$16 | Novelette

HELEN HOUSE
Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Right before meeting her girlfriend Amber’s parents for the first time, the unnamed narrator of Helen House learns that she and her partner share a similar trauma: both of their sisters are dead. As the narrator wonders what else Amber has been hiding, she struggles with her own secret–using sex as a coping mechanism–as well as confusion and guilt over whether she really cares about Amber, or if she’s only using her for sex. When they arrive at the parents’ rural upstate home, a quaint but awkward first meeting unravels into a nightmare in which the narrator finds herself stranded in a family’s decades-long mourning ritual. At turns terrifying and erotic, Helen House is a queer ghost story about trauma and grief. Pocket paperback edition. Features original illustrations by Kira Gondeck-Silvia.

October 2022 // Horror, LGBTQ+
4″ x 6″ // Pocket Paperback // 74pp // $16
ISBN: 978-1-941681-28-2

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya is a lesbian writer of short fiction, essays, and pop culture criticism living in Florida. She is the managing editor of Autostraddle and the assistant managing editor of TriQuarterly. Her work appears in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Catapult, The Offing, The Rumpus, Joyland, Vice, Vulture, and others. She was a 2021 nonfiction fellow for Lambda Literary’s Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices. Helen House is her first book.


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