Summary: 30 Days of Pride

Over the past thirty days of June, AKA Pride Month including today, I've been sending out posts on my socials. Once per day, I've highlighted an author who falls somewhere within the LGBTQIA+ spectrum (goodness, so many letters). I did my best to cover both genders, incorporate ethnic diversity, and as wide a range of spectrums as possible. You can read this post if you want to know more about how I put this stuff together and drew my lines so it was doable. Now, I'm going to give you my complete list, including today's post, for your perusal so you won't have to go back through my social media posts.

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1: Tej Turner, starting contemporary we have a travel blogger and modern epic fantasy author who recently completed his Avatars of Blood trilogy.

2: Sylvia Townsend Warner: a somewhat private and forgotten figure known for several works including Lolly Willowes, The Corner That Held Them, and (my introduction to her) Kingdoms of Elfin.

3: Samuel R. Delany: While his fiction didn't grab me, I must respect the man. He created some foundational pieces of science fiction, then transitioned into other fiction up to and including an autobiographical graphic novel about meeting his future husband.

4: Virginia Wolfe: While a tragic character, Wolfe's contributions to fiction are deservedly celebrated. Among other works she wrote Orlando, which is basically the life and exploits of an immortal (mystically) trans woman, and is one of my favourite books.

5: Christopher Isherwood: While best known today as the inspiration for the famous musical Cabaret, Isherwood's work covers much more than his Berlin stories, including the novel A Single Man, and the influential memoir Christopher And His Kind.

6: Xiran Jay Zhao, another modern author, a Chinese-Canadian who uses their home culture as inspiration for their work. Their current works are Iron Widow, first in a sci-fi series inspired by the life and deeds of Wu Zetien, and the contemporary fantasy Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor.

7: Claude Cahun, while best remembered for her collage art and photography, was also a writer and formed part of the French avant-garde scene with their partner Marcel Moore. She also risked her life in occupied France as part of the Resistance against the Nazi occupation.

8: Jacqueline Wilson, an author I barely knew until I began researching this video. Then I found out something which sent me briefly into blue-screen. She created Tracey Beaker, among many other classic children's writings.

9: E. M. Forster, best known for A Passage to India and A Room With A View. But most significantly, he created Maurice, which when originally written was one of the few LGBT romances with a happy ending.

10: Virgil, one of the oldest selected, from an era where casual bisexuality was almost expected in some circles. While best known for the Aeneid (basically Roman-themed Odyssey fan fiction written for the emperor Augustus), Virgil also composed love poems relating to both men and women in his Eclogues.

11: Rebecca Sugar, someone who to many a modern demographic needs little to no introduction. She cut her teeth on Adventure Time, and created Steven Universe.

12: Sappho, potentially the earliest. Tragically little survives of her work, but what remains to us is some of the most evocative lyric poetry ever written. And their contents is readily understood when her full name Sapphor of Lesbos gave us two words for the ages.

13: Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, not perhaps very well known to the Western world compared to other authors on this list, but worthy of note. She is also an activist who helped overturn Puerto Rico's same-sex marriage ban.

14: Ljuba Prenner, a man who not only helped found the Slovene school of detective fiction, but opened a law practise which helped defend a number of people targeted by the state, eventually winning renown and respect.

15: Larry Duplechan, part of the wave of post-Stonewall LGBT writers who emerged and found success. He is best remembered for his character of Ray Rousseau, first featured in Eight Days a Week.

16: ND Stevenson, a creator who has seen recent popular acclaim, though their work has been out for a number of years. While also responsible for the rebooted queer-friendly She-Ra, Stevenson also wrote the graphic novel Nimona. Nuff said.

17: Tamsyn Muir, once again going into modern times, is a relatively recent arrival. Her Lock Tomb series began in 2019 with the science fantasy novel Gideon the Ninth, beginning a tale of necromancy and scheming that has continued for three novels and counting.

18: Neon Yang, another new writer focusing on speculative fiction whose primary work is the Tensorate universe, a series of stories which began in 2017 with The Black Tides of Heaven.

