Rachel M. Friars is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of English Language and Literature at Queenâs University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Her current work centers on neo-Victorianism and nineteenth-century lesbian literature and history, with secondary research interests in life writing, historical fiction, true crime, and the Gothic. Her work on lesbian historical fiction has been published with with Palgrave Macmillan, The Journal of Neo-Victorian Studies, Lexington Books, Crime Studies Journal, Queer Studies in Media and Popular Culture, and is forthcoming in The Palgrave Handbook of neo-Victorianism.
Neo-Victorianism, Victorianism, Lesbian literature and history
Articles (Peer-reviewed)
[Forthcoming] ââ¶ÄWhite snakes of sea-foamâ: Coastal Space and the Lesbian Gothic in Emily M. Danforthâs Plain Bad Heroines.â Coastal Gothic, edited by Emily Alder, Jimmy Packham, and Joan Passey. University of Wales Press, 2023.
[Forthcoming] ââ¶ÄMy heart is a hand reachingâ: Lesbian Yearning and Queer Futurity in the neo- Victorian Novel.â Victorian Popular Fictions Journal Special Issue: Re-Articulating âThe Third Sexâ: Victorian and neo-Victorian Engagements with LGBTQIA+, edited by Helena Esser, Mollie Clarke, Claire OâCallaghan. 2023.
[Forthcoming] ââ¶ÄHistory digs a shallow graveâ: Queer Temporality in Emily M. Danforthâs Lesbian Gothic.â Studies in the Novel, Spring 2023.
[Forthcoming] with Connor E.R. DeMerchant. âNeo-Victorian Queen Victoria.â The Palgrave Handbook of Neo-Victorian Studies. Edited by Sarah E. Maier and Brenda Ayres. Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.
[Forthcoming]. âThe Lesbian Neo-Victorian Novel.â The Palgrave Handbook of neo-Victorian Studies. Edited by Sarah E. Maier and Brenda Ayres. Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.
with Jesyka Traynor. ââ¶ÄDogged, Insightful, and Humaneâ: Writing Womenâs Lives in Twenty-First-Century True Crime.â Crime Fiction Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 2022, pp. 10â25.
ââ¶ÄThe curiosity with which that fist movesâ: Lesbian Erotics in Sarah Watersâs Tipping the Velvet and Emma Donoghueâs Frog Music.â Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture, vol. 6, no. 3, 2021, pp. 217â232.
with Sarah E. Maier. âMashing it Up: Recasting Power in the (Neo-)Victorian Penny Dreadful.â Gothic Mash-Ups: Hybridity, Appropriation, and Intertextuality in Gothic Storytelling. Edited by Natalie Neill. Lexington Books, 2021, pp. 55-72.
with Sarah E. Maier. âStoically Sapphic: Gentlemanly Encryption and Disruptive Legibility in Adapting Anne Lister.â The Journal of Neo-Victorian Studies, vol. 13, no. 1, 2020, pp. 125â152.
with Brenda Ayres. ââ¶ÄWe should go madâ: The Madwoman and her Nurse.â Neo-Victorian Madness: Revising Nineteenth-Century Mental Illness in Literature, Television, and Film. Edited by Brenda Ayres and Sarah E. Maier, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, pp. 49â72.
In Progress:
[Under Contract] ââ¶ÄYouâre not the stuff of a chapterâ: Queer Life and Womenâs Activism in Biofictions by Emma Donoghue.â The neo-Victorian and the Late-Victorian, edited by Victoria Margree, Deborah Madden, and Aris Mousoutzanis. Routledge, 2024.
Creative Periodicals
The Lamp, vol. 13, no. 1, Queenâs University, 2023.
The Lamp, vol. 12, no. 1, Queenâs University, 2022.
Vox, vol. 16, no. 1, The University of New Brunswick, 2018.
Vox, vol. 15, no. 1, The University of New Brunswick, 2018.
Poetry and Short Fiction
âChapter One: Shadows and Sentimentality.â The Lamp, vol. 10, no. 1, 2020, pp. 11.
