Submissions for Gayly Helpful 2022 Are Open!

In 2019, I had this silly idea. What if I gathered a few of my LGBTQIA+ writer friends and we posted articles throughout Pride and raised funds for the Trevor Project? In the end over 30 people contributed and we raised over $2,000.

In 2020, I was hoping we could go a little bigger and you all came through. We had over 50 articles and raised over $5,000 for the Trevor Project.

In 2021, we had over 60 articles, got streamers involved and partnered with Mixtape Massacre on a shirt and sticker and ended up raising over $10,000.

All told, we’ve featured hundreds of articles and raised close to $20,000 since 2019.

---

OUR GOAL

This is the time of year the LGBTQIA+ horror community comes together to do something great while also promoting each other’s work. Community is important for me and Gayly Helpful is a time to recognize the LGBTQIA+ writers in our favorite genre.

The goal is always twofold: Promote LGBTQIA+ voices writing/working in horror criticism and those streaming content constantly for their audiences while raising funds for a queer organization.

Our fundraising goal continues to be a bit more laser-focused this year. With the recent trans-exclusionary bills popping up around the United States, I want Gayly Helpful to focus directly on our trans siblings. So our fundraiser this again be for the Transgender Law Center, the largest transgender-led civil rights organization in the United States.

Their goal: “Grounded in legal expertise and committed to racial justice, TLC employs a variety of community-driven strategies to keep transgender and gender nonconforming people alive, thriving, and fighting for liberation.”

Writers

Gayly Helpful is a celebration of the vast number of LGBTQIA+ folks writing about horror. We want your articles. This isn’t a selective pitch. We want everyone. Whether you’ve written 1,000 articles or this is your first time…we want to promote and uplift you and your voice. The point is the celebrate the queer writers in the horror community, not pick and choose among them. If you ultimately submit an article, I will run it.

We’re looking for articles, interviews, opinion pieces, analysis of queer text or subtext, short stories, personal stories…articles about film, TV, video games, comics…whatever you want to write about.

• Please submit your article idea here. This is only your concept for the article so you don’t have to go too in-depth if you don’t want to. I’m using this as a tracker to keep organized with who’s submitting what. The article needs to be submitted by the deadline below.

• You don’t need to have been published before. This is not a selective “pitch”; if you pitch me an idea and can submit an article by the deadline, I will run it. This is a celebration, not a pick-and-choose.

• Unless you have a unique perspective, we’ve had a couple articles about Jennifer’s Body so let’s focus our attention on other queer texts

• Articles will need to be submitted by 18 May (slight extensions allowed but for my anxiety, please try to get them in on time). I know this is a quick turnaround and I’m sorry. Brain stuff bad.

• Articles should be at a minimum 1 page/500 words; historically they’ve been 800-1,300 on average.

• Once you’ve submitted your article idea, get writing! This isn’t a pitch, any LGBTQIA+ writer who submits an article will be featured.

If you have any questions, hit me up on Twitter or send us an email here.

Writing Prompts

We’re open to any article idea, but to get those gears working, here are some ideas to think about if you need some help/direction:

• The first time you saw yourself represented on screen; the good, the bad, etc.

• The first horror film you watched where you saw actual queer representation

• Analyzing a film from the past that had queer subtext

• Your personal connection to horror as a queer horror fan

• A personal story about a movie that resonated with you

• Analysis of a queer/queer-coded character or film.

• Do you know someone working in horror you think the world should know about? Maybe set up an interview with them.

• Celebrate a favorite horror film with queer representation/subtext

• What’s a queer horror film you think people need to know about; one that’s not celebrated enough?

• How about a queer horror game? What video games have you played with queer content that you’d like to talk about/discuss?

• You can also look through the dozens of articles from 2021, 2020 and 2019 to get inspiration from those who’ve written before.

Multimedia

Are you a YouTuber or a Twitch Streamer? Do you have a podcast? Do you have some kind of multimedia project and you’d like to use it to help us raise funds? Get in touch. I’d love to chat about having Twitch events or promoting YouTube content, roundtable discussions with queer critics/creators or streaming games with LGBTQIA+ guests. If you have an idea, hit me up!

Let’s raise some funds and promote queer writers

I can’t do it without you.

Submit your article here.