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@cavarchives presents FAILURE TO COMPLY, an abolitionist text concerned with trans, disabled, and Mad liberation as a speculative art.

How far would you go to have real freedom? To have true autonomy of both mind and body? The narrator of Failure to Comply wants self-determination at all costs, and they want you to know what it did, in fact, cost them. Their story is just a little hard to convey, as they're not entirely sure where, or even when, they are.

Set in a dystopian, post-apocalyptic future, this literary sci-fi novel presents a world where humans have been unshackled from disease and their basest desires thanks to the genetic engineering and societal supervision of RSCH—an inscrutable entity with unimaginable power (including the ability to literally shape reality). In RSCH's march toward perfecting the species, however, there are "deviants" (including LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities) who are fighting for a different vision of humanity. But where can they find hope when horror abounds, projected into their own bodies and minds by RSCH?

Cavar (they/them) is a PhD. candidate in cultural studies at UC Davis, their interests lay at the nexes of their own existence: transness, Madness, queerness, [and] disability. They are also a freelance writer-editor, and teach undergraduates on both u.s. coasts. Cavar is the author of five chapbooks, and their work across/between genres has appeared in numerous publications. Their debut novel, Failure to Comply, is forthcoming from featherproof books (2024). Cavar currently serves as founding editor of manywor(l)ds place. Guest editorial/contest judging inquiries are open.

@featherproof_books