Writing Our Futures

Artwork by Audrey Whorne, featuring a brown sex worker with green hair lying on a pink bed. A poster for the SWARM conference is on her wall and she is writing in a purple notebook. A bright red bra lies beside her, and the text reads: 'Writing Our Futures'.

Writing Our Futures zine (2021). Cover design by Audrey Whorne

A white page with several paragraphs of black text from the Writing Our Futures zine. There is also a smaller image of the same sex worker from the front cover, with brown skin and green hair.

Excerpt from the Writing Our Futures 2021 zine. Illustration by Audrey Whorne

A white page with several paragraphs of black text from the Writing Our Futures zine.

Excerpt from the Writing Our Futures 2021 zine, with work by Bella Quinn

A white page with several paragraphs of black text from the Writing Our Futures zine. There is also a cropped image of the same sex worker from the front cover, writing in a journal.

Excerpt from the Writing Our Futures 2021 zine. Illustration by Audrey Whorne

A white page with several paragraphs of black text from the Writing Our Futures zine.

Excerpt from the Writing Our Futures 2021 zine, featuring City Land

A white page with several paragraphs of black text from the Writing Our Futures zine.

Excerpt from the Writing Our Futures 2021 zine, featuring City Land and The Pool, by Amy K

A white page with several paragraphs of black text from the Writing Our Futures zine.

Excerpt from the Writing Our Futures 2021 zine, featuring Grief and Porcelain Doll

A white page with several paragraphs of black text from the Writing Our Futures zine. There is also a smaller, cropped image from the front cover, featuring a red bra on a pink bed.

Excerpt from the Writing Our Futures 2021 zine, featuring Sitting Alone in the VIP. Illustration by Audrey Whorne

The cover of the second Writing Our Futures zine, featuring a bright yellow background with half a peach made up of purple, orange and yellow dots. The black text reads 'Writing Our Futures', and is stylised to look like it is falling off the page.

Cover of the Writing Our Futures zine (2022 cohort). Design by Jay Bernard

A peach-coloured background with slanted black text listing the contents of the second Writing Our Futures zine.

Writing Our Futures zine (2022 cohort). Design by Jay Bernard

A black background with several paragraphs of yellow text from the second Writing Our Futures zine.

Excerpt from Writing Our Futures zine (2022 cohort)

A black background with several paragraphs of yellow text from the second Writing Our Futures zine. In the bottom right hand corner is a small peach made up of purple, yellow and orange dots..

Excerpt from Writing Our Futures zine (2022 cohort)

A light green background with a large halved peach taking up most of the page, made up of multiple orange, yellow and purple dots.

WOF 2022, design by Jay Bernard

A light green background with several paragraphs of black text from the second Writing Our Futures zine.

WOF 2022, featuring work by Mistress Clarissa

A light green background with a single paragraph of black text from the second Writing Our Futures zine.

WOF 2022, featuring work by Mistress Clarissa

A light green background with a black ink drawing of bodies hanging from meat hooks. The black text in the top left hand corner reads: 241 Tuesdays £5.99.

WOF 2022, featuring work by Lotte Latham

A light green background with a collage of brightly coloured images overlayed, depicting a sex worker's monthly expenses, as well as messages from and descriptions of potential clients. There is also an image of a white persons bum in a red thong.

WOF 2022, featuring work by Wendy Guillotine

A green background with a collage of multi coloured images overlayed, depicting a sex worker's monthly expenses, as well as three close up images of white bums in provactive underwear.

WOF 2022, featuring work by Wendy Guillotine

A light green background with several paragraphs of black text from the second Writing Our Futures zine.

WOF 2022, featuring work by Ellis Scott

A light green background with several paragraphs of black text from the second Writing Our Futures zine.

WOF 2022, featuring work by Ellis Scott

A light green background with two paragraphs of black text from the second Writing Our Futures zine.

WOF 2022, featuring work by Ellis Scott

A light yellow background with a white page in the centre, covered with handwritten black text and brightly coloured pen scrawls at the edges.

WOF 2022, featuring work by Celeste

A light yellow background with a white page in the centre, covered with handwritten black text and brightly coloured pen scrawls at the edges.

WOF 2022, featuring work by Celeste

A light yellow background with several paragraphs of black text from the second Writing Our Futures zine.

WOF 2022, featuring work by Cass Traitor

A light yellow background with nothing else on it except for a small peach with a single green leaf in the bottom right hand corner, made up of purple, orange and yellow dots.

WOF 2022, design by Jay Bernard

Writing Our Futures was an opportunity to get creative and politically active while building community and solidarity with other sex workers and self-advocating in sex worker rights.

✧

Over 5 weeks in 2021 and 2022, sex workers learned about representations of sex workers in TV and film, discussed the history and future of political sex worker movements, explored different storytelling techniques, and created their own piece of work on a story they want to tell. Through guided creative workshops, participants had the chance to work on an idea from start to finish. Thinking about narrative, characters and plot they developed a piece which was showcased at the end of the series.

2021 Zine

2022 Zine

✧

Yara Rodrigues Fowler ran Writing Our Futures. She is a Brazilian-British novelist and activist from London. Her debut novel, Stubborn Archivist, was shortlisted for the Sunday Times young writer of the year award in 2019. That same year, the Financial Times named her one of “the planet’s 30 most exciting young people” after she was credited with boosting youth turnout in the 2017 general election after co-creating a bot that encouraged Tinder users to register to vote.

Design credits: cover by Audrey Whorne (2021 zine), with zine design & layout by Bibi Letts (2021 zine) and Jay Bernard (2021 & 2022 zines)

With thanks to: Sidra Zabit-Foster, Yara Rodrigues Fowler, Amy K, Bibi Letts, Natasha, Elio Sea, Natasha Bloor, Dave. Special thanks to all participants for your brilliant work.

─

Partially funded by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung and Open Society Foundations.

Writing our Futures was a series of free workshops ran by Decriminalised Futures in 2021 and 2022 for sex workers to explore their lives, experiences and political movements through creative storytelling.

Year: 2022
Type: creative writing workshop
Series: writing our futures