Pride Bundle 2025: General Imprint Short Stories

For the 2025 General Imprint Pride Bundle for charity, 16 authors have contributed their queer stories to help us raise money for Rainbow Railroad. 12 of these stories are usually exclusively available to backers of our Patreon. Approximately 50% of the proceeds from this bundle will be donated to the selected charity after the bundle sale ends on June 30th 2025.

The stories included in this bundle are:

Princess Antonia del Montari, aka the Accidental Barista by A. L. Heard

“Excuse me?” someone asks from her right.
Toni startles slightly. She frowns in dismay as the coffee sloshes over the edge of one of the mugs.
Once everything’s balanced again, Toni looks over to the nearest table.
Black leather jacket, knee-high boots over dark skinny jeans, a too-loose T-shirt for a band Toni’s never heard of, and a myriad of piercings all conspire to make Toni’s heart pound in her chest and her mouth go dry. It’s only worse when she meets the woman’s eye and gets lost in caramel. She stands there, marveling at the beautiful woman so long that even Toni’s aware it’s become awkward.

The Problem with Wishes by Annabeth Lynch

The Enchanted Cafae was a special place, a haven right smack in the middle of one of the biggest cultural hubs in the mortal world: New York City. Their founding vision was a simple but important one: create a place for the mythological to relax and not worry about needing to hide from mortals. From faeries to banshees to pixies like Kade, all were welcome to come in and show their true selves. It was not Kade’s creation—that credit belonged to her mother—but she’d played a large part in its atmosphere and its reputation. The little shop on the nondescript corner in Brooklyn was perhaps Kade’s most prized possession, even if it wasn’t technically hers.

So Much Braver by boneturtle

The first job we’d done together had involved infiltrating a library’s reference room to copy computer files. “We could just request these through the library catalog, like normal people,” I’d groaned when Elrin had shown up at the apartment holding the all-black garb I was supposed to wear to our inaugural theft.
He’d shaken his head. “Our client doesn’t want us to leave a trail. And most of these files can’t be requested except by staff.”
Why do I always get sucked into the shady stuff?! I’d lamented as I followed him to the old stone building downtown.

Unsafe Haven by Cedar D. McCafferty-Svec

Six was wiping the grease from his fingers when the chime over the door went off. He didn’t need to look and see who it was; there was only one person who would show up at 11 p.m. on a Sunday and know Six’d still be in the workshop. And his guest knew that too; Emery didn’t give even a “hello” before he slumped against the counter nearest to Six with that trademark sly, little smile of his.
“Business or pleasure?” Six asked.

Got You Covered by D. V. Morse

As an undine, Kayleigh usually found early spring rainstorms refreshing, but today she was exhausted and surrounded by humans. Kayleigh had had a long week at Hartford’s Office of Legislative Research, and she couldn’t wait to get home and literally melt into her bathtub. The last thing she needed was to have raindrops encouraging her to join them in the nearest puddle She had to hold herself together long enough to manage the bus ride home to her empty apartment.
She didn’t have an umbrella.

Troubled Trouble by Genevieve Maxwell

Right out of the gate, Laurel knew they were in trouble. Not just a little bit of trouble, but the sort of situation that would echo throughout the next while with unseen repercussions and ripples of consequences. Consequences. Such an inevitable but inconvenient concept. Why should they face consequences when so many others seemed to sail through life never facing their own? They sighed.
Laurel had never been the sort that got to ignore the results of their own actions.

Ride On, Shooting Star by J. D. Harlock

No one knew what happened to the couriers who went AWOL. Carna’ had never heard of anyone who had tried to leave. The whispers passed along from those who had worked at the USC before her seemed just as unsure, if slightly more cautious, about the whole prospect.
Once the compounds were out of sight, Carna’ slowed her vehicle down so she could check her map for someplace that she would want to go, where the USC would find it extremely difficult to track her down. Having traversed far more of the known universe than most spacefarers, few places piqued her interest. However, as she flicked through the location pins on the hologram, one image caught her eye with its intensity.

A Thousand Hopes, A Thousand Risks by Kelas Lloyd

“Ah, Erodne, you’re here. I wasn’t sure you would come.” The speaker was large, both tall and broad, and briefly blocked the harsh sun that had been helping Erodne regret being in this city for several hours now. He was Master Inkmaker Dolan, and he sat down at the outdoor table Erodne had chosen.
“You said you’d only sell to me if I did, despite our good history,” Erodne said, then took a sip of his now-warm ale and squinting into the sun. Someone else stepped between him and it. Erodne’s squint turned into a suspicious look. “You also said you’d come alone, Dolan.”

