About Us

The Q&A is an up and coming digital zine devoted to all forms of queer expression. From prose to poetry, and from photography to painting, Our zine will showcase both visual and written arts from LGBTQ+ identifying individuals across America.

We are officially based out of Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania, but we are staffed by LGBTQ+ students and individuals everywhere from the East Coast to Texas. 

We hope to hear from you when we open for submissions in June 2021!

Our Story

Hi, my name is Cloë! I am the Co-founder and Co-editor in chief of The Q&A.

In the Fall semester of 2021, I started getting more involved with Widener University’s literary magazines, The Blue Route, and Widener Ink. I quickly began to understand how rewording the work of publishing is. Reading and publishing these submissions built community between our team of readers and our contributors– without even knowing their names, we were in collaboration with one another. But I began to realize a striking absence. 

Where were the queer stories? Better yet, where were the queer publications? At the same time I began to feel the absence of LGBTQ+ representation in a literary sense, I began to recognize the over-arching lack of community on our campus. In a broad but very literal sense, queer students are some of the best builders of community on college campuses. From friends at other schools, I would hear about the programming available to queer students, the parties their friends would host, and the vibrancy and visibility of their LGBTQ+ student bodies.

The Q&A was truly born when I read Boston College’s publication, The Laughing Medusa. That’s a damn good publication! An awesome publication. Like many things, it represented the queer expression and community that my University was lacking. I wanted to be a part of something like that. It was time to make that change happen, I realized. 

This story is meant to share the foundations of this zine– which was born from a place of necessity for belonging, for friendship, and for expression. This space is for any and all queer people who feel that familiar pull towards community. Maybe you live in a region where you’re isolated from other queer people, or maybe you live in a city or a campus with a vibrant LGBTQ+ community. Either way, this is your home.

How to Submit

Submission Deadline: Oct. 1, 2021

Send a .docx file of your written work, or a .pdf of your visual work to theqandaqueerzine@gmail.com

Please include a title for both written and drawn works. If you would like to submit a written description, there is a three sentence maximum.

You will hear back from us sometime in Fall 2021. In the mean time, visit our submissions page for more information and follow us on social media, IG: @theqandaqueerzine Twitter: @TheQandAZine