Cirrus@Austlit

'At the start of this print cycle, being both queer and newly-appointed as Editor of Voiceworks, I was excited for the possibilities that the selection of Drag as the theme for this issue would bring, but I also felt a certain level of anxiety about all the potential things that might go wrong. Bringing queerness into the spotlight is all too often a double-edged sword. (Of course, there are several definitions of the word drag that have nothing to do with queerness, but I’m gay so I only think about gay things). Personally I worried about having to read submissions treating gender defiance as a joke, and professionally I worried about the responsibility of producing an issue with a theme that has several very complex connotations. What would happen if all the submissions we received were problematic, transphobic, totally uncritical of RuPaul? We would have nothing to print and the entire publication would fall to pieces!! (Did you know queer people are more likely to suffer from anxiety than our straight peers?) As it turns out, my fears went totally unrealised. Instead, the issue you now have before you contains some of the most raw and powerful work we have published in a long time.' 

 (Introduction)