iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

October's dispatch is out. Jane Schoenbrun of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma has a novel, Becky Chambers is back after four years, and Nghi Vo feeds Gilded Age debutantes to demons. Plus horror by the armful. Keep a light on. www.queerspeculativefiction.org/dis…

queerspeculativefiction.org

Dispatch No. 5 · October 2026

It's October, and the calendar has done its seasonal duty: horror by the armful and a paranormal romance for every lengthening night. The heavyweights turned up as well.

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The latter: queerness is normal and unremarked upon. I've been increasingly seeing binorm worlds, gender expansive worlds, and agender worlds as well.

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

It was my favorite book the year it came out, and I tell people to read it constantly.

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Beautiful cover, and Gay's the Word is a good shelf to land on. Congratulations. I can't wait to read it.

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Amal El-Mohtar @amalelmohtar.com · 09/09/2026

Just learned that Category Is Books, a lovely queer bookshop in Glasgow, has been targeted by transphobic violence, & is fundraising to cover the costs of a smashed window & roller shutters. I hate that they have to do this & would love to see them meet their goal.

gofundme.com

Donate to Help Category Is Books Get Shutters!, organized by Category Is Books

For the past eight years, Category Is Books has been able to comfortably oper… Category Is Books needs your support for Help Category Is Books Get Shutters!

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

If either of you would like early access to try out my queer speculative book database, the front end should be done this month. It covers 2026-2024 with full representation. I'm working my way backwards tagging books once code is complete. Not at all designed yet, but a functional preview:

Rough preview of a database entry for the book Hammajang Luck. It contains the book cover, book metadata, a synopsis, detailed representation tags with explanatory note, as well as genre and tropes.

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Also Sia found some books I missed! bsky.app/profile/raen...

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

September's dispatch is out. Locus winner Freya Marske sends healer-mages to group-graded finals; Hannah Kaner follows Godkiller with a forest that speaks in the voices of the dead. 45 more besides. Term starts on the first. www.queerspeculativefiction.org/dis…

queerspeculativefiction.org

Dispatch No. 4 · September 2026

September has sent the genre back to school. Forty-seven releases, five of them set in or around a term, and a dozen horror titles stocking the shelf early for October.

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Sigh. I have to spelunk so deep in reader reviews to find rep info for the database I'm building. Refreshingly, indie authors are a lot better at this, perhaps unencumbered by tradpub marketing mores? It is a nice treat when I find out a book is broadly labeled queer...because the whole cast is!

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

See also: Hi my book is queer and no I will not elaborate

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

There is a person behind this account, and I write short fiction. Getting a story ready to submit meant paying for software that did it badly, so I built something free. Many of the authors in each dispatch came up through short fiction. What it costs to send work out decides who gets that far.

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

It's my birthday. My one wish: get a queer book from your local bookshop or your library today. I also promised a database of them by the end of summer. It's built. It isn't ready. Here's the difference. www.queerspeculativefiction.org/marginalia/t...

queerspeculativefiction.org

There's a lesbian side character

I set out to build a comprehensive database of queer speculative fiction and wound up building an extremely powerful search. The code will be finished by the end of summer, as promised. The catalogue ...

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

I need everyone who recommends Gideon the Ninth as a romance to internalize this: "If you tell your average romance reader that they’re going to be reading a romance, and then deliver them romantic tragedy instead, the most polite thing they will do is curse your family to the ninth generation."

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

I don't know if you need collaboration features, but I like writing in Obsidian, which is free and everything is in markdown and local so you retain ownership of your files. No AI garbage. For collaboration I've seen people use ellipsus.com

ellipsus.com

Ellipsus | Collaborative writing software

Write, edit, and collaborate on any device. Ellipsus is a principled alternative to Google Docs—built for writers, by writers. Sign up for free.

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Wow these are so gorgeous! Just bought hardcovers for 5-7. Will 1-4 ever be reprinted?

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

50 new queer speculative releases for August. A third Shadow of the Leviathan from Robert Jackson Bennett, T. Kingfisher back in the White Rat, Saara El-Arifi closing out Faebound. Free, monthly, researched by hand. www.queerspeculativefiction.org/dispatch-003...

queerspeculativefiction.org

Dispatch No. 3 · August 2026

August, and publishing has apparently agreed that the eleventh is the only day anyone needs.

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

I just backed this. Neon Hemlock's seventh novella series is close to its goal, and $100 gets you every ebook they publish this year. A year of queer books for roughly nine dollars a book. kickstarter.com/projects/davering/the-neon-hemlock-novella-series-volume-seven

kickstarter.com

The Neon Hemlock Novella Series | Volume Seven

Novellas and a short story collection from “the apex of queer speculative fiction publishing” —Publishers Weekly

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Started this last night and it is already thoroughly demented. Perfect.

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

I am not sure since my account is old. They do get spammy with emails, so once you unload your items you may want to unsubscribe from all of them or delete the account.

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Yes. The other quiet gift of owning the place: no horrible morning where you discover the whole building answers to something in the cellar, and always has.

