Queering the Short Story Cycle for Young Adult Fiction

Authors seeking to represent a diverse range of queer identities have adopted the short story cycle, Chloe Cannell explains why.

Abstract

Queer Young Adult (YA) fiction is continuing to grow alongside the budding diversity of the wider spectrum of gender and sexualities in literature, and intersecting factors therein, but for the most part queer YA realism novels follow normative novel structures that may privilege a singular point of view. Writers for adults seeking ways to represent a diverse range of identities across characters and storylines have adopted the short story cycle. Maxine Hong Kingston, Louise Erdrich and many more short story cycle authors have used the form to explore identity and community, which are themes relevant to writing young LGBTQIA+ characters. Yet this form has been underutilised in YA fiction to tell queer stories. This article considers the potential of the short story cycle for writers telling queer stories to young people. I identify multiple perspectives, connected structure and fragmentation characteristic of the form to make it suitable for telling LGBTQIA+ stories, particularly for characters at the intersection of multiple identities. By reviewing notable examples and scholarship on cycles, I considered how key features were implemented in my own creative practice. My YA short story cycle features multiple intersectional LGBTQIA+ characters and explores themes of identity and community.