Myths and Makers

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Transmission for Triple Z amplifying the trans and gender diverse community of Meangen, Brisbane and beyond.

My name is Ray. I use they them pronouns. And you are listening to Transmission on 4zzz. Hope you liked our new show intro. That was very exciting. So glad that we got to pop that on this morning. Very excited. Thank you to Ezekiel for, yeah, creating that awesome show intro and we'll have a amazing show outro as well. That's a new bad boy. I'm very excited today for today's show. As I said, my name is Ray. I use they them pronouns. And previously I have been chilling out in the four Triple Z studios and you know, doing some interviews, being on air. But I've recently, you know, levelled up and today is my first show solo, which is very exciting. And today I've got some new some news for you and I'll also be playing a chat that I had with Zoe Tarakis, who is an incredible author who lives in naam and I'll be chatting about there with them about their book Eros Queer Myths for Lovers. And I'll also have a very special guest in studio and we'll be chatting about RPGs and poetry and zines. But I want to have a chat about some trans news that has just come through this morning. There is a possible loophole in Queensland's recently reinstated puberty blocker band which could allow hundreds of transgender children to resume treatment through the public health system. The government's new directive rushed through just seven hours after the court ruled that the original January ban was unlawful. Only applies to quote, unquote new patients from October 28, meaning that children who were forced to into private care earlier this year should be excluded from the ban and allowed back into the public system. LGBTI Legal Service representative Matilda Alexander, who we had the privilege of having on the show last month, said our client is not a, quote, new patient under the ministerial directive because she received gender affirming care privately in response to the restrictions imposed on by the directive issued on 28 January 2025. Nor, however, is she a current patient. Under the ministerial direction, they have asked the Supreme Court to make orders that quote, unquote, new patient doesn't include anyone under 18 who received gender affirming care before 28 October 2025. If the Supreme Court does this, says Matilda Alexander, it will pave the way not only for her to receive gender Affirming health from the Queensland Children's Gender Clinic, this is the young person in question, but for numerous other trans young people in similar circumstances, a discrimination and human rights case filed by the LGBTI Legal service is still ongoing. In addition to this news, Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls is still refusing to release the report that was due a week ago from his review into gender affirming health care for trans youth. We deserve to see what this review says. If you head to Transjustice Project you can look at more information on action that you can take. They are encouraging people to email Tim Nicholls to demand the immediate release of the report and reinstate care. Additionally, you can also head to the protest which is happening on Wednesday 10th December at Speaker's Corner at 7am where Tim Nicholls has been invited to speak at a breakfast for World AIDS Day hosted at Parliament House. The independent review of the Queensland Children's Gender Service has now presumably been handed to the government and it's time for Tim Nicholls to make a decision and save the lives of kids who need access to this care. In even More news, the 2026 Census is set to occur on Tuesday, August 11, 2026 and will ask questions on both sex recorded at birth and gender. According to the ABS website, the sex recorded at BIR is included in the population section. Responses to the sex recorded birth and gender questions will be used to generate data on trans and gender diverse populations. In identifying their gender, participants will be able to choose from options including man, woman, non binary, another term specify or choose not to answer, according to the questions released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Another additional question on sexual orientation will ask Australians about how they consider their own sexuality and the nature of their romantic or sexual attraction to other people. The options for that question will include straight, gay or lesbian, bisexual, Another term don't know or prefer not to answer. There's also a change to the question relating to country of birth of a person's parents which includes the addition of the words the this could be a parent of any gender.

How many genders are there? I don't know, I just got here.

My name is Ray, I use they them pronouns and you are listening to transmission on 4 triple Z and I am thrilled to be showcasing the interview that I did with Zoe Tarakis. Zoe has recently released their first book, Eros Queer Miss for Lovers, which is a stunning collection of short Storeys. And it's a lot of queer and trans retellings of myths that you would, you know, may have learned in school. Zeus, Eurydice, Icarus. And it's an incredible book. I was very excited to chat with them about it. And you also may know Zoe Tarakis from their acting credits, which include Nine Perfect Strangers, Wentworth and also the Marvel Studio series Iron Heart. So this was my amazing chat with Zoe Tarakis.

My name is Ray. I use they, them pronouns. And I am so thrilled to have the author of Eros, Queer Myths For Lovers with me today. Do you want to introduce yourself and your pronouns and a bit more about you?

Yes. On, erm, Zotarakis. And my pronouns are they. He.

And I.

Wrote this book.

I wrote Eros and it's an incredible book. I came from a book group meeting last night where we were just, like, honestly so thrilled to read this book. It's a queer book group and I think one of the things that people loved most about it was, like, how queer and trans it is for listeners who don't know about Eros. Did you want to. Yeah. Tell us a bit more about the book?

