The inaugural collection in the new VERVE Voices series, Queerphoria is a joyful and defiant queer-authored anthology proudly supporting Switchboard, the UK's 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, twenty-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.
Switchboard will receive a £1 donation from every copy sold.
Includes contributions from: Amil (translated by Joheun Lee) Santanu Bhattacharya Maame Blue James Cahill Jenny Chamarette Gerardo Sámano Córdova Soula Emmanuel Selali Fiamanya Eve Gleichman Remi Graves Dylin Hardcastle Chloe Michelle Howarth William Rayfet Hunter Seth Insua Joshua Jones Laura Kay Carrie Marshall Peo Michie Elle Nash Peter Scalpello Joelle Taylor
About Switchboard: For over 50 years, Switchboard has supported the LGBTQIA+ community through challenges and triumphs, offering a listening ear in difficult times and moments of joy. Their support is completely free and available wherever you feel most comfortable, whether that's via phone (0800 0119 100), chat (switchboard.lgbt) or email (hello@switchboard.lgbt). Switchboard's services are open from 10 AM to 10 PM, every single day of the year. Their trained volunteers are available to discuss anything related to sexuality and gender identity; whether it's sexual health, relationships or just the way you're feeling. For anyone, anywhere in the country, at any point in their journey.
Dylin Hardcastle is the award-winning author of four books published to critical acclaim in eleven territories and translated into eight languages. Their most recent novel, A Language of Limbs, won the 2023 Kathleen Mitchell Award, was shortlisted for Dymocks Book of the Year 2024, and longlisted for the 2025 Stella Prize. As an artist, Dylin has undertaken residencies across Europe, South America, and Antarctica.
Elle Nash is a British-American author and editor known for her fearless exploration of desire, identity, and the human condition. Her latest novel, Deliver Me, described as a "darkly vivid examination of faith, obsession, and alienation," was nominated for Fiction Book of the Year by the Saltire Society.
Chloe Michelle Howarth, born in July 1996, grew up in the West Cork countryside, which continues to inspire her writing. She studied English, Media, and Cultural Studies at IADT in Dún Laoghaire, Dublin. She is the author of Sunburn and Heap Earth Upon It and currently lives in Brighton.
Seth Insua is an Anglo-Spanish writer and artist born in Kent in 1989. He graduated from the University of Oxford with a First in English Language and Literature. His work has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and The London Magazine Short Story Competition, and he was a semifinalist in the BlueCat Screenplay Competition. He lives between Newcastle upon Tyne and Madrid with his husband, David, and is the author of Human, Animal.
Demi Echezona is VERVE's Assistant Editor and Marketing Manager, based in London. She enjoys reading plays, writing scripts, and immersing herself in anime and manga.
Dr. James Cahill is an author, critic, and art historian. His debut novel, Tiepolo Blue (Sceptre Books, 2022), was shortlisted for the 2023 Author's Club Best First Novel Award and selected in autumn 2024 for the Queen's Reading Room, the book club of H.M. Queen Camilla. His second novel, The Violet Hour, was published in February 2025. He divides his time between London and Los Angeles.
William Rayfet Hunter is a British-Jamaican writer from the North West of England who now lives and works in East London. Their nonfiction has appeared in VICE, Dazed, and the Evening Standard. Their debut novel, Sunstruck, won the #Merky Books New Writers' Prize 2022.
Gerardo Sámano Córdova is a writer and artist from Mexico City, now based in Brooklyn. He is currently Writer in Residence at Fordham University and holds an MFA from the Helen Zell Writers' Program at the University of Michigan. He has studied at Bread Loaf as both a work-study scholar (2019) and fellow (2023), and at the Tin House Summer Workshop (2019). He is the author of Monstrilio.
Joelle Taylor is the author of four poetry collections. Her most recent, C+NTO & Othered Poems, won the 2021 T.S. Eliot Prize and the 2022 Polari Book Prize for LGBTQ+ authors, and is currently being adapted for the stage. She is co-curator and host of Out-Spoken Live at the Southbank Centre, tours internationally, is a Poetry Fellow at the University of East Anglia, and curated the 2023 Koestler Awards.
Jenna Gordon is VERVE's Editorial Director, working remotely from Glasgow. She is a passionate reader of propulsive, character-driven fiction and distinctive, thought-provoking nonfiction.
