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Saints and Sinners 2023 New Fiction from the Festival
Saints and Sinners is an annual celebration that takes place in the heart of the French Quarter of New Orleans each spring. The Festival includes writing workshops, readings, panel discussions, literary walking tours, and a variety of special events. We also aim to inspire the written word through our short fiction contest, and our annual Saints and Sinners Emerging Writer Award sponsored by Rob Byrnes. Each year we induct individuals to our Saints and Sinners Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame is intended to recognize people for their dedication to LGBTQ literature. Selected members have shown their passion for our literary community through various avenues including writing, promotion, publishing, editing, teaching, bookselling, and volunteerism. This collection includes a varied selection of fiction from the 2023 festival including the winner and finalists for the annual fiction contest.
268 pages, Paperback
Published March 24, 2023
3 people want to read
About the author
Michael Nava
33 books340 followersMichael Nava is the author of a groundbreaking series of crime novels featuring a gay, Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios. Nava is a six-time recipient of the Lambda Literary Award in the mystery category, as well as the Bill Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award for gay and lesbian literature.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 4, 2023
Since I have a story in this collection, my five stars might seem a little self-serving — but I can honestly tell you that the other 19 stories are terrific and a few of them are downright brilliant. C.A. Munn’s “The Mantis” is sad and violent and ultimately hopeful; John Copenhaver’s “Goldfish” is urbane and traumatic; Carrie Smith’s “Aliens” captures a teenager’s first crush perfectly; Marco Carocari’s “Grace” is tragic and chilling; Judith Katz’s “A Waterfall” is hilarious, then poignant. It’s a collection of 20 different stories by as many writers, so you’ll enjoy some more than others, but if you’re a fan of queer lit, there’s absolutely something here for you.
May 19, 2023
SAINTS + SINNERS 2023: NEW FICTION
Saints + Sinners 2023: New Fiction from the Festival contains twenty short stories, including the winner and three runners-up, from the annual fiction contest. According to the writer bios at the back of the book, thirteen of the twenty writers use male pronouns, six writers use female pronouns, and one writer uses they/their. Several writers who are familiar to me, such as Philip Gambone, John Whittier Treat, J. R. Greenwell, and Eric Peterson, have stories in this year’s collection. The other seventeen writers are new to me.
Since the 2018 edition, the Saints + Sinners new fiction collections have sported fabulous front cover art, and sometime back cover art, by Timothy Cummings. As I said in my review of the 2022 collection, the eyes of the figures in Cummings’s stupendously colorful and intriguing paintings will mesmerize you. The back cover usually displays either art by Cummings or a beautiful male nude by John Barton Harter, whose foundation supports the Saints + Sinners LGBTQ Literary Festival. This 2023 collection is no exception to the above: fantastic front cover art by Cummings and a male nude by Harter on the back cover.
As I’ve found in previous years, my favorite stories from a collection usually do not coincide with the winners and runners-up selected by the judges. Several of the stories in the 2023 volume are full of surprises. I loved “Banjo” by Eric Peterson, whose story in the 2022 collection was also a favorite of mine. In “Banjo,” Arturo is mourning the death of Ben, his partner. One day, Arturo goes to the park and has an encounter with a dog named Banjo. Coincidentally, Banjo had been Ben’s nickname. You can’t predict how this suspenseful story will go. Also, I really liked Joshua Randall Leonard’s “Tommy and the Ice Cream Truck.” The narrator dotes on his best friend Tommy. Does the narrator have a false memory of the tragic events that changed their lives?
Instead of commenting on more of the stories in the collection, I’d like to quote a line from each story, out of context, of course, in order to give a hint of the flavor of the writing and to whet readers’ interest in reading the stories.
C. A. Mann, “The Mantis”: “My voice changing is probably the thing I look forward to most about starting ‘T’.”
Philip Gambone, “Big Boy”: “They move on—yes, hurt, wounded, angry—but they find themselves again. Separately.”
Judith Katz, “A Waterfall”: “It was like you were your own little self-contained universe, except when you decided it was time to go home.”
Eric Peterson, “Banjo”: “Either Ben was back, or Arturo should have started therapy much, much sooner.”
Spencer George, “Lighthouse”: “My life has always felt like something that was going to catch up to me one day.”
Kendal McGinnis, “Mount Soledad”: “Things about my dad’s life reveal themselves to me in acute, hysterical snippets.”
J. R. Greenwell, “Water between My Legs”: “Fortunately for me, he was afraid of me whether because his family made the assumption that I was an alien life form with supernatural powers, or because of my weirdness by being a sissy boy.”
Mary Fox, “A Shrine for Justin”: “So now Pauly has all the toilets mapped, especially those with windows large enough for a skinny teenager to slip through.”
William Christy Smith, “By Hook or by Crook”: “Would you like the fiddlehead fern?”
Ariadne Blayden, “Minor Difficulties in BigEasyWorld”: “I guess the work of Upstairs Ghost is less important than Enslaved Kitchen Person—Male.”
J. Duncan Davidson, “The New Moon”: “The Moon is after all where socialists wage a nightly war of words against communists, where poets test out a latest rant, where Joe McCarthy is looking over everyone’s shoulder.”
Powell Burke, “Man in Sunglasses with Newspaper”: “You’re someone I could spend time with in real life.”
Jamey Baumgardt, “Chrysalis”: “The concern on his face was so inviting it rendered a small tear in my heart.”
John Whittier Treat, “Boys Not in the Band”: “They were Baby Boomer gays.”
