16 – Queer Plants and Animals with Kes & Anja!

So it's a bit of a time skip, but I'm gonna put links to their projects and their websites in my show notes. So please check that out. And I will be back with a prisoner herbal episode soon. But for now, yeah. Enjoy this interview. It was tons of fun. I'm really sorry about the sound quality in parts.

Like I take responsibility for that with experimenting with the software and did a sound check for myself, but not for everyone that was being interviewed. So, yeah, I'm really sorry, but, I'm sure they will be back on the show in the future with much nicer, fancy sound quality. And I'll probably let Kess do all of the tech stuff cuz she's an angel! I haven't like, got my head around doing interviews yet because I've just been doing these like solo episodes about the prisoner's herbal. Anyway, thank you so much again to everyone who joined the Herbalism, PTSD & Traumatic Stress course. It's gonna be open for enrollment again, hopefully in October but on the course page, there's now a link to like a waiting list. So if you wanna be like, you know, emailed, notified when it's available, then please sign up to that. And everyone who joins that waiting list also gets a discount on the course. All right. Okay, let's dive into the interview.

Nicole: [00:00:00] Yeah. Thank you so much for both being here. Uh, would you be able to introduce yourselves?

Kes: Hi, I'm Kes.

Anja: And I'm Anja.

Nicole: I mean like…

Kes: You want like a proper introduction? Okay

Nicole: Okay. I know you do like. All the things, like literally all the things like caps lock. Um, so I'd love to hear a little bit about yeah. What you're doing and um, yeah, how, you know, stuff you're involved in, involved with in the world and things.

Kes: I can go first. Um, yeah. Okay. I’m Kes Otter Lieffe. At the moment, I am taking a writing retreat in Portugal, which is the most luxurious, amazing thing in the world because we are working on a lot of books this year. Um, including, we're just talking about it, uh, a Queer Ecology, non-fiction book, which is our first time. [00:01:00] Um, yeah, writing some like proper science in a book with like accessible kind of ecology stuff.

Nicole: Woohoo!

Kes: Um, who? Me and Anja!

Nicole: No, I said woohoo .

Kes: Oh, woohoo!

Nicole: I know you’ve got a degree in world, right? Like you're actually like hardcore geek under there.

Kes: Yeah. And has a PhD in Botany. I have a master's in, uh, a master's? No, I don't. I have a bachelor's in ecology. Um, wow. Just giving myself a little masters. Um, I wish it was that easy.

Nicole: You could get one on the internet, couldn’t you? You just pop it on there.

Kes: Right? I think so. Just print one out. Um, yeah. I am a speculative fiction author, writing from a working class, trans-feminine, chronically ill perspective and, um, yeah, community organiser for twenty something years. Um, [00:02:00] right now I'm kind of in between activist things and kind of working out what comes next, but, um, that's okay. It's given me lots of chance to focus on all the writing, which is really good. And at the moment a lot of the writing and creative projects are with, Anja! Say hi, Anja .

Anja: Yes. So my name's Anja. Um, I use they/them pronouns. I live in Scotland, um, in beautiful green landscape. Well, I think like my daily life is a lot about that landscape right now. Um, we have, uh, planted an orchard and we're like doing all kinds of stuff here on the land. Um, and as Kes said, I'm a biologist. I've done a PhD in Primrose Ecology, [00:03:00] um, and I am also a herbalist Breathwork practitioner. Um, and I've organised quite a few kinda like Breathwork fundraisers to send all of your books and all of like the zines that Kes and I made to, uh, Books Beyond Bars. Anja: Um, so yeah, that's what I can say I guess.

Nicole: Amazing. Yeah. And all that fundraising has been like, so appreciated over the years. Um, if people don’t know, Books Beyond Bars is like a prisoner book project. Um, which yeah, we can talk about another time, but I know, um, you were also part of starting that, weren't you before I think, Kes?