Yeah. So it's. It's a book of short storeys and five.

Queer and trans knits. Five short storeys. And a lot of them take place in Crete, where my family is from, which is an island sort of in between, under Greece, above North Africa, to the left of Turkey, to the right of Southern Italy. And it's a very old island, a very ancient island, and was home to the Minoans thousands and thousands of years ago.

Yeah. And so a lot of the storeys come from there and they sort of creep forward in time and so they start in ancient Crete and then the last one is set in the 90s in King's Cross, which.

That was one of the. The comments that people made was, like, loving the. Like, the trajectory and the way that the storeys, like, had this kind of intentional, you know, flow through history. I thought that was. That was really unique. Was that, like. Like, how intentional was the planning of the. The book and the storeys, you know?

Yeah, not. Not very.

It came across as, like, you know, perfection.

That's good. No, I didn't plan it at all. I kind of. I wrote them all out of order and then I sort of let the storeys. Yeah, it sounds so wanky, but, like, let them try to listen to the myths and I guess figure out how they wanted to be told. And I was going to write them all in ancient Greece and Ancient Crete. But then hermaphroditis came along, that last storey, and I was like, I just, for some reason don't feel like this storey.

Wants to be told there, or like it has and needs new life or. I don't know, I just got this feeling. And all my ideas for it that were coming up were all modern and the characters are all, like, drug dealers. And, you know, like, I was like, what is this? You know, So I just listened to it and then that changed the whole book, you know. Then I went back and Artemis, the second last one, is set in the 70s in Lismore. And then you really see the middle one is sort of the bridge between, I suppose, the ancient world and the modern world.

Yeah. Honestly, I feel like, even though you're like, us is a bit wanky, like, I totally get it. Like, I think, like, when I write certain, like, poems or whatever, like, they kind of tell me what they need. It sounds. It sounds really strange, but, like, they, you know, they're like, oh, yeah, this is the form that it needs to take. Or this is, you know, whatever. Yeah. And I think, like, the. What I love about each of the storeys is, like, how. I mean, they are poetic, they're incredibly rich as well. And, like, they don't. There's, like, the book isn't. It's. It's not like a really thick book. But it felt like I'd. I'd, like, lived so many lives when I read it and that I'd, like, experienced so much and it was so. So, like. Yeah. Rich and beautiful. Yeah. When did you start writing the storeys?

Start of 20, 23. So what's that? Almost three years ago now.

But, yeah, they. They've been with me a long time and kind of have had, you know, a thousand different relationships with them over that time. Like, you know, I've probably hated all of the. Oh, can't swear on radio. Sorry.

Oh, no, that's. We'll just put in a language warning. It's chill.

Yeah. I, like, hated them all at certain points and lumps them all at certain point. Like, you know, it's like the relationship with what you're writing changes based on the day, I suppose. But, yeah, they've been listening a minute now.

Yeah. I do feel like this. Yeah. Every so often I'll look back at something and I'm like, no, why did I write that? And then the next minute I'm like, that is the best thing that I've ever done in my entire existence, literally.

Is so I don't know who to trust anymore.

And they're right. And I'm like, I guess both things could be true at once. But also.

Yeah, yeah, I'd like a bit of objectivity at the same time.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I was going to say, do you, in this moment of time now, do you have a favourite myth that's in the book or one that wasn't included?

Oh, good question.

I mean, I always say the first one and the last one are my favourites in the book, but then I read parts of, you know, middle three and I'm like, oh, love those. But I think I'm just. I think about the first one and the last one the most, probably.

But I mean, there's so many myths and there's so many myths. There's like little myths as well that are inside those myths that I find really awesome. You know, like storey of scarab beetle and, you know, a lot of Egyptian myths as well. But, yeah, I think the one that I'm most familiar with at the moment is the last one, because I'm adapting it into a play as we speak, which is amazing. And wild. Yeah, it is wild. It is wild. Sometimes I think, not in a good way.

I was like, what am I doing?

But, yeah, that's probably the one I'm kind of in conversation with the most at the moment.

I love that. And look, if listeners haven't, like, picked up the book and. And read that myth, we're talking about hermaphroditis. Did you want to, like, give us a.

I don't know, quick 101 of the storey.

Yeah, I mean, content warning. There is essay in the last two storeys.

And. Yeah, the last storey, I mean, the original storey from Aphroditus is.

That the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, the Aphroditus is walking in a field or forest and this nymph, this river nymph, comes up to him and says, can I kiss you? No, thank you. Keeps walking, Sees a river bar. He's like, oh, my gosh, how beautiful. Swims, doesn't realise it's her river. And she comes up out of the water and prays that she assaults him and she prays. Their bodies being found together forever. And they are. And that is where we get the word hermaphrodite from.

And I.