âMaking Beds With Water.â The Lamp, vol. 10, no. 1, 2020, pp. 66-72.
âAłÜČ”łÜČőłÙ.â The Lamp, vol. 10, no. 1, 2020, pp. 43.
âMarigolds and Honey.â A Peek in the Attic, vol. 1, no. 1, 2019, n.p.
âChapter Three: Wounds.â The Lamp, vol. 9, no. 1, 2019, n.p.
âThe Dark Between Trees.â The Lamp, vol. 9, no. 1, 2019, n.p.
âThe Honey Gatherers.â The Lamp, vol. 9, no. 1, 2019, n.p.
âAfter Sonnet 29.â Distortion, vol. 1, no. 1, 2018, pp. 19.
âPennywise & Patriarchy.â Distortion, vol. 1, no. 1, 2018, pp. 2-3.
âSingle White Female.â Vox, vol. 16, no. 1, 2018, pp. 36.
â1975.â Vox, vol. 16, no. 1, 2018, pp. 24.
âThe Holes Underneath.â Vox, vol. 16, no. 1, 2018, pp. 46-49.
âNine Hearts.â The Fog Lit Journal, vol. 4, no. 1, 2017, pp. 44-49.
âThe Great Puzzle.â Vox, vol. 15, no. 1, 2017, pp. 53-58.
âAccidental Clarity.â Vox, vol. 15, no. 1, 2017, pp. 25-31.
â10 Things my Grandmother Taught Me.â Vox, vol. 15, no. 1, 2017, pp. 62.
âThe Red Haired Man.â The Fog Lit Journal, vol. 3, no. 1, 2016, pp. 45-51.
âRural Affairs.â Vox vol. 14, no. 1, 2016, pp. 34-36.
âMČč°ùŸ±±đ.â Vox vol. 14, no. 1, 2016, pp. 28-31.
âThe Third Man.â Vox, vol. 13, no. 1, 2015, pp. 15-21.
Public Articles
â#AcademicTwitter: Research Communities and Pandemic Networking.â The Angle Newsletter. ACCUTE.
ââ¶Ä.âPopMeC Research, 18 November 2021.
ââ¶Ä.â The Journal of Victorian Culture Online, 6 August 2021.
Dissertation Title: An exclusively female ensemble: Neo-Victorian lesbian media and nineteenth-century queer narratives.
My doctoral dissertation will analyze the ways in which neo-Victorian lesbian media chronicles silences and misconceptions in the Victorian era regarding female homosexuality in literature and film from the last thirty years. I intend to explore the ambition behind creating art objects that place lesbian women in Victorian settings.
Current Positions:
2022/01 - Present Founder/President, Queer Studies Association of Canada
2020/10 - Present Co-Editor-in-Chief, The Lamp Literary Journal
2020/08 - Present Co-Editor-In-Chief, True Crime Index
2020/08 - Present Freelance Writer, The Lesbrary
Conferences:
05/2023 "'The flesh made word': Lesbian Neo-Victorian Pornography in Heather OâNeillâs When We Lost Our Heads." ACCUTE.
05/2023 Panel Organizer/Panel Chair. âLife Writing as Queer Testimony.â ACCUTE & The Queer Studies
Association of Canada. York University.
02/2023 ââ¶ÄAm I anywhere in there?â: Conflicting Archives in The World to Come.â Historical Fictions Research Network Conference, online.
11/2022 ââI will tell you my storyâ: Narrative Agency and Vampiric Autonomy in Young Adult Retellings of Carmilla.â Recovering the Vampire, online.
11/2022 ââ¶ÄSomeone elseâs tragedyâ: True Crime and Memoir in the Golden State Killer Trilogy.â Framing (Serial) Killing: Changing Narratives, online.
10/2022 ââ¶ÄInduced by the demonâs lipsâ: Vampiric Orality and the Lesbian Mouth in Le Fanuâs Carmilla.âNortheast Popular & American Culture Association Conference, online.