The Ending Line of Casablanca by Lucy K. R.

By the time I got off work that night—calls all finished, paperwork done, car handed over to the mechanics and traded in for a rental—I’d gotten so inoculated to the stench of burning rubber that I felt a little off-pace when the new car didn’t smell like fire.
I didn’t like to drive my cars hard, as a rule. Our mechanics were good at what they did, but they already had too much on their plates. I tried not to make it worse for them. I wasn’t pulling stunt maneuvers, doing burnouts, or cutting donuts in the parking lot by the Waffle House, unlike some people (Wallace).
No, it was just that Diesel fucking Vaughn had set my Goddamn car on fire.

Going Dark by Max Jason Peterson

When he died, I lost not only Grandpa, but his world.
Grandma sealed the darkroom.
Mother told me my tears were selfish, but I heard my parents discussing it in low tones late at night. Their bedroom door spilled a copper square while Dad rumbled, “There’s nothing to worry about. Your mother won’t let anyone in the darkroom.”
Mother’s taut, high voice carried across the hall. “Imogene’s going to look someday. It’s human nature. And she won’t understand.”

The Waiting Wife by Mikki Madison

The mayor arrived at Ivy’s house two weeks before the final month of the year, bundled in a thick coat and smooth leather gloves. He stepped up to the gate and touched his hat in greeting. “Miss Ivy.”
Ivy stopped chopping wood and nodded to him. “Mayor.”
“The town’s leaving in two weeks.”

The Deadman’s Gambit by Nicola Kapron

Your whole body aches down to the bones.
You can’t feel a thing.
These two facts shouldn’t be able to coexist, but they do. Just like a dead man shouldn’t be able to move, and here you are, leaning back in your chair, rocking your foot back and forth. Trying to fend off the inevitable stiffness that comes with letting dead muscles sit. You don’t have to worry about rigor mortis these days, thank God, but the time between your brain being dragged kicking and screaming back to life and your torturers perfecting their chemical cocktail was unpleasant, to say the least.
By the time you hear the girl’s running feet, it’s already too late.

The Inscrutable Fate of the ISV Devotion by S. J. Ralston

In the annals of celestine disasters, few cases are as well-known and as poorly understood as that of the Interstellar Space Vessel Devotion. Most official documentation of the disaster was destroyed during the Little Brother uprisings of the late 2530s. The waters have been further muddied by centuries of pop-culture obsession, including a profusion of heavily fictionalized media and fabricated evidence. What follows is a collection of resources that attempts to capture, in chronological order, the evolution of perspectives on the disaster and how we arrived at our current understanding—or lack thereof—about the fate of the ISV Devotion.

Best Friends AND… by Tris Lawrence

Someday Eve should write all the evidence down and see if she can figure out who is and isn’t Talented on the STEM-athlon team. She suspects most of them are. It’s a welcoming place for people who are a little different than the supposed norm.
“We’ll be there in five.” Eve pushes the door closed. “I have a spare T-shirt in my bag,” she says. “I brought it just in case I got something on me during my lab. You can wear it.”
“I have a spare too,” Sandy replies. “Sometimes I get dirty lying down on the gym floor to launch the plane. I’d figured I’d save it for tomorrow, but now is good. I feel gross; it’s been a long day.”
Eve is disappointed; she wanted to share hers with Sandy. Maybe she wants to save the day, or maybe she just wants to see her best friend wearing her clothes.

In Fine Feather by Violet J. Hayes

Leander gripped tightly to the branch as he waited for the vertigo pass. He had been summoned, whisked away powerfully and suddenly from his home to this plane of existence. He had been fixing himself a cup of tea, preparing to head to the market, when the tug at his center began, a sensation that left him gasping. The last thing he remembered was the sound of his teacup shattering on the floor.

The Lightkeeper and the Sea by Zel Howland

Every woman past the age of 75 and living alone technically qualified, under certain laws of nature, as a witch. This old woman—called the Lightkeeper of the Beaufort Spire by anyone with sense, “crazy old broad” by drunk mainlanders who always seemed to end up floating face down in the tide, and her real name by nobody—was more qualified than most. At witchery, at least, if not at pouring tea.