Washington Writers' Publishing House
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WWPH WRITES 124... celebrates the 2026 winners of our PRIDE Poetry & Prose contests, judged by our own award-winning writers T. Tonee Moll and Suzanne Feldman. Special thanks to Charlotte Van Schaack and Jupiter Berrysmith, our WWPH Fellows, who helped organize it all.
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Plus, we are still flying high from our recent Capital Love LitFest at the Writer's Center on Sunday, June 28th. Thank you to everyone (over 150 of you!!) who showed up and participated in our first-ever day-long event of craft workshops, deep-dive literary discussions, and music & readings! See below for WWPH's Summer of Love Literary Salons--all free, across DC and Maryland!
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- TINY POEMS: AWE. Our August issues will be filled with lunes. See below for details and insights into writing a lune (or two!). Only 3 lines! Deadline: July 15th.
- CAPITAL Translation. This is our 2027 entry in our 'Capital' series of pocket-sized, collectible anthologies...following Capital Queer (2025) and Capital Love (2026). Deadline: September 1.
- Worlds Beyond. Literary speculative fiction, science fiction, fantasy, or horror -- our inaugural poetry and prose contest specifically seeking genre work that bends into the literary. Cash prizes and publication in WWPH WRITES in October. Special guest judge: Myna Chang. Opens: August 1st.
- Grace & Gravity, volume 12, series editor: Caroline Bock, special guest editor: Melanie Hatter. The theme for the first-ever Grace & Gravity edited by the Washington Writers' Publishing House: GRACE IN JUSTICE. We will be seeking fiction or literary nonfiction (up to 2,000 words) from women writers. Opens: August 15. Publication in late 2027. More details soon!
Happy, safe 4th of July weekend for all! Read on!
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Caroline Bock & Jona Colson
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WWPH PRIDE POETRY PRIZE WINNER
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Eli V. Rahm is a queer writer from Virginia. They are the author of the chapbook Sudden Queer Birth Syndrome (Bottlecap Press, 2025), and their work is featured in Sugar House Review, Passages North, Puerto del Sol, The Academy of American Poets, among others.
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Tonee Mae Moll's note: This poem is gorgeous and unsettling. It weirds beauty and the body, queers “sex and its glittering labels.” It feels like a dream of a memory, retold through a graduated color filter. I adore it.
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WWPH PRIDE POETRY PRIZE FINALIST
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Jalynn Harris is a writer, educator, and book designer from Baltimore. They are the founder of SoftSavagePress, an indie publisher promoting the works of Black artists. Their literary work can be found in Poets.org, Poetry Magazine, The Best American Poetry 2022, Feminist Studies, The Hopkins Review, Gulf Coast & elsewhere. (photo credit: Jalen Boston).
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Tonee Mae Moll's note: I don’t know a trans person who doesn’t have vivid feelings about hair, and what makes this poem so honest is that it doesn’t try to generalize about that. It doesn’t try to speak about “the trans experience” of facial hair; it is deeply personal, familial, and set in a specific moment and place, one we’re invited into. It’s in that personal space that poetry happens.
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WWPH PRIDE PROSE CONTEST WINNER
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Me and My Girlfriends Discuss Political Terrorism vs. Me and the Boys Discuss the Commune
Michelle says, I live in DC, so I feel like I should at least be trying to [illegal illegal illegal]. He’s so close. Every day I don’t try, I'm failing my country.
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Kate tells Michelle, You’re not the only one who could do that, you know. You’re studying to become a doctor. There’s always a chance an old supreme court justice is in your care one day, and you can accidentally inject their blood with an air bubble.
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This goes against the Hippocratic Oath, which Michelle hasn’t taken yet because she isn’t a doctor. I pour another glass of sangria and nod my head to these plans like music. What I really think Michelle should be doing is putting on her slick knee-high latex boots and dog-training a white boy with mental issues and keys to daddy’s gun safe to do the killing for her. I don’t say this aloud because she’s got a boyfriend, and they’re pretty serious, and it’s possible that their Blasian children could lead the revolution—that is, if she isn’t arrested for political assassination.
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Me? I’m transgender and can no longer participate in this kind of scheming—at least, not when I’m tipsy and really mean it. Trans people commit .01% of terrorism in the United States, but once every three or four years when it happens we all hear about it, and I’m not about to fuck with our program.
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Kate’s not a killer either, but we can talk about setting ourselves on fire in front of the White House all we want. I say Aaron, you say Bushnell. Aaron (Bushnell). Aaron (Bushnell). There are faster ways, I think, like shooting yourself in front of an elected official, but you have to be really precise and careful to get your brains all over them. It’s tough because there’s no way to check to see if you made it.