Kes: Yeah, it was, um, this really beautiful process that I was, um, in the UK a few times on book tour and [00:04:00] had worked with a similar project called, um, LGBT Books To Prisoners in the US, the so-called US and, um, I kind of was meeting all these really amazing people and I was like, oh, it seems like everybody's kind of wanting to do some kind of similar project, uh, in the UK and yeah, just kind of put all the people together in a room. And then the thing happened, um, which I have to say felt like one of the like, highlights of my organising career because I just haven't had to do very much and I just kind of like talk about how amazing they are and support them and like send them books and things or like raise funds. But like the people doing it are just these incredible, hardworking, like, yeah, amazing folks doing all this, you know, like very invisible and invisiblised labour. Um, and yeah, they just need all the support possible. They're really amazing.

Nicole: Yeah, definitely. [00:05:00] So talking about books, or talking about zines. You two are the creators of these amazing zines, one's called the Queer Plant Colouring Zine, and the Queer Animals Zine.

And yeah, I just wondered if you could talk a little bit about, um, your inspiration for those and maybe for folks who haven't heard about them, like what they are. Um, cuz yet they're definitely like my favourite things to colour in. So yeah. Tell me more. That'd be amazing.

Yeah, so the whole thing started in a very weird way, um, which is that I was, uh, getting ready to release my first novel Margins and Murmurations and um, I was poor as fuck, uh, as usual. So I was like crowdfunding everything, and I had this kind of idea. Um, when you're doing a crowdfunding, you're supposed to give something back apart from, you know, putting my amazing novel in the world. Um, so I was like, oh, okay, so I should send something to all the people who've supported.[00:06:00] Because it was paying for like, the design, um, fees and editing and publishing and all these things. Um, so I was like, oh, I could make a zine of some gay animals or something. That would be cute. Um, because in the novel there's a whole section about, um, queer ecology, queer animals, um, herbalism. There's like a whole bunch of things in there.

And so I was like, okay, that would be cute. That would even make sense and kind of, um, be relevant to the project. So, um, I did some very bad drawings and made it, I think it was like, just like a PDF or something, maybe there was some printed copies. And, um, from there, somehow now we're at, uh, zine two.

There's a full-size colouring book being, uh, printed as we speak. Um, that's about to be published next month or so. And yeah. , [00:07:00] you know, um, and you will talk about their part with the illustrations, but it, um, I just feel like it's become this very beautiful project where we get to do things that we really love.

I get to sit there with my books and the internet and like geek out about things that I care about a lot and we make something beautiful that people can enjoy, that we can raise funds for solidarity apothecary, we can send copies to books beyond bars. I just feel like it's this like very political creative, um, I don't know, we're just kind of getting to do things that we like and doing something good in the world. It just feels like the dream to be honest.

Nicole: And it is really dreamy. So like yeah, for people that don’t know us, like we're all quite close friends and I would be regularly texting you Kes about like, Hey, is this animal gay? Like, hey, uh, like, do [00:08:00] you know anything about dogs? Like, are they bisexuals? Like, and you seem to have this like, encyclopaedic knowledge of different, like queer animals. And I just, I wanna kind of like go back to basics of like, if people are listening to this and they're like, what the hell does that mean? Can you kind of, one of you like, fill us in? Yeah. What does that mean? Like queer animals? Like how is an animal queer, if that makes sense.

Uh, yeah. I can take, uh, animals and, uh, I'll give plants to Anja.

Anja: Alright.

Kes: So often, you know, I think. There's multiple layers to it, and that's what we are really discovering as well with writing this, um, hopefully accessible science book, is that it can be this kind of very political, um, subject that has like a lot of meaning. It has a lot of like, um, repercussions for grassroots community organising. And also it can be something really [00:09:00] fun and interesting and somehow, like when people learn that, you know, penguins can be gay and there are gay couples of penguins living in zoos or something, I mean poor penguins in zoos, but, um, or that like Nemo is trans because clownfish swaps sex several times during their life.

