Seth Insua

The inaugural collection in the new VERVE Voices series, Queerphoria is a joyful and defiant queer-authored anthology proudly supporting Switchboard, the national LGBTQIA+ support line. Four housemates welcome the reader into their home for a birthday party. An elderly widow visits her first queer bar, beneath the flat she shared with her husband. A couple invite a shipwrecked sailor into their isolated lighthouse on the stormy night of their thirtieth anniversary. A single woman embarks on a romantic relationship with a sex robot. A married couple secretly prepare for their baby's arrival in a world where procreation is controlled by the Establishment. Through prose, poetry, essays, illustrations and more, twenty-one writers bring their visions of euphoria to life. These pages celebrate, subvert, expand and reimagine what joy can look like, even in uncertain times.

Dairy farmer George Calvert is fighting to keep the family business afloat. Worried about the future but resistant to change, he refuses to face the reality of his failing farm, his elderly mother's declining health and his troubled relationship with his youngest son, Tom. Newly returned from university, Tom isolates himself in his childhood bedroom, guarding the truth of his burgeoning identity. When animal rights activists break into the cowshed one morning and Tom appears to side with the protesters, father and son lock horns. As the Calverts begin to unravel, a decades-old secret surfaces - one that might rip them apart completely, or finally unite them. A deeply moving debut about one family's struggle to find connection in a rapidly changing world, Human, Animal is an ode to the wild, a journey of self-discovery and a hopeful path to common ground.