So. you’ve decided you’re ready to know about the person BEHIND those strange ravings and their hints at terrible truths. If you are bold enough, here you may find all you would about this Lillie E. Franks…

…Just don’t expect it to be too exciting or anything

My stories:

For All Who Have Known Unnameable Cosmic Horror
Life goes on in unexpected ways at this meeting of a support group for people maddened by cosmic terror

The Naiad
A water spirit finds new ways to use her magic after her spring is stopped up to build a mall

The Widow Hoffman
A widow’s strange puppets hide a dark secret in this tribute to the work of Thomas Ligotti; the same issue also includes some of my poems

`The Witch's Bargain`
A witch discusses a possible bargain with a familiar fairy tale character

Three Poems About Truth
These three poems, Beauty, Entelechy, and I Imagine Myself Dead all explore the experience of truth in the context of queerness

The Mouth of Charybdis
The ancient sea monster and goddess tells her story to Odysseus and finds hope even in the curse of monstrosity

Catechism of The Great Father
(Not available for free)
Multiple versions of the Catechism of a mysterious religion for different levels of its hierarchy offer insights into its darkest secrets

One Foot
(Not available for free)
The survivors of a plane crash in the mountains confront the ghosts of those who died there in an ode to the power of mere persistence

The Painting Beyond Image
A king seeks a painter who can paint things as they truly are rather than merely as they appear

Variations on Three Fables By Aesop
A series of explorations of the lost possibilities of three fables by Aesop

**Replay**
The only survivor of a deadly airplane crash relives the events of it over and over, but can find no way to change them

The Broken Parlor Games
A series of parlor games explore the ways we connect, and also the ways we fail to

Great And Small
A young girl falls off her world, which lives on the back of a mayfly, and explores the greatly varying scale of life and the universe

*Hansel and Gretel Told From a Varying Distance*
The story of Hansel and Gretel is told from the perspective of the characters and from increasing distances, exploring trauma and how we choose to tell stories

About Me

My name is Lillie Franks. I’m a trans woman living in Chicago, with the best cats. I spend my time learning trivia about fungus and jellyfish, and I write stories because I believe they matter. Fiction is the art of the possible. We imagine situations that interest us and play them out not in the most realistic or the best way, but the way they ought to go. Writing is especially important for people told they ought not to exist. I write stories dedicated to exploring the gap between the world as it is and the world as it ought to be and how we bridge that in our actions and choices. Also monsters, cause I think they’re cool.