From Laura Corin, 2025 Fiction Winner

What inspired you to write your piece?

I had a dream where I was getting on a plane with my new baby in my arms. The father was behind me with his daughter. We were awkward in the aisle and there were too many bags. But it was so beautiful. I was so happy because I had a baby. Then my awake mind interrupted and said, “Why are you with that guy?” And I knew the only way I could have the baby with him was if I no longer was with my wife from my awake life. The wonderful dream turned into a nightmare.

I couldn’t shake the dream, and a story started to form. I could see the end with her clawing in the snow – trying to wake herself up from her nightmare I’m now realizing. The story stayed as notes for a long time. It was too close to home. Infertility struggles left their marks on me. While so much of the story is made up, there is a lot of reality in there. When my wife proofed it for me, she said, “I feel like I just read fan fiction of my life.”

We have our daughter, though, my wife and I, no coworker required, and only deals with the devil that I’ve made my peace with. Mostly. My daughter is now a teenager, and it’s been years since we tried to give her a sibling. Though I still have dreams that I’m pregnant or breast feeding or a mother to another child (these are the best dreams, better than flying), in my awake life

I adore our family of three. I can even have normal conversations with pregnant people without getting totally depressed, and I was ready to write this story for real.

What were some of the factors that influenced you to submit to our Festival?

I’ve had my eye on the Saints and Sinners Festival for a while. I’ve never been to New Orleans, and I love gatherings of queer writers. Plus, I love the witchy, dark and mysterious vibe that the name implies. I’m bummed that I couldn’t attend this year, but it remains on my bucket list. I’ll make my appearance someday, and it will be fabulous.

I thought this story fit the theme because the protagonist is both a saint and a sinner. She has good intentions to be a mother and would be a good mother, but also she’s willing to do almost anything and use anyone to become a mother, which knocks her off the saint side of things.

How did it feel to find out you were the winner?

My big plan was to make it into the anthology. My hope was that my creepy lesbian infertility story set in Alaska would help add to a mix of stories. I was thrilled to be a finalist and thought, “Aha! My plan worked.”

I found out I was a winner when I read the email announcing all the winners and finalists. There might have been some squealing. I told my wife first. I also told my daughter who was like, “Cool,” and then returned to her phone (see teenager reference above).

The win came at a really needed time for me. The queer young adult fantasy that I’ve been working on for a decade has been rejected by every agent I sent it to and only a handful requested to read the full manuscript. So, I was feeling pretty low about my life choices and desire to write. Winning and being in the anthology reminded me I have stories people want to read and it’s worth it to write them. It gave me such a boost. Thank you. I’m so grateful.

What are you working on now?

I’ve set my young adult fantasy aside and am now working on an adult murder mystery about a woman framed for the murder of her boss who betrayed her. The protagonist has a rare, deadly venom in her, and when her boss finds out about it, the boss turns from tough to evil. Her type of venom kills her boss. She has to solve the murder to get her freedom, but also, she has come to terms with her past and the dangerous creature that she is.

It’s super gay, of course. There are obnoxious ex-girlfriends, a flamboyance of trans aunties and mama bears, drama queens, and lesbians organizing access to abortions. She will need all her queer friends and frenemies to solve this one.

Do you have any new publication news you’d like to share? 

I wish I did! Wish me good luck on my new novel. Instead, I will plug Lambda Literary, which supports LGBTQ+ writers, and Tin House, which has some neat books and writer resources.

 

From Jendi Reiter, 2025 Poetry Winner

What inspired you to write your piece?

The winning poems—”Help! I’ve Been Invited to a Cuddle Party”, “The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Guide: Bisexuality”, and “I Hit on My 20-Year-Old Self”—come from a manuscript that really just poured out of me during the fall and winter of 2023. I had had my long-awaited top surgery in March of that year, at age 50, the culmination of a gender transition that took me by surprise in my 40s and slowly took physical form over four years.

Coming into more authentic embodiment flooded me with emotions that demanded a new container. Besides becoming insufferably vain about my appearance, I experienced greater erotic vitality, artistic boldness, anger and grief about the years spent squeezing into the wrong box, rapid-onset attraction to women, and a need for reconciliation with younger versions of myself who were confused about how this all happened. My husband and I had to work through how these changes impacted the balance of energies between us. I’m grateful for his support of my explorations and my art. 

I want to give a shout-out to the Center for New Americans in our hometown of Northampton, MA, a nonprofit that helps immigrants with job training, English literacy, and citizenship applications. I wrote the SAS Festival winning poems during their “30 Poems in November” annual fundraiser. Support them at: https://cnam.org/

What were some of the factors that influenced you to submit to our Festival?

I’d heard great things about the festival from other writers over the years, including former winner Sally Bellerose, a fellow novelist in Northampton (lesbian capital of America!). But it had been awhile since I had any unpublished short pieces to submit, as I had focused on writing novels. Finally I had some new poems that were more radically queer than my past work and I decided to give it a shot! I’d been feeling lucky since winning the Oscar Wilde Award for LBGTQ Poetry from Gival Press, and then receiving a Massachusetts Cultural Council poetry fellowship, all for poems in this new batch from 2023.

How did it feel to find out you were the winner?

I was thrilled, of course! Gival Press Editor Robert Giron, who must be on your mailing list, actually emailed me congratulations before I had heard anything about winning. They’re a great literary press that’s been supporting queer writers for decades.

After that, I told my husband and mom-of-choice, and emailed my friend Tracy Koretsky to say, “Remember that springtime trip we were planning together? How about New Orleans?” Tracy has pivoted from writing to leading singing groups in Austin and Berkeley, but check out her novel Ropeless, a Jewish family saga and love story with disabled characters: https://www.readropeless.com/

What were some of your favorite things about attending the Festival? 

Like many of us, I’d fallen into a dark place emotionally after the presidential inauguration. Immersing myself in a joyful, defiant, openly queer community was a real lifeline. 

I enjoyed meeting a different set of writers than I usually encounter at readings and conferences here in the New York/New England region. From famous mystery writers like Greg Herren, to folks like Daniel Meltz publishing their first novels late in life (check out his Rabbis of the Garden State, it’s a scream), everyone was down-to-earth, welcoming, and on an equal footing, or so it felt to me. 

New Orleans is a festive place, and the hotel was like a palace. It was definitely a trip to remember.

What are you working on now?

I’m writing a dystopian fantasy trilogy called A Storm of Spirits, about queer magicians fighting Christian fascists in an alternate near-future America. It is inspired by my real-life studies at the Temple of Witchcraft in Salem, NH through their online Mystery School. Right now I am working on the first draft of the second book, Split the Flood, while awaiting m

y critique readers’ comments on the first book. When I started this project in 2022, I called it a departure from the realistic literary fiction I’d written before, but it’s starting to feel more like real life all the time, unfortunately.

Do you have any new publication news you’d like to share?

My fourth full-length poetry collection, Introvert Pervert, is forthcoming from The Word Works Washington DC in January 2026. It will include the poems that won the SAS Festival prize. It’s not up on their website yet, but watch this space: https://wordworksbooks.org/  

My novel Origin Story (Saddle Road Press, 2024) is a finalist for the Foreword INDIES Award in LGBTQ Fiction. Set in late-1990s New York City, it is the story of a gay comic-book writer who recovers traumatic memories through his art, and how he heals with the support of his first true love, a fashion photographer.

Visit my website at JendiReiter.com, and sign up for our free monthly newsletter at our writers’ resource site WinningWriters.com, to find out about all of my books and upcoming readings.

 

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