Things like this, like it's almost become kind of common knowledge and it's something that is, quite accessible to people and I think having it be a colouring book, which is very accessible, um, and, yeah it just kind of brings it to a lot of people that they can be like, oh look, this is a thing. And people will, you know, feel identified with their queer animal or something.

And yeah, so I feel like, um, particularly when we're talking about queerness, in this case we're talking about, um, sex, sexuality, and gender, and in all of those ways, Uh, non-humans are doing all kinds of queer things during [00:10:00] their lives, um, that we can kind of, yeah, maybe connect to human queerness. And of course a lot of it is projection, right? Like, um, but I think it's interesting that. You know, I have a degree in ecology. I grew up watching every wildlife TV programme that exists and it was all completely unknown to me. Like none of this was spoken about. There are still only a couple of books on the subject. Um, and it's all still a bit of a taboo.

And it's interesting to be looking at like, the history of that, of like the history of people kind of seeing things and observing them and kind of hiding the information or, um, publishing bias of like, certain papers are gonna get published. Certain things are not, some things are gonna be, certain kinds of sexual behaviour is gonna be seen as an anomaly and so we don't need to talk about it and it doesn't make it into the research and nobody ever knows about it.

So there's all these kind of layers of, [00:11:00] um, queerphobia, which actually makes perfect sense. And so it's kind of a lens also for looking at, um, yeah, prejudice against queer folks in humans as well.

Nicole: Yeah, that makes loads of sense. And I think definitely until I met you, Like I hadn't put two and two together, if that makes sense. Which seems daft because it's like absolutely obvious, right, that there would be like differences in sexuality or gender. But I think your zine is really just this like beautiful kind of creative introduction to a subject that's actually like very kind of radical and subversive of just like, Hey, like you've been imposing your kind of, It's hetero patriarchal style, like on the world, and it's just not it's just not real. Like, it's just not real, if that makes sense. But, um, right. Um, and yeah, so like, I think, I think like with the animals, it, it is like kind of maybe easier for people to kind of grasp, but yeah, the plants colouring zine Yeah. Can you tell me a little bit [00:12:00] about that, Anja? Of like, yeah. What's, what's kind of queerness got to do with plants? I mean, we all know, but like, yeah.

Anja: We all know! Um, I think plants are very special, right? Like, um, in the sense that like we as humans have kind of tried to, to kind of put like a human filter on their experiences and their like way of living their lives, right? And I think if you actually look at how plants do live their life, It has nothing, you know, like it has nothing to do with any type of heterosexual, kind of like boy-meets-girl kind of story.

Anja: Um, their, you know, way of reproduction, their way of like mating and, and you know, how, how [00:13:00] they kind of live their lives and how they kind of organise themselves, um, amongst each other and amongst. The land within the landscape, um, is so diverse. It's so expansive, it's so amazing. Um, and I think queer is like a really good term to kind of, um, describe plants.

Anja: Um, and just, just to kinda like give a little number, like if you, if you take the male-female-offspring type of model, um, that we, you know, like are used to hearing about in animals and, and humans, only five to six percent of our species, of our plant species actually follow that model. The rest of it, the rest of all species, of all plant species follow something completely different and I think that's [00:14:00] quite special.

Anja: So yeah, just, just that. If you're just thinking about mating systems, they're like very, very queer. If you look at how they relate to other species for pollination for, um, seed dispersal. They're also very queer. Um, if you look at their genetics, it's, it's amazingly complex and intriguing. They can hybridise, they can, um, you know, like a tree can basically grow through a fence without an issue, which is pretty amazing. So they're very adaptable. They're very plastic. Um, yeah.

Nicole: Yeah definitely. And I think like calling plants special is like a really beautiful way of like framing it. Cause I think we're just like, so like so limited in our knowledge of them, if that makes sense. Even though we've been learning about [00:15:00] plants since like the dawn of time, it's like they're still just fascinating and you learn different things like every single day.