Marco Carocari, “Grace”: “Standing on the threshold, a feeling of doom gripped my insides and turned them to ice.”
Carrie Smith, “Aliens”: “As long as you make it believable, you can make anything happen.”
Joshua Randall Leonard, “Tommy and the Ice Cream Truck”: “We were your trademark latchkey kids of the 80s, except with backwoods redneck mixed in.”
April Clausen, “Exodus 20:17”: “I took to spying like someone born into a family of thieves.”
James McCoyne, “Customer Service”: “I do not smile, knowing that rugged simmering anger is the most attractive visage to put on.”
John Copenhaver, “Goldfish”: “He’d spill into a room, gather an audience—plastered and pliable gay men—and read us.”
Each volume of the annual Saints + Sinners: New Fiction from the Festival is a treasure, not only because of the literary quality and variety of the short stories selected but also because of Timothy Cummings’s cover art. I highly anticipate the 2024 Saints + Sinners new fiction collection.
Saints + Sinners 2023: New Fiction from the Festival contains twenty short stories, including the winner and three runners-up, from the annual fiction contest. According to the writer bios at the back of the book, thirteen of the twenty writers use male pronouns, six writers use female pronouns, and one writer uses they/their. Several writers who are familiar to me, such as Philip Gambone, John Whittier Treat, J. R. Greenwell, and Eric Peterson, have stories in this year’s collection. The other seventeen writers are new to me.
Since the 2018 edition, the Saints + Sinners new fiction collections have sported fabulous front cover art, and sometime back cover art, by Timothy Cummings. As I said in my review of the 2022 collection, the eyes of the figures in Cummings’s stupendously colorful and intriguing paintings will mesmerize you. The back cover usually displays either art by Cummings or a beautiful male nude by John Barton Harter, whose foundation supports the Saints + Sinners LGBTQ Literary Festival. This 2023 collection is no exception to the above: fantastic front cover art by Cummings and a male nude by Harter on the back cover.
As I’ve found in previous years, my favorite stories from a collection usually do not coincide with the winners and runners-up selected by the judges. Several of the stories in the 2023 volume are full of surprises. I loved “Banjo” by Eric Peterson, whose story in the 2022 collection was also a favorite of mine. In “Banjo,” Arturo is mourning the death of Ben, his partner. One day, Arturo goes to the park and has an encounter with a dog named Banjo. Coincidentally, Banjo had been Ben’s nickname. You can’t predict how this suspenseful story will go. Also, I really liked Joshua Randall Leonard’s “Tommy and the Ice Cream Truck.” The narrator dotes on his best friend Tommy. Does the narrator have a false memory of the tragic events that changed their lives?
Instead of commenting on more of the stories in the collection, I’d like to quote a line from each story, out of context, of course, in order to give a hint of the flavor of the writing and to whet readers’ interest in reading the stories.
C. A. Mann, “The Mantis”: “My voice changing is probably the thing I look forward to most about starting ‘T’.”
Philip Gambone, “Big Boy”: “They move on—yes, hurt, wounded, angry—but they find themselves again. Separately.”
Judith Katz, “A Waterfall”: “It was like you were your own little self-contained universe, except when you decided it was time to go home.”
Eric Peterson, “Banjo”: “Either Ben was back, or Arturo should have started therapy much, much sooner.”
Spencer George, “Lighthouse”: “My life has always felt like something that was going to catch up to me one day.”
Kendal McGinnis, “Mount Soledad”: “Things about my dad’s life reveal themselves to me in acute, hysterical snippets.”
J. R. Greenwell, “Water between My Legs”: “Fortunately for me, he was afraid of me whether because his family made the assumption that I was an alien life form with supernatural powers, or because of my weirdness by being a sissy boy.”
Mary Fox, “A Shrine for Justin”: “So now Pauly has all the toilets mapped, especially those with windows large enough for a skinny teenager to slip through.”
William Christy Smith, “By Hook or by Crook”: “Would you like the fiddlehead fern?”
Ariadne Blayden, “Minor Difficulties in BigEasyWorld”: “I guess the work of Upstairs Ghost is less important than Enslaved Kitchen Person—Male.”
J. Duncan Davidson, “The New Moon”: “The Moon is after all where socialists wage a nightly war of words against communists, where poets test out a latest rant, where Joe McCarthy is looking over everyone’s shoulder.”
Powell Burke, “Man in Sunglasses with Newspaper”: “You’re someone I could spend time with in real life.”
Jamey Baumgardt, “Chrysalis”: “The concern on his face was so inviting it rendered a small tear in my heart.”
John Whittier Treat, “Boys Not in the Band”: “They were Baby Boomer gays.”
Marco Carocari, “Grace”: “Standing on the threshold, a feeling of doom gripped my insides and turned them to ice.”
Carrie Smith, “Aliens”: “As long as you make it believable, you can make anything happen.”
Joshua Randall Leonard, “Tommy and the Ice Cream Truck”: “We were your trademark latchkey kids of the 80s, except with backwoods redneck mixed in.”
April Clausen, “Exodus 20:17”: “I took to spying like someone born into a family of thieves.”
James McCoyne, “Customer Service”: “I do not smile, knowing that rugged simmering anger is the most attractive visage to put on.”
John Copenhaver, “Goldfish”: “He’d spill into a room, gather an audience—plastered and pliable gay men—and read us.”
Each volume of the annual Saints + Sinners: New Fiction from the Festival is a treasure, not only because of the literary quality and variety of the short stories selected but also because of Timothy Cummings’s cover art. I highly anticipate the 2024 Saints + Sinners new fiction collection.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews