It is the launch day for Of Fire and Stars, our anthology of LGBTQIA+ characters and we are so excited to showcase these wonderful authors and their works.
Over the last year since announcing this project, I have had a few people question my intent and reasonings for putting together an anthology like this. My answer is simple. Representation. Representation is everything. Seeing characters within pages of books, on television and on the internet that we can relate to, see ourselves in, see our friends and family in, is everything.
S.O. Green says it best with their Foreword to the book itself, so I will leave that with you.
Foreword by S.O. Green
This is a book about fae. Some of these fae are gay. Some of them are lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer. While this isn’t necessarily a book that depicts fairies as an allegory for the LGBTQ+ experience, every story contains LGBTQ+ characters, and every story contains fairies. The rest was up to the authors.
In these pages, you’ll read stories about characters who lose their voices, characters who have to hide who they really are, characters learning how to love, characters struggling just to survive. Some are fae, some are human, but every single one of them is interesting and real.
The stories also had to be dark. Fire and stars are so much more enchanting in the dark, aren’t they?
We’re lucky to be living in a time when there’s so much diversity emerging in the fantasy genre, and when representation matters to so many people. During the Pulp era and ‘Golden Age’ of speculative fiction, queer characters were only ever villains, if they weren’t entirely absent, or at least hidden.
Even during the New Wave, when LGBTQ+ themes started to gain traction in the genre, it was a slow uptake. So many publishers were worried about offending their primary demographic, and writers brave enough to openly confront the issue suffered for it.
It’s a far cry from the era of myths and legends that stories of the fae originate from, a time when sex was powerful but borderless, and gender was second to the business of living through the day. Gods and heroes could be either and neither and everything in between, and so could the mysterious creatures in the wild spaces of the world.
When early humans anthropomorphised nature, they imagined beings much like themselves. Fierce, but capable of kindness. Petty, but willing to be appeased. It’s not a surprise that many of them were also queer.
Maybe that’s why an anthology combining LGBTQ+ themes and the fae seemed like such a perfect fit. We’re paying homage to our mythological roots. After all, fae can be anything and everything they set their minds to. It’s a freedom everyone should enjoy.
This book is at the intersection of sexuality and gender identity, mythology and modernity. Sometimes sexy, sometimes sinister, sometimes heroic and sometimes harrowing. It’s beautiful and eclectic and different, just like life. Just like all of us.
It’s a book about how queerness is in the bones of the world, in its forests and streams, in its myths and legends, as natural as any other force of nature. As natural as fire and stars.
~ Simone
If this book sounds like something you would love to devour, please consider grabbing yourself a copy!
Ebook available on Amazon and Kindle unlimited
Paperback and Hardcover are available where ever books are available, through amazon and directly through us!
Did you know you can ask your local bookstore or library to carry a copy of this book?
All you have to do is call or email and request it! Simply let them know the name of the book and the ISBN. The more you know. :)
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-990245-61-9
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-990245-62-6