Glitter + Ashes

by Dave Ring

  To the contributors who signed up from jump: Christopher Caldwell-Kelly, Cherae Clark, Marianne Kirby, Jordan Kurella, LeKesha Lewis, and Brendan Williams-Childs. Doubly so to Marianne, who tolerated all manner of other questions and provided innumerable thoughtful suggestions. To Molly, for sharing her thoughts on many of the early stories to come in. To Charles Payseur, for hosting a post-apocalyptic conversation at Quick Sip Reviews.

  To the writers who added their voices to discussions on Twitter about queer community and disability in the apocalypse: R J Theodore, Nibedita Sen, Andi C. Buchanan, Christopher Caldwell-Kelly, Morgan Swim, Juliet Kemp, Ada Hoffman, V. Medina, and Jordan Kurella.

  To Avery Alder, who graciously allowed me to include her game Dream Askew in these pages. Time and again, I’m struck by Avery’s reminder that there are folks experiencing collapse now, every day, even before the world experienced a global pandemic. I hope those of you who haven’t played a tabletop game before will consider telling stories together through Avery’s beautiful system.

  To Grace, for your stunning cover. I’m so grateful for the thought and detail you put into every aspect of it. I’ll confess, I’ve never been drawn to rainbow flags, but the tattered colors you hung over this ragged crew speak to me.

  To Michael and Ian and the Mason Jar Press crew. I’d never be here without Broken Metropolis.

  To Bobby, always.

  And to all the other friends, family, and queers in the pub who cheered me on along the way.

  Saida Agostini is a queer Afro-Guyanese poet whose work explores the ways that Black folks harness mythology to enter the fantastic. Saida’s poetry can be found in Barrelhouse Magazine, the Black Ladies Brunch Collective’s anthology, Not Without Our Laughter, and her first collection, just let the dead in. Saida is a Cave Canem Graduate Fellow and has been awarded honors and support for her work by the Watering Hole and Blue Mountain Center, as well as a 2018 Rubys Grant.

  Avery Alder is a queer roleplaying game designer hailing from Sinixt territory. She’s the designer of Monsterhearts, The Quiet Year, Dream Askew, Ribbon Drive, and a host of smaller, scrappier projects. Avery’s work blends facilitation, design, and play—bringing keen curiosity and visionary imagination to how we create together. In her design and play, she gravitates toward the moody, the personal, and the transformative.

  Elly Bangs is a queer trans woman who was raised in a new-age cult, had six wisdom teeth, and once rode her bicycle alone from Seattle to the Panama Canal. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, Beneath Ceasless Skies, Escape Pod, Fireside Quarterly, and elsewhere -- and her debut apocalyptic cyberpunk novel, Unity, comes out in Spring 2021. She’s a 2017 graduate of Clarion West.

  Phoebe Barton is a queer trans science fiction writer. Her short fiction has appeared in venues such as Analog, On Spec, and Kaleidotrope, and anthologies from Bundoran Press and Alliteration Ink. She serves as an Associate Editor at Escape Pod, and is a 2019 graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop. She lives with a robot in the sky above Toronto. You can connect with her on Twitter at @aphoebebarton or her website phoebebartonsf.com.

  Christopher Caldwell is a queer, Black American living abroad in Glasgow, Scotland. His work has appeared in Strange Horizons, FIYAH, and Uncanny Magazine. He is @seraph76 on Twitter.

  Josie Columbus is a trans woman who strives to use her writing to normalize and celebrate the queer experience through the lens of speculative fiction. She started making up stories before she actually knew how to write, and since then writing has become both her passion and her favorite pastime. Her work has also appeared in the magazines Eldritch Lake and Trouble Among the Stars, and she is currently working toward publishing her first novel.

  C.L. Clark graduated from Indiana University’s creative writing MFA. She’s been a personal trainer, an English teacher, and an editor, and is some combination thereof as she travels the world. When she’s not writing or working, she’s learning languages, doing P90something, or reading about war and [post-]colonial history. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in FIYAH, PodCastle, Uncanny and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Now she’s one of the co-editors at PodCastle.

  Trip Galey is a writer, a PhD student, and a researcher of all things pursuant to bargains, exchanges, and compacts of a faery nature. It is inadvisable to attempt to make a deal with him. He has been, in the past, a reluctant cowboy, an Ivy League collegian, and an itinerant marketing professional. Mostly harmless. Find him at www.tripgaley.com.

  Blake Jessop is a Canadian author of sci-fi, fantasy and horror stories with a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Adelaide. You can read more of his queer speculative fiction in Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline from World Weaver Press, or follow him on Twitter @everydayjisei.

  Marianne Kirby writes about bodies both real and imagined. She plays with the liminal space between vanishing and visibility. She authored Dust Bath Revival and its sequel Hogtown Market; she co-authored Lessons from the Fatosphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce with Your Body. Marianne has contributed to women’s interest publications, news outlets, and tv shows that require people to have opinions. She has been published by the Guardian, xoJane, the Daily Dot, Bitch Magazine, Time, and others.

  Jordan Kurella is a queer and disabled author who has lived all over the world (including Moscow and Manhattan). In their past lives, they were a barista, radio DJ, and social worker. Their work has been featured in Apex, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Strange Horizons Magazines. Find them on Twitter (@jskurella), or at jordankurella.com.

  L.D. Lewis is an award-winning SF/F writer and editor, and serves as a founding creator, Art Director, and Project Manager for the World Fantasy Award-winning and Hugo Award-nominated FIYAH Literary Magazine. She is the author of A Ruin of Shadows (Dancing Star Press, 2018) and her published short fiction includes appearances in FIYAH, PodCastle, Anathema: Spec from the Margins, Strange Horizons, and Fireside Magazine, among others. She lives in Georgia with her coffee habit and an impressive Funko Pop! collection. Visit her website at ldlewiswrites.com and follow her on Twitter @ellethevillain.

