This time for our series on reader recommendations, where we shamelessly use you to add to our reading lists, we’d like to hear your suggestions of queer/LGBTQIA+ short stories that can be found online. To be clear, we want to hear about all the letters (and more) in that abbreviation, not just lesbian and gay stories, so hit us up with all the intersectional diversity you can think of. As always, to prime the pump we’ve asked a few editors, authors and other friends for their ideas. Read and enjoy, and then please tell us some of your favorites in the comments! Rachel Linn (author page)
Full disclosure: “Something that Needs Nothing” (New Yorker 2006) isn't really speculative or fantasy fiction, though Miranda July’s way of seeing and describing the ‘real’ world often transforms it into an alternate reality. Her writing feels like a more surreal version of The Catcher in the Rye, one in which you’re even less sure if the narrator’s perceptions are unreliable or if the world itself is. I was intrigued the first time I read the story, but even more so after talking to a football player who was assigned it as a reading for a college class and chose to analyze it for his final paper. He said he "related to the narrator's voice", which, coming from someone so different from myself, reinforced my impression of the story’s bizarre accessibility. When the narrator says, "We were always getting away with something, which implied that someone was always watching us, which meant that we were not alone in this world," I think most of us know what she means.
Also, I should note that this story is explicit and—like much of July’s writing and performance art—plays with offensiveness (and therefore might not be everyone’s cup of tea). Jo Thomas (Journeymouse)
“If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” by Rachel Swirsky (Apex Magazine 2013). What I like about the story with respect to queerness is the lack of detail about identity until the very end and, even then, it can be interpreted several ways. The writer uses first person so, if one realises the writer is a woman, there's a tendency to assume the narrator also is—but their gender identity isn't revealed until the narrator calls themself “the paleontologist’s fiancée with her half-planned wedding.” Likewise, the paleontologist love in question isn't definitively called a man until the very end and that only serves to show that the narrator and, presumably the love, recognise that identity for sure. So, with the the narrator saying that their love is called “a fag, a towel-head, a shemale, a sissy, a spic, every epithet they could think of, regardless of whether it had anything to do with you or not,” there is still an ocean of possibilities over gender and identity. There is room for questions—the most important possibly being why does the reader see it like that? Claudie Arseneault (author page)
When asked for recommendations, choosing what to promote and fan over is often the hardest part of the task. Today I’ve picked two very different stories both featuring aromantic protagonists which I’ve discovered since the start of the year.
The first, “How My Best Friend Rania Crashed A Party And Saved The World” by Ada Hoffman (Unlikely Story 2014) is a near-future science fiction in which social media status heavily influences your place in the world. Emma is a Relator—she might not want to date, but she has over 2000 friends, and she’s ready to use those relationships to help her World Saver best friend. I love the way this piece defies the aromantic loner trope, the fullness of its characters, and how evocative those social media titles are. It’s a fun and free YA story that really stayed with me.
The second is “Nkásht íí” by Darcie Little Badger (Strange Horizons 2014), a brilliant short story steeped in Lipan Apache ghost lore. Friends of misfortune, Josie and Annie investigate a man’s car crash after he insists a malevolent spirit drowned his baby girl. Annie’s grandma has often warned her against restless ghosts. Haunting, tense and beautiful, “Nkásht íí” focuses on the unbreakable bond between two women, simultaneously providing horrified shivers and the warm glow of solid friendship. Easily one of my favourite reads this year.
If you ever feel the need for more free aromantic fiction available online, you can always check Penny Stirling’s great list. Happy reading! Rachel Verkade (story; poem)
I first read Tim Pratt's story "Life in Stone" (Escape Pod 2006) in his excellent collection Hart & Boot. It seemed at first a fairly typical story that borrowed much of its premise from the ancient Slavic tales of Koschei the Deathless; a sorcerer has made himself immortal by placing his soul in an inanimate object and hiding it away. The trouble is that now, after many millennia of life, the sorcerer wants to die, and can no longer remember where his soul is hidden. So he hires a skilled but aging mercenary/assassin to find his soul and end his life.
What made the story stand out for me first was the setting—a bizarre future America where magic is rampant, and the characters are as likely to drive their SUV down to the local Italian eatery for supper as they are to fight their way through a den of lake monsters. And the other was the fact that the assassin and the sorcerer are lovers.