Then hermaphroditis went on to be worshipped. She was a goddess and.

People love her, so they're true. She's amazing. And yeah, and I. I took that myth and said it in King's cross in the 90s, where hermaphroditis starts as this, like, you know, kind of like rough Greek boy hanging around with, you know, these beautiful other log boys. Well, there's a Greek boy, task sitting boy and a Lebanese boy and they all kick around together and fly out and get up together and hermaphroditis and Mahmoud, who's his crush.

Have this kind of incredible, beautiful sex. And then the drug dealer is a Turkish woman, assaultsmaphroditis and they become one and then the storey goes from there.

And I think what I liked about the storey was the. I don't know, it made me feel like, you know, especially like the essay part of it made me feel incredibly, like uncomfortable and distressed. But then there was this gorgeous storey of, like, without spoiling it for people, there's this. It's such a gorgeous storey of becoming and of.

You know, found family and it was just like. And, you know, finding like a.

Job that, you know, you're kind of, like, drawn to and stuff. And like, it was really. I really love the fact that it was sex worker positive. Yeah. I don't know. It was definitely the storey that I've probably thought about the most.

That's good.

Out of all of them. Yeah, it's. And you said it's going to be a play. That's exciting. So is it. I was like, is there anything you can tell us listeners?

Yes, it's going to be. There's a stake. It's just an early draught of the play at the moment, but it's going to be. There's going to be staged reading at. As a part of the Trans Theatre Festival, which is taking place on Gadigal country at Carriage Works and in NAAM at Malt House, there's some amazing trans work. We've got Travis Allen, Banza Blaze, Chase.

Kakata Pui by Daily Rangy and myself. And yeah, so kind of the performances range from, like fully ready staged productions to mine, which is different. You know, a rough graph, but. But, yeah, it'll be really cool and if you're in town, you should definitely come. That's in January.

Amazing. I was like. I was like, why is this not happening right here, right now in my lounge room? I was like, that sounds phenomenal.

I mean, it's like the play is already very different to the storey in the book. There's just like structural things that had to change because obviously in the book, the first half of that storey is like a freight train and then the second half. This is really spacious and breathes a lot More. And you just can't do that in a play because it's boring.

That's really interesting.

You can't hold an audience's attention like that. Yeah.

Because I think that was something that I really found was, like, the. Like, the language shift and.

Yeah.

As you said, like, it's sort of in that second half of it, like, really. Like there's more space, there's more, like, breathing room and it feels more peaceful almost.

Yeah, yeah. And that feeling still comes in the play, but if it just, you know, you spend the first 40 minutes of something on approach and the last 40 minutes of something going, you just can't really hold somebody's attention for 40 minutes during that, you know, so structurally, it's quite different, but the end feeling is the same, I hope.

I think I'd be, like, remiss if as. As we're Transmission. The. The Trans show on Fortune said if I didn't talk about, like. Obviously we've talked about, like, how incredibly trans this book is, but I think one of the things that, like, made me. I don't know, I kind of. I kind of have a little bit of a cry when I read, like, your. Your preface where you talk about. You said these storeys are our storeys, and that, like, in a contemporary setting, we're often viewed as, like, a problem to be solved and that, you know, in these times. Please return to these storeys. We are ancient. The world has never existed. The world without us has never existed and it never will. And that, to me was just, like, so hugely significant. And I feel like myself and like many other trans people need to hear that at this moment in time, especially when, like, here in Queensland stuff.

Yeah.

Popping off. Yeah. So. And I really. I really appreciated that in terms of, like, the, you know, the retelling of, you know, our trans storeys and kind of, like, you talked about, like, with trans history, how we have to kind of mine for our storeys.

Yeah.

Did you want to, like, I don't know, walk me through that kind of, I guess, intentionality and that kind of, like, the way that you. You set about, like, transing myths that were already inherently quite queer and trans.

Yeah, it was. It was like. It was actually just a process of stripping back, really, because you had these storeys, you know, they were all really from Ovid's metamorphosies, and Ovid's telling of those storeys is just so often, like, coated in this shame that he has imposed upon these characters. That. That's his voice. That's not their voice. And so I think just kind of trying to push past the bullshit of opinion, you know, of like men's opinions about who these characters are and going, hold on. If I can just fucking drown your voice out and try and listen to the characters and yourself.

The bones of all these storeys. There's no shame. There's no. I mean, there is like in how we experience it day to day, but there's. There's no like all that kind of how disgusting am I? Blah, blah, blah, blah. These men have put those words in these mythological characters mouths and so it's just going, oh, hold on. Actually, I'm just going to take that voice away and put my opinion on top of the bones and these storeys, which is obviously that I think being trans is great and being queer is great.

