It’s pride month! Everyone pick up your bricks! Between celebrating the wonder and queer joy that is being LGBTQIA+ and fighting for trans rights in the face of all round bastardary, you can also find us reading a bunch of wonderful short stories by gay, lesbian and trans/non-binary writers.
Here’s a few of our favourites for you to explore.
No Bikini, by Ivan E Coyote (they/them)
A beautifully intimate portrait of a young queer person navigating the complexities and euphoria of swimwear at an age where their body doesn’t let people know which side of the binary they fall on.
It was so easy, the first time, that it didn’t even feel like a crime. I just didn’t wear the top part. There were lots of little boys still getting changed with their mothers, and nobody noticed me slipping out of my brown cords and striped t-shirt, and padding, bare- chested, out to the poolside alone.
Find Ivan E Coyote @ivancoyote
The City Born Great, by NK Jemisin (she/her) (Reactor Mag)
NK Jemisin might be one of my favourite authors, and her short story The City Born Great which she later turned into a duology of novels is a masterclass in how to write fantastical short fiction. A young unhoused black man meets an older man who starts to show him that there’s a lot more to cities than meets the eye.
Something begins to shift. I grow bigger, encompassing. I feel myself upon the firmament, heavy as the foundations of a city. There are others here with me, looming, watching—my ancestors’ bones under Wall Street, my predecessors’ blood ground into the benches of Christopher Park.
Find NK Jemison nkjemisin.com
The Big Squeeze, by Clare Fisher (they/she) (clavmag)
This one’s a bit rude, but the prose and dialogue are impeccable. We’re on a date with a genderqueer person in dystopian Leeds, when suddenly the main character slips through a crack in the wall and ends up elsewhere, full of queer joy.
(Leeds isn’t really dystopian though. We even run writers’ retreats there!)
‘Cup of tea? I’ve got this amazing loose leaf Oolong.’
The lesbian in me was imagining us in six months’ time; three shiny cheese plants, homemade vegan ‘feta’ marinading in the fridge, Sunday debates re should we or should we not get a cat.
The gay boy, however, was in the ascendant: ‘I want a cup of whatever is between your legs.’
Find Clare Fisher @claresitafisher
Short stories don’t have to be in the standard format. This great piece from K Blair is written as a play, an interview, an advert and more all at once, exploring what it means to hold a queer dinner party where crab and pumpkin spice cake is on the menu.
Question: How many Queer people does it take to kill a crab?
A. ONE they who acquires the crab should be expected to enact the killing blow
B. TWO they who acquires the crab can have an emotional support friend, the one who suggested murder in the first place and whose kitchen will be the crabs’ final resting place
C. THREE the dessert bringer was the one to identify the correct method, thus should bear witness to its enacting and also thinks that three has a Macbeth witches vibe, only adding to the whole experience.
Find K Blair kblair.co.uk
Ron, Howard, by Cindy Phan (she/her)(Baffling Mag)
This beautiful, subtle, surrealist story from Cindy Phan is about Ron, a man and his pet goldfish Howard. Ron takes it very personally when people call his fish ugly, and through tender devotion and care, Howard slowly becomes more than just a pet, transforming into a man and become more than just Ron’s faithful plexiglass bound companion.
No one noticed when Ron was Howard, or when Howard was Ron. They’d switch off here and there, when Howard felt like doing the shopping, or when Ron wanted a good, long soak in the pond.
Find Cindy Phan cindyphanauthor.com
The Evolutionary Biology of the Human Hand, by Sumitra Singam (she/her) (Hayden’s Ferry Review)
We had the privilege of interviewing Sumita Singam at Writer’s HQ which you can read here. This short story from her, a Romeo and Juliet love story set in Malaysia, features a tender relationship between two young women. The story is set against a backdrop of the beautiful country where lesbian relationships are treated as other, with village boys throwing stones and pressure to marry coming from parents. The theme of the hand, cited as both fact and appearing throughout is beautifully crafted.
We learned that dragonfly nymphs live in the water and grow by shedding skin too small for their new size. You stroked my hand, gentle as a hatchling’s down. You said my skin was perfect. You said the village was the too-small skin, and we dreamed of shedding it, growing into something bigger.
Find Sumitra Singam sumitrasingam.squarespace.com
