GIFCon 2025: Queering the Fantastic – Crafting Your Queer Fantasy TBR

Event registration can be found here including tickets for Workshops and the Networking Event.
The full Programme can be found here.
Paper Speaker bios and full abstracts can be found here.
Keynotes and this year’s Reading List can be found here.
Workshops and Roundtable information can be found here.
Our post on How to Join the Discord can be found here.

Written by GIFCon 2025 Social Media Officer Lea Warren.

If you’ve been keeping up with our social media, you might have seen our TBR recommendations over the last few weeks to brush up on some of the works that will feature at this year’s GIFCon.

But the books we’ve highlighted are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the incredible texts we’ll be covering over GIFCon’s three days of panels, workshops, roundtables, keynotes, and more. And even with three packed days of queer fantasy conversations, we’ll only manage to cover a fraction of what is out there for fantasy readers.

That’s why, in addition to creating a TBR list for GIFCon 2025, we’ve also explored the general landscape of queer fantastika today. We couldn’t help but wonder – how popular are queer fantasy stories in the general market? Which titles are selling the best? Are there any new voices that we should be snagging on our next trip to the bookstore?

To help answer a few of these questions, we took a trip to Category Is Books, a beloved queer indie bookshop here in Glasgow. Category Is Books ‘is a space to learn about, be inspired by and share in our love of queer books, history, art, activism, writing and storytelling’, which made it the perfect place to do a bit of sleuthing on queer fantastika favourites.

The Category Is shelves also feature the works of well-loved fantasy authors like Marlon James, N.K. Jemisin, Tasha Suri, and A. K. Mulford, among others, making for a booklist that is wonderfully diverse in its authors and its stories. During the visit, a staff member recommended The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri and Spells: 21st Century Occult Poetry by Sarah Shin, which our very own Deputy Chair Grace snapped up (we’ll have to ask her what she thinks once she’s had the chance to give them a read!).

Overall, exploring the shelves of Category Is not only reinforced just how broad the landscape of queer fantastika is, but also got us even more excited to dive into this year’s theme at GIFCon 2025.

If you’re in the Glasgow area and are looking for your new favourite fantasy read, we highly recommend a stop through Category Is Books! https://www.categoryisbooks.com/

If you’re looking to brush up on queer fantasy for GIFCon, or just for fun, we’ve got you covered. Check out our TBR list of some of the texts our incredible panelists, Keynote speakers, and workshop leaders will be covering at GIFCon 2025.

Books, Novellas, Short Stories & Poetry:

• Mantis by Julia Armfield (short story)
• Modern Tales of Faerie by Holly Black (collection of short stories)
• Gemma Doyle series by Libba Bray
• The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter (collection of short stories)
• Peter Darling by Austin Chant
• Decolonising the Conrad Canon by Alice M. Chapman-Kelly*
• Fanfiction as Queer Healing: Femslash Authorship and the Swan Queen Ship by Alice M. Chapman-Kelly*
• The Unbroken by C. L. Clark
• Monstrilio by Samano Cordova
• Masquerade series by Seth Dickinson
• Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue (short story)
• The End Crowns All by Bea Fitzgerald
• The Fallen-Fey Chronicles series by S.L. Gavyn
• Spear by Nicola Griffith (novella)
• Annals of the Western Shore series by Ursula K. Le Guinn
• The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guinn
• Grab the Bull by the Horns by Sam Hall
• Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
• The Meat Tree by Gwyneth Lewis
• Ash by Malinda Lo (short story)
• No & Other Love Stories by Kirsty Logan* (collection of short stories)
• Now She is Witch by Kirsty Logan*
• Things We Say in the Dark by Kirsty Logan*
• The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan*
• The Gloaming by Kirsty Logan*
• Elemental Logic by J. Marks
• Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey
• Cyberpunk Culture and Psychology: Seeing through the Mirrorshades: Seeing Through the Mirrorshade by Anna McFarlane*
• The Edinburgh Companion to Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities edited by Anna McFarlane* and Donna McCormack
• Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
• Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees
• Dark Fey trilogy by Cynthia A. Morgan
• The Wood Beyond the World by William Morris
• The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir
• A Fairytale for Everyone edited by Boldizar M. Nagy (collection of short stories)
• Princess Princess Ever After by Kay O’Neill
• The Tea Dragon Society by Kay O’Neill
• Little Thieves trilogy by Margaret Owen
• Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett
• Wain by Rachel Pummer (short story)
• Duskwalker Brides series by Opal Reyne
• Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
• Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti (poetry)
• Bluebeard’s First Wife by Seong-Nan (short story)
• Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
• Mail Order Minotaur by Lilith Stone
• Tangleweed and Brine by Deirdre Sullivan (collection of short stories)
• The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri
• Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
• The Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer
• Dragon’s Bait by Vivian Vande Velde
• Tales From Beyond the Rainbow by Pete Jori Wood (short story)
• Orlando by Virginia Woolf

*Keynote speaker at GIFCon 2025

Film/TV:

• Gawain and the Green Knight (1991)
• Hercules (1997)
• Supernatural (2005 – 2020)
• Sherlock (2010 – 2017)
• Teen Wolf (2011 – 2017)
• Troy: Fall of a City (2018)
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018 – 2020)
• The Untamed (2019)
• The Owl House (2020 – 2023)
• Gawain and the Green Knight (2021)
• Arcane (2021 – 2024)
• First Kill (2022)
• The Sandman (2022 – 2025)
• House of the Dragon (2022 – )