Unspeakable | Contributors
BOO and welcome from the editor and contributors of Unspeakable: A Queer Gothic Anthology. Find out more about us below…
The Editor
Celine Frohn
Celine Frohn is a publisher, editor, and PhD researcher with a passion for Gothic and LGBTQ+ literature. The Unspeakable and Unthinkable anthologies combine both her academic work on the nineteenth-century Gothic, as well as her love for contemporary speculative fiction. Celine runs Nyx Publishing, which has published queer SFF including S.T. Gibson’s A Dowry of Blood and Holly J. Underhill’s The Bone Way.
The Designer
Ashley Hankins
Ashley Hankins is a fantasy and sci-fi illustrator. A native of Western New York, she spent several years in Humboldt County, California, where she became enamored with the mountains and mist-shrouded forests. She felt she had truly found someplace magical. Upon returning to New York, Ashley strives to inject her work with that same ethereal feeling she felt in those woods. Ashley is a primarily digital artist who loves palettes that feed into both a gothic aesthetic and bright color pops, lots of mood, and experimenting with strong, graphic shapes. When Ashley is not working on her latest project, she can be found writing, hiking with her partner, and drinking excessive amounts of tea.
The Contributors
Enmanuel Arjona
Story: ‘I Am the Master of My Eyelashes’
Enmanuel Arjona (Cancun, Mexico) is an art curator and amateur writer on his personal blog. He is a resident of the city of Seattle, where he operates his own gallery, and is currently working on his first publication. He has published in numerous magazines and anthologies in Latin America and served as media director for Seattle Escribe, the largest Hispanic writing group in the Northwest.
James Robin Burton
Story: ‘My Love Lays Split on Either Side’
James is a University Graduate, Animator, Cosplayer and twin brother, who spends his free time creating art and written content. Fantasy and Gothic have always been part of his creative process in life thanks to the influence of works like Howl's Moving Castle, Dracula, British Folklore, Blue Exorcist and the Ravenloft Modules. His creative work reflects his exploration of personal identity, something he is still exploring. In fact, as a DnD enthusiast, he found a connection between the improvisation of playing a fictional character and how it could help him explore his own identity as a Bi man.
Ryann Fletcher
Story: ‘Rodeo’
Ryann Fletcher writes queer science fiction and fantasy.
S.T. Gibson
Story: ‘Bridepiece’
S.T. Gibson is the author of A Dowry of Blood and other romantic fantasy books, and she works as a literary agent and subsidiary rights manager at the Speilburg Literary Agency. She holds a bachelor's in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina at Asheville and a master's in Theological Studies from Princeton Theological Seminary. She currently lives in Boston with her partner and spoiled Persian cat.
Henry Glifort
Story: ‘Taylor Hall’
Henry Glifort is a queer writer and editor living in New England.
Claire Hamilton Russell
Story: ‘Let Down’
Claire Hamilton Russell (they/them) is a bi, nonbinary, disabled and neurodivergent writer in their late thirties living in Glasgow, Scotland. They live with their beloved husband and equally beloved animal companions, a one-eyed rescue Staffie named Jasmine and a black cat named Alfie.
A keen live action and tabletop roleplayer, they have just begun postgrad study in history at the Open University and are active in local queer and disability justice and green movements. They are an enthusiastic urban food grower and rewilder and enjoy textile art and decorative mending.
They were the first winner of the Scottish Huntington’s Association’s International HD: Out of the Shadow flash fiction prize. You can read their blogs on neurodivergence, gender, disability and environmental and social justice at www.rightdownwiththesickness.wordpress.com and www.neurodiversenby.wordpress.com and follow their page The Disabled Eco-Enby on Facebook.
Mason Hawthorne
Story: ‘LeadbitterHouse’
Mason Hawthorne studied creative writing at the University of Wollongong, and writes queer horror and weird fiction.
Sam Hirst
Story: ‘Homesick’
Sam Hirst is an author and academic whose work focuses on the Gothic.