05/2022 âA cruelty of natureâ: American Landscape and the Lesbian Gothic.â ACCUTE.
05/2022 ââ¶ÄPulled into elsewhere, or perhaps nowhereâ: Erotohistoriography and the Lesbian Gothic.â ACCUTE.
03/2022 ââ¶ÄA real queer fishâ: Erotic Consumption in Sarah Watersâs Tipping the Velvet and Emma Donoghueâs Frog Music.â Outsiders: Making Space at the Queer Intersections of Sex and Gender, University of Brighton.
02/2022 ââ¶ÄI say you do not have a nameâ: Queering Draculaâs Brides in S.T. Gibsonâs A Dowry of Blood.â Gothic Trajectories, online.
02/2022 ââ¶ÄA kindling, a fascination, a yearningâ: Female Friendship, Marriage, and Queer Communities in Biofictions by Emma Donoghue.â The Historical Fictions Research Network, online.
12/2021 ââ¶ÄHistory digs a shallow graveâ: Temporal Boundaries in the neo-Victorian Lesbian Gothic in Emily M. Danforthâs Plain Bad Heroines.â Queer Temporalities Conference, University of Murcia, Spain.
09/2021 ââ¶ÄYouâre not the stuff of a chapterâ: Queer Life and Womenâs Activism in Biofictions by Emma Donoghue.â The Neo-Victorian and the Late-Victorian: Texts, Media, Politics, The University of Brighton, UK.
07/2021 Panel Organizer/Panel Chair. ââ¶ÄSpeaking of my oddityâ: Inclusive Spaces in Nineteenth-Century Womenâs Life Writing.â Victorian Popular Fiction Association Annual Conference.
05/ 2021 ââ¶ÄThe curiosity with which that fist movesâ: Lesbian Vaginal Fisting in the Novels of Emma Donoghue and Sarah Waters.â ACCUTE.
04/2021 Moderator. âClass and Social Stratification.â Victorian Pasts, Presents, and Futures, 04/2021. Carroll University, Waukesha, Wisconsin.
04/2021 Moderator. âAesthetic Elements: Art and Fashion.â Victorian Pasts, Presents, and Futures. Carroll University, Waukesha, Wisconsin.
043/2021 Panel Chair, Victorianism. Queenâs Undergraduate Conference in Literature. Queenâs University, Kingston, Ontario.
02/2021 âWhite snakes of sea-foamâ: Coastal Boundaries and Lesbian Spectrality in Emily M. Danforthâs Plain Bad Heroines.â Haunted Shores: Coastlands, Coastal Waters and the Littoral Gothic, online.
03/2019 âGod fearing, drug hating, laudanum swilling Victorian England:â The Neo-Victorian Opium Eater in Philip Pullmanâs The Ruby in the Smoke.â The Age of Anxiety: Literary Studies in a Culture of Risk, Graduate Conference.
04/2018 âThe Phantom Around the Corner: The Victorian âOtherâ in Wilkie Collinsâ The Moonstone and Charles Dickensâ Oliver Twist.â Arts Matters, UNB Fredericton.
03/2017 âMČč°ùŸ±±đ.â âRural Affairs.â Atlantic Arts Undergraduate English Conference.
Invited Talks
02/2023 âThe Lesbian Gothic Novel.â ENGL 451: The Nineteenth-Century Gothic, Queenâs University. (Renumerated Talk).
12/2022 âTraps, Trauma, and the Locked Door: Bluebeard in the 21st Century.â Romancing the Gothic, Public Talk, Online,12/2022.
05/2021 ââ¶ÄI never knew that there were girls like herâ: Locating the (neo)Victorian Lesbian.â Special Topics Presentation. Queenâs University Department of English Language and Literature.
04/2021 Keynote Speaker. ââ¶ÄLike a lovely corpseâ: The Zombic Fallen Woman in Victorian Art and Literature.â Keynote Address. Undergraduate Conference. Carroll University, Waukesha, Wisconsin.