Squatters 🏠
Make our home into your Barbie Dream House.
At least twice a year, we invite one of our besties to take over PTK for a month.
PTK squatting is an opportunity for more experienced writers and artists (who may feel constrained by the parameters of the traditional publishing world) to flex their creative freedom with a broad audience of hot people who read poetry. And don’t forget - we’re cool poets, not regular poets - so there are no rules here.
So far, we’ve had three graduates from our squatting program! You can check out their work below.
How to Become a Squatter 🏠
If you or someone you know would be a good fit for this program, you sould:
Email us your elevator pitch to poetrytrapperkeeper@gmail.com 💌
Pssst! It also helps to drop some responses to our prompts in the comments of our Substack or our instagram DM’s, so we can see if our poetry ping-pong match is vibey!
Graduates of our Squatter Program 🎓
L Scully (2024)
💘 FALLING IN LOVE WITH L SCULLY 💘
Hello to all our lovers (& haters)! We didn’t really set out to sell you commodified affection in various shades of pink and red (you know, like all the other mega-corp-poetry-LLCs are doing for Valentine’s Day). Truthfully, way back in the far away date of summer 2023 we received an intriguing email with the subject line “L SCULLY WANTS TO SQUAT” and t…
Read L’s Work:
Crista Siglin (2023)
⏰ Wake Up!! It's time for Poetry School with Crista Siglin
Sharpen your pencils, we FINALLY got our teacher-assignment for the fall semester and ohmygod… it’s Crista Siglin!!! Wait, you got her too?? This is going to be THE BEST school year ever!! ✏️ ✏️ ✏️ For the month of September, Crista is going to be taking over PTK, not only with her own work but also with
Read Crista’s Work:
Eliot Duncan (2023)
Who is Eliot? Well, according to his “official” author bio, Eliot is "a US-born writer and artist. He is the cofounder of the international queer collective Slanted House and a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop”. And by “official” author bio we mean like, official official because ELIOT PUBLISHED A BOOK. PONYBOY is “an evocative debut novel of trans-masculinity, addiction, and the pain and joy of becoming“.
Read Eliot’s Work:
Wilhelmina Welsch (2022)
A former high-potential young author 😅 selected in the Berliner Festspiele in 2001 and 2003. I refused to study literature, don’t have a Masters of Fine Arts and regret it a bit today. Part of the poetry collective "The Invisible College“ led by Ariana Reines since early 2020. In everyday life I do something with data and live in Geneva while being a part-time surfer. I mostly write in English at @iamnewintown.
FEEL THE RAIN ON YOUR SKIN 🌧️
ohmygod this poem was inspired by so many things that happened last week! ONE: Larissa’s “Bonne nouvelle bitches 🍰” piece that made me want to get out my pink rhinestoned guillotine, TWO: a beautiful “Wine, Poetry & the Ex” convo hosted by Arvon between
Read Wilhelmina’s work:
Winifred Wong (2022)
Heya! Call me Winnie! 31/F from Singapore. I like to play video games and sing out loud in the shower. Oh, and write poetry of course. Thanks for having me here, PTK babes! 😘
🌟Introducing... Our Next PTK Squatter!!🌟
Hey, PTK babies!! Kelly & Larissa here. So, we had so much fun ping-ponging poetry back and forth in May with our first squatter, Wilhelmina, (who may or may not still be hanging out in the basement here) we decided to bring in another resident for the month of November!
Read Winnie’s Work:
For updates on future squatters, make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter below. If you’re interested in being a future Poetry Trapper Keeper squatter, drop a poem response in the comments of any of our pieces. If we vibe, maybe we’ll reach out to feature you!