Steve Hugh Westenra
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stevewestenra.bsky.social
Steve Hugh Westenra
@stevewestenra.bsky.social
7.1K followers 4.2K following 15K posts
Dr. Monster (PhD)

E-mail: stevehughwestenraATprotonDOTme

Author of questionable taste. Words in New Edge Sword & Sorcery. Trans. Book reviewer. #SFINCS judge. #SFFChat Academic expert on monsters. HWA. He/him

linktr.ee/SteveWestenra

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stevewestenra.bsky.social
Tyler is maybe a bit too open in some ways, I'd say. He's very flexible and tends to approach sex as a way of pleasing the other person. Some of that's just a natural openness and not caring (along with being kind of slutty, haha), but I do think it has a dangerous side.

From the same chapter:
“Whatever you want,” Ty says, and my heart swoons, but then it sinks. Is this Ty saying that in a sexy, loving way that he wants equal part in? Or is this more performance? What does Ty want? Does he want anything at all?
November 13, 2025 at 4:56 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
cheating). He's also really into monsterfucking as a concept.

He's very exploratory.

This is from the opening chapter of For One Night Only (the sequel):
What I said about Ty performing for me is true. There’s not a fantasy I haven’t thrown at him that he hasn’t agreed to. The only time he’s ever said no was when he refused to have sex while I was wearing Conrad Uphill’s stolen cowboy hat. Well, that and most BDSM stuff. After a deranged fan
November 13, 2025 at 4:51 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
#WIPSnips - "Build"

From The Wings of Ashtaroth!

Aurelius waxing romantic (not unusual).

You can find it here: books2read.com/u/49dn8Y

Or here!: steve-westenra.itch.io/the-wings-of... (temporarily free because it was meant to be in this bundle instead of TETK 🤣): itch.io/b/3352/trans...
“As Aurelius stood, he saw darkness engulf the plains, saw the far away hills that marked the border between the Meddar and Indas become silhouetted in red before vanishing completely. What untold mysteries and adventures lay beyond that border Aurelius didn't know, but he would know, given time, and Bree would be riding beside him when he discovered them. Together, they’d build new memories like palisades, to keep the demons out. The open sky would be, for a time, a kind of freedom they could both lay claim to.” -The Wings of Ashtaroth
November 13, 2025 at 11:21 AM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
#WIPSnips - "Shirt"

From The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle

I feel like I've shared either this or the bits around it a lot, but oh well 🤣

Still part of this awesome itchio bundle of trans authors!: itch.io/b/3352/trans...

Or wide!: books2read.com/u/boB9YL

#transhorror #queerhorror #indiehorror
My chest doesn’t just hitch, it’s made of hitches. I shove a pile of shirts into the bottom of the dresser, trying to cauterize the part of my brain that gives a shit, which, unfortunately, is most of it. I could fool myself thinking this is the beginning of some grandiose gesture, some declaration. I could do that, but it would be cruel, and even I don’t hate myself that much. Still, the possibility floats in the silence, and part of me reaches for it because if there’s a way in which Josh and I are equally stupid it’s that we’re both romantics. -The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle
November 12, 2025 at 12:22 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
Dooonnne
Completed puzzle featuring a promotional poster for Waggner's The Wolf Man
November 11, 2025 at 8:44 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
From The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle!

Convincing you to read my novel by the first sentence. Share yours if you want!
The Echo Island Diary: Entry 1 Tyler Kyle Went to the Island July 12th, 2019: 10:00 AM It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of the name Tyler is definitely an asshole. Combine that with the name Kyle and you’ve got yourself not
November 11, 2025 at 12:13 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
Thanks so much for this!

I keep getting this error when I copy/paste into the terminal. Do you know what I'm doing wrong?
C:\Users\steve> & ([scriptblock]::Create((irm "https://debloat.raphi.re/"))) & was unexpected at this time.
November 11, 2025 at 12:00 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
#WIPSnips - "Local"

A little Tyler-style snark for today's!

Art by bsky.app/profile/litt...

Find the book here! books2read.com/u/boB9YL

Itchio: itch.io/b/3352/trans...

#indiehorror #queerhorror #transhorror
"The resort is at the edge of town, which is a five-minute walk from the middle of town. Already I feel both like I’ve seen everything I need to see, and like this is the kind of place that probably has a hidden network of tunnels underneath it to accommodate the otherwise short-for-space Lovecraftian cult and their Tuesday-evening virgin sacrifices. In a small town like this the local cult is probably low on virgins." - The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle
November 10, 2025 at 2:55 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
#WipSnips - "Penultimate"

From the penultimate chapter of The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle!
the plates in front of us are occupied by dots I’m sure if I asked would be “emulsions,” “reductions,” and “coulis.”
November 6, 2025 at 2:51 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
#SFFChat Q4: Excerpt featuring a memory

I've shared this passage from The Wings of Ashtaroth before many times, but it's one I'm super proud of
November 6, 2025 at 12:19 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
#WIPSnips - "Nice"

I learned through this that I use "nice" way too often!

