In this episode of Art in Conversation, Emma Lee Toyoda talks “soft punk,” their own take on Seattle’s DIY ethos. Finding strength in sensitivity, Toyoda talks about their music and their experience as a non-binary artist on the Seattle scene.

We spoke with electronic sound artist Michele Mercure in advance of her performance at Interference Fest, taking place in Austin from September 5-8, 2019. Mercure shared insight into her instrumentation, how her music-making process has changed, the advantage of contemporary equipment, and how limiting yourself can, paradoxically, expand your sonic horizons.

Catherine Chen is a poet and performer living in New York. A recipient of fellowships from Poets House, Lambda Literary, and Sundress Academy for the Arts, their work has been published in Slate, The Rumpus, Asian American Writers' Workshop, Apogee, and Nat. Brut, among others. They are the author of the forthcoming chapbook Manifesto, or: Hysteria (Big Lucks).

Kay Ulanday Barrett was featured in "9 Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Writers You Should Know" in Vogue in 2018 and was twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize in Poetry. They are the 2018 Lambda Literary Review Writer-in-Residence for Poetry and 2018 guest faculty for the Poetry Foundation. Our editor Nia KB spoke with Barrett about their work in their eclectic apartment in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Namwali Serpell is a Zambian writer and literary scholar living in San Francisco. We met at Serpell’s co-working space, The Ruby, in San Francisco, and sat outside on the patio on a gloriously sunny afternoon in early May to discuss unintentional feminism, sci-fi dreams, the crisis of irony, and blood, hair, and tears.

Queens-based artist Mickey Aloiso’s photography project From Europe, With Love captures Aloisio’s experience traveling through queer communities in some of Europe’s largest cities. From Europe, With Love consists of classically conceptualized yet bizarre images that subvert our conventions of beauty, sexuality, and Instagram photos. We spoke with Aloisio about his experience putting together this (NSFW) photo series.