Lindsay King-Miller
Story: ‘The White Door’
Lindsay King-Miller is the author of Ask a Queer Chick: A Guide to Sex, Love, and Life for Girls who Dig Girls (Plume, 2016). Her fiction has appeared in The Fiends in the Furrows (Nosetouch, 2018), Tiny Nightmares (Catapult, 2020), The Jewish Book of Horror (Denver Horror Collective, 2021), Fireside Fiction, Grimdark Magazine, and numerous other publications. She lives in Denver, CO with her partner and their two children.
Ally Kölzow
Story: ‘Moonlight’
Ally Kölzow is a writer and lifelong daydreamer who lives in South West England. She is disabled, chronically ill and queer, and loves to write stories that are too. Her first published short story appears in Unspeakable: A Queer Gothic Anthology.
Jenna MacDonald
Story: ‘Lure of the Abyss’
Jenna MacDonald is a full-time science nerd and a full-time lover of words. Now working as an environmental consultant, she once dreamed of exploring the oceans as a marine biologist, a desire shared by the protagonist of her debut short story ‘Lure of the Abyss’. She lives in Michigan with her dog (who may actually be Mothman in disguise), exploring the Great Lakes whenever she can.
Avery Kit Malone
Story: ‘Doctor Barlowe’s Mirror’
Avery Kit Malone is a recovering academic and sometimes writer. His short fiction has appeared in Dim Shores Presents, Planet Scumm, and Pseudopod, among other venues. He favours cats, ginger sparkling water, and starry skies on cold nights.
Anna Moon
Story: ‘The Dreameater’
Anna Moon is a mystery…
Jude Reid
Story: ‘The Moon in the Glass’
Jude lives in Glasgow and writes dark stories in the gaps between full time work as a surgeon, wrangling her kids and trying to wear out a border collie. Her short fiction has been published in numerous anthologies and magazines, including The Accursed and Sanction and Sin (Black Library), Places We Fear To Tread and Campfire Macabre (Cemetery Gates Media) and Spirit Machine (Air and Nothingness Press).
E. Saxey
Story: ‘The Ruin’
E.Saxey is a queer Londoner who works in universities and libraries. Their work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Apex Magazine and Lightspeed special issue Queers Destroy Science Fiction. Their first collection, Lost in the Archives, is chock full of speculative weirdness and historical oddities, and available from Lethe Press.
Eliza Temple
Story: ‘Hearteater’
Eliza Temple is speculative fiction enthusiast and writer originally from the north east of England. She now lives in a creaky old Victorian house in Cambridge, where she works as a library assistant. When not writing, she spends most of her time watching horror films and wandering around the city to look at interesting buildings and think of other things to write about.
Heather Valentine
Story: ‘Lady of Letters; or, the Twenty-First Century Homunculus’
Heather Valentine is a queer speculative fiction writer based in Glasgow, Scotland, where she runs a fanfiction open mic night. She has worked as a proofreader, a receptionist, a student teacher and a tour guide, and her interests include knitting, fantasy roleplaying games and vintage horror films. Her original stories have been published in magazines and anthologies including LampLight Magazine, We Were Always Here: A Queer Words Anthology, and Shoreline of Infinity.
Katalina Watt
Story: ‘Laguna and the Engkanto’
Katalina was longlisted for Penguin Write Now 2020, awarded a 2021 Ladies of Horror Fiction Writers Grant, and winner of the 2022 Ignyte Best Fiction Podcast Award for their work as founding Audio Director for khōréō magazine. They are published in various magazines and anthologies including Haunted Voices, Unspeakable, and Reclamation and appeared at Edinburgh International Book Festival, Cymera, and FIYAHCON. Katalina is represented by Robbie Guillory at Underline Literary.
Katie Young
Story: ‘Quicksilver Prometheus’
Katie Young is a writer of dark fiction and poetry. Her work appears in various anthologies including collections by Dark Dispatch, Scott J. Moses, Nyx Publishing, Ghost Orchid Press, and Fox Spirit Books. Her story, Lavender Tea, was selected by Zoe Gilbert for inclusion in the Mechanic Institute Review’s Summer Folk Festival 2019. She lives in west London with her partner and an angry cat.