paranormal – GenderTerror

Back in 2017, we interviewed Shane and Kai of the fabulous Queer Ghost Hunters to follow-up on how their first year on YouTube went. When we first got wind of this wonderful team, we interviewed Shane, Kai, and Scott on their origins and how they all came together to go after the mysteries of the supernatural.

Now Shane is back! This time with fellow Queer Ghost Hunter, Lori, to talk about their podcast, The Q Files. Unfortunately, ghost hunting is not a cheap endeavor to do regularly. So due to their love for podcasts and the paranormal, Shane and Lori decided to start one.

The Q Files does something a bit different than other podcasts in its vein. The Q Files not only uses conversations and interviews, but also audio from the field on Shane and Lori’s ghost hunting expeditions. This can get tricky as often ghost hunting is used as a way to “show” that ghosts are real.

According to Shane, The Q Files is, “…is a clear play on The X Files, and those who know our prior work rightly assume the Q stands for queer. And it does. But we use it in the classic sense – odd, peculiar, strange”. Unlike prior engagements, the Q Files does not focus solely on ghosts! This is a podcast for all things outlandish, mysterious, and well, what you may call queer.

Continue reading “Taking A Look Through The Q Files”

by Santino Hassell

As someone who spends a lot of time on book social media, I commonly see people saying it’s difficult for them to find queer representation in paranormal and horror novels. There are several reasons for that but I tend to think the common obstacles are as follows:

1) Lack of rep in general in mainstream publishing. Even though non-queer people seem to think we’re all taking over because we may now have a queer hero for every twenty hetero heroes… that’s still only one queer hero among a sea of non-queer characters.

2) The queer representation primarily consisting of cis gay male heroes with little room for the rest of the rainbow.

3) I’ve seen many readers and authors alike state “it’s not out there”, and then being shocked when they receive many recommendations for paranormal and horror books featuring queer characters. This could be people assuming there’s *none* out there due to a lack of mainstream marketing for these novels. At the end of the day, readers are consumers and consumers tend to drift to things that are heavily marketed unless they follow social media accounts where they will receive word-of-mouth recommendations.

4) Writers receiving the advice that “those books won’t sell”, and writing less books with a queer cast. It’s a tricky situation because writers do want to make a living, but I can’t help but think the publishing industry sometimes gas lights writers into thinking queer characters aren’t interesting or relatable to non-queer people when, in reality, often those books aren’t marketed the same as books with hetero casts… so it’s not a comparable situation.

Continue reading “Desperately Seeking Queer Representation”