19: Aphra Behn, another oldie but goldie. While neglected for centuries after her death, and somewhat during her life, Behn not only formed part of the theatre revival of the 1660s, but together with a number of other women wrote some of the earliest true novels.

20: Djuna Barnes, a name that may not immediately ring bells, but in her time she was a prominent novelist and illustrator of the modernist movement. She is perhaps best known today for her semi-autobiographical lesbian-themed novel Nightwood.

21: C. L. Clark, returning to modern times. Clark launched onto the scene with The Unbroken, the first in a planned series and a fantastical take on colonialism in an LGBT-friendly universe.

22: Nicole Dennis-Benn, once more a recent addition whose debut Here Comes the Sun in 2016. A modern feminist writer, her work has focused on social issues in Jamaica, including the LGBTQIA+ experience.

23: Joseph Chianakas, a small plug here as he's with my publisher, but only by coincidence. Getting his start in independent horror stories, hist most recent work is the coming-of-age sports romance Singlets and Secrets.

24: James Howe, someone I didn't know about until recently. Primarily writing in the childrens and young adult market, he created Bunnacula, a rabbit vampire. Who sucks the juice from vegetables. Classic.

25: Ellen Kushner, a fantasy writer who came onto the scene in the 1990s, who began her career as a radio host and presenter. Her work includes Thomas the Rhymer, a take on the mythology of the fae, and the Riverside series.

26: R. B. Lemberg, someone with a triple whammy for inclusion on this list: queer, bigender, autistic. Also created an entire fictional universe, the Birdverse, in which many of their stories and poems take place.

27: Elias Jahshan, a journalist and writer who has been a strong advocate for equal rights in Palastine, and helped publicise LGBT literature in the Arab world through the anthology This Arab is Queer.

28: Mary Renault, another older author whose work spans from contemporary LGBT romance, to historical and myth-inspired pieces including her Alexander trilogy and The King Must Die, a retelling of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. She was also among the white figures who spoke out against apartheid in her native South Africa.

29: Ally Wilkes, yet another recent arrival, this time focusing on the historical horror genre through her two novels All the White Spaces and Where the Dead Wait, both novels set in the isolation of polar expeditions.

30: Sarah Waters, a fellow Welsh author, whose work has focused on historical and crime novels with lesbian leads. One of her most notable works is Fingersmith, which was adapted into the Korean film The Handmaiden.

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Bear in mind, THIS IS NOT A DEFINITIVE LIST. There are hundreds of authors, past and present, that I couldn't include. There are also some I debated including due to...reasons. I'll lists some of these mentions off here.

Two that I wanted to include but felt couldn't be are Juana Inés de la Cruz and Gladys Mitchell. There is strong circumstantial evidence of their sexuality, and their writing is worthy of praise, but there is no definitive statements regarding them, particularly Mitchell as she was pretty private. Noel Coward, James Baldwin, Radclyff Hall and Oscar Wilde are relegated to honourable mentions because of the need to keep the list diverse. Plus the combined facts that they were just too easy, and in two instances just too tragic.

I was strongly tempted to include a mangaka from the BL genre in Japan, but most of the stuff created by actual gay mangaka like Gengoroh Tagame, Tarutoru Kou or Takeshi Matsu is often VERY NSFW and aimed at a particular market that doesn't often have much story content compared to others in this list, so look up at your own risk. Including Janet Mock was again tempting, but she's best known for non-fiction. I struggled with Yair Qedar due to the current world situation, but while he has been cautious in his statements, he doesn’t appear to actively support the current Israeli regime, so I feel more comfortable including him as an honourable mention within the non-fiction area. Similarly, Alice Walker was a near-inclusion, but her apparent antisemitic views both in her public speech and parts of her work have shunted her down to the bottom of the hon mentions section. And then only a hair’s breadth away from being cut altogether.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this summary of 30 Days of Pride. Here's to further years of rainbow diversity in life, in fiction, and in everything.