Prickly Pear Printing
and We Grow Anyway
Prickly Pear Printing is/was an endeavor founded by storyteller Joy Young, photographer and disability rights activist Briana Noonan, and myself to publish LGBTQ+ poets and artists, with an emphasis on sharing the love, joy, and growth that permeates every queer person’s journey. We utilized both digital and letterpress printing techniques, and all books were bound in-house using a perfect binding machine.
The anthologies, We Grow Anyway Volumes one and two are available for free digital download. Remaining hard copies of We Grow Anyway 2 can be purchased in my store.
The project is on a hiatus, but much like the cactus for which it is named, the vision of this project is resilient and guides me in my printing and publishing work.
This is Prickly Pear Printing’s first book, We Grow Anyway, an anthology on queer love, growth, and survival. We asked queer poets to submit the work that sustains them, because that's what we need in our own lives right now-- to capture growth, beauty and celebration. We asked fodes to your body, love poems to your best friend, to your found family, to the love(s) of your life...whatever brightness can be found in our darkest hours. What grew is an incredible collection about love, struggle, and growth.
Please note: This book is available on a pay-what-you-want basis on itch.io.
Contributors: Aly Richardson, TaneshaNicole, Lyd Havens, Wil Williams, Kaleena Kovach, Mackenzie Boyer, Cecily Schuler, Black Marcelle, Kira Withrow, Karen Garrabrant, Megan Amory, Linette Reeman, Mary McDonough, Charlotte O’Brien, Troy Cunio, Lex Byrd, Max May Fowler, Allen Serarini, Liv Mammone, Abigail Swetz, Charlie Petch, Fayce Hammond, Emryse Geye, Denise Parry, Mallory Everhart, Ewan Hill
Cecily Schuler’s poem My Gender is: (a broken haiku) in We Grow Anyway 1.
The books play. impact. and bruises, both by Joy Young and Nico Wilkinson
Covers of We Grow Anyway 1 hanging on a line to dry in the Press at Colorado College.
Prickly Pear Printing table at Phoenix Zine Fest 2019