What unfolds is a story about aging, the loss of physical and mental capacities, about memory and the nature of the soul… and about love. About how sometimes what your lover wants may seem unfathomable, and sometimes the kindest thing to do is also the most painful. About two aging men working towards a single goal, each for their own reasons, and how one begins to question those reasons even as he commits acts of horrible violence to reach his end. It's also, of course, a very sad story… but also a very poignant one, and, in its own way, very hopeful. There aren't many older queer badass assassins in fantasy literature, and Pratt's Mr. Zealand makes an amazing impression in only ten pages. Trace Yulie (author page)
K.M. Szpara’s “Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time” (Uncanny, 2017) is written from a trans perspective, by a trans author, and it isn’t a sweet story of acceptance or an inspiring story about transition struggle; I say this because these seem like themes some readers are more comfortable with. There is of course a space for affirming fiction, and sometimes queer stories just aren’t for non-queer folks, you know? But Szpara’s stories are not on those themes. Oh no, no, no. They are raw and vulnerable, and the narratives situate the reader firmly in the trans viewpoint in a way that I find at times deeply unsettling. And that’s good (at least for this privileged reader). If one goal of fiction is to create situations where the reader identifies and empathizes with the people depicted in the story, they should feel unsettled by the horror of finding oneself in the wrong body, or a changing body. The character’s experience is viscerally, vividly described. The character feels intimately embodied; the stories are about being trans in the body. The reader can’t look away or bounce off that perspective, as it isn’t sidelined into a token side character or pushed into the background. On the surface, “Small Changes” is a vampire story, but the transformative turn from human to vampire resists easy metaphor or resolution. It’s a heavy, dark analogue for the harsh complexities of sex, desire and a intense something-else that defies simple explication. The story was hard for me to read. But I don’t think the story was meant to be comfortable, and I’m glad I didn’t look away. I also recommend Szpara’s “Nothing is Pixels Here” (Lightspeed [QDSF], 2015), an older publication about a different kind of embodied terror, but no less complex and painful. I make no assumptions that these stories are written for a cis audience, but as a cis person I came away with a measure of empathy I didn’t know I lacked before reading them.
Please tell us about more great online queer stories in the comments!
“Understand that sexuality is as wide as the sea. Understand that your morality is not law. Understand that we are you. Understand that if we decide to have sex whether safe, safer, or unsafe, it is our decision and you have no rights in our lovemaking.”
― Derek Jarman
Yet, post-revolution Tunisia, despite its leap forward in 2011, is still a nation where religious fundamentalism and obsolete colonial articles inhibit both society and law. Morality is still law. The private lives of consenting adults are still at stake. Our personal views and beliefs are—despite the constitution's clear statement on liberty of conscience―still seen as a threat to decency and morality.
It is true that Tunisian women have reached a respectable degree of women's liberation: women are able to have abortions, they receive the same salaries as their male co-workers, they can get divorced and demand child support, and education is mandatory. However, underneath this post-colonial progress lies another side of Tunisian society: the side where cisgender Tunisian men who don't pertain to any minority have the upper hand in the country. Women and minorities are still subject to discrimination, ranging from subtle misogynistic comments to outward violence and oppression. Bigotry and misogyny are so deeply rooted into the minds and language of Tunisians that they themselves are often unable to even recognize the harm they are inflicting. Gender roles are enforced, LGBTQIA topics are taboo, and breaking the vicious cycle of obligatory traditional "values" and morality turns out to be a harder task than expected. It is even more complicated and dangerous for women and minorities in rural areas. The problem is with the underlying hegemonic structure that dominates Tunisian society; laws can be amended but their implementation will only succeed when the average Tunisian will finally understand that the devotion to a dominant set of beliefs should not dictate the life of others.
Women in Tunisia are still widely expected to succumb to the daughter – wife – mother cycle. They are treated like an expired product once they near their thirties unmarried. They are expected to protect the "honor" of their families and not dance too far out of line. It is true that it is common to find women whose families encourage their daughters' professional path but the patriarchal expectations usually accompany them far into adulthood and also often overshadow their career or dreams.
From my own humble viewpoint, feminism is not intersectional enough. We need to work more on including black, LGBTQIA and disabled women. Unfortunately, sex workers are as good as unrepresented in the movement.
LGBTQIA rights are the most difficult rights to address in Tunisia. Not only because of the colonial article 230 of the Penal Code of 1913 (modified in 1964) which decrees imprisonment of up to three years for private acts of sodomy between consenting adults but also due to Tunisian society's deeply rooted hatred towards LGBTQIA. The stigma surrounding them is astonishing and the violence and inhuman treatment they are subject to is heartbreaking. They are still forced to undergo illegal and inhuman anal tests to "verify" their homosexuality (a test with no medical basis of course). This test is only there to humiliate the victim.
"The police arrested six students in the city of Kairouan, 166 kilometers from Tunis, in their student housing apartment in December, on sodomy charges, and subjected them to anal testing. On December 10, the first instance tribunal in Kairouan sentenced them to three years in prison and ordered them banished from Kairouan for an additional three years. In both cases, the Sousse Court of Appeal reduced the sentence – to two months in the first case, and one month in the second. But the men retain criminal convictions on their records and had already served their time in jail."
