Fiction Friday — It’s Here!
By: James Finn
Tags: Transgender, Indonesia, Gay, Fiction Writing, LGBTQ

Fiction Friday — It’s Here!

Think Queerly’s New Fiction Roundup

I like to start off these weekly letters with something clever and witty that leads into the first of the fiction I’m going to be presenting. I’m out of ideas today, though. Or perhaps Saoirse simply has me so blown away by her darkly introspective sci-fi piece that clever feels inappropriate.

If you read no other fiction this week, people, you must read Saoirse’s, If You Zeep Me, I’ll Be Gone. Set in a world of the recognizably near future, the story lulls us with a scene of quotidian normality — perhaps even blandness. But as the tale unrolls, tension ratchets. The author has penned a captivating work of flash fiction that also stands as a thoughtful questioning of Existential philosophy and as the cri de coeur of a transgender woman lost in a world that recognizes her but doesn’t understand her.

My own (James Finn) David and the Lion’s Den went roaring off in new directions last week. No longer a quiet, character-driven story, the plot explodes in what I hope is a totally unexpected twist. David has been working hard to understand death and illness through his art. But will the stigma of HIV and AIDS prove too much for him? And is Howie really a murderer?

Gloria Bates penned a story that questions the transactional nature of relationships and explores the boundaries of exploitation in, I Brought a Girl From Sinaloa. A Brazilian prison guard in a Mexican prison, Christian missionaries, a Boi, and a private jet all feature in this cautionary tale.

Alex David Bevan made his Th-Ink Queerly fiction debut last week with The Boy with Nothing to Lose, the first chapter of his Colossus story. A young man returns to his southern roots after a sojourn in New York City, where he was seeking acceptance after his family rejected him for being gay. His mother’s funeral beckons him back, but will love keep him in place?

BFoundAPen’s Anomaly, a gripping YA novella, takes off with Band Aid For A Bullet Wound. Kris, a transgender boy playing on his high school basketball team, was savagely fouled at his first practice. His mom and the girl who seems to like him think he’s gone back to school too soon after his injury. Are they right? And is one of Kris’s biggest haters making a move on the same girl? Find out!

Brian Pelletier published Diving In, Chapter 3 of Monsters in the Closet. In the first chapter, we met a middle-aged man cruising for young male hustlers. In the second, we learn that man is the revered pastor of a megachurch. Now, it seems he’s back for more. But why the bloody face? And how will he explain it all to his wife?

Our last selection this week is a rich piece of fiction from Indonesia, published under a pseudonym for the author’s safety. AL, The Discreet penned a story for us centering around one evening in the life of a young gay man in Jakarta. How can a gay man survive in a world where acceptance is radical and even progressive and loving friends find homosexuality shocking and objectionable? Find out in BLIND DATE in Jakarta.

That wraps up this Fiction Friday, folks. I’ve got some serious treats lined up for you next week, so why not bookmark our Fiction Page? Give it a gander once in a while to see what we’ve got on tap.

Until next Friday, remember — when you think fiction, Th-Ink Queerly!