A city that needs no introduction, except that it always needs an introduction because New York City is a city of 8.48 million people, not including the visitors, and therefore New York City is a city of 8.48 million cities, not including every visitor's version of the city, which would balloon the number of cities that New York City is to a whopping 72.98 million cities total per year. That's not counting the various fictional versions of New York City that also create entirely other versions of the city in the minds of people who haven't ever visited, as well as parallel versions of the city in the minds of those who have visited and, in fact, presently live there or have, at one point in their life, lived there. And then there are the remembered versions of the city carried around by the people who used to live there but don't any longer, and that city that they remember technically no longer exists. And then of course we multiply that city by every year the city has existed, knowing that the visitors to that city each year vary greatly depending on what time period we're talking about, and that people move to and from the city in vast migration patterns driven by slavery and technology and war and environment, and that the whole city got stolen from the Lenape anyhow, and the point is: there are a lot of New York Cities. You have to be specific about which one you mean.
My name? That's also kind of a complicated question.
Let's dive into the city, shall we?
Our version of New York City and your version of New York City have some overlap. There are some places you can actually visit. One of them is The Hungarian Pastry Shop. In our version of New York City, that's where you'd find me. But in your version of New York City, that's where you'll find bottomless coffee, absolutely no wifi, and an environment that's been nearly unchanged for the at least sixty years.
It's right across from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which is super ugly on the outside but really stately on the inside. It also has a sculpture in its garden called Peace Fountain, which has never been a fountain and features a really big decapitated Satan. The witches in our version of New York have a couple significant moments in its shadow. In both versions, it's actually a pretty witchy, gay place, with Pride events and a huge Halloween to-do that involves giant puppets, which is frankly super campy and they take a pot shot at the Pope with one of those puppets, at least that's how I've interpreted it and I've gone every year so I've had plenty of time to think about it.
You keep asking about me. I told you, it's a bit of A Thing, and that's not where our focus is right now.
Our focus is, instead, on a place where our versions of the city diverge. In ours—Cowboy
Jacqueline's. The world's best lightly cowboy-themed queer bar and home to The Smoking Guns, a genderqueer burlesque drag troupe. The aesthetic of the place is truly unparalleled (it's got naughty neon cacti and glory holes in the all-gender bathrooms with mustaches painted underneath) and Jaqueline (OG lesbian cowboy) owns the building, so it hasn't yet become a dog hotel or a whole building of apartments kept intentionally empty because of capitalism.
In your version of New York? There are a couple places that add up to Cowboy Jaqueline's (but if you ask me, nothing can truly capture that particular flavor of Magic). The first is Branded Saloon in Prospect Heights. It's got the aesthetic vibe of Cowboy Jaqueline's. But if you want the burlesque drag, you'll have to go see Switch N' Play. They're pretty rad; I've seen them in their natural habitat, but I've also seen them at Lincoln Center and at NightGowns, which is that famous queen Sasha Velour's thing.
Me again? Eh. I wouldn't worry about it. Unless, of course, you have a question about your future.
Then maybe I would worry about it a little.
A coven of trans witches battles an evil AI in the magical coming-of-middle-age romp about love, loss, drag shows, and late capitalism.
On a morning much like any other, 30-something queer Brooklynite Wilder makes a miraculous discovery: suddenly, as if by magic, they can understand every language in the world. Dazed and disconnected, Wilder is found and taken in by a small coven of trans witches who have all become Awakened with mystical powers of their own. Quibble, a handsome portal traveler, Artemis, the group’s caretaker and seer, and Mary Margaret, a smart-ass teen with telekinetic powers all work to make the cagey and suspicious Wilder feel at home, both within their group and with the knowledge that magic is, in fact, real.
Just as Wilder is finding their footing, a malicious AI threatens to dismantle the delicate balance of the coven and the world as they know it. The group scrambles to stay united as they question whether any consciousness—be it artificial, material, or magical—is too dangerous to exist.
Awakened is a hilarious, thought-provoking reflection on the ways that we are responsible for creating our own realities, a story of finding community, and a meditation on what it means to have a body.
Paranormal | LGBTQ [ Grand Central Publishing, On Sale: April 28, 2026, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781538757710 / eISBN: 9781538757727 ]
A. E. Osworth is part-time Faculty at The New School, where they teach undergraduates the art of digital storytelling. Their novel, We Are Watching Eliza Bright, about a game developer dealing with harassment (and narrated collectively by a fictional subreddit) was long listed for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. They have an eight-year freelancing career and you can find their work on Autostraddle, Guernica, Quartz, Electric Lit, Paper Darts, Mashable, and drDoctor, among others.
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