What is promising though is that Tunisia has LGBTQIA associations pushing for more rights and providing a safe space for the community and victims of hate crimes and discrimination. Two famous associations are Shams ("Sun") and Mawjoudin ("We exist"). In order to paint a more tangible picture of today's LGBTQIA struggle in Tunisia, I had the honor to interview Khalil, a Tunisian who is not only a rebellious genderqueer person but also a brave activist who staunchly believes in the LGBTQIA movement in Tunisia.
Do you think the situation for LGBTQA tunisians is getting better or not? How do you think the situation can be improved?
Khalil: The persecution of LGBTQIA+ is highly increasing, mainly due to the fact that we are more visible now. The current context is not totally favorable for the emancipation of this movement although global pressure induced by the progressive forces and their interest for minorities is growing and growing. Unfortunately, the rise of conservatism and political Islamism are hindering the establishment of coexistence.
Do you think the West should interfere in this or should this matter be resolved without interference?
Khalil: In my opinion, I think that the pressure that foreign elements are applying can be but beneficial especially when it comes to the decriminalization of homosexuality. The LGBTQIA+ movement as well as the Feminist movement are universal movements. These movements are not restricted to a certain minority or territory but are instead present all over the world and need to be connected and united in collaboration and cooperation to collectively further the cause. Some activists come from very different backgrounds and often bring universal values with them which can render the movement skeptical towards the interventions of certain elements or particular ideologies and behaviors.
Cross-dressing is not illegal, but transgender people and gay people, are often accused of violating Article 226 of the national penal code which prohibits "outrages against public decency." [Huffington Post. "Tunisia's New Gay Rights Fight" 2014]
Morality. Public decency. Vague, undefined, subjective constructs reign over Tunisia's youth that is ringing for breath, dreaming of tolerance, dreaming of a better Tunisia. If we could only replace "public decency" with "human decency", our country would be so much better off. If we could finally understand that what others do with their lives (as long as they do not harm anyone) is none of our business, we would be able to achieve so much. If only mutual respect for each other was the norm, I wouldn't have to fear for thousands of innocent people—many of them friends—who live every day in fear of this medieval witch hunt.
Problem Daughters is thus the ideal space for writers facing these problems. It is an anthology that provides a platform where others might fear to tread. It will "amplify the voices of women who are sometimes excluded from mainstream feminism. It will be an anthology of beautiful, thoughtful, unconventional speculative fiction and poetry around the theme of intersectional feminism, focusing on the lives and experiences of marginalized women, such as those who are of color, QUILTBAG, disabled, sex workers, and all intersections of these."
Representation, Not Objectification By Cheryl Morgan
We hear a lot about the need for better representation of minority groups in fiction these days. Problem Daughters, the new anthology from Futurefire.net, should provide exactly what we’ve been asking for. However, all too often, when that representation happens, members of the minority groups in question are unhappy. Aside from the obvious problem of lack of proper research, one of the main reasons for this is that authors—particularly cis straight white authors—confuse representation with objectification.
What do I mean by that? Well, when an author puts a minority character into a book, the first thing they often think about is how to weave that character’s minority status into the plot. That is, the author tries to make the book, at least in part, about that character being a member of a minority group. The thing that makes that character “other” in some way becomes by far the most important thing about them.
Let me illustrate this with an example dear to me: trans characters in fiction. We are much more common that we used to be. However, it is still the case that many books with trans characters focus closely on the process of gender transition for that character. To some extent that was a necessary stage that we had to go through. At some point readers needed to be educated about trans issues. But fiction has to move on from that. Trans people can’t forever only be included in books in order to talk about transition.
To see why this is a problem, consider that classic bad review in which the reviewer complains, “There was no reason for this character to be xxxx”. The reviewer is saying that the character should only be a member of the minority group if there is a compelling plot reason for them to be so. Otherwise, the character should just be an “ordinary person”, by which the reviewer generally means a straight cis able-bodied white man. If you, as an author, only put a trans character into a book to talk about the process of gender transition, then you are buying into that philosophy.
What trans readers want, and I’m sure the same holds true for members of other minority groups, is for characters like us to be treated as “ordinary people”. There’s no reason why a trans person can’t be a wizard, or a starship pilot, or a pirate queen, or a vampire hunter. We’d like to have adventures too, please, not just be relegated to the sad person who does weird things with their life and is discriminated against because of it.
Here’s a recent example. In the recent Detective Comics #948 we meet Victoria October, a top scientist in Gotham City. We learn that she’s trans because of a casual mention of her new name, and that the fact that Batman sent her a card to congratulate an old friend on her transition. There’s no transition drama. Dr. October is getting on with her life just fine. She’s not in the story so it can talk about transition; she’s just representing the diversity of life in Gotham City.
Of course this brings us up against another common anti-diversity argument, the idea that it is “unrealistic” for members of minority groups to have adventures, or hold important positions, because that would “never happen in the real world.” There are, of course, many trans women who are top scientists in the real world, but no actual superheroes.
