After I began experimenting with Risograph printing in early 2025 and became obsessed, I founded Lavender Codex, a micro-press focused on publishing queer poetry ephemera, including broadsides and zines.
Lavender has long been a signifier of queer resistance movements in the United States, first emerging as a gesture towards queerness in Sappho’s work. Originating in 80 A.D., codices were some of the first bound-books. The ability to segment information across folded pages, rather than on a scroll, transformed how we interacted with image and text.
Lavendar Codex materializes these legacies, teetering in the generative duality between ephemerality and endurance. It’s also a chance for me to explore the visual dimensions of my own poetry, to publish work by people I admire, and continue to invest in analogue modes of information sharing and community building.
Aishvarya Arora 