Getting back into reading can be tricky. One of the best ways to dive back into it is to pick up an anthology. They're a great way to consume stories - short and sweet, perfect if you only have 30 minutes on your commute to work, and if you're not vibing with what you're currently reading just flip a few pages ahead and start something new. From queer comic collections to terrifying horror, and stories of trans joy, here are fifteen LGBTQ+ anthologies for every kind of reader:
YA Fantasy Anthology - Fiction
Queer Rep: Trans & Non-Binary
Reading Age: 14+
This anthology claims a seat at the table of fantasy literature for trans and gender-nonconforming stories.
Transness is as varied and colorful as magic can be. In Transmogrify!, you’ll embark on fourteen different adventures alongside unforgettable characters who embody many different genders and expressions and experiences—because magic is for everyone, and that is cause for celebration.
Featuring stories from AR Capetta and Cory McCarthy, G. Haron Davis, Mason Deaver, Jonathan Lenore Kastin, Emery Lee, Saundra Mitchell, Cam Montgomery, Ash Nouveau, Sonora Reyes, Renee Reynolds, Dove Salvatierra, Ayida Shonibar, Francesca Tacchi and Nik Traxler.
Horror/Short Stories - Fiction
Queer Rep: Queer Women
Reading Age: 18+
This startling and irresistibly witty collection from the phenomenally talented Moïra Fowley is an exploration of all our darkest impulses and deepest fears.
What will the end of the world look like? Will it be an old man slowly turned to gold, flowers raining from the sky, or a hole cut through the wire fencing that keeps the monsters out?
Is it someone you love wearing your face, or a good old fashioned inter-dimensional summoning? Does it sound like a howl outside the window, or does it look like coming home?
Romance Comic Anthology - Fiction
Queer Rep: Queer Men, Trans Men
Reading Age: 14+
An original graphic novel anthology of queer male romances by a host of amazing queer male (cis/trans) creators.
Haphazard pirates, wayward ghosts, dashing knights, rampaging kaiju (and down-to-earth regular joes!) are all assembled here to amaze and delight you in a wildly unique anthology celebrating love between men, from an astounding array of comics creators who know exactly how it feels.
Young Men in Love is a heartwarming, uplifting, and vibrant return to the glory days of romance comics!
Contemporary Erotic Fiction - Fiction
Queer Rep: Trans & Queer Cast
Reading Age: 18+
Daring, witty, and strange, the twelve stories in Large Animals confront what it means to have a body. Jess Arndt's often-unnamed narrators battle with inhabiting a form that makes them feel both deeply uncomfortable and detached, constantly challenging the limits of gender and reality as they try to connect with other people and with themselves. These are stories that rebel against accepted ideas of human identity and present a new normal that is as ambiguous as it is messy.
Soupy, visceral, and often disconcerting, Large Animals sets a new standard for language, challenging our concepts of gender and body in a way that feels radical, insightful, and incredibly relevant.
Contemporary Short Stories - Fiction
Queer Rep: Queer Cast
Reading Age: 18+
Cornish mermaids take to the football pitch to protest warming seas. Trans students in Manchester searching for the perfect dick accidentally warp the fabric of spacetime. England's worst pogrom comes for York's particle collider, powered by bread and gender energy.
On Bournemouth beach, a storm delivers an ancestor across oceans of time to sire a drowning descendant. The devil stands a drink at London's famous gay pub, The Black Cap, while Artemis, in the guise of Joan of Arc, roams a life-or-death night in East Sussex.
This is England, (but not?) as we know it. A queer quantum tour through what was, what is, what could have been and may yet still come to pass, in a collection that braids high-wire believe-it-or-not memoir with cutting-edge science fiction (or is it?) from alternate timelines that vibrate very close to ours.
Anthology & Memoir - Non-Fiction
Queer Rep: LGBTQ+ Cast
Reading Age: 18+
A ground-breaking collection featuring the compelling and courageous memoirs of eighteen queer Arab writers – some internationally bestselling, others using pseudonyms. Here, we find heart-warming connections and moments of celebration alongside essays exploring the challenges of being LGBTQ+ and Arab.
From a military base in the Gulf to loving whispers caught between the bedsheets; and from touring overseas as a drag queen to a concert in Cairo where the rainbow flag was raised to a crowd of thousands, this collection celebrates the true colours of a vibrant Arab queer experience.
Memoir/Anthology - Non-Fiction
Queer Rep: Trans & Non-Binary
Reading Age: 18+
In this groundbreaking anthology, nineteen trans, non-binary, agender, gender-fluid and intersex writers share their experiences of gender euphoria: an agender dominatrix being called ‘Daddy’, an Arab trans man getting his first tattoos, a trans woman embracing her inner fighter.
What they have in common are their feelings of elation, pride, confidence, freedom and ecstasy as a direct result of coming out as non-cisgender, and how coming to terms with their gender has brought unimaginable joy into their lives.
Romance Comic Anthology - Fiction
Queer Rep: LGBTQ+ Cast
Reading Age: 16+
The flutter of first dates, the thrill of a text-back, the heart-stopping seconds before coming out, and the rush when finally discovering who you truly are - all of these life-changing moments across the full spectrum of LGBTQIA+ experience are ready to explore in this bright and inspiring comics anthology!
The Color of Always is a collection of personal stories, testimonies, heirlooms, evocations, and evangelisms for queer creators and readers that celebrates feeling good about who you are, and coming into your own at last.