Hopefully I don’t have to point out that the entire point of speculative fiction is the make worlds up, and that those worlds should be different in some way from ours. That difference might be that Africa is the world leader in space flight, or that single-gender communities are commonplace, or that people don’t actually care what gender you were assigned at birth.
However, as someone who studies trans history, I’d also like to point out that what most people today believe to be true about the “real world” is simply an aberrant bubble. For most of human history the idea of people transitioning gender was deemed thoroughly plausible. People might not have understood why it happened, or wholly approved, but they knew it did happen. Ideas such as homosexuality and heterosexuality, or the immutability of the gender you are assigned at birth, are products of 19th century science and philosophy, and are now looking rather simplistic and inaccurate. One of the reasons why countries like India, Pakistan and Nepal have given legal recognition to people of a third gender is that such people have lived openly in those countries for centuries.
What I’d like to see from Problem Daughters, therefore, are stories in which diversity of characters genuinely means diversity of representation, not just a bunch of stories in which members of different minority groups are objectified in some way. Given that I have lots of faith in the editorial team, I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m going to get. Although, of course, you folks have to write those stories. Get to it, please.
Cheryl Morgan is a writer, editor and publisher based in the UK. She is the owner of Wizard’s Tower Press. You can find her online at her blog, or on Twitter (@CherylMorgan).
Speculative Fiction Writers Discuss Polyamory and Diversity
Moderator Su J. Sokol, author of the Sunburst Award-nominated Cycling to Asylum, speaks with panelists Redfern Jon Barrett, Jacqueline Koyanagi, B R Sanders, and RoAnna Sylver. Su J Sokol (SJS): Polyamory in speculative fiction is nothing new, but some would say it’s been enjoying something of a renaissance. What’s your analysis? Also, do you see differences between past depictions of polyamory and what you’ve been seeing more recently?
Redfern Jon Barrett (RJB): There's absolutely a sweeping transformation going on right now with polyamory and the media. I think it was inevitable as same-sex marriage became more widely accepted—those doom and gloom homophobes who screamed that 'polygamy will be next' weren't so far off the mark (as they bitterly pointed out in British and Irish newspaper columns in response to my calls for polyamory rights.) Much of the public has accepted love between consenting adults, and if there's nothing wrong with two men or two women being in love, well, why not more than that? It's prompted huge interest. As for how they're depicted, I think it depends on the writer's class, gender, and social views more than time. There are works created now which show a very patriarchal mode of polyamory, and works in the 70s which are very queer and egalitarian. The main thing that's changed is the language used, particularly since the word 'polyamory' started being used in the 90s.
B R Sanders (BRS): Definitely we've seen polyamory represented before. There is Poul Anderson's Virgin Planet. There is Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It's been around forever, but what's historically bubbled to the surface has struck me as a very male gaze-y portrayal and understanding of what polyamory could be.
I don't know that the frequency with which polyamory has been represented has changed, but I would say that the way it's been represented has begun to shift. I still see the kind of male-gaze-SO-SHOCKING-PUSHING-THE-ENVELOPE type depictions, but sprinkled in amongst them, are kinder, slyer, and often queerer depictions. Normalized depictions. These newer depictions are more often rooted in the nuts and bolts of relationships, relationships that feel lived in and populated by distinct individuals. The older ones are statements and idealizations rather than real relationships, and the participants are interchangeable.
SJS: Another question I have is whether you think that polyamory is more present in speculative fiction—particularly in dystopian and utopian fiction—than it is in general or mimetic fiction, and if so, why you think that is.
RJB: As a writer I’ve found that speculative fiction often grants us freedoms the present can't allow, a space in which alternate ways of living can gain a greater sympathy from the reader than one which might conflict with their idea of how things should be done right now. Somehow 'what can be' is less threatening than 'what we can change more immediately.' I think that's the reason polyamory (along with a whole host of other issues) turns up more frequently in future-based fiction. My first novel Forget Yourself was speculative for that exact reason, as were many of my short stories. People approach speculative and science fiction with an open mind.
A year ago I gave a paper for a polyamory conference in Lisbon, in which I explored ethical nonmonogamy in utopian science fiction. This led to two works in particular: Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) and Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time (1976). I think Piercy's queer feminist vision presents the stronger basis for a poly future, but we can see through Heinlein's book how influential such works can be, as it sparked many 'free love' groups and movements in the decades that followed.
Perhaps it's because the future has such potential as a place of hope: we're more willing to believe in an alternative if it's a little distanced from the world we live in now.
SJS: Yes! So much of what you say here resonates with me. And it's cool that you mention Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time. This is one of my absolutely favourite novels. I read it when I was very young and it influenced my thinking a lot, as well as my own writing. In fact, like Piercy's book, my novel Cycling to Asylum presents both a dystopian and utopian vision of the future at the same time, though in my story I use two different cities—New York and Montréal—to do this. (Can you guess which is which?)
