Queer L.E. II

Darío Gael Blanco writes and translates for Vanity Fair, and for anyone that asks. He also teaches classes in queer culture in Spain within the university programme Tufts-Skidmore, in Madrid. He has published essays and fictional stories in collective books published by the Dos Bigotes, Amor de Madre, Levanta Fuego and Egales publishing houses.

Sandra Bravo is a journalist, therapist and activist, as well as being non-monogamous, bisexual, off-beat and a countryside/village lover. She is the author of Todo eso que no sé cómo explicarle a mi madre. (Poli)amor, sexo y feminismo (Plan B) (Editorial B, 2021) and the prologue in Una red segura. Apego, trauma y no monogamia consensuada (Continta Me Tienes, 2022), by Jéssica Fern. She coordinates the dissemination project Hablemos de poliamor y otras formas de no monogamia.    

Christo Casas is a journalist, anthropologist and entity in different digital formats such as the podcast, the story and, above all, the tweet. A working-class queer who holds on to the hope of abolishing work, he writes for a number of media outlets and writes the odd novel or essay from a gender and class perspective, for instance El Power Ranger rosa (niños gratis*, 2020) and Maricas malas (Ediciones Paidós, 2023).

Laura Casielles is a poet and journalist, and author of the books Soldado que huye (Hesperya, 2008), Los idiomas comunes (Hiperión, 2010; winner of the XIII Antonio Carvajal Youth Poetry Prize and Miguel Hernández Youth Poetry Prize 2011), Las señales que hacemos en los mapas (Libros de la Herida, 2014) and Breve historia de algunas cosas (Ediciones del 4 de Agosto, 2017).

Elisa Coll Blanco writes, communicates and navigates in multidisciplinarity. She is the author of Nosotras vinimos tarde (Amor de Madre, 2023) and Resistencia bisexual (Melusina, 2021), and also participated in the anthology (h)amor9 amigas (Continta Me Tienes, 2024), which conveys obsessions with friendship, failure, housing and bisexuality. She has written for publications such as El Salto, elDiario.es, Vice and Vanity Fair, and currently writes in her own section for Pikara Magazine. In the spring of 2024 she will release her first monologue, GLORIA.

Noelia Cortés is a writer, pharmacy technician and activist for the rights of Gypsy People. Her cultural analysis seeks the inclusion of Gypsy women in feminism and advocates flamenco as a social tool. In 2021, she was selected by the Mujer Hoy magazine as one of the women who will change the future. She has published the poetry collection Del mar y la muerte (La Carmensita Editorial, 2021) and the essay La higuera de las gitanas (ediciones en el mar, 2021), in which she analyses the misrepresentation of the Gypsy People in culture.   

Cuidado que te veo is a cultural and LGTBIAQ+ association. Its activities include producing the audiovisual activity Regias del drag España, which joins the paradigms of drag culture in Spain and Mexico, and Drag Story Hour, a project which advocates reading and inclusion from a drag perspective.   

Ana Flecha Marco translates books and loose pages from Norwegian, English and French into Spanish. She is also a liaison and conference interpreter and writes and illustrates books and articles. She is the author of Dos novelitas nórdicas (Mr. Griffin, 2019), La niña búho y el fantástico viaje en balde (Menoslobos & Eolas, 2020) and Piso compartido (Bombas para Desayunar, 2018/Mr. Griffin, 2021), and has translated authors such as Linn Ullmann, Nina Lykke, Anna Fiske, Jenny Jordahl, Neil Gaiman, bell hooks and Rosalind E. Krauss, among others.

Rioko Fotabon (elle) is a poet and teacher who creates queer anti-racist content on the Instagram account @black.rainb0w_. Fotabon’s work seeks to rethink and end the racial and gender impositions of white supremacy, holding workshops and courses related to social justice and anti-racist poetry. She is also part of grassroots collective spaces, and vindicates the mere existence of Black trans people as a form of magical ancestral resistance.

