Libby Atkins was birthed in the summertime by a lioness inside of a large fish. The large fish gifted her a long shiny tail and vivid dreams. Today she has human legs, a problem with clock time, and struggles to sit still.

U.S. based multidisciplinary artist-researcher Libby Atkins’ (she/her) impulsive creations come from stimming and a nostalgic desire to archive memories. Passionate about queering access to art spaces, she is self-taught and has learned adjacent to institution. Libby experiments by using everyday “whatever works” mediums, like drawings on airplane barf bags or collages made from “spell jar purse-trash”. She believes inspiration is everywhere (on a good day), and that everything can come alive with enough attention.

Her writing practice began with gossiping to her childhood diaries. Later, she was a teen staff writer for Sex, Etc, a “For Teens, By Teens” queer-inclusive sexual education magazine, and she continued to write op-eds about sexual health access and consent culture in her university newspaper. Libby graduated with a B.A. in anthropology, sociology, and environmental studies from Rice University in 2022. Her undergraduate anthropology thesis research explored the experiences of neuroqueer artists creating in crip time and used patchwork ethnography as a method for revolutionary wandering.

Mercury Journals is her creative non-fiction newsletter that comes out Wednesdays on Substack.