I’d forgotten about the poly aspect of Piercy's utopian society! It's funny, because my novel also includes the beginnings of a strong poly relationship between my two main adult characters and a third character. And it’s true what you said, Redfern—I did feel freer to express my political ideas, including about non-traditional relationships, in the context of a near-future speculative fiction novel. But now I’ve written a new manuscript that puts the type of MMF triad I'd created in Cycling into the story in a very front-and-centre way. I’m not sure I could’ve done that without having written the speculative fiction story first. And I do think that people consider my new manuscript to be more risqué because it is contemporary, mimetic fiction instead of SFF. (OK, and maybe also because it has a lot of explicit sexual content.)
RoAnna, what are your thoughts? I understand that you like to write "oddly hopeful dystopia books." Can you also tell us about that?
RoAnna Sylver (RS): I think that Redfern is onto something, absolutely: Spec-fic gives us freedom to express ourselves in ways we can't in modern-day/realistic fiction. Readers do seem to find poly or otherwise-nonconventional relationships 'more risque' here than if they're SFF. Sometimes it's easier to accept the unfamiliar if it's in the future or another planet, or 'just a dream.' I like the more optimistic way Redfern put it, though, that "people approach speculative and science fiction with an open mind."
I don't think I've seen many poly characters or relationships in utopian or dystopian fiction. Maybe writers want their dys/utopian worlds to be relatively close to reality, and including 'unrealistic' relationships and/or marginalized identities might break readers' suspension of belief. At least readers who don't fall into the above identities ... which is a sad thought. Better, more varied representation is the answer again. See enough of us, and the world will know we're no more extraordinary than any other human, certainly not an alien or magical being. We're cool, but not unrealistic!
Thank you for asking about my 'oddly hopeful' dystopian books! There's a ton of dystopian fiction around now, probably because the world can be a scary place. It serves a purpose. We need to express our fear. But we also need to know hope still exists. In Chameleon Moon, everyone has been imprisoned inside a city called Parole, and left to die above a lake of fire. Parole is a visual metaphor of living while marginalized through identity, orientation, disabilities/chronic illnesses. It is about isolation, pain, fear —and hope, survival through love. A warning, and a reassurance. Look where we're heading, in many cases, already there. But look how much we can survive. Look how strong we are already, how beautiful, how lovely, how brave.
SJS: Thanks, RoAnna, that sounds great. So what do folks believe are some of the most common misconceptions about polyamory? Do you address these misconceptions in your writing, and if so, how do you do that?
RJB: The misconception on polyamory I find most troubling is the unending assumption that it's all and only about sex. Yes, sex can be a significant and wonderful part of our relationships, but it's called polyamory for a reason—if we were simply looking for sex then we'd just have open relationships. In reality there are many types of bonds covered in polyamorous webs and constellations, and not all of them are sexual. Some very romantic, deep, and involved loves I've had have been entirely free from any kind of sex, and that's not to mention the fact that many asexual people are polyamorous.
It bothers me because that the same societal drive to limit discussions on polyamorous people to the sex they have is one which has long been used against those of us in the LGBTQ community. It's getting better, but focusing only on the sex queer people have rather than the love we share has long been used as a means of marginalising, dismissing, and mocking us, and I fear that the same tactic is being used against poly individuals. Even many of my own friends and relatives did the same at first, until they saw my family and how happy we are--and really that's the way to counter these assumptions. Familiarity brings understanding, not contempt.
That's why, when writing about polyamory in my novel The Giddy Death of the Gays & the Strange Demise of Straights I made sure to focus on the nonsexual romantic love which develops between two heterosexual roommates Richard and Dom, and the relationship they build together and with Dom's girlfriend Caroline. It's weird and new and it takes a great deal of adjustment, but it's recognising different forms of love and celebrating them which can truly allow us to move on both as individuals and a society, in all its bizarre diversity. There are speculative snippets throughout looking into the changes in their lives and to the world around them, exploring how attitudes to polyamory might change in the future.
BRS: So the biggest thing to learn about relationships in general is that they are all different, and what's true in one does not necessarily hold true in another. Polyamory makes this necessarily more complex since it factors in more people. My polyamory doesn't look like someone else's polyamory. And my polyamory with one partner doesn't really look like my polyamory with another partner. It's all a negotiation, a work in progress, a series of moving parts. Its biggest commonality is that its a huge amount of communication and transparency (mine is, anyway). It's not easy, but it's rewarding, and it works for me.
I tried to get this across in my book Ariah. Ariah, Sorcha, and Shayat each have to negotiate their relationships with each other as their triad begins to form and change. It happens pretty organically, but it also happens in a cultural space that doesn't have room for what they are trying to do--and they aren't going to be able to do it without talking it through it and being on the same page.
