Set for release in October 2025, Blood, Sweat & Queers is an anthology dedicated to queer vampiric love stories coedited by vampire literature scholar Margaret Hall and Contrarian Publishing’s Jamie Ryu.
Vampires in literature have always been an allegory for socially divergent identity. The three foundational texts of English-language vampiric literature (The Vampyre, Carmilla, and Dracula) contain varyingly obvious depictions of homoeroticism, featuring texts written by authors many historians believe to have been somewhere on the queer spectrum. When you trace the vampire’s popularity in the United States alongside various civil rights movements, the correlation is clear. In the early 1930’s, Bela Lugosi’s depiction of Dracula allowed those disenfranchised by the Great Depression to escape, ever so briefly, into a compelling combination of extreme wealth and resolute desire. In 1976, less than a year before Anita Bryant’s "Save Our Children" crusade attempted to brand all queer people as deviants, Anne Rice ushered in a new kind of emotionally resonant vampire with Interview with the Vampire, which encouraged its readers to embrace the unknown with empathy, rather than cower in fear. By the late 1990’s, as gay rights were slowly enforced across the United States, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the personification of a Wholesome American Girl, fell in love with not one but two vampires who proved themselves, time and again, to be exemplary men with deep-seated sexual struggles. In the early 2000’s, vampire stories like Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, and True Blood went positively mainstream alongside the legalization of gay marriage and the normalization of queer community within much of American society. Now, as the queer community faces down vitriolic hate once more, it is almost guaranteed that the vampire will once again rise as a favored archetype to cope with the violence, both emotional and physical. More than ever, uplifting queer stories is of the utmost importance.
Blood, Sweat & Queers Submissions
Contrarian Publishing, which was founded by a queer Asian woman, is doing everything within its power to help to LGBTQ+ community during this incredibly turbulent time. As a result, Blood, Sweat & Queers is, in part, a fundraiser for The Trevor Project—an organization that prevents suicide in LGBTQ+ youth.
Contrarian Publishing is open to submissions—both agented and unagented—from all writers from now until April 14, 2025. Writers from all backgrounds are heartily encouraged to submit. We're looking for original love stories, big passion, and great writing. We encourage authors to write what speaks most to them. That could be a more light-hearted escapist story, or it could be something nitty, gritty, and cutting. Keep the three descriptors in the title in mind: we’re looking for blood, we’re looking for sweat, and above all else, we’re looking for queer representation. Sharpen your pens and snuff out the light; it’s time to crack open the coffin.
We are looking for short form fiction stories between 3,000 and 10,000 words, though we will consider stories with word counts outside of that. We will also consider select comics or illustrated stories—all illustrations must be in black and white.
This is a paid opportunity. Final payment will be determined based on the money raised from our crowdfunding campaign, but we are guaranteeing a minimum of $50-$100 in pay to authors based on the length of the submitted work.
For fiction:
Please fill out the form below and attach your text submission as a docx file. If your story requires very specific formatting, you may submit as a PDF. Please format your submission in Times New Roman, 12 pt font, double spaced.
For illustrated fiction and comics:
Please fill out the form below and attach your materials as a docx or PDF file. Illustrated shorts should be submitted as a complete script. Please also include sample pages, a storyboard, or a dummy. The final book will have a trim size of 6 x 9.