#queer folklore

There are 11 days left in our Kickstarter to fund publishing our next anthology, Wild and Full of Marvels: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Folklore and Fairy Tales!

We’re sharing teasers from four more of the included works today, from artists Razz and Florilége and from authors Zel Howland and J. D. Rivers! You can check out all the teasers using the links at the end of today’s post.

Learn more about what’s been created for this project:

Cover Reveal, art by Jinx Inks

Merch Reveal 1: Stickers by Alessa Riel and Elias Strunck, Bookmark by Jagoda Zirebiec

Merch Reveal 2: Enamel Pendant by Aceriee, Slate Coaster by Clare DeZutti

Merch Reveal 3: Journal by Aceriee, Art Print of the Front Cover, and Window Hanging by Betta

Contributor Post 1: zazrichor, Shea Sullivan, H. Armstrong, and T. L. Sly

Contributor Post 2: Cris Alborja, Kendall Pletcher, E. V. Dean, and Sage Mooreland

Hey y'all, I finished my research and would like to formerly introduce...

The Fabric of Identity: Using Clothing and Style to Communicate Gender Expression.

Project Summary: A free and accessible website about nonbinary and gender nonconforming people, their history, and how they use their style to interact with the world around them.

Includes:

What Does "Nonbinary" Mean?

Interviews with Nonbinary Folks

Identity Centric Events

The Effect of Digital Spaces

Further Reading and Resources

Community Building

Please give it some love!

found a cool ass wordpress blog. specifically bc of this gem:

Ethan: so what was this great discovery that you made about cave suckers?

huh huh huh???

Silence: I’m getting there. Calm down.

Ethan: how long will this take

where’s the climax?

Silence: Shhh! I’m still in literary foreplay mode: titillating you with suggestive foreshadowing ... giving just enough detail to inflame your desire for more, more, more, GOD YES, more ...

Ethan: aaaaaaah

the suspense

aaaaaaah

it’s like blue balls

but for a story

Silence: That’s the point. I’m building sexual narrative tension. >:}

Ethan: oh baby

is it getting hot in this story

or is it just me? ;)

-from “Cave Suckers” in Cunning Linguists

Elizabeth A. Allen edits for a living and writes for fun. She lives in Vermont, where she was born and raised. Hardship somewhat resembles the town she grew up in, albeit with more puns, witches, and intergenerational drama. Her work appears in Master Works, We’re the Weird Aliens I, Strange Horizons, Gender Who?, the Williston Observer, the Essex Reporter, Outside In Regenerates, and The Shadow of the Gallifreyan.

What inspired you to write this story?

Storytelling can be a lot like sex -- sneaky, seductive, entertaining, and, at its best, transcendent. What better way to celebrate that similarity than to write a story have someone seducing someone by telling stories about people having sex?

What's the favorite sexy word of one of your story characters?

Silence thinks that the word "research" is incredibly hot. Ethan tells her than this is just because she has the weird idea that research itself is sexy, and she says, "That too!"

What stories are you working on now?

Silence and Ethan star in many stories about queer doings in Hardship, Vermont. This is the first one to be published, but hopefully more will follow.

Cunning Linguists comes out May 18th, 2022! This anthology of language, literature, and lechery is available at

Gumroad (use coupon code NEWSMUTPROJECTFAN for $1 off)

Amazon.com  Amazon.co.uk  Amazon.ca  Amazon.de  Amazon.fr  Amazon.es  Amazon.com.mx   Amazon.co.jp   Amazon.it   Amazon.nl   Amazon.com.br  Amazon.com.au   Amazon.in

Smashwords

Support indie bookstores when you buy a paperback copy through Bookshop.org

Barnes and Noble

Indiebound (where you can arrange to get a copy through your local bookstore)

Book Depository

Alibris

Other retailers – Books2Read

If you’re interested in fantasy and folklore, slice of life friendship stories, and genuine LGBTQ+ characters written by creators of the same community, go ahead and check out their page!!

The Princess of China

Albanian folktale, published in 1879 by Auguste Dozon, translated by Robert Elsie.

[Cw: Cross dressing used as deception, but never maliciously.]

This tale follows a Prince and his friend the son of the Grand Vizier. The latter dresses and presents as a woman on two separate occasions. Once to meet the princess of China and tell her his friend is in love with her, once to pretend to be the princess, so he can go get married in her place while she runs off with the prince. Then this happens:

When the son of the Grand Vizier arrived, he was led to the house of the groom with all the pomp and ceremony of a royal wedding. It was the custom there for the sisters of the groom to spend the first three nights with the bride, but the three sisters could not agree which one of them was to go first. The queen, the groom's mother, decided that the youngest daughter, whom she loved the most, should spend the first night with the bride. After the first night, the youngest daughter fell in love with the bride and begged her mother to let her spend the second night there too. The second night, she realized that the bride was actually a young man and said to him, "Tell me the truth, are you a man or a woman?" "I am a man," he replied, " and then told her the story of what had happened. She saw that he was very handsome and said, "I'd like to marry you but I don't know whether you want me." "Oh yes, I do."

I’ve gathered some new gender nonconforming folktales since making part 1, so it’s time for a new post! Again, please keep in mind these are all translations and products of their time. I will still attempt to put some modern-day labels on them to make them easier to navigate:

The Story of the Maiden-Knight Indian legend, published in 1916, based on the Mahabharata.

[Cw: being outed, threat of violence, awkward use of pronouns.]

A king prays for a son to go to battle his enemy, but the god Shiva reveals to him that he “should have a son who should first be a daughter”. Accordingly the child born to them – Shikhandi – is raised as a boy and married to a princess. When he finds out the situation the bride’s father is furious however, and wants to go to war over it. Shikhandi goes into the forest, in the hope that without him there will be no war. There he meets a kind Yakshas (nature spirit) who is willing to lend Shikhandi his manhood until he has saved his father from this threat. But when the king of the Yakshas finds out about this he decrees that the Yakshas will not get his manhood back until Shikhandi’s death.

The Stirrup Moor Albanian folktale, published in 1895.

[Cw: violence, king attempts to steal son’s wives, some uncomfortable descriptions of a black person.]

A prince, through his many adventures, wins the love of three wives: one human lady, one jinn princess, and one Earthly Beauty (a type of fae-like spirit from the underworld). The latter of the three regularly changes between her supernatural female shape and her chosen human form, that of a black man. In this male shape he is a formidable warrior and helps protect both the prince and the other wives. All four eventually live happily ever after.

The Boy-Girl and the Girl-Boy A Gond folktale from Central India, published in 1944.

[Cw: attempt at being outed, awkward use of gendered terms and pronouns, some doubt as to whether the AFAB protagonist is completely happy with the physical change.]

An AFAB child is adopted by a Raja, who accepts him as his son. Near the palace an old woman raises one of her many AMAB children as a girl and arranges a marriage for her. The young couple is very startled at finding out they have “the same parts” but there are not other repercussions. Later the young wife doesn’t dare to go bathing with the other women and meets the Raja’s adopted son, who has run away and changed himself into a bird. The bird offers to “exchange parts” and both protagonists end the story with a body matching their presented gender.

The Girl Who Became a Boy Albanian folktale, published in 1879.

[Cw: preoccupation with sexual ability, attempts to kill protagonist.]

AFAB protagonist answers the king’s call for warriors, dressed as a man. After several great deeds the young man wins a princess’s hand in marriage in another kingdom. He is liked at the court, but they feel obliged to get rid of him because he seems unable to consummate his marriage. He survives every dangerous task, however, and finally is sent to confront a snake infested church. The snakes curse him to become a boy, after which he returns to the court and all ends well.