Before she launched one of Australia's most important queer publications, Amy Middleton was writing about caravans. She was good at it, too — well-paid, working at Caravan World in Melbourne after stints at Australian Geographic and The Bulletin. But Middleton, who identifies as bisexual, eventually got bored with the content and started thinking about what she actually wanted to write about. The answer was sexuality and gender. She went looking for a magazine that matched her interests and her identity, and found nothing. The existing queer media felt either strictly gay or strictly straight. There was no space for the in-between, no glossy publication that treated the full spectrum of sexual and gender identity with the seriousness — and the production values — it deserved.
So she made one. In November 2013, after a crowdfunding campaign, the first issue of Archer Magazine hit newsstands in Melbourne. The name came from an unlikely source: a statue of a naked female archer that Middleton's great-grandmother had kept in her basement, hidden away because of its nudity. Historically, archers were strong, matriarchal women, and the figure combined masculine and feminine qualities in a way that felt right. The fact that her great-grandmother had to hide the statue spoke to something Middleton wanted the magazine to confront head-on: the censorship of bodies and desire.
The decision to make Archer a glossy print magazine was deliberate and political. Middleton understood that queer communities had historically been served by newsprint and disposable formats — functional, but not the kind of publication that makes you feel seen. A high-production magazine with exceptional photography sends a different message. As Middleton has put it, when someone whose body is rarely reflected in media encounters it in a beautifully produced publication, the effect is not just representation — it is pride. That philosophy has shaped every issue since: diverse bodies photographed with the care and ambition of a fashion title, first-person stories told without editorial mediation, and a refusal to let anyone else define what queer culture looks like.
The reception confirmed the need was real. Archer won a Media Award at Australia's Honour Awards in 2014, and in 2016, the United Nations Association of Australia awarded it a Media Peace Prize for its issue on ageing — a topic the judges said was covered with rare sensitivity and honesty. By then, the magazine was sold in eleven countries and its website had drawn more than three million views. Not everything went smoothly: in 2017, a distributor deemed an issue featuring a photograph of an exposed nipple inappropriate for sale, a decision that only reinforced the magazine's relevance. Middleton pivoted the organisation to not-for-profit status during COVID, recognising that the community needed Archer more than ever precisely when physical gathering spaces disappeared. The whole operation still runs on a skeleton crew, most of whom have other jobs. Middleton once admitted that motherhood had significantly impacted her attention to detail: she no longer missed spelling mistakes, she said, but she often missed meetings.
Explore Archer Magazine at <a href="https://archermagazine.com.au/" target="\_blank">archermagazine.com.au