From The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle, my queer horror comedy about a cryptid-hunting YouTuber.

Where to find it: books2read.com/u/boB9YL

On Sale: steve-westenra.itch.io/the-erstwhil...
The bodies in the cages against the walls look like they’re watching me, mouths and eye sockets screaming. I tear back down the hallway, clutching my mom’s hand like a talisman. My own voice sputters to life from speakers in the corners of the hallway. “—ust bury me out here, please. Murder me and bury me under a rock. Pick a nice tree though—none of this four-foot shallow grave stuff. I want to be way down there. Deep six. Worm chow. The circle of life. Just bury me out here, please. Murder me and bury me—” Doors flash by. Subject 15, Subject 14, Subject 13 . . . . “—the circle of life. Just bury me—” I reach the stairs, and it’s Josh, not me, who’s playing. “Welcome, Bangers, to another episode of Discovery Bang. I’m here with my co-host, the erstwhile Tyler Ky— “Erstwhile?” I cut in. I leap back up the stairs. “Yeah, you know. You’re an erstwhile kind of guy,” says Josh. The audio skips ahead. “Guys, if you’re as interested in replacing Ty as I am, get your audition tapes ready and sound off in the comments.” It repeats and repeats and repeats, and then several recordings start playing one over the other. It’s like the dream. Fuck it’s just like the dream.
November 3, 2025 at 3:01 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
Hallowe'en puzzle! The true horror will be trying to finish it ahaha
October 31, 2025 at 4:17 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
Thanks for this!!

Hi! I'm Steve and I'm a neurodivergent trans author!

My queer horror comedy about a cryptid-hunting YouTuber has a 99% queer cast and features an ADHD protagonist!

Sale: steve-westenra.itch.io/the-erstwhil...

Wide: books2read.com/u/boB9YL
A Queer horror comedy by a trans author. "Is it Possible to queerbait yourself?" A cryptid-hunting YouTuber. His missing mom. An isolated island that may house the monsters he swears aren't real. Horror comedy by a trans author, cryptid hunters, cowboy hats, small towns are weird (#ownvoices), Newfoundland but less strange, Queer Buzzfeed Unsolved/Ghost Files, Misfits + Shenanigans, Cake, Twin Peaks Vibes, Burned out Millennials
October 31, 2025 at 3:17 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
#WIPSnips - "Monster"

Well, I definitely had to do this one! I feel like I've shared most of my monster scenes (the non-spoilery ones, anyway) before, but here's one from TETK for anyone who isn't tired of seeing it!

I also talk about monsters here: tinyelfarcanist.com/2023/06/12/s...
The glow of the bears’ eyes is so beautiful, so peaceful. And how bad would it be, really, to be devoured? To know your small death would feed an army of forest critters? What other meaning could I hope to find out there in the big scary world, being alive? Living is hard. It takes so much effort. To die, all I have to do is stand here and wait. And beautiful. Dear God will it be beautiful. Jaws clamped around my neck, the beatbeatbeat of my heart, the beatbeatbeat, the beatbeatbeat of my heart, the beat beat beat of my heart, the beat beat . . . .beat . . . hey The jaws closing, the puncture of thin skin, the pulse of blood down the neck, claws raised to swipe open my chest, my ribcage, my heart Swipe right for supper And I’ll melt over time into the earth and the pine needles, diffused into root and moss, and the trees will sing songs of me, and the words they make will sound like heyheyhey.
October 31, 2025 at 10:58 AM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
#SFFChat Q4: Here's some of those revenant shadows, but from a bonus chapter in between The Wings of Ashtaroth and The Crown of Asmodeus!
Clink. The lever clattered within the indent in the wall and all around them flames sprung to life—up and up and up the walls directly ahead and to the right and left. The light climbed higher and higher. Impossibly high. It seemed to walk up the shallow sets of stairs built into the sides of the room, illuminating the jagged edges one by one, leaving only the darkened crevices built between them in shadow. Leaving only the mumblers. “You’re awfully close, Meri,” said Qristos from behind her. Meri glanced down and her heart all but stopped. Her sandals were less than a breath from the edge of the stone platform on which they stood. One more step and she would have— To her left, another lever clinked and the rush of water—louder than the flow of the aqueducts filtering into Tanata’s pool—rumbled from deep inside the walls. Opaque black water spilled from every hollow doorway dug into the cavernous room’s mighty walls. Deep down below her, the water began to fill a pool that it was too dark to see the bottom of. “He’s coming,” hushed a voice from the darkness. Then another. And another. “He’s coming.” The mumblers—thick dark shadows standing in the doorways between stairs it was impossible to reach and which were far too narrow for human feet—whispered up and down the endless wall, their words swimming in and out of each other, their voices audible where before they’d been impossible to understand.
October 30, 2025 at 11:06 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
It's still October!

