Countershade Press

Countershade Press Jonah Barrett is a filmmaker, writer, and multimedia artist. Their debut book, Moss Covered Claws, came out in March 2021 from Blue Cactus Press.

Based in the Pacific Northwest, we make queer books (and other things) that toe the line between feel-good trope stories and depressing-ass trauma tales, all through the fantastical lens of speculative fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc). Their writing can be found in Creative Colloquy, Everyday Genius, Lit.Cat, OlyArts, and the bestselling Portland anthology City of Weird. They are soon to be

featured in Dispatches From Anarres from Forest Avenue Press. They've worked as both a literary magazine and anthology editor. Jonah has directed and written three feature films, a dozen-ish short films, and four web series. Feature length films: Fabricated Partner of Cody McGuire, Booger, and Station 93. Short films: The Tale of Dubious Angel, Mud Puppy, The Tetrahedron, Bad Faith, and Writer's Block. Web series: Wake Up!, Booger (original), and Lazy Eyes Inc. Theatre production: Science Fiction Triple Feature. That was a fun list, eh? Jonah likes helping their friends make things as well and always try to work with people they love. They usually find themself in old haunted buildings or overgrown swamps.

The Countershade logo is a mix of physical media and digital, as is most things I do these days let’s be real. designed...
03/28/2026

The Countershade logo is a mix of physical media and digital, as is most things I do these days let’s be real. designed the gorgeous jay partly based off a photo I took in 2022, and I did some sumi-e circles and final squishing it all together. It was a mad capture of textures, fonts, and feelings until the right bird came into focus. Steller’s Jays (Cyanocitta stelleri) are my all time favorite birds. They’re complete as****es, but in a cunning way that reminds me of the Velociraptors I grew up idolizing. We wanted to make a Steller’s Jay with some fantastical element, to bring in that bit of speculative fiction to the logo. The magpie, a close relative of jays, seemed a great fit - and unlike Steller’s Jays, magpies have much more obvious countershading in my opinion. Then my favorite part: coloring the jay in like stained glass, and then making a dozen-ish variations for different marketing purposes - which I’m not going to show here you’ll just have to keep an eye out and see. Only after I finished it did a friend see the inverted version and ask: “Is that bird sh*t?” Which I thought was HILARIOUS. And I dunno, maybe it is. Or maybe it’s something worse. But I love this logo, it secretly mixes in so many things I love: Steller’s Jays, cyanotype blue, physical art, an air of the fantastic.

A new path for q***r speculative fiction. A li'l bit o' light, a lil' bit o' dark.
03/21/2026

A new path for q***r speculative fiction. A li'l bit o' light, a lil' bit o' dark.

02/11/2026

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Olympia, WA
98589

Website

https://linktr.ee/JonahBarnett

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Reality, Dreams, and Unknown Planes

I mean... honestly I’m just a weird kid who makes films with my friends and writes stuff. But here is a more fancy description~

Taking inspiration from a life in the mossy Pacific Northwest, prehistory, libraries, abandoned buildings, the sea, vast fields, and a love of the weirde and fantastique, Malicious Wallydrags is the collective work of filmmaker, writer, and multimedia artist Jonah Barrett. Their writing can be found in Creative Colloquy, Everyday Genius, Lit.Cat, OlyArts, and the bestselling Portland anthology City of Weird. They have worked as both a literary magazine and anthology editor. Film and theater work includes the feature length Fabricated Partner of Cody McGuire, Bad Faith, web series Wake Up!, Bo**er, and Lazy Eyes Inc, as well as producing an anthology play titled Science Fiction Triple Feature. They like helping their friends make things as well and always try to work with people they love. Their favorite genres are creature features and romantic comedies, and they have found the two are pretty much the same.

Some artistic goals (no order) 1. To present new storytelling perspectives that differ from the tired mold 2. To discover the fantastique and strange, and support the weird and outcast 3. To follow emotions, not rules 4. To set boundaries in order to creatively expand the mind 5. To undo the effects of toxic masculinity that has plagued our hearts 6. To learn new things with every new chapter 7. To explore the dark, vile parts of the human spirit in order to pacify monsters within 8. To keep love in mind, so as to not devolve into a total edgelord 9. To listen to others 10. To laugh when all hope is lost 11. To say something important with every creation, and to help heal wherever’s possible 12. To stop taking everything so seriously