Sarah Fonseca & Octavia C. Saenz: The New Lesbian Pulp

The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2025, softcover, 264 pages, 15.2 x22.8

A collection of reinvented queer pulp fiction by writers like Sarah Schulman and Lorraine Hansberry that’s so edgy it draws blood.

Lesbian pulp fiction thrived in the oppressive 1950s, telling subversive stories of lonely sapphic women who find connection, passion, and revenge. In The New Lesbian Pulp, editors Sarah Fonseca and Octavia Saenz revive the genre for today, layering nuance into classic tropes while dialling up the melodrama, romantic peril, and collateral damage.

In these pages—which pair revived classics from Lorraine Hansberry and Alice Dunbar Nelson with new stories from Sarah Schulman, Grace Byron, Shamim Sharif, and more—vigilante lesbians gather roadkill for revenge, a woman and her former high school bully hook up and commit murder, Brooklyn witches cruise kink parties for human sacrifice, and a sinister kidnapping goes horribly wrong (or horribly right).

Here, gathered just for you, are some of today’s best lesbian pulp stories. Don’t be afraid. Pick them up.