Why not try a queer horror comedy that doesn't skimp on any of the three?

A cryptid-hunting skeptic follows a (fake?) video of his presumed-dead mom to a former conversion camp on an isolated island, all while fleeing the "straight" co-host he drunkenly made out with.

⬇️
October 30, 2025 at 3:55 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
#WIPSnips - "Spell"

From The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle

Lots of spell-like bits in the book, but went with a passage that contains a bit of the vibe along with the actual word ; )

#indiehorror #queerhorror #transhorror
“Do you know the violinist Paganini?” he asks. “From the eighteen hundreds.” He raises his thick brown eyebrows above his round-rimmed glasses. “They say he made a bargain with the devil to be able to play so well, but that’s just a story. In reality, he simply possessed very long fingers. He was probably double-jointed as well. What might have been a deformity made him a virtuoso.” Uphill slides his fingers back over mine. I swallow, staring him in his face. On the surface it’s so I can keep an eye on him, but there’s something else underneath it, something like a song calling me, like the night at The Moon. I don’t want to look, but I can’t stop. The whole forest seems to live inside his eyes, and despite the casual ableism I’m momentarily hypnotized. “His was a life to envy,” Conrad finishes, receding behind his desk so the great tusks of his post-modern taxidermy jut to either side of him: spears pointed right at me. “Didn’t he die of syphilis?” I ask, joking, distancing. Uphill grins, and it breaks the spell my wisecrack couldn’t. “There are worse ways to go.”
October 30, 2025 at 10:28 AM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
#WIPSnips - "Broomstick"

No literal broomstick, but lots of witchy stuff in So Sing the Barrows (a little in TETK as well, but SStB is definitely my "witchy" book).
October 29, 2025 at 3:08 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
#Wipsnips - "Costume"

Always nice when I have one ready 🤣

From The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle, my horror comedy about a cryptid-hunting YouTuber
October 28, 2025 at 2:51 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle is on #sale for Hallowe'en over on Itchio!: itch.io/s/165181/hal...

If you're looking for a queer horror read for the season and are tired of the usual stuff, it might be worth a look!

#horror #booksale #indiehorror #spookyreads #transhorror #queerhorror
October 28, 2025 at 1:21 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
Eeee! Time to return to #WIPSnips

Excited to do the spooky, Hallowe'en ones. 😈

From The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle, which is available here: books2read.com/u/boB9YL (including in paperback!).

and on Itchio: steve-westenra.itch.io

#transhorror #indiehorror #horrorbooks #spookyreads #queerhorror
I try to scream, but blood and mucus choke my throat, turning it to a cough. “Shhh. Shhh,” Tyler says again. He brushes the hair from my face, gaze drifting from my eyes to my lips, devouring. Then he jams his thumb against the missing plain of skin in my throat and pushes. I dig my nails into the chair so hard they crack. I can feel his thumb inside me. In a spike of lucidity, I kick hard at his ankle, but he doesn’t budge. He slides his bloody thumb past my lips, running it along my teeth, pressing out my cheek, creating a space for him to slip the scissors into my mouth. He scrapes the flat of the blades against the side of my tongue. “No,” I manage. “I told you to be quiet.”
October 27, 2025 at 1:07 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
Colored it
The same but coloured
October 26, 2025 at 3:21 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
Well, I'm getting lots of random doodle practice in while Manning my table ahaha
Pen sketches of random faces and bits of face
October 26, 2025 at 2:04 PM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
Book haul!
A pile of books besides plastic lavender. Tell me pleasant things about immortality - Lindsay Wong, The Cat Who Saved Books - Sosuke Natsukawa, Three Bags Full - Leonie Swann, Polymorphism horror anthology volumes 2&3
October 19, 2025 at 11:07 AM
stevewestenra.bsky.social
I haven't had time for marketing, but if anyone's looking for a super gay Hallowe'en read, my book's pretty cheap!

books2read.com/u/boB9YL

steve-westenra.itch.io/the-erstwhile-tyler-kyle
A Queer Horror Comedy by a trans author. Is it possible to queerbait yourself? A cryptid-hunting YouTuber. His missing mom. An isolated island that may house the monsters he swears aren't real.
October 16, 2025 at 11:24 AM