I also want to echo what Redfern Jon Barrett said about polyamory being reduced to sex. As an asexual person, for me, reducing polyamory to sex is deeply erasing. I am not in it for sex; my partners are not with me for sex. There is a qualitative difference in the kind of love I have for them and how I feel about my friends.
SJS: Yes, those kind of misunderstandings can be very harmful. I wonder—is polyamory one of those areas where it’s better not to write about it if you are from outside of that community, so to speak? Or is this something that anyone could write about, regardless of their actual relationship histories?
RS: I feel like with any marginalized identity, someone writing their own experience is going to be the most direct and realistic expression—ideally, many different expressions, since no identity is a singular entity and everyone experiences them in different ways. My experience of being poly will inevitably be different than somebody else's, and the only way to get an ‘authentic’ picture of what it's really like is to have as many of these voices heard as possible. That said, I don't think it's absolutely necessary for somebody to be established in the community (which can be hard to find sometimes, even with the aid of the internet) or have 'experience' to write about polyamory. It certainly helps, but experiences are such a spectrum (and the 'am I ___ enough' hurdle is steep) and good representation itself is so rare that I think whenever SFF with positive/accurate/well-written poly characters and storylines exist, it's cause for celebration. (And I've seen it happen more times than I can count with my own friends: if a writer is exploring these themes with a serious and genuine draw/interest/importance, not just chasing a trend, they're probably questioning themselves. If a non-poly writer ends up 'in the community' before long, I wouldn't be surprised.)
BRS: I think it's like anything else, really—as long as you do your homework, you can write about it really well. And that goes for being both inside and outside of a particular community. I am poly, but that doesn't mean that I am necessarily going to write about this well. I could have a very narrow perspective on it if I didn't step back and think about it and explore multiple angles of it. I think by virtue of being within a certain community you are more likely to be exposed to the multiplicity of a given community and therefore less likely to fall prey to stereotypes about that community in your writing—but it's not a given. It's really about doing the legwork. I think, as writers, there's a kind of Hippocratic Oath at play: a first, do no harm ethos. Make sure you interrogate why you want to write about a certain group of people, then make sure you talk to those people and understand what life is actually like for them.
SJS: There are some people who believe that monogamy is a more natural or desirable state or institution, whereas others may believe that a polyamorous lifestyle is the more natural and/desirable. Would you say that your inclusion of polyamorous relationships in your writing is more descriptive or prescriptive? What do you think, Jacqueline?
Jacqueline Koyanagi (JK): I aim for descriptive depictions; the last thing I'm interested in is prescriptively encouraging people to pursue one relationship path over another. If I want to encourage anything, it's the idea that nourishing relationships are best found after conscious self-examination. What do you want? What do you need? What can you offer others in relationship? Where are you growing and how does that fit into your patterns of behavior? Instead of swallowing what we're prescribed by culture without question, let's figure out what works for us and move forward from there. It may turn out that what one wants is perfectly in line with what culture teaches us, but it's often the case that we have to carve out a place for our needs and desires that doesn't quite gel with tradition. Whether that place involves monogamy, polyamory, or some other relationship style ... well, that's up to you and the people you become involved with.
SJS: Yeah, I'm pretty sure we can all agree that forcing people to be, for instance, either monogamous or polyamorous would be a bad idea. Yet, at the same time, I am curious to know if there are other thoughts on this question. People may legitimately feel that certain types of relationship styles are more or less likely to be healthy or sustainable. For instance, Redfern: Having read some of your writing—including both of your novels and, especially, the short story "Liquid Loyalty"—I do get some sense that you have more of an "advocacy" stance on this subject.
RJB: Wow, I'm really flattered that you've read all that! I have been a strong advocate for polyamory, but at the same time I agree with both of you —it should be about choice, not enforced transformation. I've long believed the polyamory-monogamy spectrum to be a form of orientation—a romantic orientation—where some people are innately more suited to polyamory, some to monogamy, with many people being more flexible and falling somewhere in the middle. I've campaigned so that people have the option to be who they are, however they love. Fiction is a wonderful tool for spreading that kind of awareness. The more people become familiar with and understand polyamory, the more they can open up to who they potentially are, or if they're more mongamously inclined, the more likely they are to accept those who are different. It might be idealistic, but I really believe we can reach the same level of tolerance and equality which has been achieved so far with same-sex relationships.
SJS: There are many possible types of polyamorous relationships, structures, and institutions, and some of them resonate quite differently than others. Can you speak about representations of polyamory that you’d like to see more of, as well as some that you might like to see less?
JK: Really, with any representation—be it relationship style or anything else—I want to see diverse depictions. I don't just want to see polyamorous triads, I don't just want to see hierarchical polyamory, I don't just want to see relationship anarchy or solo polyamory. I want to see it all. I want us to explore the myriad ways we can organize relationships, reject organization, and/or manifest something entirely unpredictable. I want to see relationships with diverse races and genders and religions or lack thereof. I want to see relationships of mixed sexual orientations, and the challenges that can arise thereof. I want to see it all.