Andrea Galaxina carries out her professional activity in the fields of teaching, publishing and culture, with her field of specialisation the cultural productions of counterculture, particularly the fanzine. She has created and directs the fanzine publisher Bombas para Desayunar and the contemporary art publisher El primer grito, and recently re-edited the essay Nadie miraba hacia aquí. Un ensayo sobre arte y VIH/sida (Continta Me tienes, 2024). She has collaborated on different projects with institutions such as the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona, the Museo Reina Sofía, the Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Móstoles, Fundación Telefónica and Tabakalera, and writes about contemporary art in Exit and La Marea.

Eva Gallud is a writer and translator. She has translated works by poets such as Emily Dickinson, H. D., and Amy Lowell and writers such as Mary Austin, Edith Wharton and Kate Chopin. Her recent publications include Todo rojo por dentro (Dieciséis, 2023), Los años oscuros (Dieciséis, 2020) and the poetry collections Letanía del frío (Ya lo dijo Casimiro Parker, 2021), Raíz de ave (Ya lo dijo Casimiro Parker, 2018) and El taxidermista (Bancarrota ediciones suicidas, 2016).  

Andrea García-Santesmases Fernández is a professor in the Social Work Department of Spain’s National University of Distance Education (UNED) and a lecturer on the MA in Sexology at the Camilo José Cela University. She has participated in different national and international research projects, resulting in a number of scientific publications, most recently publishing El Cuerpo Deseado. La conversación pendiente entre feminismo y anticapacitismo (Kaótica Libros, 2023).

Itxi Guerra researches ableism, anarchism and the symbiosis that exists between other realities and oppressed bodies, for instance those of youngsters or queer people. She has written Lucha contra el capacitismo. Anarquismo y capacitismo (Editorial Imperdible, 2021) and Ruptura y Reparación de la máquina. Escritos desde un cuerpo lisiado (Trinchera, 2023).

Nacho M. Segarra is an expert in communication and gender, and a lecturer in Journalism at the Complutense University of Madrid. He is the author of Herstory. Una historia ilustrada de las mujeres and Sexbook. Una historia ilustrada de la sexualidad (Lumen, 2018), both co-written with María Bastarós, and with illustrations by Cristina Daura, and Ladronas victorianas (Levanta Fuego, 2017). Segarra has contributed to different publications like El Salto and Vanity Fair and has run activities on sexual diversity at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) and the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. He is a member of the Señores Bi-en collective on masculinities and bisexualities.   

Roberta Marrero is a false poet, false artist and medium. Marrero’s work drinks from her obsessions: Catholic imagery, gay pornography, images of power, the sinister, the occult, her own biography and her idols. She has published the books Dictadores (Hidroavión, 2015), El bebé verde (Lunwerg, 2016), We can be heroes (Lunwerg, 2018), Todo era por ser fuego (Continta Me Tienes, 2022) and Derecho a cita (Continta Me Tienes, 2024).

Carolina Meloni is a philosopher, writer, researcher and transfeminist activist. Bisexual and borderline, traversed by two political-economic exiles. She is a professor of Philosophy at the University of Zaragoza. Her most recent publications include Transterradas: el exilio infantil y juvenil como lugar de memoria (Tren en movimiento, 2019), with M. González de Oleaga and C. Saiegh, Sueño y Revolución (Continta Me Tienes, 2021) and Feminismos fronterizos. Mestizas, perras y abyectas (Kaótica Libros, 2021).

Mafe Moscoso writes, researches, performs and imagines entanglements between ethnography and fiction. She is a professor at the BAU College of Arts and Design. In 2023, she was awarded a Hangar/Banco Sabadell grant with the project Un océano (por) venir: etno-ficciones cuir (An Ocean (to) Come: Queer Ethno-fictions). She has also published the books La Santita (Consonni, 2024), Hostal España. El gesto hospedante, la etnografía hospedante (Mr. Griffin/LAAV_,2023), the poetry book Desintegrar el hechizo: versitos anti-coloniales/Crónica Roja (La Reci, 2021) and the book-manual Etnografías sensoriales y experimentales (BAU ediciones, 2021), among others.

