Queer Little Nightmares

A striking and playful anthology of fiction and poetry that removes queer monsters from the subtext and places them front and centre.

The fiction and poetry of Queer Little Nightmares reimagines monsters old and new through a queer lens, subverting the horror gaze to celebrate ideas and identities canonically feared in monster lit. Throughout history, monsters have appeared in popular culture as stand-ins for the non-conforming, the marginalized of society. Pushed into the shadows as objects of fear, revulsion, and hostility, these characters have long conjured fascination and self-identification in the LGBTQ+ community, and over time, monsters have become queer icons.

 In Queer Little Nightmares, creatures of myth and folklore seek belonging and intimate connection, cryptids challenge their outcast status, and classic movie monsters explore the experience of coming into queerness. The characters in these stories and poems—the Minotaur camouflaged in a crowd of cosplayers, a pubescent werewolf, a Hindu revenant waiting to reunite with her lover, a tender-hearted kaiju, a lagoon creature aching for the swimmers above him, a ghost of Pride past—relish their new sparkle in the spotlight. Pushing against tropes that have historically been used to demonize, the queer creators of this collection instead ask: What does it mean to be (and to love) a monster?

Contributors include Amber Dawn, David Demchuk, Hiromi Goto, jaye simpson, Eddy Boudel Tan, and Kai Cheng Thom.

This publication meets the EPUB Accessibility requirements and it also meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG-AA). It is screen-reader friendly and is accessible to persons with disabilities. A Simple book with few images, which is defined with accessible structural markup. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of contents, page-list, landmark, reading order and semantic structure.

Introduction

Jessica Cho

Declassified

Amber Dawn

Wooly Bully

Matthew Stepanic

ghost’d

Anuja Varghese

The Vetala’s Song

Victoria Mbabazi

The Creation of Eve

David Demchuk

Nature’s Mistake

Kai Cheng Thom

on the origin of trans femmes

Emrys Donaldson

Insert Coin

Victoria Mbabazi

You’re No Longer Invited

jaye simpson

#WWMD

Tin Lorica

twin soul (kaladua)

Levi Cain

Wendigo My Love

Ryan Dzelzkalns

Godzilla, Silhouette Against City

Kelly Rose Pflug-Back

The Kyrkøgrim

Andrew Wilmot

Glamour-Us

Anton Pooles

Creature Not of This Lagoon

David Ly

Poem Made From Pennywise

Hiromi Goto

Moon Spun Round

Justine Ducharme

75

Steven Cordova

An Invisible Man is Humping A Vampire

Ben Rawluk

The Minotaur and Theseus

Avra Margariti

Cryptid Cruising

Saskia Nislow

Invert

Eddy Boudel Tan

Strange Case

beni xiao

naga mark ruffalo dream

Matthew J Trafford

In Our Own Image

Kayla Czaga

Dad Movie

Cicely Belle Blain

The Ghost of Pride Past

Kai Cheng Thom

floral arrangement i.

David Ly

The Call

Jane Shi

Hideous Creatures

Daniel Zomparelli

Like Me

Contributor Biographies

Editor Biographies