Pride Storybundle 2022
It’s time for the latest Pride Storybundle! Once again, Catherine Lundoff and I have pulled together a collection of outstanding LGBTQIA+ SF/F, with five books in the main bundle and ten in the bonus. You’ll find the usual mix of newer writers and new works, plus some older ones, as well as a mix of novels, novellas, and short story collections. There’s science fiction, fantasy, dark fantasy, solarpunk, cyberpunk, and more, ranging in tone from deeply serious to extremely funny, all written by authors who are at the top of their game.
This is the sixth (!) year we’ve done a Storybundle for Pride, and with the proliferation of Pride-themed things out there — my local Target has a pride display! — I thought I'd talk a little bit about why I want to celebrate Pride this way. The simplest reason, of course, is to support our community: while more and more mainstream SF/F houses are publishing queer-themed work, there is also an increasing number of small(er) queer presses that are producing an even wider range of queer work. With smaller margins and lower overhead, these presses are able to publish writers whose take on queer matters goes beyond the familiar, and to welcome new and less familiar voices. The downside, of course, is that these presses have less access to mass marketing, and can struggle to reach the readers who would love to see their books. And this is where Storybundle comes in. It was designed to be an easy, low-cost and low-effort way for readers to find books from indie and small presses, and that makes it perfect for Pride. In addition, Jason Chen has set up the system so that readers can direct part of their payment to a charity of choice. We are pleased once again to support Rainbow Railroad in its efforts to help LGBT+ folks escape state-sponsored violence worldwide, and the fact that we can direct people to an NGO that is doing such immediate and necessary work is another reason that Storybundle meshes so well with Pride.
For me personally, this is a chance to find new writers and to support writers whose work I already know. There is so much good queer work being done right now that it’s all but impossible to keep up. Having a reason to keep looking outside my usual range of writers and publishers means I have found some truly fabulous books I would never have seen before, and having Catherine as a co-curator doubles my chances. I keep a running list of things I’ve read and things I want to look for, and every year the list gets longer and better. My thanks to everyone who’s part of this year’s bundle, and to everyone who’s made this possible.
