Book picks similar to
Love, Pan-Fried by Gray Crosbie
short-stories
queer
lgbt
trans
Detransition, Baby
Torrey Peters - 2021
She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.Ames isn't happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese—and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby—and that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it—Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family—and raise the baby together?This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can't reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.
The Dogs: A Modern Bestiary
Rebecca Brown - 1998
The dogs, led by the cruel, charismatic bitch named Miss Dog, alternate between being brutal attack animals and loyal companions, being real and otherworldly. Some chapters draw upon the ecstatic and horrifying visions of Christian mystics; others take place in the landscapes of familiar fairytales; others in the banal settings of the late-night pick-up bars or suburban picnics. The narrator uneasily inhabits these worlds until the dogs force her to take irrevocable action."A snarling attack on the fairytale form. A good girl's fears of inadequacy materialize as a pack of vicious dogs."—Publishers Weekly"A strange and wonderful first-person voice emerges from the stories of Rebecca Brown, who strips her language of convention to lay bare the ferocious rituals of love and need."—The New York Times"Using unsentimental language that slices, pries and exposes layers of emotion and sexuality as a scalpel does a body, Brown veers into the uncharted territory."—The San Francisco Chronicle"I read everything Rebecca Brown writes, watch for her books and hunt down her short stories. She is simply one of the best contemporary lesbian writers around."—Dorothy Allison"A dry, witty, graceful—if savage—gift."—Mary GaitskillRebecca Brown is the author of other fictions, including The Terrible Girls, Annie Oakley’s Girl, and The Gifts of the Body. She is the winner of the 2003 Washington State Book Award, and was awarded a Genius Award and grant from Seattle's weekly magazine, The Stranger. She lives in Seattle.
Ancestral Night
Elizabeth Bear - 2019
Haimey and her small crew run afoul of pirates at the outer limits of the Milky Way, and find themselves on the run and in possession of universe-changing information.When authorities prove corrupt, Haimey realizes that she is the only one who can protect her galaxy-spanning civilization from the implications of this ancient technology—and the revolutionaries who want to use it for terror and war. Her quest will take her careening from the event horizon of the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s core to the infinite, empty spaces at its edge.To save everything that matters, she will need to uncover the secrets of ancient intelligences lost to time—and her own lost secrets, which she will wish had remained hidden from her forever.
The Gilda Stories
Jewelle L. Gómez - 1991
Escaping from slavery in the 1850s Gilda's longing for kinship and community grows over two hundred years. Her induction into a family of benevolent vampyres takes her on an adventurous and dangerous journey full of loud laughter and subtle terror.
A Safe Girl to Love
Casey Plett - 2014
Eleven unique short stories that stretch from a rural Canadian Mennonite town to a hipster gay bar in Brooklyn, featuring young trans women stumbling through loss, sex, harassment, and love.These stories, shiny with whiskey and prairie sunsets, rattling subways and neglected cats, show growing up as a trans girl can be charming, funny, frustrating, or sad, but never will it be predictable.
Love Devours: Tales of Monstrous Adoration
Sarah Diemer - 2012
They coil in our subconscious, slither along the edges of thought. Still we creep to the crackling fire to whisper their stories.Love Devours is a collection of new fables for queer women, extracted from the bones of the dark: ominous fairy tales, sinister myths, dystopias rife with nightmares. But in the midst of monsters, love still struggles to find the light.A witch traps a beast of the sea; a corpse is reanimated out of love; a muse drains her supplicant; a priestess worships in a church of wolves. Six monster stories lurk within these pages. Six heroines, sometimes monsters themselves, unearth romance, rebuild worlds, shatter spells. Their courage unveils the secret faces of humankind's greatest compulsions: fear and love.Come into the dark and be devoured.Love Devours: Tales of Monstrous Adoration is Sarah Diemer's first anthology, a collection of queer dark fantasy and science fiction stories. It will be released in both print and eReader formats in August, 2012.
Silk & Steel
Janine A. SouthardK.A. Doore - 2020
In this anthology, seventeen authors find new ways to pair one weapon-wielding woman and one whose strengths lie in softer skills.“Which is more powerful, the warrior or the gentlewoman?” these stories ask. And the answer is inevitably, “Both, working together!”Herein, you’ll find duels and smugglers, dance battles and danger noodles, and even a new Swordspoint story!From big names and bold new voices, these stories are fun, clever, and always positive about the power of love.Contents:“Margo Lai’s Guide To Dueling Unprepared” by Alison Tam“Princess, Shieldmaiden, Witch and Wolf” by Neon Yang“Elinor Jones vs. the Ruritanian Multiverse” by Freya Marske“Plan Z” by Django Wexler“Little Birds” by Cara Patterson"Positively Medieval" by Kaitlyn Zivanovich“Book and Hammer, Blade and Bone” by Ann LeBlanc“What Finds You in the Deep” by K.A. Doore“The Sweet Tooth of Angwar Bec” by Ellen Kushner“Danger Noodle” by S.K. Terentiev“Chicago Iron” by Chris Wolfgang“In the Salt Crypts of Ghiarelle” by Jennifer Mace“The City Unbreachable” by Yoon Ha Lee“The Commander and the Mirage Master’s Mate” by Elaine McIonyn“The Epic Fifth Wedding Anniversary of Zaynne The Barbarian and Tikka the Accountant ” by Elizabeth Davis“The Parnassian Courante” by Claire Bartlett“The Scholar of the Bamboo Flute” by Aliette de Bodard
Tremontaine: The Complete Season One
Ellen Kushner - 2016
Mind your manners and enjoy the chocolate in a dance of sparkling wit and political intrigue.Tremontaine is an episodic serial presented by Serial Box Publishing. This collected omnibus edition gathers all 16 episodes from Season 1.
