TAMARA JERÉE
bloody kisses. liberatory magic. sapphic angst.

ABOUT
Tamara Jerée (they/them) is a graduate of the Purdue University MFA Program and the Odyssey Writing Workshop. Their short stories have appeared in the Shirley Jackson Award-winning anthologies Unfettered Hexes: Queer Tales of Insatiable Darkness and Professor Charlatan Bardot’s Travel Anthology. Their poem “goddess in forced repose” in Uncanny Magazine was nominated for the inaugural Ignyte Award. They’ve worked as an indie bookseller and a writer in the video games industry. The Fall That Saved Us (out 9/5/2023) is their debut novel.
WRITING
Short Stories
"Despair, Divided" - Baffling Magazine
"In the void I see my own emptiness reflected back. I find a grim triumph in the observation: here, at my lowest, a god looks upon me. Even in the dark, I can touch the divine."
"Not Death, Nor the Storm" - Unfettered Hexes: Queer Tales of Insatiable Darkness
"To be a caretaker meant they would never want for company. That’s what the senior caretakers in the Catacombs of Mirthe taught them. The serenity of solitude would fulfill them. Nis had never known loneliness, ni realizes, because ni has lived with it so long that ni has become numb to it—or else it has numbed nir. Ni does not have the space to understand which, only that ni is grateful for this storm and this witch and this blessed death."
"In Our Season" - Professor Charlatan Bardot’s Travel Anthology
"Here, in summer, the sun barely sets. She warned me about this before suggesting our trip. I am a brittle insomniac. I haven’t dreamed in months. She massages lavender oil into my skin before bed, and now whenever I think of the plant I am transported back to our bed where I lie awake with my restless thoughts. Better though, to face sleeplessness in the land of midnight sun than to endure its near-lightless winters. Rós would never risk a winter trip to Iceland, not with me."
"In Case You're the One to Devour a Star" - Beneath Ceaseless Skies
"I have talked to wild dragons and seen them eclipse the moon. I have caught the fire of their breath in my hands and taken its power into myself. Yet suddenly I feel fear speeding my heart as I face this woman who could have anything else but claims she wants to have a family with a fire keeper."
"At the Mouth of the Sea" - Mermaids Monthly
"No mermaid has ever visited our shores twice, but that doesn’t dim the hope in the older girls’ eyes as we stand along the beach, waiting. We are all sick for their affection: the taste of the salt on their lips, their rainbow slicks of hair, the thrill of kissing someone with so many rows of sharp teeth."
"A Serpent for Each Year" - Strange Horizons
"Our relationship is almost a year old when I ask Nal why she is covered in snakes. I thought it might have been rude to ask before, to look too long at the undulating mass of scales that obscures much of her body. She says her mother put them on her one by one, a serpent for each year Nal survived, but now her mother is gone, and the snakes she has now are the only ones she’ll ever have."
"The Future in Saltwater" - Anathema: Spec from the Margins
"A dark hand gripped the stone edge of the pool, then another. A black-clad figure hauled themselves from the depths. The Temple Mother. Long braids swung heavy with water. Lengths of fabric hung stiff and trailed behind her. Skin, hair, clothes dripping water, leaving a trail of darkened stone in her wake."
"Our Souls to the Moon" - Strange Horizons
"Another moonstruck advisor from last night’s lunar viewing party stumbled onto the factory floor in the middle of our shift. All of us factory girls paused, watched, telescope pieces in hand. He staggered past the table of polishers where Adal and I were stationed that day, pointed up to the glass ceiling, and exclaimed in wordless awe. Mouth and eyes wide. Balancing on one tiptoed foot as if he might levitate straight into the void of space to be closer to Sao, Neptune’s psychotropic moon."
"On Lore" - Fireside Fiction
"Local news was abuzz with stories of the new restaurant on Second Street that folded wishes for demonic possession into their phyllo dough, rinsed lettuce with cursed water, and prescribed personalized nightmares with their seasonal menu. Lore wanted to try the dream-inducing food during the opening week, but we were too common to afford it."
"When You Find a Dragon, Name Them for Me" - FIYAH Literary Magazine
"I see the dragon feather first, but when I record our progress for the day, I will write that Nihla was the one to discover the first hopeful sign. I will give her that kindness, a gift that will only matter if we find the dragon and don’t die in the middle of the wastes."
Poetry
"the most humane methods could involve a knife" - Uncanny Magazine
"if Saturn" - Arsenika
"Warship Captain Application [Section 29.2 saved as draft in SAIS]" - Strange Horizons
"goddess in forced repose" - Uncanny Magazine (Disabled People Destroy Fantasy)
"upon learning my girlfriend is a mermaid" - Twisted Moon
"in the Cult of Nearly-Lost Dreams" - Strange Horizons
"Self-Care for Villains" - Liminality
Nonfiction
"The System Operates as Designed" - Autostraddle
"How to Make a Family: Queer Blood Bonds in Black Feminist Vampire Novels" - Strange Horizons