SJS Very beautifully put, Jacqueline! How about you RoAnna? Are there relationships or related social structures that you are longing to see more of in fiction? And could you also speak about things that you are less anxious to find in stories—for instance, tired tropes, depictions that reinforce negative stereotypes, or any other representations that you could do without seeing again?
RS: Jacqueline's answer is spot-on. There are as many kinds of poly relationships in the world as there are people in them! I want to see more 'more' as well, especially mixed orientations and relationship dynamics. Queerplatonic relationships as well—I don't remember ever having seen one in a book; that would mean a lot. Here too, diverse representations of any experience is always better. You get to ‘feel more parts of the elephant,’ as it were. Anything that demonstrates the richness and vastness of who we are. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, to borrow a Trek-phrase.
Here's one of the very few songs I know that actually talks about polyamory—and it illustrates another point. "The Perils of Poly," by Bone Poets Orchestra/Gaia Consort.
I find the song cute and fun, but by the bridge ("hot bi babe/chasing everybody like they're candied fruit", "what's got us terrified is that we'll really fall in love") I'm rolling my eyes. Because yeah, that's what everybody thinks, 9 times out of 10, that the be-all is casual hookups. Sure, that's a valid experience, but when that's the only picture anyone has, it's a little discouraging. I want more in fiction, of all kinds. I'd especially like to see healthy and realistic poly, people working out their problems, communicating, and coming to resolutions.
SJS: I just checked out the video. Thanks for adding a bit of fun and music to our panel discussion, RoAnna, and yeah, I hear you!
So are there other types of non-traditional relationships folks think should be better represented in speculative fiction or fiction in general?
BRS: I would love to see asexuality and asexual people in relationships written about more and with more depth and plurality. There are definitely tropes there to avoid (that ace people are broken, or cold, or incapable of romance or relationships). But ace people do exist and do have families and lovers.
JK: I'd like to echo BR's call for more asexual representation. I've only recently come out publicly about my own asexuality, in part due to the myriad misconceptions that slam into you the moment you start talking about it. Both asexuality and non-monogamy are far more diverse than stereotypes suggest; we've barely scratched the surface in fiction. I'd also like to see more stories in which the gradient between friendship and romance is blurred, or where friendship is a deliberate, ongoing commitment the way romance is. More characters hopping off the relationship escalator, or at least interrogating and dismantling their assumptions about relationships so that they might build something of their own.
RS: Relationships with neurodiverse and/or disabled people are incredibly important, to me personally, and to see in general. Both between two or more ND/disabled people, and able-bodied/neurotypical people. It's something we don't get nearly enough of and therefore there's very little understanding of physically or mentally ill people/how we interact and fit together in what can be incredibly meaningful, beautiful relationships. Or any concept of how we can have amazing adventures or be heroes, or attractive/romantically desirable. My feelings here are similar to the ones I have about polyamorous characters being left out of so much fiction, or LGBT in general—audiences are being robbed of awesome characters and stories, and we're not being seen for the whole, multidimensional people we are. I want every poly/lgbt/disabled reader to know exactly how valid they are. Sometimes it's the first time you've ever heard or felt it, and that is the most important feeling in the world.
BIOS
Su J. Sokol is an activist, a cyclist, and a writer of speculative and interstitial fiction. A former legal services lawyer from New York City, she immigrated to Canada with her family in 2004 and now makes Montréal her home. Her debut novel, Cycling to Asylum, was long-listed for the 2015 Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. Su’s new manuscript, Run J Run, is about the conventions of friendship, polyamorous love, chosen family, and the treatment of the mentally injured in our society.
Dr. Redfern Jon Barrett a polyamory rights campaigner and author to novels The Giddy Death of the Gays & the Strange Demise of Straights (finalist for the 2016 Bisexual Book Awards) and Forget Yourself. They currently divide their time between Britain and Berlin, where they live with their two partners.
Jacqueline Koyanagi writes science fiction and fantasy featuring queer women of color, folks with disabilities, neuroatypical characters, and diverse relationship styles. Her debut novel, Ascension, was released from Masque/Prime books at the end of 2013, and landed on the 2014 James Tiptree Jr. Honor List. Folks can find her work at jkoyanagi.com, and she’s active on Twitter @jkoyanagi.
