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Pink Narcissus is a small press publisher founded in 2010 that specializes in speculative fiction with an LGBTQ+ and feminist slant.
Heroic quests. Epic battles. Worlds populated with monsters, errant knights, faerie folk, wizards and dragons. These are all fine things in our opinion, and we seek out the original in the traditional. However, even we sometimes tire of hanging around in the cold, damp castle until the king sends us off on a another quest for another magic sword. Therefore dark fantasy, urban fantasy, literary fantasy, and crossovers with science fiction and horror are also welcome. Other genres we like served straight up include magic realism, the new weird, and soft sociological science fiction. We are LGBTQ+ friendly and welcome themes of alternative sexuality. People of color, people with disabilities, and women are also highly encouraged to submit their work to us. |
News
Available November 2023: The Final Days of Kobold Kody's Frontier Exposition and Tonic Show by Eli Horowitz
Two days out from the capital, the Fortune Teller has a vision. It is a bloody prophecy, as her visions often are. Yet this one is more. It is the beginning of the end for Kobold Kody's Frontier Exposition and Tonic Show.
"In Eli Horowitz's rich, thoughtful fantasy novel, The Final Days of Kobold Kody's Frontier Exposition and Tonic Show, talented misfits navigate a magical world. Melding elements of the Wild West with a land in which dragons, goblins, elves and orcs roam, the story charts the fortunes of a ragtag crew of carnival performers, all of whom are on the run from dark pasts or tragic futures. The story's linchpin is Andra, a fortune teller cursed to be despised by those whose fates she foretells. When she prophesies her death and the end of the circus, it sets off a chain of events that ensnares her, her huckster boss Kobold, and her fellow performers, inclusing a 'dragontamer.' a contortionist, a halfling, a gentle giant, a human pincushion, and a hot-tempered fire starter." - ForeWord Reviews
Cover design by Julie T. Horowitz.
"In Eli Horowitz's rich, thoughtful fantasy novel, The Final Days of Kobold Kody's Frontier Exposition and Tonic Show, talented misfits navigate a magical world. Melding elements of the Wild West with a land in which dragons, goblins, elves and orcs roam, the story charts the fortunes of a ragtag crew of carnival performers, all of whom are on the run from dark pasts or tragic futures. The story's linchpin is Andra, a fortune teller cursed to be despised by those whose fates she foretells. When she prophesies her death and the end of the circus, it sets off a chain of events that ensnares her, her huckster boss Kobold, and her fellow performers, inclusing a 'dragontamer.' a contortionist, a halfling, a gentle giant, a human pincushion, and a hot-tempered fire starter." - ForeWord Reviews
Cover design by Julie T. Horowitz.
Coming soon
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Available June 2023: Inkweed by Nat Buchbinder
Two queer spec fic novellas about boys, betrayals, and... bees.
Set in a future where humanity has been driven underground by “bad air,” Inkweed tells the story of Niko, a young factory worker at a utensil manufacturing plant. Uneducated and unskilled, Niko assumes his life will continue on course, the monitoring tensile strength of forks and spoons until he dies. Then Niko’s acquaintance Bill introduces him to inkweed, an elusive and powerful drug. Enticed by both Bill and the drug, Niko gets into the dangerous business of selling inkweed.
In The Mellification, Holly—a young transgender man who is a vampire—seeks a new name. In an underground society that values patience as their principle virtue, awaiting and receiving a vampire name is a vital rite of passage. Betrayal takes many forms, but what lurks in the dark passages of the catacombs might be the greatest threat to both Holly, his lover Cain, and his coven.
Cover art by Nicolae Negură.
Available September 2022: Revimore by Ciel Dexter
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“At Revimore we do not pretend to take away your grief. Death is a natural part of life. But what if you were able to continue to share your life with your loved one? To begin and end each day knowing that you never need to be alone again?” Told through the voices of women touched by loss, this thought-provoking work examines the nature of grief, and the ethical dilemmas inherent in Revimore, a company that creates artificially intelligent replicants to replace loved ones after death. "Dexter raises all the standard questions about AI rights, sentience, and ethics, but the close, personal lens on the issue provided by her three captivating heroines adds depth and nuance to these themes. It's a well-done meditation on humanity, companionship, and grief." - Publishers Weekly Cover art by Duncan Eagleson. |
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Available in 2020
The Silence of the Wilting Skin by Tlotlo Tsamaase
*Lambda Literary Award Finalist - Best LGBT Speculative Fiction*
*Nommo Award Finalist - Best African Speculative Fiction novella*
*Named one of the Best Speculative Fiction Novels of the Year by The Washington Post*
From an exciting new voice in speculative fiction, Tlotlo Tsamaase weaves together a story of identity and family, of love and loss, and the dead.
In an African city, a nameless young woman living in the wards slowly begins to lose her identity: her skin color is peeling off, people are becoming invisible, and the city plans to destroy the train where they bury their dead.
