'Nathan Burgoine's Blog, page 101

“You Should Totally Hold Hands.”

Before I start, take a peek at this ad:

That ad was put together by a bank, ANZ, and you know, I get that it was intended to be supportive. I really, really do.

That said: fuck right off.

Let’s look at the slogan.

“When you feel like letting go, #holdtight.”

Are you shitting me?

Feel like? This isn’t “You know, today I feel like Earl Grey instead of Chamomile.” This is “Okay, those three people there are bigger than me, and before they see me holding hands with my husband, I’m going to let go.”

See the difference?

So, dear ad, I’m doing to disagree. Don’t hold tight in the face of a situation that makes you feel off. Instead, be safe. Trust your instincts.

Well meaning things like this are said to me all the time. “You should be able to hold your husband’s hand. You should be able to kiss him in public. It shouldn’t matter. It’s no big deal.”

In the same order, “Yep, I should. Yep, I should. Unfortunately, it does. And yes, it is.”

Crap like this gets me so freaking mad. Yes, when I’m somewhere safe, when I have backup or know I’m in the clear, I’ll go for that PDA. I do think it matters. Totally. But if a queer person feels off about holding hands somewhere, they’re the best judge.

Don’t tell them otherwise. Especially veiled in some sort of supportive “be courageous” crap.

Like I said, I’m sure the ad makers here intended this to be supportive. But the literal message here is “take the risk.” And for crying out loud, no. Don’t tell queer folk they have to risk it. We already fucking risk it enough. Trust me. If allies feel bad we don’t hold hands in public? That’s work for them. Not us.

Allies want us to feel safe? Go make it safer. Back us up. Until then, fuck off with your words of support and advice hinging on us risking it ourselves for you to feel better.

“Holding hands for some people is difficult,” the description says.

No.

It’s not difficult for us. It’s fucking dangerous.

Sunday Shorts – “The Loft,” by Elizabeth Lister

[image error]Sunday Shorts has kind of fallen by the wayside a bit this year—mea culpa—but I’m going to play some catch-up. I’ve been reading short fiction and novellas with a full on clip this year, but the reviewing part?

Well, as I said: mea culpa.

I try to be the guy who owns up when I fall behind (and having a public blog to hold myself accountable to said goals is one of the ways I do manage to say on track). Between the horrendously endless grey-white of winter and my own mood, I went south, dove into reading, and haven’t been writing much at all, let alone reviews.

So, to be clear: I fell behind, this has nothing to do with the quality of the books I’ve been reading, and I totally need to own my mistake in falling behind.

And speaking of having the guts to take ownership of a mistake, let’s revisit the guys from Elizabeth Lister’s James Lucas trilogy…

Revisiting the trio from the James Lucas Trilogy was like putting on a comfortable pair of shoes (okay, maybe more like a comfortable leather harness), I slipped right into this novella.

When a former acquaintance of James’ becomes involved with a shady character and James’ efforts to help him backfire, Tate decides it is up to him to save the day even if it means putting himself in danger.

So Tate makes a couple of mistakes in this short novella, and from there the whole narrative spins forward. One: he allows himself a moment of jealousy when he sees a former client of James’ Loft days speaking with James with an obviously close confidence. That threatens Tate in a way his already polyamorous relationship doesn’t, and it’s from there the stage is set for his ever-increasing well-meaning but bad choices.

When Tate learns James’ old friend is in a troubling and potentially dangerous relationship, he dives into the situation without a lot of forethought, and of course ends up in danger himself.

What Lister does with these three characters is magic on a couple of levels. On the one hand, Lister does her research. Be it consent, contracts, kink of any kind (and there are some rarely seen kinks in this piece—sounding, anyone?), I have never found even a shred of fault in the depiction, which always walks the perfect example of “safe and sane.”

Two, the intersection of these three characters with very different points of view balances the queer mentality really, really well. These men live and breathe and exist in very different circles (I love that Lister writes a character who is involved in the church as well as a character who wants nothing to do with religion), have different ages and life experiences, and have formed a unit that’s strong without making the parts feel weaker alone.

 

In between making school lunches, driving her children to activities and snuggling in front of the TV with her handsome husband, Elizabeth writes very graphic erotica about gay men in love.

Her three full-length novels comprising The James Lucas Trilogy – Beyond the Edge, The Cross and the Trinity, and A Numinous Light – are available to purchase in print and ebook. This series follows the lives of three men drawn together by a mutual enjoyment of BDSM play and an undeniable attraction to each other. Beyond the Edge received an Honorable Mention in the Pauline Réage Novel Award category of the NLA-International Awards, which recognize excellence in writing and publishing about Leather, SM, bondage and fetishes.

Elizabeth is currently working on a series of erotic short stories called The Loft Series featuring the characters from The James Lucas Trilogy. These stories will fill in some details about the year following the events in The Cross and the Trinity, when Tate, Sebastian and James figure out how to live successfully as a cohabiting and committed poly-amorous unit, and let the reader be a fly-on-the-wall for more of their sexual journey together in James’ infamous loft playroom.

Elizabeth has also published two novellas, Exposure and The Crush, available in ebook format only.  She has also written two very sexy short stories, Apartment 1209 and The Beach House, available to read for FREE.

Writing Wednesday – Better Writing Through Nitrous

 

My face is more-or-less fixed now, so that’s a good thing. And I have a few new experiences I can maybe use in fiction some day. Did you want a blow-by-blow of what it feels like to have a pin nudged back into place in your face and an infection drained around it while you’re high on nitrous and under the influence of six jabs of local?