Yeah. And I feel like, you know, that that kind of first person perspective from each of the characters is so important because it. Yeah, it reclaims that voice and like there is that lack of shame and I feel like so much transphobia is rooted in shame.

Yeah. I'm not big time.

I'm not about it.

Yeah.

0 out of 10.

0 out of 10. Yeah.

Is there. Because I think. I can't remember if it was maybe in the acknowledgments or somewhere that I read that you've got a whole bunch more like myths that you wrote that you didn't include in this book. Myself and probably listeners and also my book group were like, wanted to know, is there a. Is there a second book or anything else that's like you're writing at the moment?

Yeah. So there is another book, but it's got nothing to do with this one.

It's a novel.

And I've just started. I'm a slow writer, so it'll be a long time before it be Lighter Day. But yeah, I just started that. That's with the shape as well. And then.

Amazing.

Yeah. I mean, people keep saying, like, will there be more of these myths? And I hope so. I, like, I think I got to get this done first. Like this is where my heart is at the moment. But I really hope so because, yeah, there was no. I. I didn't write any other myth that I was. Had a long list of myths to choose to write.

I see.

There were so many. There were so many queer myths that I was like, do I do this one? Do this one? Anyway, so Volume two, one day.

I was going to say, I. I reckon so. I mean, look, I was like, I know, I know. Like at least 20 people who would be.

Insist.

But yeah, I. I think that would be beautiful. And like, especially like, the more things become kind of like up in this world and especially around, like, trans rights being, you know, taken away and stuff. Like, I think, you know, rewriting and like, writing our own histories is so, so important. And like, books like this are so important.

Yeah.

Yeah. If listeners want to follow, like, your amazing work. And also, I didn't. We didn't even get a chance to talk about, like, all your acting and stuff. I was like, is there anything.

I've talked about that plenty.

Because I.

Was like, if there's anything cool happening on that front that listeners might want to know about, feel free to give a shout out or where, like, listeners can contact you like, or like, follow you and stuff on the dreaded social media.

Dreaded socials. Yeah. You can follow me @ZoeTarakis on Instagram and come to the play.

I'm acting in it.

I'm playing Hemaphroditus in the first place and then a beautiful trans girl will be playing her in the second half. But come to that if you can, if you're in town.

Amazing. I, Honestly, I. I feel like my brain's like, should I just, like, do a little, A little trip in January? Why not? And look, we'll. Yeah, it's like a little, little road trip also, you know, any kind of trans festival. I'm like, yeah, let's go.

Yeah.

Yeah. Is there anything else you wanted to. To add before we.

Yeah, no. I'm stoked. Yeah. Thank you for such a beautiful question. Love books. Love talking to trans people about books.

Oh, yeah, it's excellent. Is there any trans books that you're, like, pumped about at the moment?

Always read. Yeah. Queens of Sarmiento park by Camilla Sosa Velada Forever and her other book of Short Storeys.

I'm a fool to want you those two books forever. She's amazing. People need to get around her. She is a life changing author.

God, when you read something that's life changing like that, I just. Yeah, I know the feeling. And I can't believe I haven't read those.

So get into it. She's awesome. She's awesome.

I was like, yeah, listeners, get amongst it. Let's go, let's go. Thank you so much for chatting with me today. And listeners, we will put all of that amazing info in our show notes as well so you can follow Zoe's pursuits. Thank you so much.

Thanks, mate. Foreign.

My name is Ray. I use they, them pronouns. And you're Listening to transmission on 4 triple Z. And I have a fantastic guest in with me this morning. I was going to say this afternoon. It's definitely still morning. I feel like I've been here for many years in the most positive loving for Triple Z way. I have an amazing guest with me this morning. Would you like to introduce yourself and your pronouns?

Hi, I'm Razor and I use she and they pronouns.

You're from Newcastle?

Yes, I'm from Mullabimba, Newcastle.

Amazing. And you are an RPG maker, a zine maker, a poet. You do many, many different things.

Yeah, I'm a multidisciplinary artist.

Multidisciplinary artist. That's what the. It's very fancy. Very fancy. Fancy way of saying it. Do you want to tell me a bit more about what you do and why you do it?

Yeah.

So.

I'm a multi disciplinary artist. As I said a minute ago. I have an arts background from. In performing arts and theatre going back to childhood and have had weird careers and things like that. Weird little. Well, not even careers. Jobs and. Yeah. And all of that informs my art practise. But at the moment my primary art focuses are poetry and tabletop game creation. Tabletop games. Specifically tabletop role playing games. So if you're familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, that's an example of a tabletop role playing game. Sort of like the AFL of tabletop role playing games.

That's the most beautiful. I'm gonna quote you on that. That's fantastic.

Except that it's not Australian, it's American. So really it's the gridiron or the baseball.

