Queer Horror has been around for a long time in various literary forms, but the 2000s (or the Aughts) proved to be a landmark decade for the emerging subgenre, bookmarked on one end by Michael Rowe's Queer Fear, and on the other end by the release of Lee Thomas' In the Closet, Under the Bed (on the very last day of the decade, in fact) and I want to share some of the major highlights of the decade from my vantage point. If you have additional Queer Horror landmarks to add, please comment on this posting.
Brief Background
Before the 2000s, the film Gods and Monsters brought the concept of Queer Horror to the popular consciousness in 1998, winning Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards (Clive Barker was executive producer). The release of this movie was the first time that the horror genre and queer theory came together in my mind (in a conscious, concrete way). Before that Anne Rice enthralled readers with homoerotic vampires, and gay vampire erotica existed as a popular gay genre. Most importantly, Clive Barker had established himself as a master of the horror genre over previous decades, and I would venture to say Queer Horror would not exist without his seminal literary efforts. But my history of Queer Horror in the Aughts begins with the landmark release of Queer Fear, published by Arsenal Pulp and edited by Michael Rowe, in the year 2000. This book started a new chain of events for the literature of Queer Horror.
Milestone #1: Michael Rowe's Queer Fear
With the release of Queer Fear, the Queer Horror genre diverged from its origins of vampire erotica and became a more clearly defined branch of the horror genre. Michael Rowe's introduction to the book also established a new tradition for gay horror authors: sharing childhood stories about how the love of horror and the awareness of queer identity become wired together. Before Queer Fear, Michael Rowe also co-edited some collections of gay vampire stories, but I believe it was the release of Queer Fear that concretely established the literary subgenre of Queer Horror. I see the defining difference as this: Queer Fear splices together literary horror with the political underpinnings of Queer Theory established in works like Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Epistemology of the Closet. I'm not saying Queer Fear was the very first example of Queer Horror, but I am saying that Queer Fear was a cultural moment that established Queer Horror as a defined subgenre. In 2002, Rowe followed up with a second anthology called Queer Fear II, and this collection won the Lambda Award, which provided additional recognition of the emerging genre.
Major Books:
Queer Fear edited by Michael Rowe
Queer Fear II edited by Michael Rowe
A personal digression: in early 2004, I worked at a large independent bookstore in Bellingham, Washington; around the time that I discovered Rowe's Queer Fear books along with the horror collection in the Bending the Landscape series, I attended a group reading of authors on tour from Harrington Park Press. The group included Trebor Healey, Dan Boyle, Jim Tushinski, and Marshall Moore. After the reading, I was speaking with Marshall Moore, and I asked him what he knew about Queer Horror; he told me his next book had a monster on the cover--it turned out that he had written a collection of stories called Black Shapes in a Darkened Room, which was about to be published by Suspect Thoughts Press the following fall, and this collection contained Queer Horror stories. For me personally, it was meeting Marshall Moore and learning about Black Shapes that really started my interest in the Queer Horror genre. In the spring of 2006, I started this website and blog, and I began writing about Queer Horror. Almost immediately, I started to meet writers in the genre, including Rick Reed, Vince Liaguno, Lee Thomas, Steve Berman, and Michael Rowe--he allowed me to reprint his introduction to Queer Fear for the launch of the website.
Milestone #2: The Short Life of Haworth Positronic Press
From my perspective, the most significant Queer Horror literary events of the decade stem from the creation and subsequent demise of Greg Herren's Haworth Positronic Press, an imprint of Haworth and tied to Harrington Park Press (also a Haworth imprint). Before the creation of Positronic Press, Herren also edited a collection called Shadows of the Night: Queer Tales of the Uncanny and Unusual, which (along with Queer Fear) offers a significant contribution to Queer Horror. In fact, this collection includes one of my all-time favorite gay vampire stories, "Waiting for the Vampire" by William J. Mann. Also like Queer Fear, it includes an amazing lineup of queer writers. Under the editorial direction of Greg Herren, Haworth's Harrington Park Press published some of the best queer literature of the decade, including the authors from the reading I mentioned earlier. In the fall of 2006, I conducted an email interview with Greg Herren on this blog. This is some of what he had to say about Positronic Press:
One of the reasons we've decided to go with this imprint is because there are some really fine writers out there who can't find a publisher because of their queer themes or characters. The standard industry maxim seems to be 'if its queer and not about vampires, we don't want it.' I am interested in all forms of horror--but I want well written, literate books with strong plots, well developed believable characters, and interesting originality. If you want to do a vampire novel, don't give me warmed over Anne Rice. Give it a new twist, make it fresh and original again. I'd love to see stuff about the occult, witchcraft, curses, etc.
