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.
Santanu Bhattacharya, William Rayfet Hunter and Chloe Michelle Howarth will be discussing their stories featured in this new anthology celebrating queer joy. The conversation will be hosted by the anthology editor, Demi Echezona.
About the Authors:
Santanu Bhattacharya
is the author of two novels, One Small Voice and Deviants, and several works of short fiction. One Small Voice was an Observer Best Debut Novel for 2023, and was shortlisted for the Author’s Club Best First Novel Award and the Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize. Deviants won the Rainbow Award and BLF-Atta Galata Prize for Fiction Book of the Year, and was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize. Santanu is the recipient of the Desmond Elliott Prize Residency, the Mo Siewcharran Prize, the Life Writing Prize, and a London Writers’ Award. He grew up in India, and now lives in London.
William Rayfet Hunter
is a British-Jamaican writer from the North West of England. They now live and work in East London. Their writing has appeared in fourteen poems, The Fence, Dazed, VICE, and The Observer. Sunstruck, their debut novel, won the #Merky Books New Writers' Prize 2022. They were an Observer Best Debut Novelist of 2025.
Chloe Michelle Howarth
is the author of two novels, Sunburn and Heap Earth Upon It. She grew up in the West Cork countryside, which has served as an inspiration for her writing. Chloe currently lives in Brighton. Her debut novel, Sunburn, was shortlisted for the 2024 Polari First Book Prize, the 2024 Book of the Year: Discover Award at the British Book Awards and the 2023 Nero Book Award for Debut Fiction and longlisted for the 2024 Diverse Book Awards.
About the host:
Demi Echezona
Demi Echezona (she/they) is the Assistant Editor and Marketing Manager at VERVE Books, where she began working as an intern in 2023. When Demi is not reading for VERVE, Demi also writes for Nonchalant Magazine, submitting pieces discussing queer culture, sex and relationships, and has had her poetry published in Dreamworldgirl Zine and Antlers Zine.