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Yes. And they've since acquired another cat, so.

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

There are plenty more where these came from, all logged at queerspeculativefiction.org, a hand-researched catalogue of queer speculative fiction that exists because someone sat down and did the work. Happy Nonbinary Day. Go read something with your own reflection in it.

queerspeculativefiction.org

Queer Speculative Fiction

A monthly catalogue of new releases & queer-owned bookshops

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

What Stalks the Deep, T. Kingfisher. Alex Easton, a sworn soldier who uses ka/kan pronouns, narrates this Appalachian horror with magnificent dryness. A 2026 Hugo and Locus finalist, and the latest in the Sworn Soldier series. bookshop.org/a/125151/978...

bookshop.org

What Stalks the Deep

An instant New York Times, USA Today, and Indie bestseller! The next installment in the New York Times bestselling Sworn Soldier series, featuring Alex Easton investigating the dark, mysterious depths...

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy, Roan Parrish. The cozy one: a nonbinary lead, a haunted house, and a tender slow-burn romance. Proof a nonbinary point of view carries comfort reading as easily as it carries horror. bookshop.org/a/125151/978...

bookshop.org

The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy

Jamie Wendon-Dale may design haunted houses, but they don't actually believe in ghosts—until they meet Edgar Lovejoy, who is tall, clever, beautiful…and 100% haunted. A COZY, GHOSTLY LGBTQIA+ ROMANCE ...

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Slow Gods, Claire North. A space opera whose cultures each imagine gender differently, from eight-plus genders to none, the narrator in neopronouns. North is nonbinary, and genderqueer readers keep saying how seen it left them. A 2026 Locus finalist. bookshop.org/a/125151/978...

bookshop.org

Slow Gods

Finalist for the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel! Shortlisted for the 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction! Best of the Year at Gizmodo, Library Journal, and more! "An astonishing, th...

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Song of Spores, Bogi Takács. A space opera dense with queer, trans and intersex characters, among them Mawu, an intersex nonbinary pilot. Takács is agender and intersex, and writes it from the inside. A 2026 Locus finalist. bookshop.org/a/125151/978...

bookshop.org

Song of Spores

Hugo Award winner Bogi Takács spins a tale of adventure, mystery, and political intrigue in space. Plus sentient fungus! Three experienced counterintelligence operatives from Alliance Treaty Enforceme...

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

The First Sister trilogy, Linden A. Lewis. A space opera at ease with gay and trans lives that has no idea what to do with Hiro, its nonbinary pilot. Queernorm worlds rarely sit with that gap; this one does. Lewis is nonbinary; so is Hiro's narrator. bookshop.org/a/125151/978...

bookshop.org

The First Sister

Combining the social commentary of The Handmaid’s Tale with the white-knuckled thrills of Red Rising, this epic space opera follows a comfort woman as she claims her agency, a soldier questionin...

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

It's International Nonbinary Day, and I am, as it happens, nonbinary. So here are five speculative novels that keep nonbinary characters at the heart of the story, some as sole narrator, some as the standout of a wider queer cast. Indie buy links below. A thread. 🧵

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Four years ago I backed a sapphic tarot Kickstarter and received, in the end, a thorough longitudinal study of one cat's IBS. No cards. Backing this one anyway. Some of us cannot be taught.

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

A Pride and Disability Pride bundle: books by queer, disabled, and neurodivergent authors, fantasy and science fiction among them. Pay what you can. The title is "We Exist," which is both the premise and the whole argument. Open until July 11. itch.io/b/3669

itch.io

We Exist Without Permission by S. E. Thomson and 25 others

We Exist Without Permission: 25 books for $25.00

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

It's your last chance to get sixteen queer speculative books at whatever price you like, a cut going to Rainbow Railroad. Menopausal lesbian werewolves, transfeminine cyberpunk, a Wizard of Oz fever dream, from Catherine Lundoff and Melissa Scott. Closes today. storybundle.com/pride

storybundle.com

StoryBundle

Pay what you like and get a bundle of awesome ebooks and more!

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Lizzie Blackwood @lizzieblackwood.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

✨🌟✨IT'S RELEASE MONTH!✨🌟✨ My debut sci-fi romance, The Stars Will Be Our Ocean, officially releases July 14th! If you like... 🏳️‍🌈 Queer space opera 😘 Slow-burn alien/human romance 🫂 Hurt/comfort and found family Then check out my purchasing and review links at lizzieblackwood.carrd.co

Coming July 14th
Her world is dying. His world cast him out. Together, they can change a galaxy.
The Stars Will Be Our Ocean by Lizzie Blackwood

Cover:
Book cover for The Stars Will Be Our Ocean:
The title texts floats among a starry background mingling with nebulous blue gasses with the author name “Lizzie Blackwood” at the bottom. Two figures float together at the center, holding hands as though dancing and smiling at each other. The figure on the left is a sharklike humanoid with a finlike crest off the back of his head wearing complex but form-fitting armor. The figure on the right is a human woman with pale skin and short black hair wearing a back jacket, shirt, pants, and boots.

