on which to rehearse...

Small Changes

"Your body teems with birds flying north.
It’s summertime in the valley
of your mouth..."

On Breezy Days When the Veil Seems Thinner

...I found this moss
for you it is soft you are soft I am
green inside there are stars
in the moss...

Star Moss

a prose poem about being a weird little guy.

the kind of caterpillar that blooms into an onion

water rations allowed three showers per day per 
home, but multigenerational homes 
got five a day. two showers equal a 
bath, and my mother made sure my 
sister and i played mermaids each 
sunday. poured  lavender salts in and 
called it the arctic

playing mermaids each sunday

years of touching the space where my
heart sits, wayward, shriveled, and tracing my ribcage with the same fear of touching sin. now it feels as
divine as bone and flesh can be. sin has a sweetness, has a way of welcoming no other does. 

i kneel at the dyke altar

Sadee Bee is a Minneapolis native and self-taught artist. Her mediums include but are not limited to, oil painting, digital artwork, acrylic painting, pen ink, and colored pencil. 

Eight Art Pieces 

O ELEKTRA

Drifting Through False Front Western Architecture

Breakthrough (With a Cactus)

Featured in the Light 'Em Up anthology, this short poem speaks to the extremes of hot & cold in the world, and how lukewarm is really what we should strive for. 

Take Pause in the Cold // Take Stock of the Heat

"I have sowed much discord; my corporeal feminine form too visible and beyond reproach. They said my eyes leaked visions of bloodshed, of the gnashing and rending of flesh."

(UB313) Eris

The fact remains
That your uncultured Bird Cage
Taught me what to hate
About myself

Paper Fa***ts

We wrote poems from PBS signals,
canonizing a knee-jerk apocrypha.

Mothers

the grand tapestry, / may be raging, / go inside.

(visual poem)

Elements

Featured in “The Truth is in the Stars” anthology.

rays

bridges/long weekends

doing it ourselves

After being published in the 'Light 'Em Up' anthology earlier in the year, this poem was later republished in Fifth Wheel Press' yearly anthology.

fifth wheel press

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Masthead