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The next day is Saturday, so obviously I’m cracking a beer with the boys. Nick says he was thinking about the land we’re all going to pitch in to buy when we have the money, and what we should really do is get a plot with some abandoned buildings. That way, we don’t have to start from scratch or haul in a bunch of trailers.
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He’s thinking a warehouse; Josh suggests a school. That’d be dope—we’d have a gym and a cafeteria. What’s better than a commune? A compound. None of us have ever shot a gun, but I’m a trained martial artist, and I believe with every bone in my nose that I could kill an assailant with my bare hands. But we’d be peaceful. Nick could grow corn. He’s indigenous, so maybe we’ll give him his land-money back. It’s repatriation.
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I say, I think the ideal commune is like a neighborhood, so we can all have our own space but still be together. It’s not a roommate type deal, you know? Your kitchen can be messy and I won’t complain. We can have cookouts together—that would be fun.
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Nick wants a pack of big dogs. Not a big pack of dogs—a pack of big dogs. Maybe like five or six. If they were something purebred, then that’s income for the commune every time a bitch gets pregnant. And yeah, maybe we’d hold onto a puppy every once in a while, and our pack of big dogs would become a big pack of big dogs. Newfoundlands or St. Bernards or some breed that knows how to work and is gentle with kids.
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Sometime after midnight I start to fall asleep and Josh tosses me a blanket with a green and brown geometric design that reminds me of mountains, and I think that’s what I dream about but I’m not sure. In the morning I try drinking coffee even though I don’t like it, and when I take the first sip I don’t even flinch. Nick asks if I want cream and sugar and I say no, I’ll take it straight.
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I don’t want to think about going to work tomorrow, so instead I think about the ten percent of my paycheck that I’m saving for the dream. Next week we can scroll through abandoned properties on Zillow and make a thirty-five-year plan. We should do that, says Josh, but first, breakfast.
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Zoe Leonard (he/they) is The Workshop Prince, a writer and drag king from Phoenix, Maryland. He is a Kundiman fellow and holds a BFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. You can connect with him on Instagram @zoe_leonard.theprince and see more of his work at zoe-leonard.com.
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Suzanne Feldman's note: I liked the duality of the main character and their interactions with their friends. The story has a very natural, day-in-the-life flow of a DC dweller.
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WWPH PRIDE PROSE CONTEST FINALIST
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The Airport
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by Isaac Cameron Tollefson
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You’re in the airport, the day after Thanksgiving, sweat trickling down your back. The building is clogged with people. It feels like everyone in the world is trying to get home at the same time as you. Your beaten-up Converse sit in a plastic gray bin on the conveyor belt, along with your phone, wallet, keys, and belt. You are now in a constant war with your pants as they threaten to fall to the floor.
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There are several TSA agents around you, all dressed in the same royal blue uniform with a small nametag clipped above the right breast. The one directly in front of you, who is guiding people to either the metal detector doorway or the full-body scanner, is young. She seems to be about as young as you. Her bleached-blonde hair is pulled into a tight bun. Her eyes are a watery blue, reminding you of one of those loose marbles at a museum gift shop: cold to the touch and rolling, always rolling.
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You get to the front of the line and push your fraying gray backpack and trough of items through the bag scanner. The TSA agent stares at you, her eyes narrowed to slits. She quickly homes in on your crotch, and you remember the fake penis between your legs.
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It sits snugly in your black briefs and creates a bulge that lets everyone know that you possess a cock. You ordered it off a website that uses “discrete packaging,” which just meant the cardboard that the penis’ box came in was plain and brown, and the actual box that held the penis was made of a clear plastic that showed every vein. When it arrived, you held it in your hand, marveling at the realism. You wondered how they made it so accurate. Did they commission an artist to painstakingly carve the wrinkles? Or did someone make a mold of their own penis? That thought disturbed you, the idea that you were carrying around a replica of someone else's genitalia. If your body was a duplicate of another, did that really make it yours?
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The TSA agent continues to eye you as you turn towards her, ready to enter one of the scanners. Earlier, when you left your childhood home, it seemed like a good idea to wear the plastic penis. The presence of a cock was lamb’s blood on the doorway. It sent a message to others that your body was to be appraised and passed over.
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She points you to the full-body scanner and your stomach sinks. You see the story unfolding before you and are helpless to do anything other than follow the narrator. You step into the scanner and raise your arms above your head.
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The full-body scanner has two options, male or female. You cannot see what setting the TSA agent picks for you. The scanner whirs as the walls move around you. After it is done, you see her click the screen again. The walls shift once more.
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She motions for you to step out, which you do. Then she informs you that your crotch has been flagged by the machine. You explain what a packer is, and why you wear it, and how it works. The agent just stares at you and explains they will need to do a pat-down.