Featuring stories and art from BRENT FISHER, MARIO CANDELARIA, PRIYA SAXENA, MICHELE ABOUNADER, JAZZLYN STONE, ELISA ROMBOLI, LAURA HELSBY, RACHEL DISTLER, KATIE HICKS, LIANA KANGAS, and many more!
Erotic Sci-Fi/Fantasy - Fiction
Queer Rep: Queer Cast
Reading Age: 18+
In these ten stories, everything is sex: walls, wax, the past, your future, your neighbours, hankies, candles, circuit boards, petri dishes, scrap metal – and language itself. Conjuring experiences for which there are no words, our amazing queer authors generate new tongues from the heat of their communing with a wild variety of lifeforms.
From Diriye Osman’s spiritualised Peckham to Jem Nash’s time-travelling trans multiverse, these stories transport you to new ways of being and feeling.
Whether you get horny from aliens, ghosts, robots, utopia, possession, ritual, or the completely surreal, there’s a story here for you. But why stop at one when you can taste pleasure in each and every one?
YA Fantasy/Anthology - Fiction
Queer Rep: LGBTQ+ Cast
Reading Age: 14+
QUEER WE GO AGAIN! A follow-up to the critically acclaimed All Out anthology, Out Now features seventeen new short stories from amazing queer YA authors.
Vampires crash prom, aliens run from the government, a president’s daughter comes into her own, a true romantic tries to soften the heart of a cynical social media influencer, a selkie and the sea call out to a lost soul. Teapots and barbershops, skateboards and VW vans, Street Fighter and Ares’s sword.
Out Now has a story for every reader and surprises with each turn of the page!
Queer Comic Anthology - Non-Fiction
Queer Rep: Trans & Non-binary
Reading Age: 17+
A vibrant and affirming comics anthology where 29 trans & nonbinary comic artists share their personal journeys of self-discovery and acceptance.
Featuring the work of Sage Coffey, Kyla Aiko, and Coco Ouwerkerk, The Out Side: Trans & Nonbinary Comics includes 29 creators' tales of self-love and affirmation and detailing their experiences with gender and identity.
Equal parts encouraging, comforting, and life-affirming, The Out Side is a love letter to the trans and nonbinary community, designed to inspire anyone who may be struggling with their own identity and to help educate those who seek greater understanding.r mom. But when he confesses to that crime while on death row, she has no choice but to return to his old hunting grounds to try see if she can find a body and prove it.
Erotic Stories - Fiction & Non-Fiction
Queer Rep: Queer Cast
Reading Age: 18+
Boyfriends masquerade as straight bros to have fun on an early internet porn site. Sex on Viagra; sex on acid. A lesbian bar sells out, turning barflies into doms for hire. In Spain, an exchange student lets two young men flip a coin to see who will have her. A stranger on a train. A collegiate lesbian ‘it’ couple.
Whether an insult or badge of honor, an identity or a state of mind, SLUTS engages some of the hottest minds of the moment to riff on the subject, exploring the nature of desire and its cultural consequences, creating a collection bound to become a classic of sex writing.
Horror/Short Stories - Fiction
Queer Rep: Queer Cast
Reading Age: 18+
In this deliciously strange debut collection, Leon Craig draws on folklore and gothic horror in refreshingly inventive ways to explore queer identity, love, power and the complicated nature of being human.
Some say that hell is other people and some say hell is loneliness . . .
In the thirteen darkly audacious stories of Parallel Hells we meet a golem, made of clay, learning that its powers far exceed its Creator's expectations; a ruined mansion which grants the secret wishes of a group of revelers and a notorious murderer who discovers her Viking husband is not what he seems.
YA Short Stories/Anthology - Fiction
Queer Rep: Queer Cast
Reading Age: 14+
A stirring, bold and moving anthology of stories and poetry by top LGBTQ+ YA authors and new talent, giving their unique responses to the broad theme of pride. Each story has an illustration by an artist identifying as part of the LGBTQ+ community.
A celebration of LGBTQ+ talent, PROUD is a thought-provoking, funny, emotional read. Contributors: Steve Antony, Dean Atta, Kate Alizadeh, Fox Benwell, Alex Bertie, Caroline Bird, Fatti Burke, Tanya Byrne, Moira Fowley-Doyle, Frank Duffy, Simon James Green, Leo Greenfield, Saffa Khan, Karen Lawler, David Levithan, Priyanka Meenakshi, Alice Oseman, Michael Lee Richardson, David Roberts, Cynthia So, Kay Staples, Jessica Vallance, Kristen Van Dam and Kameron White. Edited by Juno Dawson
Science Fiction Short Stories - Fiction
Queer Rep: Queer Cast
Reading Age: 18+
Time-travel is a way for writers to play with history and imagine different futures – for better, or worse.
When romance is thrown into the mix, time-travel becomes a passionate tool, or heart-breaking weapon. A time agent in the 22nd century puts their whole mission at risk when they fall in love with the wrong person. No matter which part of history a man visits, he cannot not escape his ex. A woman is desperately in love with the time-space continuum, but it doesn’t love her back. As time passes and falls apart, a time-traveller must say goodbye to their soulmate.
With stories from best-selling and award-winning authors such as Seanan McGuire, Alix E. Harrow and Nina Allan, this anthology gives a taste for the rich treasure trove of stories we can imagine with love, loss and reunion across time and space.
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