Queer Paranormal Stories About Monsters Misfits and Found Family

The other day, I was walking through Porto at dusk—cobblestones, fading light, that particular golden hour that makes everything look like a gothic novel cover—and I thought: this is vampire weather. Which is a completely normal thing to think, obviously. But it got me spiraling (as things do) into why my brain automatically populates the world with creatures that technically don't exist. Why I can't see shadows without imagining what's lurking.

Here's the truth I've landed on: I write about monsters because I am one. Not literally—I don't have fangs or a curse or the ability to walk through walls (unfortunately). But that feeling of being seen one way on the outside while knowing you're something entirely different within? Yeah. I know that feeling intimately. Turns out, so do vampires. And werewolves. And witches. And every ghost still lingering where they don't quite belong.

The Monsters I Keep

Here's the thing about paranormal creatures: they've always been about otherness. Vampires hiding in shadows, misunderstood. Werewolves carrying immense power alongside an inescapable curse. Witches forming covens—chosen families bound by something deeper than blood. Ghosts lingering between worlds, not quite fitting anywhere.

Sound familiar?

As someone from the LGBTQ+ community, these creatures have always resonated with me in ways that go beyond the fangs and the fur. There's something achingly recognizable about being seen one way on the outside while knowing you're something far more complex within. About carrying a secret self. About finding your people—your coven, your pack—when the world tells you that you don't belong.

So yeah, I write about vampires and werewolves and witches and ghosts. But really? I write about us.

Vampires fascinate me because they're both menacing and beautiful—centuries of intelligence wrapped in mystery. I love playing with the weight of immortality, the idea that living forever sounds like a dream until you actually have to do it. Time without end isn't a gift; it's a negotiation.

Werewolves carry that gorgeous tension between strength and curse. There's power in their inner wildness, but also vulnerability. I want to put a human voice behind the howl—connect the beast to something tender, something nature-bound and real.

Witches (and wizards and sorcerers and the whole magical lot) speak to that dream of controlling our own destiny. But more than the spells, it's the covens that get me. Chosen family. People who find each other and decide: you're mine now. That's the real magic.

And ghosts? Ghosts are the thread that connects everything. Every vampire, every werewolf, every witch can become a ghost eventually. They're our link to memory, to what came before, to the terrifying and wonderful question of what exists beyond what we know. They've fascinated humans for centuries, and honestly? I don't think we're done being fascinated.

Not Grimdark, But Not Sunshine Either

Let me be clear: I'm not here to write fluffy, stakes-free paranormal romps where everyone holds hands and nothing bad ever happens. (No shade to those books—they have their place. That place is just not my keyboard.)

But I'm also not writing grimdark (you know, the relentlessly bleak, torture-heavy stuff) where the world is cruel and every character exists to suffer.

What I am writing is something I've started calling "tenderly weird." Stories with teeth, but also with heart. Spooky, but warm. The kind of books where a drag queen might get murdered in chapter one, but by the end, you've laughed, you've cried, and you've discovered a found family worth rooting for.

My influences are all over the map: Christopher Moore and TJ Klune showed me that paranormal worlds can be completely unhinged and still believable—that you can turn genre conventions inside out and upside down if your characters have enough heart. Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series taught me what it feels like to live inside characters, to understand not just what their powers do but what those powers feel like.

That's what I'm chasing. I want my books to feel like walking through an amusement park—fun, immersive, a little overwhelming—where every character you meet has depth behind the costume. You don't see behind the magic doors, but you sense that there's something real back there. Something human, even when the character technically isn't.

The Weirdos Who Live Here

Speaking of characters, let me introduce you to a few of the disasters currently living rent-free in my head.

Nathan Barrett is my anxious, over-planning, accidental witch. He didn't ask to discover magic; he was just trying to survive a life that wasn't going great when the universe decided to dump supernatural chaos in his lap. His power? Music. Specifically, 80s love ballads and synthwave. (Yes, really. Yes, it works. Don't question it.) Nathan stumbles, sashays, and spell-casts his way through San Francisco's Castro district, where the LGBTQ+ community has its own magical underground—and honey, they've been keeping secrets.

Then there's Diamond and Emerald—or, as they were known in their human lives, Rod Lover (legendary adult film star) and Mercy Swallows (iconic Bay Area drag queen). Through some very complicated magical circumstances, they're now soul-bound into animal forms: a pit bull and a cat, respectively. They were supposed to be supporting characters. They nearly stole the entire book. I regret nothing.

Over in Porto, I've got Afonso da Cruz, an eight-hundred-year-old vampire who's been nursing his existential crisis at the bottom of a port wine bottle for centuries. He's charming, he's tormented, and he's absolutely keeping up with the times—which becomes a problem when his undead nightlife accidentally goes viral. (Modern vampires have modern problems.)

These aren't your typical paranormal protagonists. They're messy. They're flawed. They make questionable decisions and occasionally need to sit down and have a good cry. But they keep going. They find their people. They figure it out.

You know. Like we do.

Why the World Needs Tenderly Weird Stories

Look, I'm not going to pretend my books are going to save the world. They're not a guiding light. They're not going to fix the fractured mess of 2026, where everything feels polarized and exhausting and like humanity is just... a lot.

But here's what I do believe:

Stories have always been our escape hatch. Our breath of air. Our way of processing a reality that's too heavy to carry without putting it down sometimes. And right now? I think we need stories that don't just let us escape—they let us practice. Practice finding chosen family. Practice pulling ourselves up when everything falls apart. Practice believing that the world can be strange and dark and still worth showing up for.

I don't write happily-ever-afters, exactly. I write and-then-you-keep-going. My characters don't ride off into the sunset; they dust themselves off, make some new friends (or enemies, or frenemies with complicated magical contracts), and face whatever's next. Because that's what we do. That's what we've always done.

For my queer readers especially—I want you to see yourselves as the heroes. Not the sidekick. Not the tragedy. The main character in a world that's wild and weird and yours.

I want you to close my books with a smile that's tilted a little sideways. The kind of smile that says: I liked that. Why did I like that? I need to read it again.

And then I want you to look at your own strange, chaotic life and think: Yeah. The world's an adventure. Let's keep going.

So that's the neighborhood. That's the vibe. Cozy-haunted, queer as hell, full of heart and humor and the occasional existential vampire.

If that sounds like your kind of weird, stick around. I've got so much more to show you.