6-29-2026 Latham's Last Words: Pride Month Interviews: Sumiko Saulson

It's Pride Month and I've gathered some interviews with some amazing LGBTQIA+ authors which I will be posting throughout the month.

I don't know Sumiko very well, but I do know from following them on Facebook that they are full of sunshine. Typically in their pictures they are always smiling.

Tell us a little about yourself.

I'm 58 years old, non-binary, African American and Ashkenazi Jewish, and I live in Oakland, California which is when I started my writing career, although I was born in Los Angeles and lived in Hawaii for all of my teens. I'm polyamorous and I was handfasted with my wife Emily Loretta Flummox last year. Andy, Reese, and Wednesday are the other folks on my side of the polycule, my theyfriend, friend-sweetie and lover. Literally all of us are member of the trans community in some way and queer.

How important do you think queer representation in horror is?

I think it's very important for us to see people like us, and not just in tragic roles or as side kicks and magical information providers. Horror is a genre that's about telling stories that are often hard to look at: about our primal fears, what motivates us, and survival in unimaginable life and death situations. All things we know a lot about. Queer authors have always been in horror: Clive Barker, Oscar Wilde. Often, we self-portray as monsters because so many monsters are queer coded that it's a way we take back the genre. But we can also be heroes.

Tell us about your most recent release, or an upcoming release.

My most recently released is Dance of Necromance: Poetry Book of the Dead. It's a rather tender-hearted look at death and the undead in all of their forms: ghosts, zombies, vampires. Very largely ghosts, connections to ancestor spirits, bringing the veil to speak with those who have passed. And it's written with a deep connectedness to both my African American heritage and my queerness.

What work of yours is your favorite and why?

I always hate this question, because I love so many of my books, but I do have a deep connection with Happiness and Other Diseases. The protagonist, Flynn Keahi, is bipolar, and the story touches on a lot of very loaded subjects that I don't feel are readily addressed in fiction about mental illness. Flynn is a very sweet character who wouldn't harm anyone, but he's so gaslit into protecting others before himself that he is virtually incapable of keeping himself safe. He wants ordinary things like love, a wife, and some kids so badly he'd go through almost anything to have them. Not do almost anything, mind you. But endure almost anything. 

In fiction, you usually see how mentally ill people are a danger to others, but statically, people with bipolar disorder are at a very elevated risk of being domestic violence victims. 

There's also a gloss of fantasy and dream over everything: the charismatic nature of the supernatural creatures that seduce him keep him from fighting off the danger.

In the story, his hallucinations are real. Mine aren't, but the story let me put into writing how real they feel to the person experiencing them.

Where can readers find your books?

At my website www.SumikoSaulson.com, at MochaMemoirsPress.com, at Dooky Zines.com, and at booksellers everywhere 

Where can readers follow you on Social Media? 

SumikoSaulson on IG and Discord, SumikoSka on FB, TikTok and everywhere else