Upcoming: Where Thy Dark Eye Glances: Queering Edgar Allan Poe edited by Steve Berman


I have a story in Where Thy Dark Eye Glances: Queering Edgar Allan Poe edited by Steve Berman and published by Lethe Press, due out next month.

Steve sent me an advanced copy of the book, for which I'm grateful, because it gave me some time to read a few of the other stories (and some poems). I'm all the more honored to be included, because there's some excellent work here, and it's all organized well, highlighting connections without diminishing the range of tones, styles, and ideas.

I'm not going to review a book I'm a contributor to (for early reviews, see Publisher's Weekly and Ideomancer), but I will admit to some surprise at how consistently interesting and unpredictable the stories are. (Okay, I'll mention one specifically: Rick Bowes's story blew me away. And I'm a fan of his, so that's saying something.) This could have been a gimmicky theme anthology, and it's very much not. I don't think you necessarily have to be a fan of either Poe or queer fiction to get a lot out of this book, and that's a hallmark to me of a really great anthology: appreciation is not inevitably bound to the theme.

[Update 10 July: And here's a thoughtful, informed, and comprehensive review of the book by Anthony Cardno at Strange Horizons.]

Here's the table of contents:



Poe the Man
  1. “The City and the Stranger” by Seth Cadin
  2. “Matthew Brady, The Gallery of Illustrious Americans” by Daniel Nathan Terry
  3. “Poetaster” by Steve Berman
Poe’s Writing
  1. “The House” by Ed Madden
  2. “The House of the Resonate Heart” by Lauren L A Fields
  3. “The Raven and Her Victory” by Tansy Rayner Roberts
  4. “Corvidae” by Peter Dube
  5. “The Man Who Was” by Ray Cluley
  6. “Gwendolyn” by Mairead Casey
  7. “Telltale” by Claire London
  8. “The Lord’s Great Jest” by Satyr Phil Brucato
  9. “His Hideous Heart” by Kyle S. Johnson
  10. “Variations of Figures Upon the Wall” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
  11. “For the Applause of Shadows” by Christopher Barzak
  12. “By that Sweet Word Alone” by Heather Lojo
  13. “Two Men in a Bedchamber, as Observed by the Ghost of the Girl in the Oval Portrait” by Terra LeMay
  14. “Midnight at the Feet of the Caryatides” by Cory Skerry
Reading Poe
  1. “Surrounded by Death” by Ronna Magy
  2. “The Bells” by Chip Livingston
  3. “The Death and the Dove” by Collin Kelley
  4. “The Death of Beautiful Men” by Jeff Mann
  5. “Eureka!” by Nick Mamatas
  6. “Seven Days of Poe” by Richard Bowes
  7. “The Chicken Farmer and His Boy: A Metaphysical History” by John Mantooth
  8. “A Portrait in India Ink” by Alex Jeffers
  9. “Lacuna” by Matthew Cheney

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