Welcome to Writers Resist Fall 2026

This issue was hard to build. Hard, because the works herein are such powerful representations of the brutal conflicts through which we are slogging, seemingly ever increasing. Still, such vivid reminders are sometimes gifts.

These works reflect 27 saviors distributing words as lifesavers.

From our own Debbie Hall’s conflicted photograph, “Found Art,” to the many pieces demanding trans justice to the exultation of calls to action, they lend hope. Hope, rage, love, humor. We need them all to sustain the resistance. And, perhaps, we might receive some resolution when U.S. voters cast their values on 03 November.

In the meantime, as the image above demands, borrowed from Chelsie Zuccollo’s excellent call to action in “Smash, Build, Rise,” we must—and we will continue to—RISE UP.

On Saturday 14 November at 5:00 pm PACIFIC, we will host this issue’s virtual reading, Writers Resist Reads, at which we envision a bit of celebrating. Please email us at writersresist@gmail.com for the Zoom link.

And so, we welcome you to our hard and powerful Writers Resist Fall 2026. Please read and share your thoughts with these brilliant resisters.

Found Art by Debbie Hall

Two Poems by Marcy Rae Henry

Cost of Living by Nana T. Baffour-Awuah

Testifying with My Daughter Against Missouri SB597 by David Tager

After Roe Was Repealed by Jennifer Karp

Cherry Blossoms by Beck O’Leary

EXPO Marker by Jennifer Elise Wang

Girl (an erasure) by Elizabeth Mercurio

My Rape Wasn’t a Choice by Alberto Lau-Chang

Lemonading by Victoria Melekian

Letter to Self by Joycelyn Zhang

Monarch by Deanna Altomara

transcription by olive bly

On Viewing the Porn Trading Cards Catalogue (1925–2025) by Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff

If Only There Were No Trans Kids by Mitch Roshannon

Silence by Isla Laust

Three Poems by Tushar Sen

Coincidence by Minnie Bartlett

Two Poems by Mia Leonin

The Shirt by Elizabeth B. Morse

Smash, Build, Rise by Chelsie Zuccollo

Aunt Annie’s Recipe for the Resistance by Jane Frances Gilles

“There Will Be Casualties” by Ashley Mace Havird

Static Between the Folding Tables by Fendy S. Tulodo

To my father, whose mother tongue is a village dialect by Anonymous

The Most Radical Protest Right Now Is Handmade by Amanda Jackson

Two Poems by Susanna Lang

A Note from Writers Resist
Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist on our Give a Sawbuck page.

If Only There Were No Trans Kids

From A Humanist Devotional

By Mitch Roshannon

“Some forms of political doctrine, for instance, function religiously, reflecting the worst features of orthodoxy and authoritarianism, especially when they sacrifice individuals on the altar of Utopian promises.” – Humanist Manifesto II, 1973

If only there were no trans kids
or queers in public squares
there could be peace in America.

Somehow, the eradication of
“Adam & Steve” will repair economies
unsustainable, tenuous, and fraught.

Dad would stop hitting mom;
steak and collard greens on the table
rather than cheap ramen and regret.

God would return to us his blessings
of simple lives and un-awakened masses.
Happy to look at shadows on cave walls.

If not for those dirty letters LGB. . .
we promise, we’ll only take the one.
QIA+ devils in our midst.

Read not to love one another as He
loved us; instead that Jesus came not bearing
peace, but a sword. For what?

To carve from the alphabet; withered
hands, wrists still healing, our brothers,
sisters, siblings? Shall there not be room?

Heaven’s gates closed; Saint Peter’s
rifle sights aimed at the trans girl who dared
try to find solace in a 5k or a swim meet?

Give me one good reason, Lord—
besides You, why I should hate her transformation,
glory she herself cannot yet see. . .
one good reason to dismiss her
and still, I won’t.


Mitch Roshannon is a writer based in the coal region of Pennsylvania. He has previously (and gratefully) been published by Panoply, Santa Fe Writers Project, Interfaith America, and others. He is currently working on a Chapbook titled Humanist Devotional which writes poetry and micro-essays inspired by quotes pulled from the Secular Humanist Manifestos.

Photo credit: Photo by Katherine Hanlon on Unsplash.


A Note from Writers Resist
Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist on our Give a Sawbuck page.