Nicole: um, and your zine, like, I think it's like, again, like a really beautiful little tender introduction to some of these like concepts. Um, around kind of like reproduction or, um, yeah, like have you got, have you got like a particular favourite plant in your zine? Um, like either of you, have you got one that you'd like to share about today?

Kes: Anja definitely has.

Anja: I actually don't know if I have, I like them all. Really, like, obviously pimrose always has like a special place in my heart because, I've done my PhD on them, and, um, they are amazing. Uh, but yeah, I have to say I like all plants.

Kes: Tell us about the primrose, Anja!

Anja: The Primrose. Um, I think one of the main reasons why [00:16:00] I was really keen of having it in the zine is that they are a very well-known model for specific type of, Um, a mating system in, in plants. So if anyone talks about self-incompatibility, they'll talk about the primrose, Primula vulgaris.

Anja: Um, and so they are like a model species and at the same time they break all rules of that model all the time. Right. So, um, the little story goes that you've got two types of plants. Um, within the primroses you've got pin plants and thrum plants and in theory reproduction, like viable seeds only, uh, come out of mating between a pin with a thrum or a thrum with a pin.

Anja: [00:17:00] Um, and. I think during, during my, during my research, uh, for my PhD and, you know, um, reading of other people's work, uh, it's very clear that whenever, um, a population of primrose kind of gets into trouble, for whatever reason, if it's like, you know, um, their, their habitat that's being fragmented or like destroyed or whenever there's an issue, they will actually kind of mix up that, that mating system so that thrum times pin does give viable seeds or thrum with pin does give viable seeds, or they even like produce a whole other type of plants. Um, so pins and thrums, they're called hetero styles. [00:18:00] And, uh, whenever there is a need for the, the species also develop, uh, plants that are called homo styles. And that all has to do with how, uh, their anthers and stigmas are positioned within the flower, but in a way that's not very, uh, important. It's just that they, yeah, their, their mating systems depend on what's going on around them, basically.

Nicole: I think I'm probably similar! No, I’m joking. But no, they're like really beautiful flowers. And it's nearly theor season, right? Well, I guess for you, maybe you'll get them in like May or something, but um, they're coming out near me.

Anja: Amazing. Yeah. Um, and you also talk in the book, I must say, like I'm definitely like not a mushroom geek or a mushroom person. I know lots of ecology types are, [00:19:00] and that's their kind of like entryway. Um, but I shamefully have like next to no mushroom knowledge, but you talk about one in the zine, um, I think it's this Split Gill mushroom that has like 23,000 odd sexes. Um, and I thought that was pretty fun. I just wondered if you could say anything about that.

Anja: So with these Split Gill mushrooms, it's quite special. Like we can't really talk about sexes in them as we can talk about male and female that doesn't really, um, apply to these, um, mushrooms. But they have, uh, different mating, um, mating types.

Anja: Um, and in a way it's very similar to the, the story about primroses that I, I just told. Um, so basically in the genetic material of these mushrooms, there are two [00:20:00] genes that kind of, um, code for their, um, meeting type. Um, and each gene has a specific number of different, uh, possibilities within that gene, and we call these alleles.

Anja: Um, and so one, one gene, which is called Locus A, has 288 different varieties of this gene, and Locus B has 81 alleles. So different varieties of, of this, um, of this gene. And so if you combine those two possibilities, basically you come up with nearly 23,000 different, you know, just statistically different possibilities um and those are mating types of different. You know, yeah, you, you could look [00:21:00] at them as sexes, but different ways, different organisations in a way. Um, and each mushroom has, you know, access to these all these different types.

