Trans Horror Books: A Beginner’s Guide to 18 Authors

Are you tired of searching for works that describe transgender experiences accurately, let alone with complexity or compelling messiness? Want to read some horror stories that were written by and/or for trans people? Curious about this newfangled term “trans horror” and wondering where to start? Hopefully, this brief primer will be useful to you.

This primer is intended only as a starting point. Not every single trans person writing horror is represented here, although you will find authors publishing with both small and large presses. One of the best ways to discover more authors is to find an author whose work you love, and then find what work inspires them.

Author’s Note: This list focuses on works written for adults. It contains many works that may be of a sensitive nature.

First: What is “trans horror”?

Trans horror is an informal micro-genre that is intended to describe works of horror literature written by people who publicly identify as transgender, which may contain transgender characters, experiences, or affects. “Transgender” is itself an umbrella term that describes various experiences and gender positions, but usually involves a transition towards a gender that is different from the gender one was assigned at birth. “Trans horror” describes a wide range of works within the horror genre. Overwhelmingly, however, the following works delve into the disturbing, complicated, and beautiful aspects of trans lifeworld, or in some cases, death, decay, and grotesquerie.  

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If any of the books that follow seem of interest to you, please consider purchasing from our Bookshop.org list below or directly from the authors, or request them from your local public library. Keep your money out of Jeff Bezos’s pockets!

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Some Explicitly Trans Horror Anthologies:

Your Body is Not Your Body, edited by Alex Woodroe and Matt Blairstone from Tenebrous Press and, forthcoming, its sequel, Your Body is a Fever Dream; and Bound in Flesh: An Anthology of Trans Body Horror, edited by Lor Gislason from Ghoulish Books.

Authors to start with:

Sofia Ajram

If you like haunted architecture and choosing your own pointless end, you may like the Bram Stoker Award winning Coup de Grâce (2024, Titan Books). Ajram is also the editor of Bury Your Gays: An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror (2024, Ghoulish Books), which contains quite a few excellent trans horror stories by authors in this primer and beyond.

Poppy Z. Brite (Billy Martin)

If you like complicated, messy queer characters who fuck, hurt each other, and hurt themselves, you may like any one of Martin’s novels: Lost Souls (1992, Delacorte Press), Drawing Blood (1993, Delacorte Press), Exquisite Corpse (1996, Simon & Schuster) or short story collections: Wormwood / Swamp Foetus (1993, originally from Borderlands Press, then reprinted by Dell Publishing), Are You Loathesome Tonight / Self-Made Man (1998, Gauntlet Press), Wrong Things, cowritten with Caitlín R. Kiernan (2001, Subterranean Press), and The Devil You Know (2003, Subterranean Press). Several of these are out of print and may be found used, or if you know someone cool, politely borrowed. Martin has also written works outside of the horror genre that are well worth reading, including his recent nonfiction work on religion in Stephen King’s fiction.

Grace Byron

If you like communes, secrets, and demonic hauntings, you might like Byron’s novel Herculine (2025, Saga Press/Simon & Schuster). Byron has also written a great deal of short fiction and nonfiction, the locations of which can be found on her Substack. 

Caitlín R. Kiernan

Kiernan’s fiction oozes over the dividing lines between genres. Kiernan has written over fifteen novels and has over twenty collections of short fiction, her dark fiction career spanning from the late 1990s to the present. She has also written for comics, including Alabaster: Wolves, Alabaster: Grimmer Tales, and Alabaster: The Good, the Bad, and the Bird for Dark Horse Comics. I recommend beginning with her novels The Red Tree (2009, Penguin) and The Drowning Girl: A Memoir (2012, Penguin), or The Very Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan (2019, Tachyon Publications). 

Joe Koch

Koch’s work makes you nauseous in the best way possible. His works include The Couvade (2019, part of Short Sharp Shocks!), The Wingspan of Severed Hands (2020, Weirdpunk Books), and the collections Convulsive (2022, Apocalypse Party) and Invaginies (2024, Clash Books), as well as many other short stories. If anyone has a copy of The Shipwreck of the Cerberus, please email me so I can borrow it. 

Gretchen Felker-Martin

If you like viscera, complex characterization, and sharp social critique, you may like Felker-Martin’s fiction—as well as her film and media criticism. Her traditionally published novels include Manhunt (2022, Tor Nightfire), Cuckoo (2024, Tor Nightfire), and Black Flame (2025, Tor Nightfire); her non-traditionally published novels, as well as her film criticism, can be found on her Patreon. All of these are great starting points for her work. My personal favorite Felker-Martin short story is “Family Vehicle,” which can be found in 2 Trans 2 Furious: An Extremely Serious Journal of Transgender Street Racing Studies.

Eve Harms

Harms’s work is funny, bloody, and sharply insightful. Transmuted (2021, Unnerving Books) is currently out of print, but you can still get the wonderfully performed audiobook from wherever you get your audiobooks. She has also co-written a book with Mariah Darling, Chasers (2025, Unnerving Books) which is also currently out of print, however, her website promises that it will be re-published either late 2026 or early 2027. Harms also created Stimuwrite, “a companion writing app for people who are neurodivergent, addicted to social media notifications, or would benefit from extra stimulation and feedback when they draft and take notes.” The app can be found on her itch.io account.

