P. Eldridge

The theme for each issue of Worms tends to emerge steadily as gathering clouds. Often there is a nebulous sense of something that we want to explore, unripe fruits plucked from things we have read and heard and pocketed without much thought for later examination. It’s only when our pockets grow heavy, when ideas amass into something worthy of a second glance, that we start to name them. In the case of this one, our eleventh issue, its theme has its roots in the previous. The Love Issue—released in July 2025—explored love in all its guises: radical, complex, beautiful, violent. But in our study of the heart’s infinite mysteries there lurked an undercurrent of something else. Faith, close to love, was a persistent reoccurrence. Devotion, strength, clarity, refuge – these emerged as dimensions of love that can also be mapped across a search for something beyond the material. Worms 11: Faith & Worship began here.

FEATURING: Lamorna Ash, Clare Carlisle, Fanny Howe, Chris Kraus, Eileen Myles, Kazim Ali, Fiona Alison Duncan, Lauren J. Joseph, Olivia Laing, aja monet, Charlotte Northall, Arpan Roy, Noura Salahaldeen, Sarah Schulman, Michelle Tea.

CONTRIBUTORS: Temperance Aghamohammadi, Alaa Alqaisi, RZ Baschir, Sarah Burgoyne, F. Tibiezas Dager, Giulia De Vita, Helena Geilinger, Misha Honcharenko, Courtney Ann LaFaive, Ozziline Mercedes, Nicko Mroczkowski, Evie Reckendrees, Charlie Stuip, Clár Tillekens, Phoenix Yemi.

PHOTOGRAPHERS: Antonia Adomako, Eve Delaney, Jen Dessinger, Isabel Maccarthy, Britteny Najar, Katarzyna Postaremczak, Honor Weatherall.

ILLUSTRATORS & ARTISTS: Clara Esborraz, Eric Hesselbo, Lily Makoski, Samantha Rosenwald, Ivy Shepherd-Barron, Mary Watt, Shu Hua Xiong.

EDITORS: Caitlin McLoughlin, P. Eldridge, Clem MacLeod, Arcadia Molinas.

Proof Reader: Annalise June Kamegawa.

DESIGN: Caitlin McLoughlin & Clem MacLeod.

RUNWAY JOURNAL SUPPLEMENT

Contributors: Wassila Abboud, Anna Carlsson, Alexander Cigana, Bree Turner, Amelia Zhou.

Editors: Debris Facility, Ena Grozdanic, Victoria Pham.

Runway Supplement Design: SM Studio (Safiye Gray & Molly Cranston).

Cover Credits: Photo of Fanny Howe by Lynn Christoffers, Illustration by Mary Watt.

This latest issue of Worms invites readers into a bold and tender exploration of love in all its messy, political, and transformative guises.

Set against the backdrop of state-sanctioned transphobia in the UK and US, ongoing genocide in Gaza, and a litany of global injustices that see us staggering under the weight of collective and personal upheaval, this issue reckons with thinking and writing about love in a time of crisis. How do we take seriously the seemingly frivolous demands of love, devotion, beauty—in all their myriad and sometimes painful forms—when basic needs and rights are stripped away.

Featuring voices from at home and overseas including Shon Faye, Torrey Peters, Melissa Febos, Constance DeJong, Sarah Aziza, Precious Okoyomon, Carmen Maria Machado and Constance Debré, as well as contributions from rising stars in experimental literature, we ask: How can we continue to love someone who refuses to change? Is writing about sex still strange – or have we done and seen it all? What do you do if you fall in love with your sperm donor?

From the resilience and fierce creativity of trans writers, the challenges and ethics of telling love stories that are not our own, to the guts and gristle of motherhood, pet love, age-gap relationships and getting off on poetry, Worms 10 is a testament to the power of writing, and of love, as acts of resistance, reclamation and truth.

FEATURING: Shon Faye, Jackie Ess, Precious Okoyomon, Constance Debré, Melissa Febos, Torrey Peters, Carmen Maria Machado, Sarah Aziza, Constance DeJong, Sophie K Rosa

CONTRIBUTORS: Caitlin Hall, Zara Joan Miller, Devki Panchmatia, Lu Rose Cunningham, Gabrielle Sicam, Aimée Ballinger, Mimi Howard, Enya Ettershank, Sufjan Bile, MK McGrath, Amie Corry, Dizzy Zaba, 2ly (Molly Cranston, Safiye Gray, Hanako Emden, Sophie Florian, Johanna Maierski), Jemima Skala, Fariha Róisín, Summer Moraes

PHOTOGRAPHERS: Minu, Dozie Kanu, Jen Dessinger, Karla Monroe, Sophie Williams, Ellen Stewar

ILLUSTRATORS: Rifke Sadleir, Chloe Sheppard, Charlotte Pelissier, Leomi Sadler

EDITORS: Caitlin McLoughlin, P. Eldridge, Clem MacLeod, Arcadia Molinas

DESIGN: Caitlin McLoughlin

"In the three previous issues of Worms, we have plumbed the depths of the mind, unravelled the mysteries of the heart, and traversed the vast expanses of the soul. For this next instalment, Worms 12, we have sought to get back to our roots, to burrow our heads and tails into the soil from which we came. The central tenet of our fertilising mission has always been to champion the best and most experimental writing we can sink our teeth into, to challenge the exclusivity of traditional publishing, and to bring what’s lurking underground to the literary topsoil. We revel in writing that corrupts form, defies genre, and subverts style; work that deals in the uncomfortable, the uncertain, and the untoward. We ask: what can literary form reveal to us about ourselves, our heroes, the global landscape. We don’t need to remind you of the turmoil of our current moment. The frequency and escalating depravity of the bad news that reaches us through the black squares in our pockets says it all. Instead we return to writing to excavate its radical potential; writing as protest, as remedy, as subterfuge, as escape.

While we cast our net far and wide, in putting this issue together a constellation of themes and ideas naturally emerged. From the complexities of history, legacy, and lineage, to the persistence of ghosts, grief, and memory; from the trappings of masculinity to the transformations of parenthood, pregnancy, and birth; from acts of community-building to queer kinship, messiness, and desire." (Note from the publisher)

Worms Editors: Caitlin McLoughlin, P. Eldridge, Arcadia Molinas

Featuring: Tourmaline, Namwali Serpell, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Jamieson Webster, Wayne Koestenbaum, Sophie Robinson, Missouri Williams, Robert Glück, Bambi Lake, Amber Husain, Mar García Puig.

Contributors: Eve Esfandiari-Denney, Madame Nielsen, Gaye Kynoch, Izabella Scott, Maxy Lury, Lou Ferrand, Tadhg Haran, Chariot Wish, Donna Marcus Duke, R.Z Baschir, Charlotte Pelissier, Anju M Kasturiraj, Vic Brooks, Saffron Morter-Laing, Dove Ginsburg.

Photographers: Michel Delsol, Xavi Permanyer, Alexander Coggin, Robin Christian, Veronika Korjagina, Joseph Hayes, Ciarán Óg Arnold.

Artwork & Illustration: Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Rifke Sadleir, Ivy Shepherd-Barron, George Paul, Katya Labowe-Stoll.

Design: Caitlin McLoughlin