Nicole: Amazing. Yeah, no, it's like super interesting. Um, and I know that like you both have a lot of kind of, um, like a very strong relationship to plants and ecology and the land and, um, Kes, like a lot of your, well, all of your books have that as like a kind of like running theme. And just on like a personal note, I remember being like incredibly sick and incredibly burnt out and being like scooped up to your house. Like my friends all put in 50 quid and bought me a eurotunnel ticket to come and you looked after me and did herbal things and we were joking cuz it was kind of like, um, one of the main characters in your book. Um, the first one. [00:22:00] So I just wondered, like, again, I don't wanna give away the plot to everyone, but maybe you could just like, I think a lot of the listeners of this show are very interested in like the connection between like plants and like resistance or like for liberation, community organizing in different ways and I wondered if you could like, speak to that in your books as a kind of theme.

Kes: Yeah, yeah. It's, it's interesting because that is where the zines came from, as I was telling earlier. That is like those scenes led to the zines. Um, and which has become, its own kind of project now. Um, but it's true. Right from the beginning. Um, for me to be writing utopian speculative fiction, there was always gonna be a lot of elements of land, particularly like growing up poor and not having any real access to land, um, but always wanting it and being very seduced by the lichens and the blackbirds and um, [00:23:00] yeah. So there's, I think there's quite a longing there.

Kes: Um, and even more in the new novel, which is coming soon. Um, I think that was always, a really strong element for my writing. Um, and it's been interesting as well because, you know, with this like Queer Ecology project, it's, I think, as I was saying before, it like speaks to people on lots of different levels.

Kes: What's really exciting for me is to be like, keeping it really political because, um, that's what I like. And, um, you know, really writing the, the book that, and, and also the novels, like writing the work that I wish I had, like had ten years ago or twenty years ago, I guess. Um, so yeah, absolutely like grassroots community movements, um, with, for example, autonomous healthcare herbalism, um, and land-based [00:24:00] organising. And in a way that's easier, um, to kind of get to through a novel sometimes because people are like following the story and they're following the character. They're like, oh, wait, oh, this, oh, this is some autonomous organising. I was just reading about, oh, I didn't really think about that.

Kes: Um, uh, rather than it be like a manifesto or something, but I think the, Um, what I'm really enjoying with the, the queer ecology work as well is that, you know, sometimes it's ecology for queers. How is this like relevant to our community organising or our community living, or our lives? And sometimes it's queerness for ecologists.

Kes: Um, and sometimes it's queer stuff and ecology stuff for people who are in a third category, I guess. And it's, it's just been really interesting to see how, how something like symbiosis, symbiogenesis, um, horizontal gene transfer, all these very, very geeky things [00:25:00] that I'm just having so much fun with it like, tells us something about how we organise our societies and how we take care of each other.

Kes: And I don't know, there's a lot of mutual aid to learn about in queer ecology, and I'm just really enjoying like how all these like weird connections are happening in my brain that I'm not sure. Um, yeah, I dunno. Just really enjoying it.

Nicole: Amazing. And that is sort of like queerness, right? Like looking at those margins and those binaries and like Yeah, and I thought that that actually, like some people might have like this like ecology entry point, if that makes sense cause.

Nicole: I connect with a lot of queers who like live in cities and like maybe they're not so interested in like the land or non-humans. And then, Yeah, we're like this niche of like queers that are just like, give me plants!

Nicole: Then, you know, obviously you meet eventually and it's like, oh, you're a babe. Like you like plants.[00:26:00]

Kes: Absolutely!

Nicole: Um, but yeah, so I dunno if there was anything else you wanted to share about the, about the zines, like where people can get them from. Um, and yeah.

Kes: Yeah. I did want to read one of the profiles, um, which is, um, so a lot of them are just, uh, specific species, but this is just like a whole section on lichens, um, and yeah, I'm just gonna read it out because it's really cute. Uh, so lichens, smash binaries, wherever they go. Symbiosis was once seen as a radical concept. The idea that a lichen was a compound organism of a fungus and a green alga, or a photosynthesizing, bacteria called a cyanobacteria that benefited mutually from the relationship seemed absurd to scientists.

