Civilization Stained These Young Things and Other Works by Emily Flummox.

Emily Flummox’ unapologetically Queer debut collection is slated for release by July 4, 2025 (timed for release by San Francisco’s BayCon, which is also WesterCon this year!). The book includes eir previously published essays, short stories, and poetry as well as the previously unpublished “The Fog of Time Means We’re Everywhere” and select unpublished poems.

“Civilization Stained These Young Things” is as sensuous as it is sharp in its societal commentary and razor slicing prose. An unforgettable and unapologetic exploration of love, loneliness, and identity through fairies and fog water. A must read. -Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito, Qilin Press and Demagogue Press.

The cover is designed by Miki Bizet (Sumiko Saulson) and depicts imagery from the title story, a dark fantasy about faeries and a dangerous and magical dance as old as time that brings the colors to roses in bloom.

Table of Contents:

Kiss Me, I’m A Prince (poem)

Civilization Stained These Young Things (short story)

Tlazolteotl (in the Language of Asatru and Hinduism) Or: Because I Do Not Know Your Language Well Enough Yet (poem)

Like All That Lives, We Eat Death: The TTRPG (essay)

Mammalian Nuances (poem)

The Fog of Time Means We’re Everywhere (short story)

The Ceremonies Begin (poem),

A Prayer from a Blacksmith’s Apprentice (flash fiction)

We Are Already So Many Different Kinds of Ancestor (poem)

My Arrows are as Plentiful as Dust, My Shield is as Inevitable as Trash (essay)

Nutrition (poem)

“And They Lived Long Enough to Bury Their Dead” is a dark fantasy comic zine about a group of Gen X goth/punk folks growing older and processing the deaths of loved ones. A paranormal urban fantasy, it centers around Billie, a nonbinary African-American alternative rocker from Oakland who develops the psychic ability to see and communicate with ghosts. Their nesting partner, Davis, a formerly homeless African-American transgender man, their twin brother Sean, a ghostcat, and the ghost of their mother are other central characters. In the story Billie, Davis, and their Gen X circle of friends are coming to terms with aging, the declining health (and loss) of their parents, and adjusting to a new post-pandemic world. It is an urban fantasy taking place in Oakland and the San Francisco Bay Area

An episodic comic book, released in 12 page mini-comics and 24 page (two-issue) full-sized comics. The entire series will also be available online for free at The WebDuck.

A heady mix of horror both light- and heavy-hearted with intimate perspectives on homelessness, racism, mental health, and death, each poem in this anthology will confront you with the things society prefers to ignore. Always grounded in speculative fiction, the works herein nonetheless remark upon our real world with a comfortable and revealing familiarity.

“Sumiko Saulson’s latest poetry collection, The Rat King (DookyZines.com) mixes formalist, New Weird verse with their Afrosurrealist roots and a lyrical but often brutal focus on social commentary. You can see their power of words in poems such as Regarding Nina Simone’s Bad Reputation, reflecting on their mother’s struggles with mental disabilities and being a BIPOC woman. With poems like The Rat King, they explore the literal horror of homelessness and death. Other excellent and moving poems include A Travesty in Timbuktu, I Feel Some Kind of Way, I Am Not Your Trope and Black and Queer aren’t Trends which are strong poetical manifestos focusing on their self-described being “of Black, and Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, queer, and disabled.” There is beauty, both rough and elegant, and brutality in the narratives of their verse. Sumiko Saulson is emerging as a strong voice in the field of dark poetry and The Rat King is a solid addition to their growing body of work. 

— David E. Cowen, Bram Stoker Award Nominated Author of Bleeding Saffron and other collections 

“The Rat King is a flowing lyrical gem. It opens up the senses in ways you may not have experienced before. The emotions run high throughout this entire collection and shake your soul onto an entirely new level. The poetry here was meant to be felt and not just read. Absolutely loved this.

—Jeff Oliver, Author of ‘Venomous Words’ Volume One & New World Monsters

“Packed with powerful social commentary, pain, and love, Sumiko Saulson highlights the darkness found in every corner of our everyday world with haunting prose and metaphor.”

— Ronald J. Murray, Elgin Award-nominated author of Cries to Kill the Corpse Flower

“In The Rat King, Sumiko Saulson sings the song of the sufferer who has transcended deep hurts through a vibrant estimation of their own beautiful humanity. The poems in the Rat King explore the disfunction, hope, and grace of our collective dark heart and leaves you feeling one lingering emotion at the end: Compassion.”

—Jamal Hodge, Award-winning filmmaker and 2x Rhysling nominated poet

“Sumiko’s The Rat King has me in feelings I didn’t realize I had. I loved every bit of it.”

– Steven Van Patten author of the critically acclaimed Brookwater’s Curse trilogy

“Saulson isn’t out to just entertain. Their rhymes cut deep and the stories held within them wound. They’re here to worm their way into your skull and tear their way back out through your entrails. And you’ll have a damn fun time while they do it.” -Anton Cancre, This Story Doesn’t End the Way We Want All The Time

“With a title as cunning as its author, The Rat King promises a series of tangled tales with extra bite.” – Moaner T. Lawrence, author of The Great American Nightmare

Winner of the 2021 Ladies in Horror Fiction Readers Choice Award

Dark poetry and prose written at the intersection of Blackness, Queerness, and Neurodivergence, where magic is mistaken for madness, organic hosts willingly bind themselves with artificial intelligence, and instruments designed for music are enchanted for revenge. Ghost ships embark on twisted, versical affairs with krakens. Phantom husbands believe “til death do us part” must be mutual. Keenly aware that we are worlds within ourselves as well as fractal instances of the world as a whole, these words ~ written predominantly during the first two years of the global pandemic ~ unite revolution, multiplicity.and a soul-searing sense of melancholia.

“Within me / Without me is a revelatory work, an intimate yet universal discourse on the concepts of self and society. Saulson’s creation will possess you: it will inhabit your skin, surge through your veins, and invade your synapses, each story and poem foreshadowing the ‘pendulum switch’ of acceptance and celebration that our new world demands. With echoes of Octavia Butler, Within me/ Without me sings with verve and vibrancy. A ground-breaking collection.” —Lee Murray, double Bram Stoker Award®-winner and author of Grotesque: Monster Stories.

“Within me/Without me is a collection of refreshing and diverse storylines in poetry and prose. They speak of how to be human in a horrific world, where complicated emotions from divergent cultures and society norms are like oil and water. Saulson’s seduction pulls you through a vice-grip of social structures in marginalized conflict, slipping through scarred, but strong, unique, and imperfectly loveable. It satisfies the deep, dark thirst for the personal nature of poems and storytelling.” —Rain Graves, two-time Bram Stoker Award®-winning poet and author of Barfodder

After a breakups and a series of bad starts, author Sumiko Saulson is trying to heal. So is Flynn Keahi, one of her fictional characters. Her life changes completely when Flynn abandons the paranormal romance she’s cast him in, and demands that they both go to group therapy to fix their dysfunctional relationships. Once the two become intimately involved, Sumiko raises concerns their relationship it isn’t healthy. Flynn grows increasingly touchy about her assertion that he isn’t real. This is complicated further when Sumiko is flooded with requests from other imaginary personalities demanding to join in the conversation.