Margins and Murmurations: the podcast

Episode 12: Queer Plants with Anja Van Geert

A conversation with biologist and illustrator, Anja Van Geert
Last year, Anja and I released Queer Plants and friends, another zine in our queer ecology colouring book series, full of Anja’s beautiful illustrations. In this cosy chat, we geek out about plants and queerness, we discuss how Anja is bringing community, healing and drawing together, and we get excited about some of our upcoming collaborations!
 
* * *
Check out https://otterlieffe.com/podcast/ for transcripts and show notes.  And https://www.patreon.com/otterlieffe if you'd like to support this podcast
 

What even is queer ecology?

A special mini episode on one of my favourite subjects!Transcript:
Hi, I'm Kes Otter Lieffe, In recent years, queer ecology has become a big part of my life showing up in my writing work, workshops, podcast and public speaking.
But what even is queer ecology? Like most queer subjects, queer ecology is being constantly defined and redefined. It can be something academic and abstract or it can be rooted in community and grassroots struggles for land and liberty. It can connect science, philosophy, politics, it can be gloriously geeky and it can also teach us something about who we are and where we belong in our more than human community.
Here's a small introduction that I wrote for my website at otterlieffe.com.
Human nonhuman. Natural, unnatural. Sentient, non sentient. You and me.Our intellectual world is full of binaries that are disrupted the closer we look at them. Trillions of microbes live in my body. At this moment, they possibly outnumber my own cells. So who am I?
There are no humans without nonhumans. We are each a community and individuality is a myth. In Utah, in the so-called USA, a single quaking aspen tree has cloned themselves to create a forest covering 43 hectares. They might be the heaviest known individual organism and they're also a forest. So, what are individuals?
94% of giraffe sex is between males. A quarter of tropical reef fish species change sex during their lifetime. There are whole species of lizards with no males at all. So, what is sex?
You might be wondering who I am and how I got into all of this. I'm a writer, the author of Margins, a trilogy of queer speculative fiction novels. I've also written several short stories and a colouring book series on queer plants and animals. I'm an ecologist and I've been involved in grassroots community struggles for over 20 years focusing on the intersections of class, queerness and environmental struggles, always trying to create radical alternatives to the trash fire of capitalism.
I write and organise from a working class, chronically ill, transfeminine perspective.
As so many young nature lovers, I grew up with wildlife programmes on TV. And I never once heard about bisexual red deer, sex-changing parrotfish or binary-smashing lichens. Complexity and diversity were reduced to simple stories of male bird meets female bird and does a little funky dance to impress her. They mate, they make little baby birds. And that apparently is the whole point of life.As I began to research the few texts that exist on queer ecology, I discovered a world far richer than I could have imagined.
I've now been writing and teaching about this subject for years and I realise more each day that none of this is new. While the term queer ecology might be relatively new, among many Indigenous communities and others living closer to the nonhuman world than the industrial society that I grew up in this knowledge of more than human gender, sex and sexuality is ancient.
If you'd like to learn more about my work, you can find everything at otterlieffe.com. I have a monthly newsletter in which I share updates and resources. You can find my novels and colouring books in bookstores and online. You can support my work financially at patreon.com/otterlieffe and in other ways at otterlieffe.com/support.
Thank you so much for listening.The music you're listening to is "Barista Barista!" by https://soundcloud.com/tiefgarage

Episode 10: Decolonising Conservation with Samirah Siddiqui

A conversation with conservation biologist, Samirah Siddiqui from Global Environments Network
In my second novel, Conserve and Control, I wrote about the damaging effects of the conservation industry, albeit a fictional, futuristic one. I've been fascinated by conservation since I was very young and I was honoured to recently record this conversation with Samirah Siddiqui from Global Environments Network about her amazing work in conservation biology, her critiques on some of the colonialist aspects of the conservation industry and alternatives she has been witness to.
 
