HallowQueen: A Queer Horror Roundup
This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
If culture can be determined by looking at the stereotypes, customs, jokes, and memes from within a community then Queer folk really love Halloween, calling it “Gay Christmas” or (my favourite) “HallowQueen.” Perhaps it’s our love of drag and costume. Perhaps we’re drawn to the childishness, reliving as adults the childhoods we lost to being closeted. Or perhaps the queer-coding of villains, coupled with often coming from cultures that sees us as monsters, outsiders, means that we have a more sympathetic feeling towards things that go bump in the night than most. Whatever the reason for our delight in this season, it seems a perfect opportunity to cosy down with some Queer Horror Halloween-friendly reads.
In more witchiness, this is the story of a trans teenager who is secretly a witch and finds herself the middle of a conspiracy. And of her mother who is infamous in the magical community and surrounded by enemies. The Ghetto Goddess series continues in Keeper: A Novel.
This is a startling short story collection that maps the realities of women’s lives and the violence visited upon their bodies. These stories smash the boundaries of reality and fantasy, horror and comedy, the earthly and the otherworldly.
Adapted from his Children’s Stories Made Horrific on The Toast [RIP] these are classic fairy tales updated with psychological terror and feminist mischief. The stories in this collection are sinister and inviting, alien and familiar all at once.
A Victorian lady recovering from a suicide attempt starts visiting prisoners. There she meets an enigmatic spiritualist imprisoned after a seance went terribly wrong, finds herself drawn into the spiritual world, and plots to ensure the spiritualist’s freedom, and her own. Other Halloween-worthy [re]reads by Sarah Waters include Fingersmith and [sadly lacking in overt queerness] The Little Stranger.
Brew: A Novel