In the wards the dreamskin people walk the land to predict a citizen’s death. After the narrator is given a warning by her grandmother’s dreamskin, things begin to fall apart. Struggling to hold onto a fluctuating reality, she prescribes herself insomnia in a desperate attempt to save her family.
Cover design by Duncan Eagleson.
*Lambda Literary Award Finalist - Best LGBT Speculative Fiction*
*Nommo Award Finalist - Best African Speculative Fiction novella*
*Named one of the Best Speculative Fiction Novels of the Year by The Washington Post*
From an exciting new voice in speculative fiction, Tlotlo Tsamaase weaves together a story of identity and family, of love and loss, and the dead.
In an African city, a nameless young woman living in the wards slowly begins to lose her identity: her skin color is peeling off, people are becoming invisible, and the city plans to destroy the train where they bury their dead.
In the wards the dreamskin people walk the land to predict a citizen’s death. After the narrator is given a warning by her grandmother’s dreamskin, things begin to fall apart. Struggling to hold onto a fluctuating reality, she prescribes herself insomnia in a desperate attempt to save her family.
Cover design by Duncan Eagleson.
Available in 2019
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Suspended Heart: Stories by Heather Fowler
In an explosion of love’s metaphors, Fowler’s magic realism collection, Suspended Heart, takes on American fabulism with a cast of unexpected heroines in the narratives of life and loss—women whose hearts fall out at public malls, women whose bodies bloom with changing seasons, women who sprout blades or have multiple eyes, sleep as snakes, or birth saints like lapis lazuli babies. There’s a fearlessness to this prose, a melody of life and magic and loss. This Collector’s Edition contains three previously uncollected stories.
Cover art by Siolo Thompson.
In an explosion of love’s metaphors, Fowler’s magic realism collection, Suspended Heart, takes on American fabulism with a cast of unexpected heroines in the narratives of life and loss—women whose hearts fall out at public malls, women whose bodies bloom with changing seasons, women who sprout blades or have multiple eyes, sleep as snakes, or birth saints like lapis lazuli babies. There’s a fearlessness to this prose, a melody of life and magic and loss. This Collector’s Edition contains three previously uncollected stories.
Cover art by Siolo Thompson.
Stringbean and the Grace of Dog by Geneva Zane
Little Stringbean, coming of age in a strange yet strangely familiar small town. Grown from a seed and raised as a miracle by a warm but distant religious cult leader and his reclusive and deeply depressed widowed companion, Stringbean struggles with the challenges created by her outsider upbringing. In a series of delicately compelling vignettes Stringbean and the Grace of Dog vividly brings into focus the heartbreaking vulnerability of a childhood played out on the dusty stage of a ruptured world.
Cover art by Siolo Thompson
Little Stringbean, coming of age in a strange yet strangely familiar small town. Grown from a seed and raised as a miracle by a warm but distant religious cult leader and his reclusive and deeply depressed widowed companion, Stringbean struggles with the challenges created by her outsider upbringing. In a series of delicately compelling vignettes Stringbean and the Grace of Dog vividly brings into focus the heartbreaking vulnerability of a childhood played out on the dusty stage of a ruptured world.
Cover art by Siolo Thompson
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Now available: The Knife's Daughter by Andrew Coletti
Your mother needed you to be a prince. When your father was slain and your mother fled into exile, the prophecy was her only comfort. The child in her belly would be a prince, it said, who would wield his father’s sword, avenge his death and take back his throne. But when the time came, your mother didn’t have a boy. She had you. *** “The Knife’s Daughter is a lyrical, moving tale of identity and duty. The story combines the magic and wonder of the quest-based fairy tales of old with a complex exploration of gender roles and identity... It takes the traditional fairy tale and turns it completely on its head. Heartbreaking, magical, and completing engrossing, this story will break your heart and then put it back together stronger than it was before.” - Terri Bruce, author of the Afterlife series Cover design by Dante Saunders. |
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Now available: The Ramshead Algorithm and Other Stories by KJ Kabza
Ramshead Jones has a billionaire father, a dysfunctional family, and a shocking secret nestled in the hedge maze in his backyard: Earth's only portal to hundreds of other realities. When Ramshead's unwitting father decides to rip the hedge maze out, Ramshead is forced to use dangerous magic to move the portal before it's destroyed, too—unless the deadly maze of other family secrets that come to light destroys him first. In The Ramshead Algorithm and Other Stories, sand cats speak, ghost bikes roll, corpses disappear, and hedge mazes are more bewildering than you've ever imagined. These 11 fantasy and science fiction stories from KJ Kabza have been dubbed "Sublime" (Tangent), "Rich" (SFRevu), and "Ethereal" (Quick Sip Reviews) and will take you deep into other astonishing realities that not even Ramshead has discovered. Introduction by Gordon Van Gelder. Cover design and interior illustrations by Dante Saunders. |
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View the trailer for Heather Fowler's Beautiful Ape Girl Baby (June 2016).