Brussels Ass Book Fair 2025: Where Queer Publishing Feels Like Home

Brussels doesn’t just host the Brussels Ass Book Fair: it holds space for it. For three days, K1 becomes a meeting point where books feel warm, bodies feel welcomed, and queer creativity refuses to apologise for taking up room. Now in its second edition, the fair brings together more than fifty independent publishers from Belgium and beyond, each carrying stories that stretch the imagination of what queer publishing can be.

What makes the Brussels Ass Book Fair special is not only the books. Though there are plenty to get lost in but the ecosystem that forms around them. Between tables stacked with manifestos, zines, photo books, erotic drawings, speculative theory and tender little comics, people drift, talk, reconnect. You hear laughter, advice exchanged between young artists, conversations that start with “have you seen this?” and end in unexpected friendships. Community forms in the small gestures as much as in the programming.

Readings anchor the weekend: Love & Lightning, a new collection of queer and feminist manifestos, brings together voices dreaming of revolution big and small. The launch of I Will Always Be Looking For You – A Queer Anthology on Arab Art foregrounds intergenerational queer creativity from across Arabic-speaking regions and their diasporas. And Ötza — the Neolithic fanfiction writer brought to life by Levi van Gelder — arrives to blur timelines and genres in a performance that is both humorous and deeply tender.

There is also joy in sound: opening night features music curated by Guillaume Bleret, and Sunday closes with a DJ set by Marouchka of Poxcat Collective, weaving queer futures through wave, EBM, acid and trance.

What makes the fair feel undeniably queer is its commitment to care. Studio bubble returns with flash tattoos whose proceeds support the Trans* Solidarity Fund Belgium. WERKER Collective invites visitors to print their own designs using woodblocks carved from queer histories. And the open mic hosted by Raïssa Yowali offers a soft, steady stage where voices – shy, bold, shaky or soaring – can be held.

The Brussels Ass Book Fair isn’t just an event; it’s a reminder of how alive queer publishing is, and how deeply it thrives when given space. You leave with books, yes, but also with the sense of belonging that comes from seeing your community gather, create and dream together.

Brussels Ass Book Fair — 2nd Edition
Dates: 28–30 November 2025
Locatie: K1, Kanal–Centre Pompidou, Havenlaan 1 / Avenue du Port 1, 1000 Brussels
Opening Hours:
• 28.11 → 17:00–23:00
• 29.11 & 30.11 → 11:00–19:00
www.brusselsassbookfair.be