Kes: Surely the fungus was holding the alga captive and exploiting it for its photosynthetic superpowers. Working [00:27:00] together? Impossible! Those ideas say a lot more about the people who believe them than it does about lichens, but fungal algal symbiosis is pretty wild. Fungi and plants are far apart on the tree of life.

Kes: Fungi and cyanobacteria, who also from lichens, are not even in the same domain, meaning that you and a mushroom are closer relations than any two that come together to create lichen. In general, living things diverge over time as each branch of the evolutionary trees splits into smaller and smaller twigs.

Kes: But here, different branches come together, known as convergence. A plant and a fungus make a whole few organism. I can photosynthesize, but I can't eat rocks. Oh, really? I love eating rocks, but I can't photosynthesize what to get together sometime? And they're living their best life covering 8% of the Earth's land surface more than tropical [00:28:00] rainforests and surviving in space - just because humans love taking things into space and the story doesn't end there.

Kes: The closer people examined lichens, the more species they found mixed into the relationship. Not just one fungus, but several and loads of bacteria turned up who couldn't eat rocks or photosynthesise but could do all kinds of other useful things. It's grown ever more complex to the point that two species lichens might not even be a thing.

Kes: And what we've been calling an organism this whole time might be a system of interactions, a whole community. Lichens, bringing all the complexity, and we love them for it!

Nicole: Yay! And if anyone loves listening to your voice, they can also check out your podcast, eh?, Do you wanna just share a little bit about your podcast?

Kes: Sure. Um, yeah, it's called Margins and Murmurations, the podcast - Margins and Murmurations is the name of my first novel. [00:29:00] Um, I think I'm on like episode 10 or 11 or something. It is all over the place, which I'm really enjoying. Um, when I was thinking, oh, I would be, it would be so nice to have a cute little podcast. I should choose one subject and just do that. I was like, oh, but that's just not who I am as a person. Um, so what about I just do anything that kind of vaguely relates to the novels. So it's been all over the place. Um, and I'm really enjoying it and yeah, it's, it's really a nice way to, to make connections, to have exploring conversations, to, I don't know, yeah. Learn a lot. Um, yeah, so you can find that, um, in places that people have podcasts or just directly from my website, which is otterlieffe.com/podcast.

Nicole: Amazing. And I'll put the link in the show notes. I think the, um, episode, um, on trans herbalism, um, sorry, [00:30:00] I feel bad. I can't remember. Is it Ayelet?

Kes: Ayelet!

Nicole: Yeah. Was really beautiful. Kept meaning to text you about it. Yeah. So I definitely recommend, um, people checking that out. And I know Anja, you've got like a whole other hat, which is this like Breathwork hat and um, yeah, I'm just about to launch this course about herbalism and PTSD and traumatic stress, and I know that, I personally haven't done any kind of Breathwork practices, but I know it's like a big tool in lots of people's toolboxes. So I think people would be interested in hearing a little bit more about that if you fancy sharing a bit about what you do in terms of facilitating sessions and things.

Anja: So yeah, I am a herbal breathwork practitioner. I organise online group sessions. Um, and yeah, I think breathwork is like a really nice practice. It can be very, [00:31:00] you know, like relaxing, kind of taking us back to our bodies. Um, it can also help us connect to difficult feelings, um, you know, like feeling the feelings and all that. And it's always very, very beautiful to do, to do that in a small and cosy group, um, with other queers.

Anja: Uh, so, uh, at the moment I have not planned anything, uh, yet, but in general, I, I, um, I use Instagram to kind of keep people up to date about what I'm organising. I’m Pin Primrose on Instagram.

Nicole: Okay. Amazing. I'll put it, I'll put it in the show notes too. And your, your lovely website, which I've seen.

Nicole: Um, I think we might have lost Kes. I [00:32:00] think her, um, signal was, oh, is she back?

Kes: No, I'm here. I was just on mute.

Nicole: You've gone like grey and I was like, oh, no.

Kes: Still here!

Nicole: This is the first interview I've done because I mostly been doing these like solo episodes

We're very honoured.

