Published in 2023, Tea Leaves by Jacob Budenz is a short story collection exalting and lampooning the queer experience while examining the sometimes surreal obstacles of marginalization.
Jacob Budenz is a queer writer, multi-disciplinary performer, educator, and witch with an MFA from the University of New Orleans and a BA from Johns Hopkins University whose work explores the intersections between otherness and the otherworldly. A 2020 winner of the Baker Innovative Projects Grant for Simaetha: a Dreambaby Cabaret, Jake has work in journals including Slipstream, Taco Bell Quarterly, Baffling, Wussy Magazine, and more, as well as anthologies by Mason Jar Press and Lycan Valley publications.
Tea Leaves presents 16 speculative short stories that place queer characters in larger-than-life situations to emphasize the surreal experience of marginalization. A queer romance spans multiple incarnations, but only in doomed cities. A gay medieval scholar must testify for his life to the otherworldly octopus who traps him in a cafe bathroom. Ignoring their better judgment, a witch brings their mortal partner on a hunt for a dangerous sorcerer and must cope with the dire consequences. Each of the stories within Tea Leaves explores the urgency of modern queer life in encounters between the otherworldly and the queer other.
From the book description
Jacob Budenz presents Tea Leaves
Interview with Jacob Budenz including a discussion of Tea Leaves
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ISBN: 9-781-61294-275-9. Published by Bywater Books.