For fans of Mass Effect, A Memory Called Empire, and The Shape of Water comes a story of love between outcasts caught in the mire of intergalactic politics.

First contact with the vast spacefaring empire of the Reshketh seemed like a miraculous boon for Humanity, trapped on a dying Earth. But in pursuit of an alliance, something has gone terribly wrong, and it’s up to cultural advisor Jenna Kalandra to figure out why before it’s too late. The only problems are that she has no information, no connections, and her own Ambassador hates her just for existing.

Jenna isn’t one to give up easily, but she’ll need the help of a mischievous AI, an inventive Human tech, her no-nonsense ex-girlfriend, and one charmingly unprofessional Reshketh security guard named Tarek to survive her Ambassador’s wrath. Can these misfits find a way to save the alliance (and themselves) before prejudice dooms Humanity? And can Jenna’s friendship with the roguish Reshketh become something deeper when no one knows who to trust?

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

36 new queer speculative releases for July are up. A Nebula-winning cozy dragon (John Wiswell), August Clarke's follow-up to the Lambda-winning Metal from Heaven, and enough vampires to justify the garlic. Free and monthly. www.queerspeculativefiction.org/dispatch-002...

queerspeculativefiction.org

Dispatch No. 2 · July 2026

Dispatched 30 June 2026 · 36 new releases for July July, and the rainbow bunting is already down. The publishers who rediscovered the word "queer" four weeks ago have moved on to back-to-school. ...

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Anathema Magazine @anathemamagazine.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

THE TIME HAS COME ✨ Anathema is OPEN to submissions from June 20th—July 20th! We’re looking for speculative works by queer creators of color. Send us your best, your weirdest, & your queerest work! We are proud to be paying a professional SFWA rate. 🎉 So excited to see what you have to offer! 💜

Anathema: Spec from the Margins is now OPEN for submissions from June 20th to July 20th! We’re looking for speculative fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and art by queer creators of color! We pay a professional SFWA rate! Check the link in bio for submission guidelines!

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Lizzie Blackwood @lizzieblackwood.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

It's Juneteenth! It's Pride Month! It's a great day to buy queer books by Black authors! Share links to your favorites/most anticipated (or your own works, if you're an author) and go pick up something new! I'll start: Right now you can preorder This Mortal Coil by @mythjae.bsky.social:

bonedustpress.com

This mortal Coil paperback — Bonedust Press

This Mortal Coil, a paperback illustrated novella

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Hi! I'm the person behind those r/QueerSFF lists. They've rather outgrown Reddit, so they've got a new home: queerspeculativefiction.org. A queer-spec database, fully searchable by detailed representation and tropes, is coming too. Your blog was invaluable in building it. Thank you!

queerspeculativefiction.org

Queer Speculative Fiction

A monthly catalogue of new releases & queer-owned bookshops

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

The Nebulas are in. Best Novella: The River Has Roots, Amal El-Mohtar's vengeance-based fairy tale retelling the murder ballad "The Two Sisters." Magic that runs on grammar; a nonbinary love interest. If This Is How You Lose the Time War rearranged your insides, here is more.

bookshop.org

The River Has Roots

Check out The River Has Roots - Follow the river Liss to the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, and meet two sisters who cannot be separated, even in death. The…

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

8. This project is built to outlast the moment the marketing departments forget the word "queer" again come July. Spot an error, know a release I missed, own a bookshop that belongs in the directory? I want to hear from you: queerspeculativefiction.org

queerspeculativefiction.org

Queer Speculative Fiction

A monthly catalogue of new releases & queer-owned bookshops

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

7. What's coming: years of hand-verified representation data deserve a real search. A free database where you can find every transmasc protagonist in secondary-world fantasy, or every queer horror novel drawing on South Asian mythology. Built slowly, to last.

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

6. Two newer pages: a guide to reading queer books through libraries, free and without obstacles (queerspeculativefiction.org/commons), and the other independent queer bookish publications worth your inbox (queerspeculativefiction.org/good-company). Good company is rather the point.

queerspeculativefiction.org

Keep the door open

Buying from a queer-owned shop is one way to back the books and the people who make them. But not everyone can buy every book they want to read, and in a country busy pulling queer titles off…

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

5. There's also a directory of queer-owned bookshops around the world that stock speculative fiction. Independent bookshops are one of the better arguments for human civilisation, and queer-owned ones doubly so. Buy your books there first, if you can.

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

4. On trust, since new newsletters have to earn it: free, and it stays free. No tracking pixels, no ads, your email is never sold or used to train anything. The site runs on Ghost, an independent nonprofit. And if signup forms make you wary (good instincts), back issues are also just on the site.

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Queer Speculative Fiction @queerspecfic.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

3. Each dispatch lands on the last day of the month with the next month's releases: title, date, format, genre, and what the representation actually is. Not "LGBTQ themes," but "bisexual protagonist, sapphic main romance, transmasc love interest." June's edition had 54 books.

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