Edited by Tayler Simon
A project sponsored by We Are Family, Alliance for Full Acceptance, SC Pride, and the ACLU of South Carolina
Congratulations to Liberation is Lit for their newest publication, Where Is Home? Lost, Found, Made, edited by Liberation is Lit founder, Tayler Simon.
What happens when the place you call home doesn’t love you back?
Where is Home?: Loss, Found, Made is a collection of brave and honest accounts of what it means to make a home in inhospitable ground. Seventeen voices of LGBTQ+ people who live or have lived in South Carolina share their personal experiences of what it means to grow up in, live in, or leave this place.
Contributors include Cassie Premo Steele (author of Beaver Girl), Ed Madden (author of A Pookah in Arkansas) with cover art by Maddison Lions.
Excerpt from Where is Home?: Loss, Found Made
Seagull’s Home
by Sergiy Pustogarov
we stood on the shore together,
hands clasped, staring out
at waves tearing at the sand,
collecting quiet food for the morrow.
you asked me where home is.
sometimes i don’t know.
so i say it lives somewhere
between where i feel loved
and where i feel safe,
acknowledging that sometimes those
two do not align in the sands of time.
some days they align,
as if the stars are conspiring
to give my soul a moment of rest.
other days, home is found
inside the pull of the tide,
forced out, and drawn back in,
my body learning the rocks
that scatter life’s byways;
life scatters sand at my feet
to remind me that even now
home shifts like the shoreline,
and i belong to forces larger than myself.
and somehow,
today,
that is enough for all of time.
Sergiy Pustogarov (they/them) is a nonbinary immigrant poet and medical student whose work bridges art and science through themes of identity, healing, and resilience. Drawing from both personal experience and clinical training, they explore the complexities of human connection, mental health, and belonging. Their poetry has appeared in publications including The Word Faire, Sand Hills Literary Magazine, and Wayfarer Magazine. A passionate advocate for LGBTQ+ visibility and mental health awareness, Sergiy uses their writing to amplify underrepresented voices and foster empathy. Their forthcoming chapbook, My Papers Here Were Never Real, will be published by Quillkeepers Press in fall 2026. They can be found on Instagram @watersidepoems.
Early Praise for Where is Home?
“These genre-bending writings sprawl and offer grounding as they draw from the roots of
philosophy, the power of the erotic, and the paradox that is the American South.”
-Marlanda Dekine (author of Thresh & Hold)
“This anthology is a clear-eyed survey of Carolina queer voices calling for justice, community, and self-determination.”
-Evelyn Berry (author of Grief Slut and T4T)
“This anthology spoke into existence the fundamental truths we [should] have all been born with: radical love, acceptance, and a place to call home.
-Sawyer Cole (author of Coming Home)
“Where Is Home consistently blew my mind...This is the kind of book that everyone should read.”
-KB Brookins (author of Pretty: A Memoir)