Happy Pride month once again! This is a time when I'm always happy to report there are tons of queer stories just out for your hungry eyeballs and this year is exceptionally good, with a host of stories from regular publications but also a lot of special releases to make sure no one goes for want of a queer SFF story this month. The biggest venues are Decoded Pride (enjoying its second year) and Unburied, an anthology of queer dark SFF. Both are so very worth checking out. There's also a new issue of Prismatica with four original stories (and poetry that I don't list here but that you should totally check out). Shoreline of Infinity had two original stories in the big issue #23, and Mermaids Monthly had two as part of their entirely queer-created issue #6. GigaNotoSaurus, Strange Horizons, The Dark, Nightmare, Fantasy, and more all had single stories out, which makes for a nice assortment of stories to choose from. So get out there, read some gloriously queer SFF, and stay fabulous! Cheers!
The rules/disclaimer: judging what is and what is not queer short SFF is fraught and I own that I will probably miss things that were definitely queer that I couldn't tell were intended to be queer or that I missed in the text itself. Which is how I try to decide what goes on and what does not. That said, this list is not meant to be comprehensive nor definitive. It's based largely on my own reading of stories or the intention of the author (through asking to be included on the list). If you have stories that I've missed, or if I've included stories you don't want on this list, please let me know and I will do what I can to edit. Further, stories on this list are not necessarily recommended for their queer content, and I make no requirement that stories must be #ownvoices. If you want more notes on any of the stories that I have read, you can search them on Quick Sip Reviews for possible content warnings. Thank you!
"The HazMat Sisters", L.X. Beckett (Asimov's)
“A Gift from the Queen of Faerie to the King of Hell”, Cara Masten DiGirolamo (Fantasy)
"Watchhouse", Ephiny Gale (The Dread Machine)
“Empty Houses”, Caspian Gray (Nightmare)
“Worth the Whistling”, Adriana C. Grigore (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
“At the Mouth of the Sea”, Tamara Jerée (Mermaids Monthly)
“Boy or Girl?”, Haruka Mugihara, translated, Toshiya Kamei (Shoreline of Infinity)
“Breath”, S. A. McKenzie (Prismatica)
"#Storyteller", Jamie Munn
“Him Without Her and Her Within Him”, Aimee Ogden (Zooscape)
“Someday My Prince Will Come”, Briar Ripley Page (Prismatica)
“Allegory of the Man”, Alix Perry (Prismatica)
“The Wolf at the Door”, Anthony Raymond (Prismatica)
“Welcome, Karate”, Sara Saab (The Dark)
“Not the Brightest Starfish in the Sea”, Rod M. Santos (Mermaids Monthly)
“Follow”, T. R. Siebert (Future Science Fiction Digest)
“The Spectral Horde of Jen”, D.A. Xiaolin Spires (Shoreline of Infinity)
“Papa’s Gonna Buy You a Mockingbird”, Julian Stuart (Fireside Magazine)
“Scoria”, Liza Wemakor (Strange Horizons)
“The Enchanted Gardener”, Jessica Yang (GigaNotoSaurus)
Unburied: A Collection of Queer Dark Fiction (Dark Ink Books, edited by Rebecca Rowland)
“Sweet Dreams”, M.C. St. John
“Night Follows Night”, Greg Herren
“Flawed”, Felice Picano
“When the Dust Settles”, Sarah Lyn Eaton
“I Can’t Wait to Become a Man”, Thomas Kearnes
“Open Up and Let Me In”, Laura DeHaan
“The Red Candle”, Louis Stephensen
“Razor, Knife”, Elin Olausson
“The Procedure”, Daniel M. Jaffe
“Moi Aussi”, Christina Delia
“The Other Boy”, Laramie Dean
“Cut Off Your Nose to Spite Your Race”, J. Askew
“For The Gods”, Robert P. Ottone
“Some Kind of Monster”, Azzurra Nox
“1,000 Tiny Cuts”, Veronica Zora Kirin
“Blessed”, George Daniel Lea
Decoded Pride #2 (edited by Sara Century, Monika Estrella Negra, and S.E. Fleenor)
“Re: The Abomination That Sprung From My Mind”, Jennifer Tran
“Suga and CC”, Maurice Moore
“Neck and Neck”, Hay Mulholland
“Love, Satan”, J.D. Harlock
“Anomalous”, S.E. Fleenor
“Homebodies”, Arwen Meereboer
“Sisters of the Whispering Inferno”, Kayleigh Hearn
“Delan at the Shrine”, Dora Dee Rogers
“Volcanic Glass”, Kai Hudson
“Not Alone”, Nireleet
“An Offering to the Sun”, dave ring
“The Hunting Ground”, AJ Hartson
“The Other Boy and the Lake”, Leon Locke
“The Beacon of Influencership”, Monika Estrella Negra
“Vivicus”, Shaya French
“Agents of CLAW”, Jeffrey Brown + Ink
“The Door Knocker”, Christopher Luis-Jorge
“More Efficient Than A Guillotine”, S.B. Edwards
“Soil and Starlight”, Gio E.
“Necessary Evils of Survival”, Yuna Briggs
“Slipping, but Not Falling”, Sara Century
“Doctors, Mothers, Soldiers, Ghosts”, V. Astor Solomon
“Emma, Vick, and Mary”, Silena Nikolopoulou
“Determined”, Ciko Sidzumo
“Deepest Chinatown”, Emmalia Harrington
“Two Strong Arms to Defend Myself”, Peter Vulfranc
“In a Place Like This”, Robin Quinn
“Molt”, Elijah Marrone
“The Illiad Improved”, AriadneTzn
“A Murder of Crows”, Akil Wingate