Amy Ridler

I met with punk poet and writer Eileen Myles after a reading of their new book Afterglow, which is out in the UK in February. As they are an absolute hero of mine, I struggled to string a sentence together, but I did manage to say just how influential Chelsea Girls was for me the first time (of many!) that I read it. A couple of months later, I started thinking about writers that have influenced not just my own writing, but my entire lifestyle. I thought about the likes of Myles, Winterson and Waters and started to wonder, who were the writers that inspired them? What books were the writing that shaped their adolescent years? I got in touch with Myles, who was just coming to the end of their US book tour, and we scheduled to talk the following week. Publishing over 20 books of poetry, prose and fiction over 40 years, I just knew that they would have an interesting and eclectic collection of books that inspire them. So as not to put them on the spot on the day, I asked them

photo by Leila Afghan Al Ly (@babygyalally), Model, Artist and ‘Instagram icon’ spoke to us about her work, her ever growing online support and the body positive message she lives by, and encourages others to do the same. We see you graduated in June, What are you currently working on? Im currently working with my girl Nikolina on our brand Dirty South, working towards dropping our new collection and big things in the new year. I'm also modelling which I love, as I'm representing a different type of model and challenging the norm. A couple big campaigns coming out soon! How did you begin your modelling career? Was it something you were doing in Australia or did it begin in London? I started in London at uni. Friends asked me to model for their projects, and it just really grew from there… and now am lucky enough to be properly working and doing it.  Who have you modelled for? Ahhh a lot of different brands, artists, etc. My favourite will always

We’ve all seen it. The recent Paper Magazine cover is just the latest in a long line of ‘shocking’ celebrity images that give the keyboard warriors a chance to shake things up on twitter. Think back to the 2014 Winter issue of Paper Magazine. Kim Kardashian and the balancing champagne glass… you know it.   The recent Nicki Minaj cover has caused uproar on social media and fuelled the ever present empowerment/consent conversation. The image itself shows Minaj with 2 ‘clones’. Minaj, topless and seated. The first clone draped over her shoulder with her hand covering her nipple, and the second, in between her open legs with her tongue out.   Personally, I’m not too keen on the image. I understand that ‘sex sells’ but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I disagree with perpetuating that tired old tradition that sleazy men use as an excuse, in order to defend objectifying women. BUT, though this is my wider and more political view point, what I am COMPLETELY against is the unapo

Lesbian. If I asked you to picture ‘a lesbian’, I wonder what you would see. Coming out, though now much easier and common than years gone by, is still something that many LGBTQ+ people spend years dreading before making the decision to tell their friends/family. Coming out for me was a fairly easy thing to do, I timed it perfectly, wrote my mum a note, left it on the side, and went to visit a friend in Connecticut for 2 weeks, as you do! I am very lucky and my family mainly joked about how long they’d suspected before I’d told them. So that was that, I’d told my family and some of my friends and now I could just be me..Or so I thought.   Being what the mainstream opinion of ‘feminine’ in appearance is, meant that that was not the case. I didn’t realise that I would have to come out over and over again. Every time I started a new job, every friend of a friend that asked me my boyfriend’s name, every encounter where I’d have to correct someone for assuming that my partner was a ‘he

I caught up with MisSa Blue, internationally renowned Show Woman specialising in the ancient (and rare!) art of Sword Swallowing. A force to be reckoned with, touring the world and making it her mission to empower queer women of colour everywhere along the way. MisSa, known for being a passionate feminist and human rights activist, came out as a lesbian to her friends in the Autumn of 2016 but didn’t publicly come out straight away. We talked about her journey both personally and professionally. “I started using LGBT+ hashtags on Instagram first and released the news slowly. In May of this year, a good friend accidentally outed me on Facebook! He wasn’t aware that I hadn’t made it public knowledge yet. It was weird… So i just decided to make an official statement . I was a little shy but pretended not to be and it was perceived really positive anyway.”   Q: Do you, and if so why, do you think it’s important to be out as an artist? I do. I think it is very important to

"The Great Malarkey are eight musicians from around the globe – England, Canada, Portugal and Latvia – and they want you to join them on the multicultural train of fast beats and trembling slams of punk-folk spirit." - Rhythm Passport.   I sat down with Alex and Karoline from The Great Malarkey to talk musical influences, hilarious music videos and screaming fan girls!   So you 2 have known each other a long time, how long has it been? KAROLINE: I think me and Alex have known each other for about 12 years now. We met in typical lesbian fashion – I was dating Alex’s ex-girlfriend…   The Great Malarkey had been around for about 5 years before I officially joined. I’d gone with the band to a festival in Denmark to guitar tech for them and their then fiddle player had to leave before the final show. Alex asked if I could fill in, we had a quick run through in the store room and it was then I was thankful I’d been to so many Malarkey shows.   A few months later I