From my perspective at the time, this appeared to be the biggest event in the history of Queer Horror, an imprint that would specialize in gay horror and other speculative genres. And their first publications did not disappoint. Steve Berman's Vintage not only launched Haworth Positronic Press, but it also stands as one of the greatest Queer Horror novels of the decade. For me, Vintage was an electrifying read--it showed all of the promise of Queer Horror. In addition, I also heard that Lee Thomas (more about him later) had also signed with Positronic for a collection of short stories. And then--before it had a chance to gain momentum--Positronic Press was gone. Haworth had been acquired by another company, and the new parent company ditched the gay and lesbian imprints. Suddenly, all of these titles, including Berman's Vintage, Thomas's forthcoming collection, and titles like Marshall Moore's Concrete Sky and Max Pierce's Master of Seacliff were all out of print.
Major Books from Harrington Park Press and Haworth Positronic:
Vintage by Steve Berman
Shadows of the Night: Queer Tales of the Uncanny and Unusual edited by Greg Herren
Milestone #3: Lethe Press Publishes Lost Titles and Much More
Fortunately for Queer Horror, Steve Berman's Lethe Press rescued titles like Vintage and M. Christian's The Very Bloody Marys by reprinting them after the abandonment of Haworth's GLBT imprints. In addition to rescuing these lost titles, Lethe Press also began Wilde Stories in 2008, a yearly anthology of the best gay speculative fiction that includes work from top gay horror writers. And near the close of the decade, Lethe Press launched Icarus Magazine, which also offers Queer Horror and speculative fiction.
However, I believe Lethe Press' most significant contribution to the decade of Queer Horror is the release of Jameson Currier's The Haunted Heart in the fall of 2009. These stories exemplify the best of Queer Horror and contain significant offerings in the great literary tradition of the ghost story.
Here is a blurb from Vince Liaguno on this collection:
Jameson Currier's The Haunted Heart and Other Tales expands upon the usual ghost story tropes by imbuing them with deep metaphorical resonance to the queer experience. Infused with flawed, three-dimensional characters, this first-rate collection strikes all the right chords in just the right places. Equal parts unnerving and heartrending, these chilling tales are testament to Currier's literary prowess and the profound humanity at the core of his writing. Gay, straight, twisted like a pretzel--his writing is simply not to be missed by any reader with a taste for good fiction.
Major Books from Lethe Press:
The Haunted Heart by Jameson Currier
Vintage by Steve Berman (reprinted)
Milestone #4: Triptych of Terror
Alyson is a major cultural icon in the world of gay publishing. Before 2006, the publisher had some forays into horror (most notably Hal Bodner's Bite Club in 2005--they also published erotic vampire novels by authors like Michael Schiefelbein); however, Triptych of Terror: Chilling Tales by the Masters of Gay Horror was a milestone because it announced Alyson's recognition that Queer Horror (they call it Gay Horror) had arrived. I appreciated their selections as the "Masters of Gay Horror": John Michael Curlovich, Michael Rowe, and David Thomas Lord. All three novellas follow in the tradition of Queer Horror established by Queer Fear, diverging from the roots in erotica.
However, the most important component of Triptych of Terror is the inclusion of Michael Rowe's In October, which is one of the greatest works of Queer Horror ever written. This novella brilliantly captures the terror of bullying and gay bashing and creates a sympathetic, tortured young protagonist who makes desperate choices.