Nicole: A repeated disaster of scheduling and losing the questions and all the like things. But I'm glad I've messed it up with you two.

Kes: Because we're so patient!

Nicole: You know me too well, you’re just like, oh yeah, that's Nicole. She'sll need to reschedule like three times. So yeah, it's . It's been fun.

Kes: Well, you are very busy doing all the things, to be honest. Um, I also, like before we finish, I do want to ask you what, um, what queer plants means to you, or queer ecology or any of these [00:33:00] subjects. Like how, how do these things kind of fit into your life?

Nicole: Ooh! Um, on the spot

Kes: Yeah, sorry.

Nicole: No, it's fine. I think, I think for me, there's always this thing of like, like, you know, like these days, like queerness is kind of like this weird commodity on Instagram. It's like social capital of like, um, you know, your, you are a certain thing or whatever, but like, I think, I mean, I'm, you know, I'm 34, just about to turn 35. And even in my generation, it was like very dangerous to be queer, you know, when I was young. Mm-hmm, it's still dangerous in lots of countries around the world and you know, I don't wanna assume it's safe anywhere, but I just mean like, you know, I remember being like threatened in public not being like publicly affectionate with my partners.

Nicole: Like, you know, like all the things. And I think for me it made me feel like I was like kind of divergent or like perverted [00:34:00] or you know, this like Christian hangover of like something wrong with it or something. And I think the reason like your zines and your like approach is so liberating is it's just like it normalises everything to me.

Nicole: Like I don't actually want to be super unique and weird and like stand out all the time. Like I want to just be like part of the world and accept myself being part of the world and yeah. You know, like I'm cis but I'm bisexual. Like to know that there's like, yeah, like bisexual deers for example.

Nicole: Like I remember your Patron has the, you can pick an animal- it was like, yay, deers are bisexual! And I was just like, yeah, like I'm up for that. But yeah, so I think for me it's more that like it's validating and normalising and it's just like this is the norm, this is the default. And like all the other things are just kind of human created, human imposed, like oppressive categories, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm. , um,

Kes: Makes a lot of sense.

Nicole: Does that make sense?

Kes: Yeah, [00:35:00] yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

Nicole: So yeah, so I think that's my answer. Um, But is there anything else you'd like to share before we finish?

Anja: I would like to just say just recently, um, Kes and I made a little PDF of six profiles on an A4. Um, and. The intent with that is like if there's any organisations that use colouring, you know, for soothing, for comfort with, with people, organisations or people who work with people that like colouring, um, who are, um, that like, working with our queer animals and plants might be a positive thing. We'd be happy just to share that PDF that they could just print out to colour in. And I think anyone can contact me or Kes to get access to that pdf.

Nicole: Oh, amazing. [00:36:00] Oh yeah, no, that's a beautiful offering and I think when you like make something like this, it's really nice to, actually get feedback, isn't it? Like, um, myself and my friend Amani, like made this medicinal hub colouring. Her drawings are just so stunning.

Kes: Really beautiful.

Nicole: I mean, I literally wrote some text under each one, but like seeing all the drawings. You know, when some, someone sends me a picture on Instagram of like, you know, through lockdown, their grandmother has been like painting this red clover. Like keeping her going. Cause she's shielding because you know, the pandemic is still happening Anyway. Um, like it's so nice to like get that feedback or get that feedback from someone in prison of like, Hey, this has been mm-hmm. . Yeah. I think if anyone has like, and we know lots of you have been ordering them because I posted a million out before Christmas. Send photos of them being coloured in. Um, yeah. All right.

Nicole: Well thank you so much, both of you. It's been so [00:37:00] nice. I wish we were like under, a duvet doing karaoke.

Kes: Yes! We should soon.

Nicole: Thank you so much for your time today. And your patience while I organise all the rescheduling.

Kes: It's been lovely. Thank you.

Nicole: All the links in the show notes and yeah, thanks so much. Take care.