Pronouns: they/them/their. B R Sanders is a white, genderqueer writer who lives and works in Denver, CO, with their family and two cats. B writes about queer elves, mostly, as featured in their two novels, the award-winning ARIAH and their debut novel RESISTANCE, both of which are set in the same universe. Their writing can be found here: https://brsanderswrites.com/
RoAnna Sylver (Amazon) is passionate about stories that give hope, healing and even fun for LGBT, disabled and other marginalized people, and thinks we need a lot more. Aside from writing oddly hopeful dystopia books, she is a blogger, artist, singer and voice actor. She lives with family and a small snorking dog, and probably spends too much time playing videogames. She has recently released a rewritten 2nd edition of Chameleon Moon, which she says is a lot more true to myself and the original intent—and has a lot more poly/nonbinary/asexual-explicit content.
The TFF-X (The Future Fire—ten years) anthology will contain 15 reprinted or slightly revised stories, plus at least as many new pieces that we hope will give an idea of the sort of things we’d like to see more of in the magazine in the future. We’re enthusiastically looking forward to the next decade, as well as celebrating the last one.
If you think you can help us to exemplify different and experimental modes/kinds of social-political, diverse, progressive and speculative stories, we’d love to hear from you. Some of our ideas are listed below. We're looking for very short pieces, so 500-1000 words is about right (or equivalent, for comics/poetry). We'll pay $20 per piece, and this call will remain open until we have the 5-10 new pieces we need to fill the volume (or until the end of October at the latest, at which point we'll have to firm up the table of contents if we’re to publish the anthology before the end of 2015). If you have any other experimental ideas—try us! Email your submissions or pitch ideas to fiction@futurefire.net with a subject line beginning “TFF-X submission: (title of work)” and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
Genre, style or conceit (many of these can be summed up as “ekphrasis”—a representation of one art form via the medium of another):
Story written as a theater or radio play, or as an interview
Story written as a pitch for a TV show or web series
Story in the form of an online user review for a science-fictional/fantastic product (hoverboard, replicator, magic wand? You can think of something more original than this!)
Design a poster or one-page advert for a made-up book or film
Story in the form of a critical review of a non-existent book (no spoilers!)
Story in the form of a user guide for a videogame or a module for an RPG
Story told via a letter or letters (letter to a magazine advice column; letter of complaint; rejection letter for a job/story/grant; letter of condolence/congratulation; any letter that isn’t just the sender telling a story to the recipient)
Theme, content or medium (can be combined with one of the above, if you want to be hyper-efficient):
Stories written largely/partly (or with dialogue) in a language or dialect other than US-English—with no apology or translation for the reader
Bi/pansexual and trans/nonbinary characters (we do pretty well with queer representation otherwise)
Utopian story—a world that satirizes our own by being visibly better than it in some significant way (doesn’t have to be perfect)
Absurdist or nonsense piece—any combination of surrealism, dadaism, bizarro, dream-quest
Horror and dark fantasy (so many possible modes)
Poetry (any style; up to 40 lines)
Graphic/comics story (2-4 pages)
All stories should of course be social-political, diverse, intersectional, and all the others things that TFF want to see in fiction anyway! (If you would like to read more about what some of our editors would like to see more of in TFF in the future, the question has been addressed by Kathryn, Cécile, Valeria and Djibril in recent interviews. More suggestions welcome!)
Submission guidelines summary:
Length: approx. 500-1000 words (poems 40 lines, comics, 2-4 pages) Emailsubmissions as attachment to fiction@futurefire.net Deadline: October 31, 2015, or sooner if filled Pay: $20 (USD) per story, poem, comic, etc.
You've probably not missed that The Future Fire is this year celebrating a decade of publishing social-political and diverse speculative fiction, and is seeking your help to support us in keeping going for a few more years. In case anyone was wondering what sort of stories we hope to publish in the future, over the next few days we'll list some categories of stories we've published in the past, starting with LGBT or Quiltbag characters and themes. We're especially keen to see more fiction featuring bisexual/pansexual or trans/nonbinary protagonists and themes in the future; anyone have ideas for communities to reach out to for more of this kind of thing?
(It can be hard to categorize stories under simple headings, and I've tried to avoid duplication, so I apologize if anything below is not in the right part of the list, or I've inadvertently omitted anything.)
This time for our series on reader recommendations, where we shamelessly use you to add to our reading lists, we’d like to hear your suggestions of queer/LGBTQIA+ short stories that can be found online. To be clear, we want to hear about all the letters (and more) in that abbreviation, not just lesbian and gay stories, so hit us up with all the intersectional diversity you can think of. As always, to prime the pump we’ve asked a few editors, authors and other friends for their ideas. Read and enjoy, and then please tell us some of your favorites in the comments!
I first read Tim Pratt's story "Life in Stone" (Escape Pod 2006) in his excellent collection Hart & Boot. It seemed at first a fairly typical story that borrowed much of its premise from the ancient Slavic tales of Koschei the Deathless; a sorcerer has made himself immortal by placing his soul in an inanimate object and hiding it away. The trouble is that now, after many millennia of life, the sorcerer wants to die, and can no longer remember where his soul is hidden. So he hires a skilled but aging mercenary/assassin to find his soul and end his life.
