Today on the site I’m delighted to crack open the lid on the coffin of Blood, Sweat, & Queers ed. by Margaret Hall and Jamie Ryu, a collection of LGBTQ+ vampiric love stories releasing October 7, 2025 from Contrarian Publishing with a portion of proceeds going to the Trevor Project! Here’s the gist:

CRACK OPEN THE COFFIN AND UNLEASH THE VAMPIRE.

An ancient beast stirs in the shale beneath an oil rig. A dancer languish in a lakeside cottage. A man swipes right, hunting flesh with a predator’s patience. A woman reels from government-sanctioned body horrors.

All queer. All ravenous. All vampires.

Vampires have always been vessels of longing, craving not only blood, but sex, power, and the sanctity of the taboo. And what hunger is more righteously denied, more persistently policed, than queer love? Like the vampire, the queer spirit endures, unkillable and unashamed.

With a foreword by vampire scholar Margaret Hall, Blood, Sweat & Queers presents decadent tales of queer love from eight LGBTQ+ authors, all intertwined with the eternal allure of the vampire— stories of desire unbound, of passion unending, and hunger that threatens to consume everything in its path. Crack open the coffin, if you dare.

And here’s some insight into the stories from its illustrious contributors!

“Sweet Crimson Dripping: Overture” by Ezra Wren

Six-hundred-and-seventy-seven-year-old vampire Ambrose DeVoreur has his sights set on a night of pleasure at a costume party in the city with his Sire Marcel. Little does he know that he’s in for an unforgettable night where he’ll meet an old frenemy flame he hasn’t seen in a decade and a human who will change his life forever. “Sweet Crimson Dripping: Overture” is the opening of a story about found family, harmony in one’s own identity and the joy of being queer when surrounded by others within the community.

Vampirism has always spelled out otherness for me and as a non-binary author, these characters have given me the opportunity to create a narrative within a micro-world that celebrates queerness in all its beautiful diversity and draws its darkness from sources outside queer identity.

“Blood and Oil” by Mae Murray

“Blood and Oil” is a story about loneliness, our relationship to the land and to each other, and how social media has degraded those things. Told through the eyes of an ancient Indigenous being and a lonely woman working the oil fields of rural Texas. The idea came to me when I sought examples of North American Indigenous vampires in literature and onscreen and came up short. I tried to imagine what an Indigenous vampire might be like and decided to explore the idea of Indigenousness itself. Writing a creature beyond human comprehension, and at the same time having it be a reminder of our own humanity and how it is lost and re-discovered throughout history.

“Teeth Sharper Than Moonlight” by U.M. Agoawike

“Teeth Sharper Than Moonlight” is a meta take on the “woman fleeing from castle” trope, about a demure damsel, a beastly vampire, and a deadly pursuit through foggy, moonlit streets that is not all it appears to be. My inspiration was, of course, the Nosferatu remake. It got me into a bit of a vampire kick, and on a whim I jotted down some character ideas that would eventually become Gwyn and Jonas. I wrote TSTM to see how far I could push the definition of vampire—and also because of that Tumblr post lamenting the ludicrous numbers of maidens stealing gowns and candelabras as they flee castles in the middle of the night.

What counts as a vampire varies from animalistic to pretty much human, and I wanted to portray both ends of that spectrum. It led me to consider where each variant would sit, and the relations between them if we were to create a taxonomy of the undead. An atypical interpretation of vampires and the appeal of mixing seemingly unrelated creatures was a driving force behind this story. Essentially: when people say werewolves or vampires—I ask, what if the werewolves were vampires?

“Suckr” by Austen Lee

“Suckr” follows Jackson, a seductive predator stalking Portland’s queer nightlife with fangs bared and ego sharp. He thinks he’s found his next young, handsome victim through the hookup app Suckr. But the night unfolds in unexpected ways, and desire proves far more dangerous than anticipated. This is a dark, visceral tale of sex, power, and the risks we take when we blur the line between hunter and hunted.

I’ve always loved vampires and what they represent: outsiders, seduction, freedom, and the exploration of every edge of desire. But in “Suckr,” I wanted to turn the lens on the predator—to explore what happens when control begins to slip, when the thrill of the hunt twists. Vampires are perfect for interrogating the full spectrum of sexuality—from the beautiful to the brutal—and “Suckr” sinks its teeth into both. It’s a story about hunger, intimacy, and the dangers lurking behind a dazzling smile.

