My Queer Agenda: Using Monsters to Groom Your Child to Be a Better Human Being, a guest post by Rob Costello

Recently, I had the privilege of moderating a panel that featured the brilliant and talented YA writers Kalynn Bayron, Amber Smith, and Isabel Sterling during the annual Spring Writes Literary Festival of the Finger Lakes. The panel was entitled “Writing Queer in an Age of Book Bans,” and you can watch it here.

As you can imagine, our conversation primarily focused on the challenges queer writers of children’s literature face in the current climate of book banning and right-wing oppression in the United States. In the political arena, there are legal and legislative means to combat this kind of oppression head on. But in kids lit, our arsenal is more subtle—yet no less effective or important. Stories are powerful tools of persuasion, and we are in the business of telling our stories to impressionable young minds. This makes writing for young people an inherently political act, which is why we so often find ourselves on the front lines of the culture wars.

Though Kalynn, Amber, and Isabel had many wise and important things to say on the matter, for me the subtext of our conversation was the most valuable takeaway from the event. While there were plenty of expressions of sadness, frustration, anger, and even fear, the overriding sense I got from these three remarkable women was of a defiant refusal to be silenced or erased.

This kind of defiance is a profoundly transgressive act. When queer and trans folks are accused of being groomers, or of sexualizing children, or of having an “agenda,” this is invariably what those hurling the accusations really mean. Our refusal to simply go away, to hide in the closet, or to be quiet about who we are and who we love is a direct threat to their own toxic agenda of imposing their rigid and reactionary belief system on the whole of society.

How dare we exist openly and freely when they would prefer that we disappear? The audacity!

The bitter irony here is that if these folks were actually concerned about protecting children, they would invest the same time and energy they devote to vilifying us in rooting out the countless predators in their own midst. After all, when was the last time you heard about a child being assaulted at a library or by a drag queen?

I wish I could say the same for churches and pastors.

Nevertheless, here we are. In 2024, the right of queer and trans people to simply exist—let alone tell our own stories, seek necessary medical care, or lead our lives in peace—is once again a matter up for public debate and scrutiny. It’s as ridiculous as it is enraging, especially considering the moral and ethical bankruptcy of those who stand against us. Talk about audacity.

This is where the monsters come in.

As any authoritarian can tell you, one of the most effective tools in the arsenal of oppression is to label those who stand against you as monstrous. Hence, the groomer slander. What better way to galvanize your political base than to stoke their fears surrounding the end of white Christian cultural hegemony by feeding them lies about the supposedly sinister intentions of queer and trans people toward their children? (Let alone lying about the intentions of immigrants, Muslims, people of color, etc…) Making monsters out of us has always been an effective rallying cry on the right. Indeed, it’s the very reason we’ve seen book bans and anti-trans bills spread like wildfire across red America.

But what if we took back the monster metaphor and made it our own?

This was the seed of an idea from which We Mostly Come Out at Night: 15 Queer Tales of Monsters, Angels & Other Creatures bloomed. My amazingly talented collaborators* and I each brought our own decidedly queer agendas to the task of creating these entertaining and life-affirming monster stories intended to reclaim the monster as a heroic and empowering symbol of queerness. Along the way, we hoped to inspire our young readers to be the very best versions of themselves they can be in the face of the ugliest resurgence of right-wing hate that I’ve witnessed since I was their age back at the height of the AIDS epidemic.

Our principles in writing these stories were pretty simple:

Sometimes monsters are better at being human than actual humans.

Embracing your otherness—being the monster you choose to be—is a profoundly defiant and transgressive act that deserves to be celebrated. It’s also innately queer.

If they’re going to call us monsters anyway, why not lean into that label by being the most beautiful, heroic, powerful, compassionate, strong, loving, confident, and fabulous monsters we can be?

Even though it’s a book all about monsters, We Mostly Come Out at Night is hardly a scary read. In fact, it was important to me from the outset that the anthology contain a variety of genres, styles, and tones in order to avoid becoming too dark, depressing, or polemical. While there are a few delightfully creepy yarns, there are also swoon-worthy queer and trans romances, stories of kinship and adventure, lighthearted tales of self-discovery and queer joy, profound meditations on the nature of faith and identity, and even a cozy and heartwarming haunted house story.