Of role playing games.

I love that. And my brain is like, I just had this moment of, oh, I know very little about sports.

I also love how you said before, like you've. You've had like a lot of different like jobs and things. I feel like that's a very trans mood where we kind of.

Oh, 100%.

Also a very millennial mood. There's always like, we always have trillions of different jobs that we've kind of patchworked together over time. But I'm glad that these jobs, these pursuits of RPGs and poetry and stuff are. Are going well.

Yeah, there's this idea. I heard it was actually relayed to me from someone who was talking about adhd because people with ADHD often pick up a bunch of hobbies and stuff and there's a lot of regret of like I picked up a hobby and then I abandoned it. 1. I don't have that to.

This person was saying it all comes back especially if you're an artist. But also just generally it that you, you never learn a use useless skill. We talk about skills and stuff as being useless because like oh what's the practicality? But it's never actually useless. It always helps in some way and it always comes back. Case in point. I spent six months as a blacksmith's assistant, specifically an industrial blacksmith, making drill bits for mining companies.

And.

You know, with the hopes of maybe becoming an apprentice or whatever abandoned that. Yes, because the, mostly the working conditions really. But then I actually wrote a single page supplement for a game, a fantasy game that provided you some extra backgrounds to players. And in that it was about backgrounds as before becoming a fantasy adventurer you, you were some kind of artisan. And the two example ones in it were a pretty sure a mason and a blacksmith.

And so yeah, drawing from my personal experiences and stuff as well as my love of history because I put in a bunch of stuff there about like what apprenticeships and journeymen was like historically.

And and I do feel like you were talking before about like yeah, like there's not a, there's no useless skills. And like it's in my head I had this vision of this pigeon just kind of pecking for the good seeds but then being like there's no bad seeds. There's always going to be like, you know, even if it's always comes back.

To birds with you.

It does. Yes.

Yes indeed. I mean like even juggling, right? People will say that juggling, juggling's a pointless skill. When I was a kid I used to, I didn't juggle but I did play around a lot with fire twirling and stuff. I also had a, a condition known as motor dyspraxia which is the two hemispheres of your brain have difficulty communicating complex actions that require coordination across like two different actions on either side of the body. Very hard to coordinate, not impossible.

The playing around with fire twirling actually builds the, the neural pathways across the hemispheres of the brain and you know, learning to play piano. I never became a professional piano player or and in fact do not play the piano now even for fun. But all of those things help to make my hand eye coordination better. And even though that, you know, a bunch of it was just fooling around. So that's an example of how like a useless skill is, is useful.

And I feel like it also like, you know, this is not on topic of what I was wanting to talk to you about but at the same time I'M like, I do feel like that, you know, there is no useless skill and it also kind of, it gives your life texture and colour and you know, things that like, even if it's something that you know you're not necessarily doing something with, it's, it's good to have as a, you know, as a flavour.

Oh totally. I mean, yeah, I mean the idea of things needing to be useful comes from like capitalism and president work ethic and all that.

Yeah, exactly. And I think it's. Yeah, there's that kind of idea to be useful.

Yeah, it doesn't even need to be useful but like if you need to justify it to yourself, if you need, need to help alleviate that, that shame and guilt, it'll, it'll be useful eventually. It is all useful.

And in terms of your RPGs that you've, that you've written, do you want to give me a breakdown of, of your current like back catalogue and kind of what you're working on at the moment?

I, I have, I think at last count I have created 20 or 30 RPG projects that are published.

Self published but still that's a, that's a lot. I mean a lot of those are small things. Some of them are like single page zine format stuff.

A lot of my work is science fiction or science fiction adjacent but not exclusively.

A project. The I'm currently working on a large.

Project, it's called a meta series called the Solar Cold War which is.

So far made up of two role playing games and they're large format role playing games so like you know, 60 page books as quick start versions. It's also a setting document, a poetry collection, a bunch of other things. They're all in this shared universe, the Solar Cold War setting. But all of the works in the Solar Cold War explore themes of space colonisation, anti colonialism, anarchist utopia, intersectional utopia, anti capitalism, anti fascism, anti imperialism.

And.

Yeah is sort of, it's sort of aspirational science fiction but without the whole we've solved all the problems, it's like no, there's still problems that need to be solved but it's clear that we're on a good track and it's more about stopping other people from interfering with our shit.

Because I feel like there is often with science fiction, fantasy and I find this when I read books at least just that that kind of wish fulfilment of everything's kind of tied up neatly with the bow or there's. It's very, you know, everything's going extremely well and I think that that's not necessarily. It's not the vibe you're going for. I think that's really good.

Yeah, but at the same time, I don't want it to just be like grim and dark and it sucks. Like it actually rocks hard to live in the hero faction of the solar Cold War. Like it's pretty awesome living in the ggc, but people still have to work hard and.