Ángelo Néstore is an artist whose work revolves around the poetic understood as a queer territory in which the poem hybridises with disciplines like performance, performing arts and music. Néstore has published the poetry books Deseo de ser árbol (Espasa, 2022), Hágase mi voluntad (Pre-Textos, 2020), Actos impuros (Hiperión, 2017) and Adán o nada (Bandaàparte Editores, 2017), coordinated the publication Antología de poesía Queer (Espasa, 2024) and currently co-directs the Irreconciliables International Poetry Festival of Málaga, as well as managing the poetry publisher Letraversal.

Bernardo Pajares is an English philologist who works with communication. He is part of the Museo Nacional del Prado’s social media team, and wrote and directed for the podcast from the Patria series, as well as contributing to different programmes of Radio Nacional de España, among others. With Juanra Sanz, he hosts the podcast Arte compacto on the history of diverse art and culture from a queer perspective, which in 2021 started a weekly slot on Radio Nacional de España’s Radio 5.

Javier Parra is a film critic who has worked at international festivals as a curator and jury member. He is the author of Terror en serie (Héroes de Papel, 2019), La madre terrible en el cine de terror (Hermenaute, 2020) and Scream Queer. La representación LGTBIAQ+ en el cine de terror (Dos Bigotes, 2021). He created Scream Queer in the 2022 edition of the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (NIFFF), and is part of the ¡Estamos Vivas! podcast and the Publications Department of Sitges Film Festival - Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya. In 2023, he coordinated the anthology ¡Larga vida al trash! El cine de John Waters como nunca te lo habían contado (Dos Bigotes, 2023) and has recently published Scream Queer 2. La venganza (Dos Bigotes, 2024).  

Jesús Pascual is a screenwriter, film-maker and writer. With experience in documentary, he directed the short film Mi arma (2019) and the feature-length film ¡Dolores, guapa! (2022). He is the author of the essay Querer como las locas. Pasiones maricas ocultas en la copla de Rafael de León (Editorial Cántico, 2023). 

Nerea Pérez de las Heras is a journalist and comedian. Across her career, she has written for media outlets such as El País, Vogue, Esquire, Marie Claire and Glamour, and as a comedian her stand-up sketch Feminismo para torpes (Booket, 2022) has been hugely successful and is also the title of a video series for the newspaper El País, in which she employs humour to critique the sexist rules and behaviours in our society. She currently produces the podcasts Saldremos mejores and Lo normal.

Pink Chadora is a drag queen and multidisciplinary artist who participated in the third season and All Stars version of the television programme Drag Race España, as well as touring El Gran Hotel de las Reinas: Histeria de un Crimen in Spain’s major theatres. Todo era campo (Letraversal, 2023) is  Chadora’s first book of poems and poetic performance.

Bob Pop is a journalist who works in television, radio (Cadena Ser’s Hoy por Hoy) and print media, including as the deputy director of La Marea. He is the author of, among others, the books Mansos and Un miércoles de enero (Turner Publicaciones, 2018) and the two diary volumes Días ajenos (Somos Libros, 2019), which he has also adapted as a theatrical monologue with his latest volume of diaries Días Simétricos (Alfaguara, 2023). He is the creator and screenwriter of the autobiographical series Maricón perdido (2021).

Tatiana Romero Reina is a migrant and lesbian, fat, transfeminist, neighbourhooded and racialised. She is also co-founder of Grupo Kollontai, a space for the study of women’s history. Her work centres on anti-racist pedagogy through transfeminist and anti-racist workshops and training sessions in education institutions and different NGOs. She has spent more than twenty years involved in feminisms and anti-racist and LGTBIAQ+ activism, and in recent years in fat activism. She is a contributor to Pikara Magazine, Feminopraxis and El Salto and has recently coordinated the anthology (h)amor8 gordo (Continta Me Tienes, 2023).       