My goal from the start was to ensure that every reader who picked up a copy could find at least one piece that spoke directly to them. To that end, the book contains stories that reflect nearly every color of the rainbow flag, including gay, lesbian, bi, trans, enby, ace, and aro representation.

But most of all, what I hope readers find in We Mostly Come Out at Night is a celebration of queer and trans lives that stands in stark defiance of those who seek to force us back into the closet. This is a book filled with hope and resilience, a book that offers solace and strength to all the queer and trans kids out there trying to be the best humans they can be—even if that sometimes means being called a monster.

That is my queer agenda, and I am damn proud of it.

*I want to make sure I give credit here to all of my fabulous contributors and their amazing stories, so here goes:

Kalynn Bayron: “The House of Needs and Wants”

David Bowles: “The Freedom of Feathers and Fur”

Shae Carys: “A Serpent and a Wish”

Rob Costello: “The Color of Sky on Earth”

H.E. Edgmon: “Sons of God and Daughters of Humans”

Michael Thomas Ford: “Be Not Afraid”

Val Howlett: “How to Summon Me”

Brittany Johnson: “The Fatal Song of Attraction”

Naomi Kanakia: “World-Weariness”

Claire Kann: “Bonne Nuit”

Jonathan Lenore Kastin: “Bastian and the Beast”

Sarah Maxfield: “How We Founded Club Feathers at the Discard Depot”

Sam J. Miller: “Boys Who Run with the Boars”

Alexandra Villasante: “Other Fish”

Merc Fenn Wolfmoor: “The Girl with Thirteen Shadows”

Meet the author

Rob Costello (he/him) writes contemporary and dark speculative fiction with a queer bent for and about young people. He’s the contributing editor of the YA speculative anthology WE MOSTLY COME OUT AT NIGHT: 15 QUEER TALES OF MONSTERS, ANGELS & OTHER CREATURES (Running Press Teens, 2024), as well as author of the adult/YA crossover dark fiction story collection THE DANCING BEARS: QUEER FABLES FOR THE END TIMES (Lethe Press, 2024). His debut young adult novel, AN UGLY WORLD FOR BEAUTIFUL BOYS, is forthcoming from Lethe Press in April of 2025. His stories have appeared in The Dark, The NoSleep Podcast, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Hunger Mountain, Stone Canoe, Narrative, and RURAL VOICES: 15 AUTHORS CHALLENGE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT SMALL-TOWN AMERICA (Candlewick, 2020). An alumnus of the Millay Colony of the Arts, he holds an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and has served on the faculty of the Highlights Foundation since 2014. He is co-founder (with Lesa Cline-Ransome, Jo Knowles, and Jennifer Richard Jacobson) of the R(ev)ise and Shine! writing community, and he lives in upstate NY with his husband and their four-legged overlords.

Learn more at: www.cloudbusterpress.com, www.revise-and-shine.com, and at @cloudbusterpress on Instagram.

About We Mostly Come Out at Night: 15 Queer Tales of Monsters, Angels & Other Creatures

An empowering cross-genre YA anthology that explores what it means to be a monster, exclusively highlighting trans and queer authors who offer new tales and perspectives on classic monster stories and tropes. 

Be not afraid! These monsters, creatures, and beasties are not what they appear. We Mostly Come Out at Night is a YA anthology that reclaims the monstrous for the LGBTQA+ community while exploring how there is freedom and power in embracing the things that make you stand out. Each story centers on both original and familiar monsters and creatures—including Mothman, Carabosse, a girl with thirteen shadows, a living house, werebeasts, gorgons, sirens, angels, and many others—and their stories of love, self-acceptance, resilience, and empowerment. This collection is a bold, transformative celebration of queerness and the creatures that (mostly) go bump in the night.

ISBN-13: 9780762483198
Publisher: Running Press Book Publishers
Publication date: 05/21/2024
Age Range: 13 – 18 Years

Filed under: Guest Post