Like its namesake, celium expands the inventory of possible stories and communicates across vast distances.
celium sends imagination
deeper, farther, wider.
celium does this through classes, workshops, and a number of different habitats meant to support work missing from the broader literary landscape in the US, writers whose work engages questions of form, legibility, and accessibility from different directions. This includes smoke and mold, a literary journal publishing nature writing, broadly defined, by trans and Two-Spirit writers. Although celium does not exclusively serve trans writers, it is still invested in the narrative possibilities trans lives bring to our changing nature-culture.
celium is part anticapitalist publisher, part creative ecosystem, and part redistributive art project. It is not a nonprofit organization. We are a learning organization, and we are still evolving. As such, celium operates according to the following principles:
Mutualism
celium is dedicated to the flourishing of all participants.
Slow Growth
celium grows responsively and at its own pace.
Multiplicity
celium creates many pathways for engagement.
Roots
celium remains nimble and ethically rooted by operating outside the literary establishment.
Who is celium?
“celium began as a way for me to collect my teaching and publishing under one umbrella separate from my own writing. I have a deep connection to mycelial threads. I write with and about them, most especially lichen. I spend time with them outside. I make space for them in my life, my home, my books and stories. In short, I make habitats where celium and people can coexist. And I’m still figuring out what that means.”
Jzl Jmz (pronounced juh-zell jaym-s) is a writer, artist, nightlife fixture, & digital degenerette. Her award-winning books have been taught & sold globally. Born in Los Angeles, now based in the Pacific Northwest, she has been a writing instructor & creative mentor for over a decade. Her focuses include imaginations of Trans identity, Femme interrogations, & Black futures.
Callum Angus
Publishxr, Fermenter
A trans writer, publishxr, and teacher, Callum Angus is the author of the story collection A Natural History of Transition (Metonymy Press 2021), which was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, an Edmund White Award in Debut Fiction, an Oregon Book Award, and an honorable mention for the Otherwise Award (formerly the Tiptree). His books include the nonfiction chapbook CATARACT (Fonograf Editions 2024), and STREAM, a work of experimental nonfiction forthcoming from Northwestern University Press in 2027. He writes the blog Instar: a blog about life’s transitions at calangus.com, and the occasional Substack newsletter Sex Weather Climate Death.
In 2019, Cal started smoke and mold, an online literary journal with an expiration date that publishes nature writing, broadly defined, by trans and Two-Spirit writers. Now housed under the celium umbrella, the journal is still going strong with a team of ~20 editors and readers, publishing two issues per year (along with a smattering of interviews and visual art) until 2031, when the project will be archived. You can read new and back issues at smokeandmold.net. Since 2014, Cal has taught creative writing at universities (Smith College, Clark College, UMass Amherst), workshops (McCormack Writing Center), and independent organizations (Corporeal Writing, The Seventh Wave, Independent Publishing Resource Center). After becoming generally disillusioned with the false promises and conservative politics of universities, he started hosting his own online classes and workshops focusing primarily on speculative literature, unusual forms, and of course, trans nature writing. In 2025 he launched celiumlit.net.
Jzl Jmz
Instructor, Ministxr of Climate
Jzl Jmz (pronounced juh-zell jaym-s) aka [Lady Tournament] is a Black Los Angelena & award-winning Transsexual based in Portland, OR. Her early professional career included positions at The Huffington Post & The Offing. She’s been featured in the LA Times, Poetry Magazine, Oprah Magazine, Ms. Magazine, PEN America, Willamette Weekly, The New York Public Library & several anthologies. She’s the author of 3 full-length poetry collections: Mannish Tongues (Platypus Press 2017); the Poetry Center Book Prize-winning The Black Condition ft. Narcissus (Nightboat Books 2019); and Local Woman (Nightboat Books 2025), which won The Leslie Feinberg Award for Trans Literature from Publishing Triangle, and was a Lambda Literary Finalist. Her film & performance work has been taught & toured nationwide.
Jzl has been a poetry & arts educator for over a decade. Beginning in the Boston area teaching youth poets, Jzl went on to develop Winter Tangerine’s Workshop Program, which included online & live workshops. When not lecturing for colleges & universities, she is the Poetry Instructor at Portland, Oregon’s Independent Publishing Resource Center where she leads a yearly cohort through developing portfolios & encouraging their poetic expressions.
Jzl Jmz has been a Lambda Literary Fellow, & 2x Precipice Art Grant Recipient through Portland’s Institute of Contemporary Art. Her first sculpture exhibition ROOMinnate debuted at Ori Gallery (Aug-Oct 2024). She’s an occasional rapper & founder of Tournament.Haus Mutual Aid Fund. Find her talking slick or in another dimension.
Mycelium knows no border. Thus, this is a borderless project. celium believes in a world where people are free to move across borders as they please, without papers and surveillance. celium fosters habitats for the growth and flourishing of all who seek liberation from restrictive borders. As such, celium stands firmly alongside smoke and mold and many other literary journals and publishers in support of Palestinian sovereignty, and is committed to the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). celium is committed to repairing the world, and BDS is one facet of that.