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She speaks quickly, her words static in your mind. She asks for permission, but what options do you have? Refuse? If you do, what happens then? Will they take you into a room and force you to strip? Get a dog to sniff your crotch to ensure there is no bomb concealed within your pants? Arrest you? You know what happens to people like you in prison. You know what happens to you under the watchful gaze of people like her. You know what happens to people like you.
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So, you say yes. Hesitantly. Quietly. And that is all they need. The agent doesn’t even take you to a private room or pull you behind a shield. She has you stand, hands by your sides, and she touches your crotch. She uses the back of her hand, as if it is any less invasive. Your cock does not register the sensation, but you feel the pressure of her hand as she presses. Around you, people stare. You wonder what they see.
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Eventually, the agent is satisfied you are not a smuggler and releases your clothed penis. It now points to the left. You gather your things, slip back on your belt, and head to your gate. The phantom limb remains.
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Isaac Cameron Tollefson is a college student studying English literature and creative writing at Washington University in St. Louis. Born and raised in Maryland, he currently lives in Frederick. When not writing, he likes traveling, history podcasts, and walking his dog, Chekov.
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Suzanne Feldman's notes: I thought this piece truly embraced being cornered by security at the airport, even though you haven't done anything wrong and you're just living your damn life.
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CALL FOR TINY POEMS- LUNES - THEME: AWE
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TINY POEMS: AWE... Every August for the past four years, WWPH WRITES has published TINY POEMS, and so we will again this year! We love TINY POEMS and their contributors, but it is the only submission we ask contributors to do because they love TINY POEMS too (i.e., we do not offer our regular contributor honorarium of $25.00). 2026 TINY …
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AND THERE'S MORE! This summer, WWPH will be on the road with a SUMMER OF LOVE series of literary salons where we will write together, hear readings from our Capital Love contributors, and be in discussion on the power of love in these divisive times.
Made possible with the support of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the Maryland State Arts Council...and FREE! Reserve your seat now... link to more information below...
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Summer of Love at Busboys and Poets, Hyattsville
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Welcome to the Summer of Love Tour, where Washington Writers’ Publishing House is bringing authors all over the DMV to celebrate our new mini-anthology, Capital Love. These writing salons will reflect the intention of Capital Love, which is the belief that love is the antidote to hate and that love is action, intent, healing, and hope. This event is designed to …
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Summer of Love at Little District Books
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Welcome to the Summer of Love Tour, where Washington Writers’ Publishing House is bringing authors all over the DMV to celebrate our new mini-anthology, Capital Love. These writing salons will reflect the intention of Capital Love, which is the belief that love is the antidote to hate and that love is action, intent, healing, and hope. This event is designed to …
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CAPITAL TRANSLATION
Now open for submissions
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CAPITAL TRANSLATION: WWPH CELEBRATES LITERARY TRANSLATION IN THE DMV
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“Without translation, we would be living in provinces bordering on silence.” – George Steiner
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We are proud to announce a call for submissions for our third Capital Anthology, Capital Translation. Free to submit.
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Open to all source languages. Translators must live in DC, Maryland, and Virginia.
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$25.00 contributor payment and author copy.
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An opportunity to be part of our joyful celebration of voices in our region and our world. Publication targeted for May of 2027.
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Also, our first work of poetry in translation, AGUAS by Miguel Avero, translated by Jona Colson, was just selected by the Bilingual Press at Arizona State University as one of their summer reading recommendations! Available everywhere books are sold. Special classroom discounts are available directly from your WWPH.
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Big thank you to all who joined us at the Writer's Center on Sunday, June 28th for our first-ever Capital Love LitFest, an all-day of writing together, deep-dive literary discussions, and panels exploring the power of love in our lives as writers and readers. It all culminated in a Music & Reading Jam —we gave everyone who packed the reading room a handmade, letterpress-printed postcard from our friends at the Frederick Book Arts Center! Thank you to the Writer's Center in Bethesda for being such wonderful partners!
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We are thinking we might make the Capital LitFest an annual event?!!
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Last thank you...for your beautiful support of my new novel, The Other Beautiful People (Regal House Publishing, 2026). Now available everywhere books/ebooks are sold... and I will be at Kramers Books in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, July 21st and up at The Ivy Bookshop in Baltimore on Wednesday, July 29th ...I will be in conversation with novelist Michelle Brafman at both of these fabulous independent bookstores. Join us! Caroline
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Prose editor, WWPH Writes
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Thank you for being part of the Washington Writers' Publishing House community! Happy 4th!
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Poetry editor, WWPH Writes
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Copyright © 2026 The Washington Writers' Publishing House, All rights reserved.
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