GANYMEDE STORIES, ONE
First annual anthology of short stories
from the first six issues of gay men's quarterly GANYMEDE
207 pages, 6x9” perfect-bound paperback book,
illustrated throughout with thematic photos
To purchase print or download, click here

Writers: Eric Karl Anderson, Marc Andreottola, Cyrus Cassells, Wayne Hoffman, B.R. Lyon, Ryan Doyle May, Sam J. Miller, Andrew J. Peters, Boris Pintar, Adam Jeffries Schwartz, Ennis Smith, John Stahle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Charlie Vásquez, Oscar Wilde

"With so few outlets for well-crafted gay literary fiction, this collection is a real treasure. Stories by Oscar Wilde and (curiously) Robert Louis Stevenson honor the gay past nicely. But writing from the anthology’s high-caliber authors—most of them relative newcomers—shows that today’s gay short fiction is alive and vibrant."
--Richard Labonte in BookMarks, March 2010

"GANYMEDE STORIES ONE is a collection of 18 short stories that appeared in the first six issues of the gay men's quarterly GANYMEDE. This collection combines those stories into one beautiful volume, complete with stunning black and white art photography.

The stories range from weird and bizarre to sweet and sentimental, and run the gamut of issues and complications facing gay men. The collection offers a unique voice and literary viewpoint. The stories are not light and easy but thought-provoking and contain a healthy amount of subtext to each. Not all will suit every taste, especially some of the more esoteric offerings, but a platform for such innovative thought and questioning is important in today’s media. The writing is eloquent and concise.

Equally important are the exquisite art photographs that accompany the stories. The black and white pictures are timely and fit each story, just as the variety in author photos provide a hint of whimsy and character. The visuals are treated with the same reverence and care as the writing and together produce an incredible collector’s item that will entice the senses and evoke emotion as well as thought.

This volume contains a little-known story from Oscar Wilde and a curiously homo-erotic one from Robert Louis Stevenson. Juxtaposing those classics are innovative new voices offering tales of harm and confusion. Each is a highlight in its own right: the chilling and evocative story from Sam J. Miller as well as Andrew J. Peters’ whimsical fairy tale both create lasting memories, as does John Stahle’s delightful “Daphne and Fifi.” Dark, light, haunting, eerie, bizarre, humorous, romantic, dirty—this collection of stories offers something for every literateur who desires a darker subtext beneath the surface of well-crafted prose."
--RAINBOW REVIEWS, Nov 29, 2009

REVIEW IN CHROMA, Britain’s leading gay lit/art journal

“This anthology brings together short stories published in the first six issues of Ganymede. What sets it above similar collections is both the quality of the writing and the audacity of its editor in establishing a new benchmark for anthologies of this kind.

From Andrew J. Peters’ adorably amusing gay fairytale, The Vain Prince, to Cyrus Cassells’ aphoristic Another Horse on Your Horse Ranch, established principles of prose are overturned. Peters’ fairytale anti-hero, Adalbert, is rather like a queer Turandot, and his prose swaggers along like a drunken queen in a nightclub, the very antithesis of what a fairytale should be. At the opposite are Cassells’ exquisitely drawn short paragraphs, dexterously poetic and dripping in color like a golden-tongued seraph. Elsewhere you can clearly see an individual writer’s non-literary influences. B.R. Lyon’s “As Is, I” aspires to the condition of music, as does Marc Andreottola’s “Lots.” What sets Andreottola’s story apart from others here is the filmic quality he brings to his narrative. Just as a filmmaker can focus on one image and make the viewer seem unsettled so does Andreottola: “All the entertainer could see was the thigh of the Stump, a strong meaty thigh. The thigh activated the entertainer somehow, like a switch. He felt like the thighs could crush him like a nutcracker.” On a completely different level, John Stahle’s brilliantly articulated “Memories of Inexpression” shows that evocative writing doesn’t need to be a dialogue. With Beckett-like precision, Stahle’s prose bears the imprint of isolation and memory like few other pieces in this anthology.

Gay writing is universal and it is, therefore, good to see the Ljubljana-based writer Boris Pintar included in this anthology. Slavic Thickets: Two Stories, translated from the Slovene by Rawley Grau, is coruscating. His writing positively reeks of scents; pissing is not so much about the act as it is about the smell. In fact, this is prose that assails the senses in every way: cocks are eye-balled, sniffed and licked; nostrils are there not just to smell the aphrodisiac of sex but to snort coke, poppers and glue. Paragraphs are long – but never over-long – but their very tightness leaves one feeling rather as if one has been clubbed over the head. They are brutal. The only other story that comes close to this kind of semi-pornographic wasteland of spunk and hard sex is Eric Karl Anderson’s Beauty Number Two.

Production values are high, and similar in style to Ganymede’s quarterly journal. Lavish black and white photographs are interspersed throughout, including some of the authors, who tend to be an attractive bunch. A perfect stocking filler – or as Marc Andreottola might have put it in his story, a dirty black sock filler.” --Marc Bridle, Dec. 2, 2009

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