  Otter Lieffe is a working class, femme, trans woman and the author of three trans feminist novels. A grassroots community organiser for over two decades, Otter has worked and organised in Europe, the Middle East and Latin America with a particular focus on the intersection of gender, queerness and environmental struggles. If you fall in love with Dee and Rob, the characters from this story, you can read more of their adventures in Otter’s new novel, Dignity. www.otterlieffe.com

  Darcie Little Badger is a Lipan Apache writer with a PhD in oceanography. Her debut novel, Elatsoe, will publish with Levine Querido in August 2020. Darcie co-wrote Strangelands, a comic series in the Humanoids H1 universe. Her short fiction, nonfiction and comics have appeared in multiple places, including Nightmare Magazine, Strange Horizons, and The Dark. She is engaged to a veterinarian who cosplays as both Cassandra Pentaghast and Luke Skywalker.

  A.Z. Louise is a civil engineer-turned-writer of speculative things, whose conure keeps them company during the writing process. When not reading or writing, they can be found playing folk harp, knitting, or weaving. Their work has been published in Strange Horizons, FIYAH, and NightLight Podcast.

  V. Medina is a queer, nonbinary, disabled, mixed-race author and occasional creative corvid who lives in lower Kentucky. Their stories are anything from sweet to strange and they delight in showing the world the odd things that live in their brain. They can be found on Twitter @howsweettheword and their website is at howsweetthewords.com

  Michael Milne is a writer and teacher originally from Canada, now largely from nowhere. He has tried the patience of cafe owners and baristas worldwide. He writes sad stories about spaceships, ghosts, and spaceship ghosts. Find him online at

  www.michaelmilne.ca or on Twitter @ironcardigan.

  Anthony Moll is a Queer writer and educator. Their debut memoir, Out of Step, won a 2018 Lambda Literary Award and the 2017 Non
/Fiction Prize. Anthony holds an MFA in creative writing & publishing arts, and they are a PhD candidate at Morgan State University. Their work has appeared in a variety of publications, including the Times Literary Supplement, the Baltimore Sun, Hobart, Assaracus, jubilat and more.

  Mari Ness spent much of her life wandering the world and reading. This, naturally, trained her to do just one thing: write. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in multiple publications, including Tor.com, Clarkesworld Magazine, Lightspeed, Uncanny, Nightmare, Fireside, Strange Horizons and Apex. Her poetry novella, Through Immortal Shadows Singing, is available from Papaveria Press, and a collection of essays, Resistance and Transformation: On Fairy Tales, is forthcoming soon from Aqueduct Press. She lives in central Florida, with a scraggly garden, large trees harbouring demented squirrels, and numerous books. For more, visit her occasionally updated website at marikness.wordpress.com, or follow her on Twitter at @mari_ness.

  Aun-Juli Riddle is a writer and illustrator who lives in Baltimore, Maryland with her partner and trio of cats. She runs an online tea shoppe and enjoys traveling the country to sell magical wares and collect souvenir magnets. Find her online at www.aunjuli.art and on Twitter as @aunjuli.

  Lauren Ring (she/her) is a perpetually tired Jewish lesbian who writes about possible futures, for better or for worse. Her other short fiction can be found in or is forthcoming from Pseudopod, Helios Quarterly, and the Recognize Fascism anthology by World Weaver Press. When she isn’t writing speculative fiction, she is pursuing her career in UX design or attending to the many needs of her cat Moomin. You can see her latest work at laurenmring.com.

  Adam R. Shannon is a career firefighter/paramedic, Sturgeon Award-nominated writer, aspiring cook, and steadfast companion of dogs. His work has appeared in Apex, Nightmare, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019, and other magazines and anthologies. He’s a graduate of Clarion West 2017.

  A.P. Thayer is a Mexican-American author based out of Los Angeles. He writes grimdark fantasy, latino-futuristic magic-punk, and cosmic horror. His work has appeared in Made in LA volume 3, Five on the Fifth, and Murder Park After Dark. When he’s not writing speculative fiction, he can be found cooking for his friends, DMing a tabletop game, or hunting down street tacos. Find him at www.apthayer.com or on Twitter @apthayer

  R.J. Theodore is a creative magpie whose published work includes the Phantom Traveler series (self-published) and the Peridot Shift series (Parvus Press). They are co-host of the We Make Books podcast (@wmbcast). “A Future in Color” is R. J. Theodore’s first published short story. For more information, please visit rjtheodore.com.

  Izzy Wasserstein is a queer, trans woman who teaches writing and literature at a midwestern university and writes poetry and fiction. Her work has appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, Apex Magazine, Fireside Magazine, and elsewhere. She shares a home with her spouse, Nora E. Derrington, and their animal companions. She’s an enthusiastic member of the 2017 class of Clarion West.

  Brendan Williams-Childs is a writer from Laramie, Wyoming who now lives elsewhere. His work has previously appeared in Meanwhile Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy from Transgender Writers, Nat. Brut, and Catapult.

  About the Editor

  dave ring is the chair of the OutWrite LGBTQ Book Festival in Washington, DC. His short fiction has been featured or is forthcoming in publications including Fireside Fiction, GlitterShip, and A Punk Rock Future. He is the publisher and managing editor of Neon Hemlock Press, as well as the editor of Broken Metropolis: Queer Tales of a City That Never Was from Mason Jar Press.

  More info at www.dave-ring.com. Follow him at @slickhop.

  About the Press

  Neon Hemlock is an emerging purveyor of zines, novellas, queer chapbooks, and speculative fiction. Learn more at www.neonhemlock.com and on Twitter at @neonhemlock.