We Twinkle Like Gold is a collaborative anthology of writing and artwork by trans and gender-diverse people from Naarm/Melbourne and beyond, emerging from A Thousand Threads: Stories of Us, a community writing initiative co-produced by Alex Nichols and Urszula Dawkins. 

Across its contributions, the anthology explores childhood, family, transition, belonging, friendship and the gradual work of discovering language for oneself. Stories move between the exhilaration of recognition and the difficult negotiations of being understood by others, while others enter speculative and imaginative territory, using fantasy to explore transformation, protection and the possibility of inhabiting a different world. There is a beautiful investigation throughout, one of the relationship between self-description and community: how identity is discovered privately, negotiated socially and sometimes made possible through encounters with people who recognise something in us before we can quite articulate it ourselves.

An independently produced collection made as a means of creating shared knowledge, preserving experiences and expanding the ways a life might be understood. The inclusion of original artwork, illustrated section headings and contributions across different forms gives the book the character of a collective archive rather than a conventional literary anthology.

2022, A Thousand Threads: Stories of Us, Naarm/Melbourne. Edited by Alex Nichols and Urszula Dawkins, with contributing author-editors. Cover artwork and section headings by Onezee State. Illustrated softcover with colour artwork and contributions throughout. Very good condition, with minor handling wear to covers.