Creative Writing

An illustration in orange and purple of a beam of sunlight sining into a shadowy room furnished in a traditional Chinese style.
Creative Writing

Flower Maiden

An illustration in two parts. In the top part, a woman drawn entirely in black kneels in front of a small altar. She appears frustrated and tired as she prays. The second image is colorful, drawn in purple and yellow. In it, a standing woman caresses the face of a woman kneeling. They are looking at each other with love.
Creative Writing

Where I Feel God

A syringe injecting into a thigh. The top of the thigh is bloody and scarred.
Creative Writing

transmutation of man

photo of two queer friends in genderbent clothing
Creative Writing
PHOTOSYNTHESIS

It is a beautiful thing, wanting nothing at all from someone you love because you live with mutual understanding beyond the primal need for physical touch, found in fleeting evenings doomed to end with someone closing the door without looking back. It is a beautiful thing, telling them that you love them over the phone while you’re crying your eyes out because you don’t know what to do now; then you’re laughing until there’s a moment you allow yourself to forget. I remember life before my queer friends, how it felt begging for someone I could see myself in just enough to spark a casual conversation built on genuine interest instead of twisting those unwilling into sharing hyperfixations created for those of us who know what it’s like to have to fight for the ones you love.

illustration of an older queer person looking at their younger self in the mirror
Community
To the queer youth, to my younger self

Coming out is hard in so many ways. I came out to myself when I was 18 years old — well, I didn’t “come out,” rather I abruptly clarified it to myself that I like women. Big deal. I hate categorizations and boxes and lists, yet it also relaxes me to put things and ideas into categories, boxes, and lists. The LGBTQ+ spectrum is mindblowingly expansive and, as I’m sure you already know, it is so beautiful.

illustration of two peacocks, one of which has a rainbow tail
Creative Writing
Birds of a Feather

It started with a Facebook message between two bubbly freshmen-to-be: two California-born Indian girls bonding over Bollywood and books. One message led to another, and we decided to submit a roommate request form to live together in the dorms. It was our first time living away from the home-cooked food of our Indian families. Our shared heritage was what gave us a pocket of familiarity within unfamiliarity.

illustration of a vampire standing by a grand rainbow window
Short Story
Ellos Quieren Sangre

Her shoulders drooped with the weight of her Catholic guilt as the statue of white Jesus stared down at her, telling her, I know what you’ve done. His dark eyes seemed to be in perpetual melancholy as her own peered into them. That statue always scared her, always seemed to follow her home from church; it was the first thing she’d see in her grandmother’s kitchen, a miniature version of the statue hung up in her room right in front of the doorway. She had always accepted that Jesus would be a permanent part of her life, just as she had accepted that she bore responsibilities, as the eldest daughter and the first grandchild, to fall in line with what her family expected from her.. 

photos of a white gay man holding roses
Poetry
Anonymous, Anonymous

I have this dream of dying in complete silence, and when the neighbors call to complain about the smell a few days later (and the firemen kick the door in), they’ll find my mother sitting calmly at the dining room table, knife in hand around a halo of sunburnt faces cutting branches from the family tree

an illustration of a moth and butterfly dodging a net
Poetry
Butterflies

A poem recounting a personal experience with queerness and trauma and coming to terms with it.

photo of a brown haired girl holding a flower in front of her face, partially hiding a smile
Poetry
Sometimes

A poem about unrequited feelings and the occasional resurfacing of memories that come with it.

photo of writer Alex Penland by the coast
Community
Queer Next Up: Alex Penland

Alex Penland (they/them) is an author, creative writing student, Smithsonian alumnus, and linguist . They primarily write SFF (Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction), but also dabble in poetry.

to cis queers everywhere
Community
To Cis Queers Everywhere

A call to action for cisgender queer people in the fight for trans rights.

illustration of a pearl being washed over by the sea
Poetry
Nacre

A poem in yearning memory of a past relationship.

Welcome to OutWrite!

Established in 1979 at the University of California, Los Angeles, OutWrite Newsmagazine is the oldest queer college publication in the United States. OutWrite strives to build a growing educational platform through a multi-media approach that uplifts and empowers the often silenced voices of the incredibly diverse queer community. We aim to challenge dominant cisheteronormative narratives through an unapologetically anti-queerphobic, anti-racist, and progressive lens.