Summer Sons
Lee Mandelo - 2021
Six months later, only days before Andrew was to join him in Nashville, Eddie dies of an apparent suicide. He leaves Andrew a horrible inheritance: a roommate he doesn’t know, friends he never asked for, and a gruesome phantom with bleeding wrists that mutters of revenge.As Andrew searches for the truth of Eddie’s death, he uncovers the lies and secrets left behind by the person he trusted most, discovering a family history soaked in blood and death. Whirling between the backstabbing academic world where Eddie spent his days and the circle of hot boys, fast cars, and hard drugs that ruled Eddie’s nights, the walls Andrew has built against the world begin to crumble, letting in the phantom that hungers for him.
The Outside
Ada Hoffmann - 2019
But when she activates it, reality warps, destroying the space station and everyone aboard. The AI Gods who rule the galaxy declare her work heretical, and Yasira is abducted by their agents. Instead of simply executing her, they offer mercy – if she’ll help them hunt down a bigger target: her own mysterious, vanished mentor. With her homeworld’s fate in the balance, Yasira must choose who to trust: the gods and their ruthless post-human angels, or the rebel scientist whose unorthodox mathematics could turn her world inside out.
Short Shockers: Collection One
Peter James - 2013
Funny, sad, but always shocking, each tale carries a twist that will haunt readers for days after they turn the final page . . .This 25,000 word collection, available exclusively in this ebook edition, includes:12 Bolingbroke Avenue (First published in 1998)Number Thirteen (First published in 2010)Just Two Clicks (First published in 2004)Dead on the Hour (First published in 2006)Virtually Alive (First published in 1997)Meet Me at the Crematorium (First published in 2009)Venice Aphrodisiac (First published in 2011)Time Rich (First published in 2013)Christmas is for the Kids (First published in 1993)
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours
Helen Oyeyemi - 2016
In “Books and Roses” one special key opens a library, a garden, and clues to at least two lovers’ fates. In “Is Your Blood as Red as This?” an unlikely key opens the heart of a student at a puppeteering school. “‘Sorry’ Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea” involves a “house of locks,” where doors can be closed only with a key—with surprising, unobservable developments. And in “If a Book Is Locked There’s Probably a Good Reason for That Don't You Think,” a key keeps a mystical diary locked (for good reason). Oyeyemi’s tales span multiple times and landscapes as they tease boundaries between coexisting realities. Is a key a gate, a gift, or an invitation?
Future Feeling
Joss Lake - 2021
Henderson is in a rut. When he’s not walking dogs for cash or responding to booty calls from his B-list celebrity hookup, he’s holed up in his dingy Bushwick apartment obsessing over holograms of Aiden Chase, a fellow trans man and influencer documenting his much smoother transition into picture-perfect masculinity on the Gram. After an IRL encounter with Aiden leaves Pen feeling especially resentful, Pen enlists his roommates, the Witch and the Stoner-Hacker, to put their respective talents to use in hexing Aiden. Together, they gain access to Aiden’s social media account and post a picture of Pen’s aloe plant, Alice, tied to a curse:Whosoever beholds the aloe will be pushed into the Shadowlands.When the hex accidentally bypasses Aiden, sending another young trans man named Blithe to the Shadowlands (the dreaded emotional landscape through which every trans person must journey to achieve true self-actualization), the Rhiz (the quasi-benevolent big brother agency overseeing all trans matters) orders Pen and Aiden to team up and retrieve him. The two trace Blithe to a dilapidated motel in California and bring him back to New York, where they try to coax Blithe to stop speaking only in code and awkwardly try to pass on what little trans wisdom they possess. As the trio makes its way in a world that includes pitless avocados and subway cars that change color based on occupants’ collective moods but still casts judgment on anyone not perfectly straight, Pen starts to learn that sometimes a family isn’t just the people who birthed you.Magnificently imagined, linguistically dazzling, and riotously fun, Future Feeling presents an alternate future in which advanced technology still can’t replace human connection but may give the trans community new ways to care for its own.
Plain Bad Heroines
Emily M. Danforth - 2020
Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it The Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, The Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever—but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way. Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer, Merritt Emmons, publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded-Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled—or perhaps just grimly exploited—and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins. A story within a story within a story and featuring black-and-white period illustrations.