writer of speculative fiction.

Five Short Stories: Shivery Sapphic Fairy Tales

Well, after setting up my website this summer and immediately breaking the blog page, I have finally gotten around to fixing it—inspired by my desire to use this space to shout about the stories I love. I try to champion my favorite reads on social media as much as I can. But, as social media continues to fragment, I wanted to set up a blog so that I could 1. keep raving about the stories I love most, and 2. trust that my recommendations wouldn’t vanish into the ether at the whims of a malevolent billionaire.

There are so many wonderful reviewers and writers who offer monthly roundups of recent stories—Charles Payseur, Maria Haskins, Alex Brown, and Vanessa Fogg are four whose recs I always make sure to read, if you have somehow inexplicably stumbled onto my blog without already knowing them—so I wanted to do something a little different. Instead of reviewing new stories, I want to highlight stories connected by a theme (chosen entirely at random and based entirely on my very specific tastes).

In these posts, I’ll share five stories at a time, as well as a brief write-up about the theme that connects them. In future posts, which may or may not end up happening on some sort of set schedule, I plan to look at stories from the more distant past, too. But for today’s post, these are all stories from 2024—which means they make for perfect awards season reading! Please consider nominating these stories for any and all awards for which they’re eligible.

The text "Five Short Stories: Introduction" against a blue floral background.

There are few things I love more in this world than short stories that capture the sensation of reading some old, long-forgotten fairy tale… but make it queer. I was a child raised on fairy tales and folklore—the sort of kid who spent countless hours dreaming of escaping into Fairyland, who wandered the “woods” behind my house looking for fairy rings and fairy forts and barrows. I did not find any ancient Irish ruins, since I lived in the suburban United States, but this inconvenient fact did not stop me from looking.

But as much as I loved—and still love—these stories, they broke my heart more often than not, too. So many stories about enchantment end with a return to life as it was. Characters turn away from mystical glades and secret bowers. Betushka never dances with the wood-maiden again; when offered a choice between life with the kindly Frau Holle or her viciously cruel stepmother, an abused girl ultimately chooses the latter; and after many grand adventures, the ugly Tatterhood reveals her secret beauty and marries a handsome prince. (Disclaimer: I am only discussing the western fairy tale tradition that I’m most familiar with, and this is certainly not true of all fairy tales, even within that tradition. I’m thinking solely about my own childhood reading experiences.)

I hated these endings. I felt betrayed every time a girl left Fairyland and married some mortal boy instead. I didn’t want to return to the mortal world—and I didn’t understand how anyone could want to return to a life without magic. More than anything, I wanted to leave the world where I felt so certain I could never and would never belong. I wanted to be enchanted. I wanted to stay lost, outside of time, outside of reality. I wanted so, so desperately to slip through the veil and step into the Otherside.

That long-awaited sense of transport is exactly what the five stories collected in this post offer. And that, to me, is what makes these stories queer. These are all stories about escape—about desire—about freedom. These are stories that draw you into a magical world, a world entirely unlike our own, and whisper you never have to go back, not if you don’t want to. All five of these stories are tender and haunting in equal measure. Some engage more directly with folklore or fairy tales; others are wholly original stories that nevertheless evoke that shivery-strange feeling of encountering something magical for the first time. Some skew sweet; others skew bloody. Most are both. They are all, in some way, a love story—and they are all utterly bewitching. I cannot recommend them enthusiastically enough. I wish I could share them with my younger self. Instead, I’m really excited to share them with you.

So, without futher ado…

The text "Five Short Stories: Shivery Sapphic Fairy Tales" against a blue floral background.

KATYA VASILIEVNA AND THE SECOND DROWNING OF BABA RECHKA by Christine Hanolsy
Beneath Ceaseless Skies (April 2024)

It was a spiteful thing to say, meant to unsettle her. I was a rusalka, after all—everyone knew I was dangerous, vengeful. Unpredictable. Who knew what I might have done—what I might still do?

This lush, gorgeous, magical novelette by Christine Hanolsy might be my favorite thing I’ve read this year. I could easily write a novelette-length post all about how much I loved it. (I won’t do that.) Of all the stories in this post, this is the one perhaps most intimately linked with fairy tale tradition. Set in a certain kingdom, at a certain time, and framed with beautiful translations of Russian folk songs, this story takes so many familiar threads and weaves them into something marvelously new. It is, unabashedly, a love story—told from the point of view of a rusalka.

This story includes that old fairy tale ending. A mortal woman, Katya Vasilievna, falls in love with a river spirit; for a time, they are happy. But before long, Katya is betrothed to a man and sent far, far away from her magical love. The end. Except—it isn’t the ending, not here. The story keeps going. Steadfastly refusing old endings, Hanolsy rejects and rewrites an entire tradition, even as her love for that tradition shines through. This story not only insists on queer possibility but brings those possibilities to life. Suffice it to say, this one makes me cry every time I read it.