* * *
Check out https://otterlieffe.com/podcast/ for transcripts and show notes.  And https://www.patreon.com/otterlieffe if you'd like to support this podcast
 

Episode 8: Community healing with Cindy

A conversation with nursing student and organiser, Cindy
A few years ago I had a beautiful conversation with Cindy for my blog. In this new podcast episode we got to reconnect and discuss allopathic medicine, bodywork, prisons and solidarity. We also got pretty deep into individualism, celebrity culture and learning to live collectively.
 
* * *
Check out https://otterlieffe.com/podcast/ for transcripts and show notes.  And https://www.patreon.com/otterlieffe if you'd like to support this podcast
 

Episode 7: Polari with Jess

A conversation about queer cant slang, Polari, with Jess
In my second novel, Conserve and Control, a resistance community use Polari as their communicative language. Parts of my first novel, Margins and Murmurations, were translated into Polari and it was the first language/slang that any of my work was translated into. Those translations and dialogues were written by my fabulous friend, Jess. In this conversation - recorded in 2018 during a book tour - we chat about the origins and future of Polari, the politics of sex work, class and queerness and Jess's personal journey with this incredibly fabulous queer cant slang.
* * *
Check out https://otterlieffe.com/podcast/ for transcripts and show notes.  And https://www.patreon.com/otterlieffe if you'd like to support this podcast
 

Episode 6: Queer Ecology with Jo

A conversation with queer ecology educator, Jo
In my second novel, Conserve and Control, I imagined a futuristic museum with exhibits on queer ecology. Three years later I found out that our Queer Animals zine was being featured in just such an exhibit in Switzerland. During a beautiful, noisy queer festival, I met up with Jo who teaches at the exhibit to talk all things queer ecology. We also explored species loneliness, colonialism and finding connection.
* * *
Check out https://otterlieffe.com/podcast/ for transcripts and show notes.  And https://www.patreon.com/otterlieffe if you'd like to support this podcast
 

Episode 5: Solidarity and Queer Community with Felix McNulty

A conversation with prisoner support volunteer and research associate, Felix McNulty
During my first book tours back in 2017/18 I got to work with groups like Action for Trans Health and LGBT Books to Prisoners and, along the way, I met some incredible people like Felix. They are part of the team running Books Beyond Bars UK and in this conversation we discuss what solidarity with queer/trans prisoners can look like, how to keep academia grounded in activism and how to get queer politics back on track.
* * *
Check out https://otterlieffe.com/podcast/ for transcripts and show notes.  And https://www.patreon.com/otterlieffe if you'd like to support this podcast
 

Episode 4: Transformative friendships with SJ

A conversation with writer and activist, SJ
I’ve had the honour of meeting SJ through our community organising work in Berlin and after many months of sending each other ‘podcasts’ (i.e. very long voice memos), we finally made a real, official podcast together! In this gorgeous conversation, snuggled up in a quiet corner of a community centre, we discuss friendship, transformation and forgiveness and how different our marginalised communities could be.
* * *
Check out https://otterlieffe.com/podcast/ for transcripts and show notes.  And https://www.patreon.com/otterlieffe if you'd like to support this podcast

Episode 3: Trans Herbalism with Ayelet Adelman

An interview with trans herbalist and educator, Ayelet Adelman
 
In Margins I wrote about a herbal clinic run by trans and queer folk that forms part of a resistance movement against state oppression. In real life, my gorgeous sister Ayelet Adelman has created a herbal medicine clinic centering trans femmes and trans women in so-called New York City. In this episode, we talk about trans herbalism, Jewish connections, transmisogyny in holistic health care and choosing relationship with plants and life around us.
Kes Otter Lieffe's website
Ayelet Adelman's instagram
* * *
Check out https://otterlieffe.com/podcast/ for transcripts and show notes.  And https://www.patreon.com/otterlieffe if you'd like to support this podcast
 

Episode 2: Ash in the forest

Welcome to the second episode. Time for a story in one of my favourite spots among the trees. An excerpt from my first novel, Margins and Murmurations. 
* * *
Check out https://otterlieffe.com/podcast/ for transcripts and show notes.  And https://www.patreon.com/otterlieffe if you'd like to support this podcast