Books published by Lethe Press

Stories about lesbians, women who choose women as primary partners, lovers, playmates, and co-conspirators, tend to go where few men have gone before. Most of the real-life issues that lesbians must deal with, as women and as members of non-mainstream communities, appear in these stories in metaphorical form or as plausible scenarios in a future or alternate world. Lesbianism itself was routinely described by the conservatives of the past as "impossible." The formula of "woman + woman" is thus logically connected with other phenomenon formerly considered impossible: magic, witchcraft, folk cures, scientific discoveries, alternate methods of producing offspring, space travel, communication with beings who are not human or not living in human bodies, historical accounts that have been suppressed or denied. The Heiresses of Russ series seeks to offer readers the best lesbian-themed speculative fictions stories published the prior year.

When the world is endangered, there's no point in sparing the spangles, spilling the drinks, or withholding the glitter. In this collection of whimsical stories of fierce femmes and brave butches, the Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron is a phone call away. Once outcasts and loners, they have found friendship in the shared mission to become the kind of heroes--sparkling, witty, brave--the world so desperately needs against a host of weird foes.

Ne''er-do-wells, prodigal sons, and young men without so much as a clue to their present state of mind let alone their futures are waiting to be met in the stories within Daydreamers, Jonathan Harper''s debut collection. But these men are not Walter Mittys-everyday life refuses to allow them languor. Whether it be the roll of the dice in a Dungeons & Dragons game played in a hostile, rural bar, the lure of body modification and being suspended in front of a crowd, or discovering a body on the beach, the rough edges of each young man cannot help but be noticed, even admired. And once a young man is admired, he needs to decide whether or not to awaken from his daydreams.

1932: Fortune and celebrity are years behind Butch Cardinal. Once a world-class wrestler, Cardinal now serves as hired muscle for a second-rate Chicago mobster. While collecting a parcel from a gangland lowlife, Cardinal witnesses the man''s murder. Though wounded, he escapes the killers and flees into the night carrying the package. In it is a necklace with a metal pendant. Bent and scratched, the thing looks like a piece of junk, but the trinket is the reason a man died. It''s the reason a lot of people will die. Finding shelter with another shamed wrestler in New Orleans, Cardinal embarks on search for answers that will reveal a world of metallic charms and weapons, all forged with unimaginable powers. Alone and outgunned, Cardinal must stand against the Chicago mobs, a brilliant and insane hitman, the police, and a mysterious order intent on retrieving their relic.

The canon of Edgar Allan Poe, one of the foremost writers of dark and atmospheric fiction and poetry, offers readers haunted shores teeming with various erudite men brooding in the waning light over their feelings for unobtainable women. Yet, whether the tales or verses are grotesque or sinister, Poe's narrators are Outsiders, dealing with emotions that so many LGBT individuals feel: isolation and abandonment as well as loneliness and lost love. In the Shirley Jackson Award nominated Where Thy Dark Eye Glances, editor Steve Berman has assembled a range of tales that queer the prose and poetry of the Poe, the man himself, as well as dark and eerie stories about reading Poe's work.