“Girl in the Grove” by Andi Astra

When an injured fae woman appears in the ruins of a sacred grove, Alondra, an ancient vampire who has long kept to herself, cannot help but save her.

But as the fae recovers within the walls of her castle, her strange presence begins to unravel Alondra’s carefully preserved world—forcing her to confront the monster she has been and the creature she is on the verge of becoming.

“Because this is what she does, isn’t it? She destroys. She ruins. She takes. And perhaps that’s where all this is heading anyway, because she isn’t fool enough to think the girl would last long. Not with her, not anywhere else in the cold, cruel, mortal world.

So she indulges herself, like she always does, and tells herself she will just take the girl, and ruin her, and move on.”

“When the Day Met the Night” by Anna McG

Aileen Belisama spent the last four decades trying to make the best of immortality, currently bartending in a sleepy mountain town—and hunting the men who tried to terrorize it. Veronica Taylor, aspiring librarian, is trying to make a fresh start–but who’s fast enough to outrun their past? Can these two women find the strength to not only reveal their darkest secrets, but also overcome them?

This story took shape in my mind after a night out with friends at the local dive bar. I spend a lot of time thinking about the different ways one could pass an eternity of vampirism, the mundane and the theatric. I was quite the Dexter fan in high school, fascinated by the character’s desire to try and compensate for his own monstrous tendencies. Aileen took shape before everything else–she would not have chosen this life for herself, and she has chosen to spend her life trying to prevent what damage she can for others. I think there’s something beautiful in the tragedy of struggling against your own fate, against your own basic instincts–carving out a space for yourself in a world that was so drastically changed for you. It was such a privilege to tell the story of two women who have experienced so many horrors in this world, but found something beautiful with one another.

“Still, We Rot.” by L.A. Barron

“Still, We Rot.” is a not-so-subtle fuck you to commercialized oppression. It follows the story of Star Thomas during the darkest part of her life. After a drug trial that was meant to pay her bills goes awry, and strange symptoms start plaguing her, Star decides isolation is the only path forward. James, a nurse, enters her life and is tasked with documenting her weekly feeds and behavior patterns. The more she gets to know him, the more Star wonders if this isolated life of hers is bloody enough.

Oppression takes many forms, and “Still, We Rot.” asks the question: What would you do with a body that is failing you, laws and governments that restrict and politicize your existence, and still, you refuse to lie down and die? In Star Thomas’s case, she initially decides isolation is the way forward until she connects with James. So often, being sick makes the world feel both unattainably large and impossibly suffocating. Star represents my own fears and frustrations as a queer, disabled person in America today. She also holds the fire that all of us need to keep trying to be better, to love better, and to know the cost and pay it anyway.

“Sweetest Midnight” by Lyndall Clipstone

“On the second night of her penance, Juniper Bost broke all the rules.”

“Sweetest Midnight” is a sapphic vampire love story, inspired by Suspiria (2018) and the myth of Eros and Psyche. Written as an examination of the nature of intense ambition, the story follows a young woman who breaks the strict moral code of her dance company. To redeem herself, she must go through a summer in exile. Sent to an isolated lake house in upstate Maine, she will be the companion to a woman she must never meet- drugging herself each night to sleep beside her unseen employer. But as secrets are unveiled in midnight hours, she begins to see the company she devoted her life to in a new, horrifying light.

Buy it: Contrarian | Amazon

Margaret Hall is a scholar of vampire literature, author, teacher, director, producer, and theatre historian. Margaret is currently a writer for Playbill Magazine, the pre-eminent theatre publication in the United States, as well as a professor at New York University, where she helps students orient themselves within musical theatre history as members of its newest generation. She is the youngest known nominator in the history of the Drama Desk Awards. Margaret has dedicated her career to honoring the human beings at the core of the art they create. An unflinching advocate for the societally marginalized, Margaret is an autistic woman, and the founder of the non-profit Autistic Theatremakers Alliance. She has received both a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drama, and Masters in Musical Theatre History from New York University.

Jamie Ryu worked for Big 5 powerhouse publishing companies like Macmillan and HarperCollins before forging her own path as the founder of Contrarian Publishing. With ample editing experience and a degree in Comparative Literature from New York University, she is well-equipped to help writers unlock the full potential of the stories they’re meant to tell and aid them in pursuing their goals, whether that be traditional publishing or indie publishing. She is a proud, queer Korean American woman, and is sadly married to a man (a wonderful man, but a man nonetheless).