The University of Nebraska Press is pleased to announce a new book series that will highlight LGBTQ+ authors. The series, Zero Street Fiction, will invite submissions of novels and short story collections from new and established LGBTQ+ authors that feature LGBTQ+ characters and/or themes. The series editors are Timothy Schaffert, bestselling author of The Perfume Thief, and SJ Sindu, author of Blue-Skinned Gods.
The University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) holds the distinction of offering the longest continuous LGBTQ+ programming of any institution of higher education in the country. The Department of English offered UNL’s first LGBTQ+ course in 1970—the first LGBTQ+ class to be taught at a university by an openly gay scholar.
The co-editors of the series are two alumni of UNL’s LGBTQ+ programming, who have become established authors themselves. Schaffert is the author most recently of The Perfume Thief, a novel about the queer resistance of WWII France. Sindu is the winner of the Publishing Triangle Edmund White Award and a Lambda Award finalist.
“We’re excited to join those editors and publishers who have been giving voice to queer authors, especially as the demand and interest in their stories has grown and flourished in recent years,” said Schaffert. “I’m interested in fiction that invites the reader into richly imagined worlds, whether a modern-day portrait of a well-known city or a complete invention of a fictional universe.”
Zero Street Fiction emerges from UNL’s decades of commitment to LGBTQ+ literature. “Zero Street” is how Allen Ginsberg referenced Lincoln’s “O” Street in a poem he composed in 1966 while traveling to Nebraska for a reading on UNL’s campus.
"Zero Street is not only exciting, but also important. I'm interested in fiction that transports me on a language level, wrapping me up in scene and story so that I'm no longer aware that I'm reading,” said Sindu. “We want to encourage fiction from authors with intersecting marginalized identities, especially those who speak to and illustrate diversity within queer communities."
Zero Street will be committed to literary fiction with commercial potential, and to providing marginalized authors opportunities for a wide readership in the trade fiction market. The series editors are seeking literary fiction of all kinds, from stories of modern life to innovations on traditions of genre and are particularly interested in BIPOC authors, trans authors, and queer authors over 50.
For more information, please visit the Zero Street Fiction website.