If you’re looking for “diverse expressions of diverse lives” that take a hammer to the binary, look no further: nymph(o) delivers bold and sensual offerings with a distinctly 1980s indie-magazine vibe.

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The Ohio-based LGBTQ+ print publication, initially launched in 2021, publishes sex-positive art and writing that wraps around this premise: “actions lead movements, but so do images, words, and the people who create them.”

Issue #4, slated for release on August 29, takes inspiration from civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer’s inspiring quote, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

“All of the writing, poetry, visual art, photography is exploring this theme and reckoning with the notion that the queer community can’t experience liberation without collective liberation – liberation for all,” says nymph(o) founder and editor Avery Plummer.

The new issue features a variety of essays and art, including a piece on activist Simone Brine, a trans immigrant and University of Cincinnati professor, known for staging street corner protests clad in a red bikini – advocating for what nymph(o) describes as “trans civil rights, Palestinian liberation, and an end to violence and deportations by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).”

Portraits of Sylvia Ebeid by Chris Sifri, entitled “You Can’t Look But Please Touch,” in the issue invite a glance, as do images of local 1990s drag king troupe H.I.S Kings.

 

Plummer pairs a poem by Ohio Lesbian Archives co-founder Phebe Beiser, now in her 70s, alongside a nude portrait of the writer – reflecting the multigenerational spirit of the publication.

 Each issue incorporates art and thought outside the confines of the present, linking contemporary queer conversations to the past.

“It’s a queer sex-positive magazine, but it’s also an investigation into the ways that contemporary domination forces are affecting queer liberation, and how we can work with one another in our communities to really fight for one another and envision new worlds,” says Plummer, who brings her experience working with the archives to the project.

The queer artist, writer and archivist at heart cites the groundbreaking 1980s lesbian erotica magazine On Our Backs as inspiration for creating nymph(o). Conscious of “standing on so many people’s shoulders,” Plummer draws on an earlier sex-positive movement in a modern, degendered way.

She is deliberate with the language she uses to describe a magazine that aims to embrace the community it represents.

“It’s not a lesbian erotic magazine by any means,” she says. “It’s an expression of different variations of queer sexuality and queer lives.”

 

For the inaugural issue released in 2021, Plummer snagged interviews with On Our Backs co-founder, the late Debi Sundahl, as well as performance artist and former sex worker Annie Sprinkle. On receiving physical photos from Sundahl back then to scan for the magazine, she says, “I was nervous to handle them!”

Issue #2 threw a spotlight on queer happiness with the theme Fighting for Joy, and included a moving tribute to the concept that “a child is a gift” as rendered by a parent amid a wave of anti-trans violence; Finding Purpose comic art by Fiona Avocado (thought bubble: “What P.O.S. News am I Going to Read Today”); and intimate playful portraits by Jessica Tanzer, known for focusing her lens on the beauty in what viewers “might otherwise imagine is ‘threatening’ subject matter.”

Issue #3, themed Queer Space, featured photography by Sophia Muñoz and Del LaGrace Volcano, including Volcano’s 1995 intersex coming-out “Self Portrait with Bluebeard;” a conversation with HIV health educator Ariel Shaw; and writing by queer, nonbinary, Latine artist Jacq Garcia, whose work explores the intersections of community, fatness, food and sexuality.

All serve as counterpoint to fraught times that demand a chance to dream, create, and then repeat.

Plummer, who holds a master’s degree in art history from Ohio University, is a surrealist movement enthusiast, drawn to expressions of dreams as an extension of reality.

 “I think that notion really fits with a lot of what queer folks are doing, particularly in local community organizing, because they’re dreaming and they’re building these things that don’t exist, and certainly don’t exist within the systems that are supposedly built to serve us and then don’t,” she says.

Working with Plummer, Maddy McFadden brings an eye for visual layout to the role of creative director and has a hand in editing as well as the non-credited art.

Published exclusively in print, nymph(o) will be available at the mag’s launch event on August 29 at Cincinnati’s Village Green Foundation, which facilitates affordable food and transportation for Cincy’s Northside – also featured in the issue.

Following the launch, nymph(o) will be available for purchase on Queer Kentucky’s website. Queer Kentucky also serves as a proud fiscal sponsor, with the venture supported through the ArtsWave Pride Grant Program.