Alana S. Portero is a historian specialised in the Middle Ages, and a playwright, stage director and writer. She regularly contributes to Público and El Diario, and occasionally to Vogue and SModa. She is the author of different poetry collections and plays, with her first foray into novels coming in the form of La mala costumbre (Seix Barral, 2023).

Juanpe Sánchez López is a writer and researcher. He has participated in the collective volume (h)amor7 roto (Continta Me Tienes, 2022) and Antología de Poesía Queer (Espasa, 2024), in addition to publishing the poetry collection Desde las gradas (Letraversal, 2021) and the essay Superemocional: Una defensa del amor (Continta Me Tienes, 2023). In 2024, he will publish his second poetry collection, also with Letraversal.    

Juanra Sanz is an art historian and part of the Museo Nacional del Prado’s General Coordination team of Conservation. With Bernardo Pajares, he hosts the Arte compacto podcast on the history of art and culture from a queer perspective, which since 2021 has had a weekly slot on Radio Nacional de España’s Radio 5. They are also the authors of the essay Historias que significan and the anthology Hasta aquí hemos llegado (Editorial Egales, 2021).

Eugenia Tenenbaum is an art historian specialised in gender perspective. Her work focuses on cultural dissemination and art criticism on social media, and as a communicator she conducts guided tours, talks and workshops on art, feminism and their impact on gender relations in the creation, reception and dissemination of artistic production in congresses, universities, institutions and other spaces. She is the author of La mirada inquieta (Ediciones Temas de Hoy, 2022) and Las mujeres detrás de Picasso (Lunwerg Editores, 2023).  

Sara Torres is a writer. With the novel Lo que hay (Reservoir Books, 2022) she received the award for best debut novel from Spain’s booksellers in 2022. Her theoretical-creative work focuses on the analysis of desire, body and discourse through a critical, feminist and interdisciplinary apparatus which intertwines psychanalysis, new materialisms and queer studies. She is the author of La otra genealogía (Torremozas, 2014) and the poetry books Conjuros y Cantos (Kriller71, 2016), Phantasmagoria (La Bella Varsovia, 2019), El ritual del baño (La Bella Varsovia, 2021) and Deseo de perro (Letraversal, 2023).

Chenta Tsai Tseng (Putochinomaricón) is an architect, musician and activist, as well as being an intelligent creature, committed, defiant… a sweet and sour being. Before even releasing his first EP, Corazón De Cerdo Con Ginseng Al Vapor, he had contributed to an array of publications and media outlets such as El País, La Sexta, El Confidencial, Fantastic Plastic Mag and Radio 3. In 2022, he released JÁJÁ ÉQÚÍSDÉ (Distopía Aburrida), a benchmark album in the hyperpop and futurepop sound and a snapshot of the realities that move the world.

Irantzu Varela Urrestizala is a journalist, queer transfeminist cupletista and working class, born and bred. She contributes to Pikara Magazine and SModa, and currently presents Manólogos as a playwright. She has participated in (h)amor4 propio (Continta Me Tienes, 2019), (h)amor5 húmedo (Continta Me Tienes, 2021) and (h)amor8 gordo (Continta Me Tienes, 2023). With Andrea Momoitio, she is the co-founder of La Sinsorga, a feminist cultural centre in Bilbao’s old town.

Rosario Villajos is a writer. Her work La educación física (Seix barral, 2023) won the Biblioteca Breve Award in 2023 and explores, through the eyes of a teenage girl, the themes of consent, the female body and normalised violence she suffers over time. She has also published La muela (Aristas Martínez, 2021), Ramona (Mrs. Danvers, 2019) and the graphic novel Face (Ponent Mon, 2017).