Pride StoryBundle Mini-interview with A.C. Wise, author of CATFISH LULLABY

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I'm doing several short interviews with authors who have books in the year's Pride StoryBundle. Many thanks to A.C. Wise for kicking us off! Check out her blog for her writing  news, interviews with authors like A.J. Fitzwater and Craig Laurance Gidney and her terrific recommendation lists.

Can you tell us a bit about the book you have in this StoryBundle?

Catfish Lullaby is queer Southern Gothic meets weird cosmic horror. Readers meet the protagonist, Caleb, at three points in his life - as a young child, a pre-teen, and again as an adult, as he reckons with the terrible deeds perpetrated by his neighbor in a twisted quest for immortality. It's full of folklore, found family, and family by blood, and it was a finalist for this year's Nebula Award!

What do you find engaging/important about writing LGBTQ/queer fiction?

I write the kind of stories I want to read. I also think it's important to have a multiplicity of queer narratives out there so there's more chance that people will see some aspect of their own lived experiences reflected in the fiction they consume. Stories have the power to build empathy, and hopefully the more people are exposed to queer narratives, the easier it will be for society as a whole to see queer identities as valid, and queer stories as vital.

What books or stories do you have out that readers of this StoryBundle might enjoy?

I have two short story collections, The Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron Saves the World Again and The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories, published by Lethe Press that were part of past Pride StoryBundles. The Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron is a series of inter-connected short stories following a queer found family of heroes kicking ass and saving the world all while looking absolutely stunning. Kissing Booth is a more traditional short story collection, mixing reprints and a few original tales. My debut novel, Wendy, Darling comes out from Titan Books in June 2021, and a new short story collection, The Ghost Sequences, will be published by Undertow Books in August 2021. I am thrilled about both, and I can't wait for people to read them!

Aside from your own work, what are some of your favorite queer reads you would recommend to folks?

I loved The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper (part of the Pride StoryBundle), it's an utterly delightful and joyous collection of interconnected stories about a dapper, lesbian capybara pirate and her daring crew. Rivers Solomon's An Unkindness of Ghosts is a powerful and painful read, which recreates plantation society on a generation ship. It is both brutal and beautifully written, and I would unhesitatingly recommend it. The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling is a wonderful and tense sci-fi horror about cave diving on an alien planet. I would also highly recommend the Transcendent series of Year's Best anthologies from Lethe Press. They're always wonderful!

I could go on, but I'll restrain myself.