Join Alison Rumfitt, Peter Scalpello and Jack Thompson, as they talk about their books and the path-breaking work of Cipher Press, the London-based publisher for Queer and Trans writers everywhere.
Dedicating our Autumn series to the remarkable activities of London's truly independent publishers, we continue with the pioneering Cipher Press, an independent publisher of queer and trans books.
In their own words, "our aim is to amplify queer voices and to champion LGBTQIA+ writers in the UK and beyond...We’re entirely queer owned and run because we want the publishing industry to be more inclusive at every level. We still don’t often see the kind of books we want to see on shelves, and we’d like to change that by finding authors who excite us and by publishing books that we love."
Co- founder and publisher Jack Thompson is joined by Alison Rumfitt and Peter Scalpello, the authors of new and recent books from Cipher, to discuss these issues and to read from their own titles. Co- founder and publisher Ellis will be selling books.
Artist Biographies
Alison Rumfitt is a writer and semi-professional trans woman. Her debut pamphlet of poetry, The T(y)ranny, was a critical deconstruction of Margaret Atwood’s work through the lens of a trans woman navigating her own misogynistic dystopia. It was published by Zarf Editions in 2019. Tell Me I’m Worthless, her debut novel, was published by Cipher Press in 2021, and her second novel, Brainwyrms, in October 2023. Her work has appeared in countless publications such as Granta, Rolling Stone, SPORAZINE, datableed, The Final Girls, Burning House Press, SOFT CARTEL, Glass Poetry and more. Her poetry was nominated - twice! - for the Rhysling Award in 2018. You can find her on Twitter @hangsawoman and @alison.zone on Instagram. She loves her friends.
Peter Scalpello is a queer poet and sexual health therapist from Glasgow. Their poems have been published in Penguin's literary magazine Five Dials, Parspar Press’s Scintillas: New Maltese Writing, Pilot Press's A Queer Anthology of Healing and A Queer Anthology of Wilderness, Gutter Magazine, Impossible Archetype, Anthropocene, Fruit Journal, The Selkie, and Queerlings, among others. In 2021 they were nominated for a Forward Prize and Pushcart Prize. In 2020, they were shortlisted for the Creative Future Writers' Award, and longlisted for the Desperate Literature Prize, and the University of East Anglia 'Show Me Yours Prize'. They have performed their poems at events alongside Danez Smith and Andrew McMillan, and have read at Fringe: Queer Film & Arts Festival 2020, Granta's Feminist Erotica readings, Homotopia Festival 2020, and University of Glasgow's Stay at Home Fringe 2020. Limbic, published by Cipher Press, is their first collection.
Jack Thompson is co-publisher at and co-founder of Cipher Press. They are a freelance editor, work part time at book distributor Turnaround Publisher Services, and speak at events about small press publishing and queer and trans literature They were a Bookseller Rising Star in 2022. Find them on Twitter @jack_cipher_
Barbican Library
Location
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Address
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Silk Street, London
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Public transport
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