Issue 37: Meet the new curated team | The Minotaur by Michael Nagle
No one ever told you the Minotaur was hung. You’d heard whispers, but always wondered if that was a little racist, like “all monsters are hung,” that kind of thing. But when you saw him...
Welcome to KHÔRA, a dynamic online arts space produced in collaboration with Lidia Yuknavitch’s Corporeal Writing. Visit our Archive to read previous issues. Scroll down if you’d like your work to be considered for future issues.
Issue 37 is here! We’re thrilled to introduce the newest members of our curated team: writers nawa a.h., Mayur Chauhan, Marina Gross-Hoy, and Michael Nagle; artists Heidi Grace Acuña and Kirk Read; and Featured Writer Christina Berke and Featured Artist Ro Stasny.
If you’d like to be considered for future publications, scroll down to learn more about KHÔRA’s 500 Words and KHÔRA’s Images.
Check out Issue 37 here, and if you missed our previous issues, visit our Archive.
The Minotaur by Michael Nagle | Artwork by Kirk Read
No one ever told you the Minotaur was hung.
You’d heard whispers, but always wondered if that was a little racist, like “all monsters are hung,” that kind of thing.
But when you saw him for the first time?
You gaped. You stared. You felt small and you felt…was the reddening from shame, or from sex?
You felt turned on.
You’d struggled your way through maze after maze, a labyrinth of cold stone and silences, to suddenly find yourself birthed into the center. The last narrow hallway opened to a chamber vast and spacious. Sunlight crashed in from the ceiling. It smelled like a farm: earth, hay, manure. Heavy snorts and breaths reverberated off the walls.
When you entered, he didn’t stop stroking. He was spread like a Playboy Bunny, naked atop a bed made of woven sheepskin. Smiling a smile that said he really couldn’t be fucked to do any differently. Locked eyes with you. His were violently beautiful. You felt like you were having your first wet dream again. Was your wet sweat or precum? He didn’t take his eyes off of you. He didn’t take his hand off his genitals. He just looked at you, smiled, stroked….
Read The Minotaur.
Michael Nagle is a queer, Sri Lankan-American writer living in his hometown of Los Angeles, where he’s undergoing treatment for metastatic colon cancer. He is deeply interested in writing as a vector for raw, messy, vulnerability that slips under our collective defenses and wakes us up to the more beautiful lives we know in our hearts is possible. And doing this with humor, joy, and wit. Portland, OR and Cambridge, MA both feel like second homes and if he had a choice he would take rebirth as a well-pampered cat.
Kirk Read is the author of How I Learned to Snap and is working on a novel. He co-leads the Pacific Northwest Collage Collective and lives in Portland, OR.
Issue 37 Highlights
Issue 37: The Minotaur by Michael Nagle | Artwork by Kirk Read
Issue 37: Stranger Technologies by Marina Gross-Hoy
Issue 37: to buwaya baby by nawa a.h. | Artwork by Heidi Grace Acuña
Issue 37: A Little Bit of Everything by Mayur Chauhan
Issue 37: a good egg by Featured Writer Christina Berke
Issue 37: hive forest by Featured Artist Ro Stasny
Artists and Writers
We’re looking for features! To enter KHÔRA’s collaborative waters:
Team-based, collaborative, and curated, KHÔRA is a form that is continually opening. We invite you to join us in sustaining it together. We don't believe in rejections. KHÔRA’s 500 Words is about considering how multiple voices can be heard; how frameworks, traditions, and projects can inform each other; and how new perspectives emerge from collaboration and openness. If you are a visual artist or interested in sharing your artwork or images, ready about KHÔRA’s Images here.
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With galactic gratitude,
Leigh Hopkins
and the Corporeal/KHÔRA squad
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