Bitter Karella

Karella’s Moonflow (2025, Orbit) is bizarre, beautiful, funny, and will leave you with a bitter taste in your mouth. He is also known for his microfiction comedy account, @Midnight_Pals, which has been collected in three volumes. Her short fiction has also appeared in several magazines and anthologies, including both Bound In Flesh and Your Body Is Not Your Body. 

Valkyrie Loughcrewe

If you like heavy metal, Irish folklore, and literary forms that aren’t afraid to take risks, you may like Crom Cruach (2022, Tenebrous Press). You should then devour the rest of Loughcrewe’s oeuvre: Decrepit Ritual (2024, Ghoulish Books), Spookshow (2024, Curious Corvid Publishing), and Puppet’s Banquet (2025, Tenebrous Press). Loughcrewe also makes music under the name SurgeryHead.

Mattie Lubchansky

If you like graphic novels, horror that mixes with humor and with tenderness, you may like Lubachansky’s Simplicity (2025, Pantheon Books/Penguin Random House) or Boys Weekend (2023, Pantheon Books/Penguin Random House). Her other work can be found on her website.

TT Madden

Madden’s work spans the weird genre, from SFF to horror and everywhere in between. Her work includes The Cosmic Color (2025, Neon Hemlock), Student Bodies (2025, Little Ghosts Books), Gorman’s House (YA, 2025, Mad Axe Media), The Shapes of Our Screams (2026, Slashic Horror Press), The Familialists (2026, Slashic Horror Press), The Neon Revelation (2025, Timber Ghost Press), and Loading… The Machine Child (2026, Speculation Publications), as well as short fiction in many anthologies, such as Embodied Exegesis: Transfeminine Cyberpunk Futures (2024, Neon Hemlock).

Lee Mandelo

Mandelo’s work is queer gothic with a bite. His works include Summer Sons (2021, Tor), Feed Them Silence (2023, Tor), and The Woods All Black (2024, Tor). His short(er) fiction has appeared in various magazines, including “And Yet, Her Eyes” (2013) in Nightmare Magazine and my personal favorite, “Anything with a Void at the Center” (2023) in Uncanny Magazine. He also writes criticism for a variety of publications, and was a reviewer for Tor.com/Reactor Magazine for a number of years. 

Samir Sirk Morató

If you like lush, fevered, and haunting short fiction, you need to read Gore Poetics (2026, Cursed Morsels Press). Their short fiction has been published all over the web, as well as in multiple anthologies and print magazines. Morató’s work often orbits around ideas of human and nonhuman relationships, as well as the limits and excesses of fleshy possibility. This can also be seen in their visual art, which can be found on their website.

Emmett Nahil

If you like curses, whales, and worker’s rights, you should pick up From the Belly (2024, Tenebrous Press). Nahil also writes for graphic novels and comics, including Let Me Out (2023, Oni Press), and is currently working on an upcoming videogame, the murder mystery/farming sim Grave Seasons. Nahil has also written several critical essays, which can be found on his website.

Hailey Piper

Piper has a large oeuvre, including over 15 published longer works, 120+ short stories, and many critical essays. Queen of Teeth (2021, Strangehouse Books) won the Bram Stoker Award for superior achievement in a first novel. Her collection Teenage Girls Can be Demons (2025, Titan Books) was a Bram Stoker and Splatterpunk Awards finalist, and it contains my personal favorite, her slasher novella Benny Rose the Cannibal King. If you like cosmic horror, try her The Worm and His Kings series (currently out of print, but available in audiobook form) or A Game in Yellow (2025, Simon & Schuster/Saga Press). However, if you prefer sci-fi, westerns, noirs, vampires, or other forms of horror—there’s something in her bibliography for you.

Alison Rumfitt

If you like cutting social critique, worms, and nonlinear storytelling, you might like Brainwyrms (2023, Tor Nightfire) or (well, there are fewer worms, but still) Tell Me I’m Worthless (2021, Cipher Press). Her short fiction and other works have appeared in many places, which is detailed on her Substack, along with her film and media criticism.

Rivers Solomon

All of Solomon’s work is sharply complex, interrogating how systems large and small marginalize those at the bottom of the power hierarchy; from their debut An Unkindness of Ghosts (2017, Akashic Books) to faer Lambda Award winning The Deep (2019, Simon & Schuster/Saga), their Otherwise Award winning Sorrowland (2021, MCD), to faer Modelhome (2024, MCD). Their short fiction has appeared in many places, including Black Warrior Review,Tor.com, and in the 2018 anthology The Best American Short Stories (edited by Roxane Gay). 

Andrew Joseph White

While primarily known for his YA horror, White’s first adult novel, You Weren’t Meant to Be Human (2025, Simon & Schuster/Saga Press) is difficult, hard to stomach, and thoroughly worth reading. White’s work often focuses on marginalized experiences in the overlap of trans identity and neurodivergence. His debut novel, Hell Followed With Us (2022, Peachtree Teen) is in development to become an animated film.

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Article by Dave V. Riser

Dave V. Riser (he/him) is a gender ghoul pursuing his PhD in English Literature. His research interests include horror fiction, queer and transgender studies, disability studies, and affect studies. He has a variety of short fiction, including “EACH-UISGE” in The Off Season: A Coastal Horror Anthology, as well as "Triage" in The Arkansas International. His nonfiction appears here, and in Bloodletter magazine. 

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