Author(s): Megan Milks

Short Stories | LGBTQI+

"Carefully considered, successful instances of experimental fiction" disrupt gender, genre, and identity in this deranged, otherworldly collection (Literary Hub).

A woman metamorphoses into a giant slug; another quite literally eats her heart out; a wasp falls in love with an orchid; and hair starts sprouting from the walls. These stories slip and slide between genres--from video games to fan fiction, body horror to choose-your-own-adventure--as characters cycle through giddying changes in gender, physiology, species, and identity. Collapsing boundaries between bodies and forms, these fictions interrogate the visceral, gross, and absurd.

"This book is fucking weird," wrote Brit Mandelo in 2015. It's only gotten weirder since. Slug and Other Stories is a revised and expanded edition of a contemporary cult classic. Finally back in print, this collection is a testament to the messy anti-logic of queer feelings by a revelatory new voice.

Review:

"This collection is a testament to Milks' wild, queer, and wonderfully weird imagination."
-Autostraddle

"An antirealist anthem to sexual pleasure. . . . This pan-erotic feast never stops surprising with its fan-fiction tropes, laugh-out-loud social satire, and gorgeous sentences you can't help but underline."
-Artforum

"In these unforgettable stories, Milks' gift for specificity and poignant body horror are on full display. . . . The gore and guts and unbelievable antics are perfect reading for this dystopian era, and Milks is an exquisite writer for this time."
-Booklist

"Megan Milks is a master at eliciting strong reactions; their work lives in the viscera. . . . But let me assure you that there is nothing gimmicky about the conceit of these stories. They are carefully considered, successful instances of experimental fiction."
-Literary Hub

"Unapologetically bold and insightful."
-Publishers Weekly

"Megan Milks is the most interesting prose writer working today. There! I said it. Milks smashes fiction and glues the shards back together. Milks destroys boredom! Milks stans fanfic, retells the New Narrative, lights a million candles at the altar of queer and trans experimental literature, sends love letters to Kathy Acker and Samuel R. Delany and Ovid, hate-reads Sweet Valley High in the sexiest and most disturbing ways. You will never look at Tegan and Sara-or slugs, or tomatoes-in the same way again. Be careful: this collection is a virus that will permanently change the way you read. Don't say I didn't warn you."
-Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

"Video game logic, middle school best friend clubs, choose your own adventure: Megan Milks both critiques and indulges in pop culture forms, often by way of viscid zoological/extraterrestrial avatars, and does so while saying profound things about trans bodies, intimacy, and vulnerability. How did they do all this? They are so cool, and I definitely want to be their friend."
-Jeanne Thornton, author of Summer Fun

Megan Milks is the author of Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body and Remember the Internet: Tori Amos Bootleg Webring. With Marisa Crawford, they are coeditor of We Are the Baby-Sitters Club: Essays and Artwork from Grown-Up Readers; with KJ Cerankowski, they are coeditor of Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives. Born in Virginia, they currently live in Brooklyn.