GHOST APPLES by Madi Haab
Haven Spec (May 2024)

A shard of grief lodged in her throat: for her lost home, for her dead family, and for herself, the lone exile. She had been worth something, on the other side of the sea. But what good were dancing and poetry in a land as merciless as this?

Oh, this story! If you’re looking for the perfect accompaniment for a mug of cocoa (or tea—who am I to tell you what to do?) and a cozy blanket on a cold night, this is the story for you. It’s sweet and gentle, with so much love at its center, but never saccharine: there’s enough darkness here to keep you shivering, too, and there’s one especially vivid image that has stuck in my head since I first read this story in May. I knew I would want to reread this story as soon as winter arrived; I was right.

Cathilde, who is on the run with only her lute and her far-more-capable companion Aglahé at her side, is exactly who we would all be in a fantasy story. She wants to help, but she can’t use an axe or a bow; she manages to twist her ankle as soon as she sets off alone; and, much to her own embarrassment, it doesn’t take long before she needs rescuing. But she has gifts of her own, ones that Aglahé gently prompts her into discovering, in one of the loveliest, most romantic scenes of any story I’ve read all year.

TEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT SNOW, REFLECTED OFF AN OBSIDIAN ARMOR by Avra Margariti
Haven Spec (May 2024)

You were a child-thief, a child-killer, though I was a child no longer. When you offered me your frosted, gauntleted hand, I took it. It burned my bare fingers nearly to the bone.

When I first read this story, I tried to mark all my favorite lines, but quickly gave up when I found that I was instead marking almost the entire story. Like everything Margariti writes, this story is so achingly beautiful that I find myself holding my breath every time I reread it (which is… often). Every paragraph brims with images that pull me out of this world and into a different one, until—much like the narrator—I start to convince myself that I too might be able to survive only on berries and pine needles and my own desperate longing for winter, moonlight, and obsidian armor.

For me, “Ten Ways of Looking at Snow…” may be the pinnacle of queer fairy tales. Reading this story makes me feel like I’m reading something ancient, pages torn out of a dusty old book. And yet—as the story unfolds, it grows queerer, stranger, darker, in all the most wonderful of ways. I don’t want to tell you anything else about this story. I just want you to read it. I can’t wait to finish writing this post so I can go read it again.

I MET MY WIFE IN THE WOODS by Ash Vale
Heartlines Spec (July 2024)

In the spring, she brings me wildflowers—fireweed, fleabane, crocuses, bergamot. They come to me in bouquets, or in her tangled hair, or in her bloodied teeth.

The narrator of this story met her wife in the woods—or did she? Much like our narrator’s mysterious wife, this story is wild and frightening, profoundly romantic and deeply unsettling… and somehow only 1300 words long, though it’s a story deep enough to drown in. Like all the best fairy-stories, “I Met My Wife in the Woods” emphasizes the uncanny; this is a tale where the natural world is as unknowable as the mind and heart of the beloved. Love is terrifying: black waters, dark forests, bloody teeth. And love is magical, too.

Vale’s rich and lyrical prose, as enchanting as any fairy-glamour, is a crucial part of why this story works so well. I’ve read this story several times now, in part because it’s a story that demands to be reread, and every time, I discover something new hidden within some lovely turn of phrase. Perhaps most remarkably, this is Vale’s first published story. I can’t wait to read everything they write in the future. Until then, this is a story worth lingering over. Let yourself get lost in the woods.

THE BUTCHER’S HEART by AnaMaria Curtis
Strange Horizons (November 2024)

There is no good way to ask someone to carve out the parts of you that drive you toward the edges of cliffs and blades and lakes. It is quite probably impossible. “I want you to kiss me,” she says, only realizing she means it once the words are spoken.

As best as I can tell, AnaMaria Curtis has plucked this beautiful, bloody fairytale directly out of my heart. “The Butcher’s Heart” contains basically everything I love in fiction: a beautiful witch, a mysterious ritual, violent and delicious levels of yearning, light cannibalism. Amel, a butcher’s apprentice, wants something more than the life she’s made for herself, something more—something wilder, darker, more dangerous—than a knife in her hands and red under her nails.  She wants someone to tear her heart right out of her chest.

Curtis so brilliantly takes the structure and pieces of a fairy tale (a young woman from a little village, a holiday feast, a witch, a dangerous bargain, three tasks, a heart as an offering) and shapes them into something new. This story is queer, but not only because of the romance at its center; this story is queer because it takes something familiar, shatters it, and dares to dream a different future into being. I loved every word. And it’s a wonderful example, too, of how to build a rich and compelling world through tiny details while always remaining focused on character.


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One response to “Five Short Stories: Shivery Sapphic Fairy Tales”

  1. This is a fantastic round-up and I am excited to read a few of these I hadn’t yet known about! Looking forward to more round-ups 😀

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