Becca Lawlor
Edited by David Ly and Daniel Zomparelli, Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry
Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022. $21.95
Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry, edited by David Ly and Daniel Zomparelli, subverts how queer folks have often been viewed as evil and monstrous in media. In this thrilling anthology, twenty-seven queer writers, including Anuja Varghese, Victoria Mbabazi, and Andrew Wilmot offer their own interpretations of what is truly monstrous. The texts are fascinating, liberating, and beautiful. They are not slipstream, but they do build off similar themes, motifs, and techniques. It’s significant that an anthology dedicated to lending new perspectives on what is monstrous creates space for prose, poetry, and hybrid forms. Representing varied forms of structure in storytelling challenges the expectation to conform to what is acceptable in queer literature and literature as a whole. This anthology manifests hope, critiques media and popular culture, and bids society to recognize its obligation to homing queer people in safer environments and opinions.
Many of the stories and poems in Queer Little Nightmares are in conversation with each other. In “Gruesome my Love” by Levi Cain, David Ly’s “That Call” and Arva Margariti’s “Cryptid Cruising,” for example, metaphor is used artfully to display how queer relationships can look and behave differently than heteronormativity expects. The horrific images and figures are contrasted with softness and connection. For instance, a type of queer coding occurs when the protagonist in “The Call” finally accepts his slimy tentacles and speaks under water with his love interest; or how the speaker in “Gruesome my Love” nourishes her girlfriend through unconventional methods; or how the stigmatization of cruising is subverted using a desire of closeness rather than touch in “Cryptid Cruising.” This kind of quiet understanding is reminiscent of the necessity of queer coded speech or artifacts to create spaces that are safe to share and love in. Kindness and openness are also, perhaps not a literary technique, but a queer device that is used against the harshness many queer folks are met with in the world. Readers can see acceptance on display in these pieces and how queer characters interact in ways not often described in literature.
This anthology works to cast queer people ironically in the light that others see them in (the monster) while offering a new vantage point with which to view these supposed villainous archetypes. In the short story “Wooly Bully” by Amber Dawn, Gigi—the speaker—is a closeted lesbian and werewolf at a sleepaway Christian camp. This story is an excellent example of how form is used mindfully throughout the anthology. “Wolly Bully” employs this by changing its form from prose to poetics when the speaker becomes overwhelmed when encountering her queerness. When Gigi touches Brenda, the prose suddenly transforms into prose-poetry:
“She cups the back of neck and says, ‘I’ve been waiting, Gigi.’
Waiting for what?
A bereft VOID cleaves me from Brenda’s touch.
The ruthless sun seems to press closer.
Acres upon acres of sweet corn bend
to the feral drone that blooms in my head. Hiss.
Hiss.
I barely notice
John Pop’s tractor until he is driving right up beside us.”
This abrupt shift from prose to poetry in moments of vulnerability and openness to sexuality subverts the idea that what is truly monstrous is not changing into a werewolf, nor changing physical form. By changing creative forms, by appearing structurally different from most short stories, these moments of poetry portray what queer love can look and feel like—it can stand out to others in ways that are beautiful and empowering. However, these shifts to verse can also be interpreted as an underlying monster residing within the speaker: internalized homophobia and the threat of overt homophobia from others. This fear steals moments, interrupts the flow of the narrative, and creates a sense of disconnection between the speaker and herself. This poetry can also be seen as “out of place” and “unnatural” in a space where prose is expected to be—furthering the monstrous effects that religious trauma and unsafe environments can have on queer people. The result in the diverse display of structure renders liberation and surges of joy.
David Ly and Daniel Zomparelli pack this anthology full of complex, nuanced characters who tackle poignant questions in queer spaces and within society. Readers are gifted glittering romance, a place of homage and respite, and a space to confront and address who and what is truly monstrous. This anthology redirects the monstrous gaze from queer people and asks readers to lend a hand in subverting the horrific queer monster trope through listening, learning, and unlearning the internalized transphobia, xenophobia, and homophobia that rests within our society at large. Indelibly charming and heartwarming, Queer Little Nightmares does not present a monolith, but amplifies the voices from larger conversations and perspectives that coexist amongst literature.
Becca Lawlor
Becca Lawlor is a queer writer and editor in their third year of the Honours Bachelor of Creative Writing & Publishing program at Sheridan College. They have short fiction story in The Bangalore Review, a review in CAROUSEL magazine, are a member of the Meet the Presses collective, and are working as an editorial intern for The Ampersand Review. Living in Mississauga, Becca reads most moments of the day while drinking lukewarm, over-sugared coffee.