And there are still conflicts to overcome because they are not, weirdly, because they're not expansionists and domineering. They. They're like, well, we can't just kill all the capitalists, but also we can't let them mess with our. So we have to conquer Const. There's this constant push and pull between. Capitalism is an existential threat to everything that isn't capitalist because capitalism cannot tolerate things outside its paradigm.

While at the same time.

The GDC rejects hegemony and domination. And so it's like, well, we can't just go and remove the capitalism. We have to create the conditions that the people living under capitalism can, can change their own society for the better. And how do we achieve that without sacrificing our own morality and our own principles?

Which honestly I feel like is a. Is something for people to think about. Like in our current climate, like, I think there's, you know, a way to.

Oh yeah, all, all science fiction is ultimately not about the.

That fact.

Like even science fiction that imagines the future is not about the future. It is about now. Like all science fiction is about now. Even when it is suggesting stuff about ideal futures and things, it's still really about now. It's always about now.

And I think, yeah, asking those kinds of questions of like, how can we live under capitalism and like, you know, for trans people, like, how can we live in a world that, you know, is, is brewing with transphobia? And how can we continue to look after each other and you know, be. Be our authentic selves? I feel like a lot of your work deals with those kinds of, you know, kinds of themes as well. And like, I was going to ask how does. I mean, this is, this is a loaded kind of question, but how?

I would like trans.

How does trans transness kind of feature in your work? And how does being trans kind of reflect in your. What you. What you do?

Yeah, look, I think my previous large project, Make Our Own Heaven, which is a biopunk angel RPG extremely about trans identity and queer identity and found family and the rejection of what society wants you to be.

Embracing the beauty in body horror and being seen as monstrous for me. Yeah, like maker in heaven. That's like really front of house for me. Even though at no point am I explicitly saying all of the angels are transgender. It's like, no, they don't have to be. But the trans messaging is there in it. I think similarly, there's a huge focus in. In the Solar Cold War series on intersectionality and which like, is something I often feel is lacking in the. In Star. In Star Trek, for example. Star Trek is a. Is a great example of like a utopian science fiction thing. And I often describe it as. It's. It's socialism written by liberals. And by liberals, I don't mean the Australian term, I mean like the broader political term. Like, it's. I guess the Australian equivalent would be it's. It's socialism written by Labour. Labour voters.

Also quotable.

Yeah, but it, yeah, it's. It often not always lacks in intersectionality and it had to like come around to intersectionality from a long way. It's like. It's definitely Star Trek's early rejection of like religion and as like an atheist and an end. A open antitheist.

I would say that Star Trek's rejection of religion and religious people in its earlier early days is like a fault of it.

And is a fault of mine too. In the past, like, I was quite what I call a militant atheist, which is a stupid term because, you know, even Richard Dawkins, not actually militant, just an.

It's like he's not out there, you know, making bombs for atheism, which would be. Yeah. Kind of counterproductive, you know, just a little bit.

I feel like there's a. There's a zine in that totally.

But yeah, there's. There's this perception of like, if you're. That there's a perception of atheism as like white and as. And as like falling in step with the Christian hegemony, the white hegemony of the, of the. Of the west at the moment when like there are atheist movements everywhere where there is religion and like. But my point is that Star Trek black has lacked into intersectionality and like, that's something that I wanted to make sure that I avoided in my, in my thing. I wanted in. I wanted this utopian future to feel like anyone could be there as long as you're not a capitalist or a fascist, in which case move that move on, my friend. I was actually reading some notes I wrote on the game earlier and on the, on the itch page for it at the bottom, there's a section that says this game is explicitly anti fascist, anti capitalist, anti imperialist. If you have a problem with that, this is not the game for you. Because I got a lot of comments on Make Our Own Heaven from people being like, is this actually a game or is this just your political tirade? I'm like, it's both, actually.

I was like, what if. What if Both and Maker in Heaven.

Isn'T even as political? Like the Solar Cold War series. Everyone is explicitly political. The third game that is planned for the project, its current working title is West Wing in Space.

Which it will be very different to the West Wing Space because the West Wing is extremely centrist.

I love. I was gonna say I love a.

Very accurate working title. I think we might. We'll go to a couple of tracks now and then we'll come back and keep chatting with Razer about all of her amazing work. We're gonna go now to Void with the track Anatomy of a Hug. You're listening to transmission on 4 triple Z.

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My name is Ray, I use they them pronouns. And you are listening to Transmission on 4Z Z and I'm still chatting with my incredible guest here in studio. Do you want to introduce yourself and your pronouns?

Yes, I'm Raza, she, they and don't worry listeners, I have been reminded that I'm not meant to swear, which is.

