(September's Cover)
Defiant, raucous, and constructed with grace and daring, September's cover hearkens back to the lampoon origins and performative roots of drag. It also revels in the delicious ridicule of hetero-normative convention, which for so long has denied anything different the right to exist, scorning that which deviated from its flat rules and bland logic. Aside from celebrating queer culture, Vigil's photograph is also packed with energy, bravado, and irreverent joy. The queen's laugh occurs as a resilient roar. The world is her court and all spectators bow dutifully. It is worth noting that photographer Vincent Vigil is both a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation and a drag queen who performed and photographed his subjects in Tucson, Arizona, before moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to complete his formal education in photography. ~ Brian Alessandro, Editor-in-Chief
Rialto Theater
Tucson, Arizona
2013
"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive."
~ James Baldwin
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Fiction, Poetry, Essays, Drama
“As an Act of Protest” has never been more urgent than now.
The Bulldog, the Cyclone, the Ocelot, and Tom. With dignity and mettle for all.
Centuries of cruelty demand centuries of reparation.
Grace is a dance in the face of adversity, a pirouette across a landscape of bigotry.
A sublime horror, a beautiful exploitation—sung to mellifluous perfection.
Dismantled binaries, reclaimed thoughts, decolonized language.
The New Engagement endeavors a novel approach to discovering, introducing, and showcasing writers, artists, and filmmakers, by providing them digital and print platforms, while encouraging and supporting their social-consciousness.