I’m trying to find a “home” for several of my short stories. Most of them are gay-themed — IN A WINE PHASE, CROTCHWATCHERS, MIKE’S POND. Some of them are not — THE TROUBLE WITH FINKLESTEINS. My standby resource is Duotrope Digest, which is a free, searchable database of literary publications. A search of journals that are interested in ‘GLBT’ themes gets me a list of 43 pubs, but over half are lesbian-oriented, the remaining half are about 50% adult/erotica, and the rest are mainly genre-specific (sci fi, fantasy, or romance) . One journal I want to check out is Chroma, a queer pub based in the UK and listed as open to a variety of genres.
I’m also trying to identify the mainstream journals that have occasionally published gay-themed stories; there are so damn many to go through it could be a full-time job. The publishing business has changed, as it has for the broader entertainment industry. The number of gay-identified prints is shrinking while the mainstream media increasingly incorporates LGBT voices. I’m not sure how I feel about it. It’s nice that there’s greater access to literary LGBT portrayals and storylines just as you can find more LGBT characters on network television and wide-release movies. But I find there’s still a lack of depth to LGBT characters in commercialized projects . It’s the difference between watching Modern Family on ABC versus an independent film on Here! TV (I especially enjoy Here’s Donald Strachey series, Paradise Falls and Dante’s Cove).
So this isn’t exactly a rant. In my limited research of the short story market, I’ve discovered many journals that publish LGBT-themed lit. Ploughshares, for example, had a great memoir about working with LGBT youth in foster care by Ryan Berg in its Fall 2008 issue. But I still think there’s something special about a cozy queer publication that you can read through cover to cover and get lost in an LGBT-centered world.
