Strange Fire Press

Publishing evocative stories across every genre through an unapologetically LGBTQ+ lens.

Chevron Down

Nadav and Avihu killed by flames (colorized), Hans Holbein (II), 1538. Rijks Museum

Why Strange Fire?

Strange Fire Press takes its name from a moment in Leviticus—Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu offer fire before God that he hadn’t commanded, and are struck dead for it. The phrase has been used ever since in conservative religious circles to condemn worship that transgresses orthodoxy. Anything unauthorized. Anything strange.For a queer atheist press, that’s not a warning. It’s a mission statement.
Queer identity has been called strange, deviant, transgressive by religious institutions for centuries. Taking one of their condemnations and proudly putting it on our books is an act of reclamation—we’re not asking for a seat at the altar. We’re outside the whole system, looking at it clearly, and we’ve taken their language as our own.This is critique, not confession. The books we publish lay bare what humans have done with sacred power—the myths they built, the people they erased, the history underneath the scripture. Strange fire is exactly what that work offers.The word “strange” also carries a long shadow in queer history—close enough to slur-adjacent that reclaiming it has weight, distant enough to be elegant.