Media and bio

Kes Otter Lieffe is a writer, ecologist, facilitator and community organiser currently based near Berlin. She is the author of four queer speculative fiction novels, several short stories and a colouring book series. She also writes non-fiction on class and queer ecology.  Kes writes from a working-class, chronically ill, transfeminine perspective.

Kes is available for interviews, podcast interviews, speaking events, book readings and workshop facilitation.

Click to get in touch.
Illustration of Kes Otter Lieffe, author of utopian trans speculative fiction novels and Queer Ecology writer.

Kes is the author of four queer speculative fiction novels and several short stories.
Her first short story was published in Our Entangled Future an anthology on social change and the climate crisis.
Her short story Soft was published in the queer resilience anthology, Glitter + Ashes.

Kes writes articles about class, gender and queerness. Her article, Surviving Utopia was published on Strange Horizons. Kes is also the author of the colouring zines, Queer Animals and Queer Plants (which was featured in the Swiss Natural History Museum) and a full-sized colouring book.

Over the last several years, Kes has spoken as a panelist, keynote speaker and facilitator in various contexts, from protest camps to university institutions, from s3x worker conferences to NGOs to Al Jazeera. Since 2017, Kes has given over a hundred book readings from her novels.

  • September 2024. Keynote speech. Green Office Gent, Gent university
  • June 2024. Queer ecology workshop. TIN* group, Kiel university
  • May 2024. Intersectionality workshop. Transgender Europe
  • March 2024. Book presentations. Leipzig International Book fair

 

  • November 2023. Keynote workshop facilitator. Trans ecologies and writing, University of Durham
  • October 2023. Workshop facilitator. Queer Ecology, BUKOF / University of Bremerhaven
  • October 2022. Keynote Speaker, Studium Gent Future Ecologies series, Belgium
  • June 2021. Guest speaker on AJ stream, Al Jazeera
  • November 2020. Panel speaker on LGBTQ and Survivor Activism panel, National Survivor User Network (NSUN) AGM,UK
  • December 2019. Workshop designer/facilitator – four-day workshop on trans liberation, queer ecology and utopian literature. Hyperwerk, Switzerland
  • February 2019. Keynote Speaker, V-day Brussels 2019, Belgium
  • May 2019, Panel speaker at A Decriminalised Future, Sex Worker Advocacy and Resistance Movement (SWARM), UK. PANEL RECORDING HERE
  • April, 2018. Workshop facilitator – Writing from the Margins, National Trans Conference of the National Union of Students, UK
  • October, 2017. Panel speaker and Panel Facilitator, Action for Trans Health national conference, UK
  • May, 2017. Speaker, Putains de Rencontres, STRASS, Syndicat de Travail Sexuel, France

Kes regularly gives interviews for local radio stations, podcasts and blogs.

Kes writes articles on subjects such as precarity, queer and trans liberation, utopian literature and class. Her article, Surviving Utopia was published by speculative fiction magazine, Strange Horizons.

A grassroots community organiser for over two decades, Kes has worked and organised in Europe, the Middle-East and Latin America. Her work focuses particularly on the intersections of class, queerness and environmental struggles. Some recent projects include: