Central to Sleep Tight Satellite is the theme of queer chosen family. This positive form of connection contrasts with violent pseudo-communities formed by policing, government control, and technological surveillance. Characters struggle to survive the pandemic, but their survival skills were honed long before the Covid-19 outbreak. There’s a gritty realism to the odd jobs characters take to survive, and the ways they create loving communities of mutual aid.

Carol Guess is the author of twenty books of poetry and prose, including Doll Studies: Forensics and Tinderbox Lawn. She is Professor of English at Western Washington University, where she teaches Queer Studies and Creative Writing. She lives in Seattle and Bellingham, Washington.