Here is an excerpt from Vince Liaguno's review of this novella:
Rowe creates a masterful work with In October, embracing the novella format like no writer in recent memory--so well as to fashion a thoroughly satisfying story. His depiction of Mikey’s teen angst is dead-on, uncannily capturing the emotional loneliness and physical torments that mark the high school experience certain to resonant with every reader--gay and straight alike--on some level. From the beautifully tender and believable scene in which Mikey admits his homosexuality to a receptive Wroxy to the harrowing roadside gay bashing that leads him to seek out otherworldly intervention, Rowe brings the reader into the experience with a remarkable ability that few writers today possess. It is no small feat that Rowe can make us care so deeply for the characters and a testament to his ability as a writer that he does so within the concise format of an 100+ page novella. In October is a deeply-felt metaphorical homage to the horrors of coming out and an unsettling depiction of the straight world in which we do it. Rowe’s tale of teenage anguish and loneliness is an exquisitely told cautionary tale, rich in visceral images of horror and the erotic.
Major Book:
Triptych of Terror by John Michael Curlovich, Michael Rowe, and David Thomas Lord
Milestone #5: Lee Thomas Proves He Is a Master of Queer Horror
Ever since I started my website in 2006, I was watching Lee Thomas' career--he had already won the Bram Stoker Award for his first novel, but I was waiting for another major novel that really established him as the brightest star in Queer Horror. And then he did it. Dust of Wonderland is a masterpiece. Here's an excerpt from my review:
Lee Thomas' Dust of Wonderland presents a complex portrait of a family divided by the identity crisis and turmoil of the protagonist, Ken Nicholson. Like Straub's Ghost Story, the past is back to haunt the present. For Ken Nicholson, this past involves his bizarre relationship with a sinister figure named Travis Brugier (definitely a shadow figure in the Jungian sense of the term)...In Dust of Wonderland (a true Queer Horror novel in the sense that it is written for a gay audience), the horror of the story, the mayhem unleashed by the powers of Travis Brugier, reflect powerful cultural anxieties about the collision of "queer lifestyle" and a traditional "family lifestyle."
Major Book:
Dust of Wonderland by Lee Thomas
Milestone #6: Dark Scribe Press Unleashes Unspeakable Horror
In the fall of 2007, Vince Liaguno, author of Literary Six, launched Dark Scribe Press. The first project for this small press was to create a new anthology of Queer Horror tales in the tradition of Rowe's Queer Fear. Vince invited me to join the project as co-editor, and we read submissions from October of 2007 to May of 2008. We selected horror stories from the most prominent writers in the subgenre, many of whom are mentioned in this post, as well as discovering a bunch of new voices in Queer Horror. The most significant aspect of this milestone is the fact that the Horror Writers Association awarded this anthology the prestigious Bram Stoker Award. Of course, as co-editor this was profound on a personal level, but it was also culturally significant that the Horror Writers Association validated the Queer Horror genre by including this anthology and awarding it the Stoker.
And then, to follow up this Stoker win, Dark Scribe Press released In the Closet, Under the Bed, a new collection of stories from Queer Horror superstar Lee Thomas (released on the very last day of the decade).
Here is Jameson Currier on this collection:
Like every master craftsman of horror, Lee Thomas is weirdly inventive, with an arsenal of tricks and techniques up his sleeves and a universe of creatures, ghouls, ghosts, spirits, and body shifters to unleash on his characters, and readers of his new collection of short stories, In the Closet, Under the Bed will reap the rewards of this explosively talented writer. These stories are monstrous and thrilling and sexy and disturbing. But what makes them truly remarkable and fantastic is their distinctive milieu gay men battling supernatural forces with dizzying results. Lee Thomas is not only defining the genre of 'queer horror' with his new collection, he is setting its gold standard.
The release of In the Closet, Under the Bed is a fitting culminating event for the decade of Queer Horror.
Major Books from Dark Scribe Press:
Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet
In the Closet, Under the Bed by Lee Thomas
Additional Major Queer Horror Books of the Decade:
IM by Rick Reed
Black Shapes in a Darkened Room by Marshall Moore
Bite Club by Hal Bodner
Literary Six by Vince Liaguno
One of These Things Is Not Like the Other by D. Travers Scott
Pumpkin Teeth by Tom Cardamone
Please offer your own milestones of Queer Horror by commenting on this post!