Yes, it is. We can swear so long as there is a little, a little bit of warning in case we have some sensitive ears listening. Which is. Which is fair. But no, it's wonderful to have you in the studio today and we were talking before about RPGs and all the incredible works that you've made. I think you said like, was it 2030?

I think it's. I think it's close to 30 if you include like amazing ancillary products. So like expansions and stuff for other, other people's work.

Which is. And you do. Yeah, you do do a lot of like, collaboration and community work and stuff like that. And you're also a poet. Did you Want to talk about. Yeah. Like some of your. Your collaborations thus far and that kind of thing.

Yeah. So I don't get to collaborate as much on my role playing game work. Although at the moment I last year joined a sort of, we'll call it arts collective specific, specifically focused on role playing games. So we've been doing a bit more than that, bit more collaboration stuff there.

But interestingly, a lot of my poetry writing began in collaboration and my zine writing began in collaboration. So the first.

First kind of zine product I made was in collaboration with a zine maker and poet from Brisbane and we worked on a board game together called you Are Allowed to say It's Me. Oh, I'm allowed to say it's me, yeah. So Ray and I made this.

We have worked together, taught me how.

To make zines and got me interested in writing poetry again, having not written any poetry since I was in high school and. And it was bad not just because, for all the normal reasons, but also for a bunch of other reasons. But yeah, my new stuff is a bit better and I do feel like.

Poetry in high school isn't terribly inspiring. And then when you realise that, like.

It'S also not very inspired, like it's pretty derivative stuff and then you're like.

My God, there's, you know, queer and trans poets out there who I can like chat to and read their work and you're like, oh my God, this is incredible. Oh, I could write this.

Yeah, indeed. So gateway drug on both cases. Yeah. Started with a lot of collaboration. I. And all bar I think I've had like four poems published, three poems published.

By people, not me. And those were all collaborations.

Except for one. Except for the one that was in Long Trek, which was actually a poem that I wrote for the Solar Cold War. Oh, no, they ended up publishing Ashes. Sorry, I was thinking of Gardens of Troy, but they published Ashes.

And Long Track is actually a really. Yeah, a really lovely online journal that's run by one, if not two gender diverse people. I can't remember exactly who runs it, but if one, if not more gender diverse people. So, yeah, that's really beautiful.

I've been writing. It's interesting. I've been writing poetry, I think now since 2018.

But it's always sort of been. It's definitely been my, like the other art practise that I've been engaging with while doing game stuff, but it's kind of always taken a back seat. Whereas this coming year I'm gonna try and focus primarily on poetry writing just Because I keep doing poetry gigs and not having anything to sell to people when I'm there. Like, they all want to buy my book and I'm like, I got nothing for you. Do you want to buy a role playing game?

It's like this thing that's completely different to what I just, just read out. Do you want that? But I mean, I do love the fact that, and this is bringing it back to what we have done before, is that you and I made a poetry role playing game. And well, I don't know if it was. If I would call it a role playing game.

It's not a role playing game. It's an experiment. It's a board game more so than it's a role playing game.

Yeah. And I do think that, you know, the, the two do marry quite well together, as many art forms do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, I'm currently setting up for next year to work on maybe finally finishing my space poetry collection, which will hopefully also, just as ancillary byproduct, also mean that I'll end up writing other stuff for Solar Cold War as well as a couple of other projects. Because I always am jumping around between multiple projects. But yeah, I'm going to try and focus on, on that for next year. Not really sure what that's going to look like, but we'll figure that out in January. That's a January job.

Yeah. And I feel like, you know, it can be, you know, a bit of an organic prod like project like in terms of like how, how it's kind of as well.

Sometimes it takes me forever to write something or even to like build up the, the mood to write something. Not even the mood, a game designer friend of mine calls it. So my, A lot of my prep is, you know, kind of a lot of just sort of sitting around and waiting. But a game designer friend of mine calls it filling the toolbox, which is when you consume media adjacent to the thing you're trying to create so that you're like, brain is full of all the. The stuff and then you can just sort of start pulling it out.

It's like stocking your pantry when you've just gone and done a big shop.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a lot easier to think of what to make when you've got like. Well, for me anyway, when I've got a lot of ingredients, I caught myself.

A shocking lot, a shocking load.

That's. I think that's really interesting though.

Like a shipload.

Yeah. Because. And like I do, I like Honestly, I do find the same kind of thing. Like, I'll be. It's almost like, once again, the pigeon metaphor, but, like, I'm. I'm picking up seeds, I'm, like, gathering, like, lots of different things while, like, thinking about what I want to write and, like, the. The premise or the, the format or the vibe of the whatever project it is that I'm going for. And then suddenly it all kind of like falls into place and then I smash out in, you know, like a decent period of time, like, kind of.

Yeah, I mean, last year I was very fortunate. I was asked to take part in the Red Dirt Poetry Festival out in Bantua, Alice Springs.

And.

As part of that, I needed to write a piece for it. And I'm just like, they wanted me to write something inspired by a song and I actually ended up writing something that was. Was inspired by like four or five songs, because that was easier for me than writing something inspired by one. But after my. After that trip, I got a lot more. I realised I wanted to be way more involved in the community back in where I'm from, Mulabimba, on War. My country and I.

So both went on this search to do more poetry stuff. And the poetry stuff there was not to my liking. So I was going to a lot of open mics that were primarily music focused and then be like, can I do some poetry? Like, oh, yeah, that'd be great. And then getting more involved in. Via that and then also getting more involved in, like, local activist community. As you might know, Rising Tide is based on. In Newcastle and they held their big blockade there.

So, you know, hanging out with some of them until I could find the even more radical activists in the area. So been involved a lot with both community fundraising and direct action for Palestine, and also helped do a fundraiser for. For Kanaki, which you might know as New Caledonia. Free. Kanaki.

Free. All occupied territories.

Yeah. And that sort of inspired a lot of both poetry work and. And, you know, game work as well.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Like, do you find it kind of. Yeah, it sort of all. All intersect.

Hey, it all comes back, right? Starting back to the earlier conversation. It all comes back.

And especially when, like, so much of protest is rooted in poetry and, like, vice versa or like poetry is rooted in protest. Like, I feel like there's, you know, we don't have. Personally, for me, I don't have one without the other. Like, so much of my artistic practise is about activism.

Yeah. A lot of the poetry gigs I did this Year have been like, hey Razor, can you do a reading at this vigil for Palestine? I'm like, yeah, let me find some Palestinian work to read and then I'll do, you know, one of my own pieces after I've read some Palestinian work. And then also did like a cabaret to raise money for Palestinian families. That was pretty cool and stuff like that. I, yeah, and it's interesting, like going back to the filling the toolbox thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I, I, you know, I've spent this whole year filling my head with stuff and experiencing stuff about, you know, understanding more deeply the anti colonial struggles around the world, in particular Palestine and Karnaki. And that was very useful when I needed to write three pieces for a performance at a gallery that I did a couple of weeks ago. So it was an exhibition of various works by some Palestinian artists. Three sort of similar exhibitions in this one small gallery space. And I wanted to write a poem for each exhibition. And my plan was to like come in two hours before and sit in the space and everything. But I had already seen the piece and I'd done the gallery opening as well. And then when I got there on the day, buses and stuff meant that I was late. So I was, I got there like 30 minutes before we were meant to start and I'm like, oh yeah, I'll go over, I'll just go over to the gallery right now and I'll sit in there. I get walk over to the gallery which we were gonna open for the night to do the performances in. It's still locked. And I'm like, I don't have time, I gotta, I gotta start. So I just start writing and thank you. Thankfully, my brain was so full of all of the.

Full of all the information from, you know, the last year of intense work for me that I was able to like tease that out. My friend walked by and was like, oh, did you need to get into the gallery? I'm like, I did, but it doesn't matter now I have on a roll.

Hang on.

I have written three poems in 10 minutes and they were, they were bangers.

I love that. I think that's like when we spoke to Key from Echoes from the Cave in and talked about how at that open mic there's the five minute speed poetry round. And I always find that sometimes when I have that time pressure, that's when I write the best stuff. I mean, I polish it later.

But like also the second poem I wrote for my soul for the Solar Cold War poetry series that I'm working on was actually written at Echoes from the Cave In. It was like a horror storey about sinking into the bottom of the ocean of Europa, which is this like thousand metre deep.

Ocean under the ice layer of Europa. That's a real place in our solar system. It's most place most likely to have complex alien life as well.

I was like, I'm here for, for more space poetry. But I'd love to ask you before I kick you out of the studio.

Yeah. How dare I? But honestly, I've been wonderful to have you in the studio today. Is there anything else you'd like to mention or what you're doing next? Where can people find you? All that kind of jazz.

Yeah. Look, I think the biggest thing to mention right now is that.

Queensland, like all governments, the Queensland government, like all governments on this continent, is an illegal settler colony. This land was, is and always shall be indigenous land. All colonies will fall from Israel to Australia. Everywhere shall be free. Get yourself to that protest on Wednesday morning at 7:00am Absolutely. And, yeah, that's what I got for you. Enough about me. Get out there, get active.

Yeah.

Remind politicians that they should be afraid of their people.

And I want to thank our incredible guests today. We had Zoe Tarakis and Razor chatting with me this morning. You're listening to transmission on 4ZZZ.

Thanks for listening to Transmission.

Catch us every Monday live on 4zzz.

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