No?

Maybe not then.

Suffice it to say, Monday I was pretty much wrecked, and Tuesday wasn’t much better. I’ll be back on track again soon.

In all seriousness, though, I did have some great ideas while I was buzzing. That’s not a suggestion people should buzz to get ideas, but rather if you’re having surgery and you’re buzzing, maybe bring a pencil and some paper.

Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks

Got nowhere this week. See above, re: face fixing.

Of Echoes Born / Short Pieces

 

I scribbled more for “Pentimento” this week (especially while under the influence of nitrous, so we’ll see how quality that turns out to be), and I have also almost finished putting in the other reprints into the file (I wasn’t good at keeping files way-back-when, and some of the stories I submitted earlier in my career I had to retype from the actual book).

Almost done that.

Open Calls for Submission

Lastly, Writing Wednesday updates include my list off all the various open calls for submission I’ve found and/or am trying to write for. If you know of any others, by all means do drop them in the comments and I’ll add them to the list. If this is helpful for people other than myself, it’s even better.

Totals: January: 6 submissions (4 reprints, 2 new), 1 acceptance; February: 1 submission (1 new).

Chicken Soup for the Soul – Various titles, various themes, various deadlines, 1,200 word count limit.
Clarkesworld – Currently open for art, non-fiction, and short story submissions.
Cast of Wonders – Young adult short fiction market, open to story submissions up to 6,000 words.
MM Superpowers anthology – This isn’t the only thing open at Totally Bound (you can click through for the full list), but this is the one I’m eyeing; deadline February 28th, 2017; 10k-15k word count limit, with erotic content.
Wet Summer Nights – White collar/blue collar, cross-town, wrong side of the tracks lovers theme; Mischief Corner Books; 10k-18k word count; deadline March 31st, 2017.
Alice Unbound – Think Alice in Wonderland, only speculative and may embrace fabulist, weird, myth, SF, fantasy, steampunk, horror, etc. Exile Editions; Submission window: February 1st – May 31st, 2017; 2k – 5k word count limit; Canadians and ex-pat Canadians only.

Sunday Shorts – “Equality,” edited by Paul Alan Fahey

[image error]One of the nice things about being in a collection or an anthology is the ability to discuss the other pieces in the book, and to rub elbows—if in a nonliteral but literary way—with authors both known and unknown to me.

Equality: What Do You Think About When You Think of Equality? is a collection of short nonfiction pieces by twenty five essayists, and I’m lucky enough to find myself among them. Equality has been my “coffee shop project” book for the last few weeks.

My what? Right. The coffee shop project is where my husband and I go to a coffee shop on Sundays and sit and read without any electronic devices on-hand, for at least half an hour. I have a tea or a white hot chocolate, he has a coffee, and we reconnect with physical reading, a skill that we’ve both realized can suffer when we’re both given easy access to the ‘net. I finished it this morning, having read a few essays each time.

In the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Stride Toward Freedomand Malala Yousafzai’s, I Am Malala, Equality: What Do You Think About When You Think of Equality? presents thought-provoking and compelling personal essays that probe a concept professed to be the very foundation of our democracy—a concept that may even be more vital today than in the past.

From international bestselling author, Anne Perry who asserts we must look within ourselves to our emotions, experiences, and beliefs before we attempt an honest and truthful answer, to Dennis Palumbo, psychotherapist and author, who claims diagnostic labels used in treating mental illness often stigmatize and dehumanize the patient causing clinicians to view their patients in terms of their diagnosis rather than people, and Barbara Abercrombie, writer and distinguished university professor, who explores ageism as yet another form of stereotyping and discrimination in the language we use to describe older adults. These award-winning and best-selling writers, and twenty-two more, tackle equality across multiple spectrums—racial, social, political, religious, marital, gender—and run with it in surprising directions.

What do you think about when you think of equality?

There are twenty five answers to this question, and although there’s some overlap, for the most part, each essayist took a different approach to the discussion, and left me with something new to consider and ponder.

It would take me ages to go through each of the twenty-five pieces (well, twenty-four, as I never talk about my own entry when discussing collections or anthologies) but a few echoed over the course of the last couple of months.

“The Last Acceptable Prejudice,” by Barbara Abercrombie gave me pause as I found myself nodding along with the words on the page, and Larry Duplechan’s “Have You Met My Husband?” was familiar one moment and then a completely different point of view the next. In fact, all the pieces that touched on marriage equality or queerness were ones that I found myself most captured by (for obvious reasons) and it was fascinating to see the same desires mirrored in other places, other times (Canada was about a decade ahead of the US with marriage equality), and some of the experiences.

Should it have surprised me so very much that Jeff Mann’s “Two Mountain Weddings,” had less impediments to them than my own wedding? Maybe not, but my own prejudices about what to expect from the Southern states certainly had me assuming the worst—and being surprised by the tale he told.

Many of the stories did that: delivered a tale I wasn’t expecting. The closing piece, “Body Language: The Naked Truth,” by Eldonna Edwards—a woman who donated a kidney and later learned the kidney was given to a man who has politics diametrically opposed to her own liberal, pro-queer ones—were full of such compassion for those to whom I will admit I struggle to be compassionate. My first thought in the face of someone spouting anti-queer rhetoric is rarely as polite as some of those who speak in the pages of Equality.

Other standouts? “Equality in High Def,” by Jewelle Gomez (though it has a painful bittersweetness to it now the election is over), “Ambiguously Ever After,” by Jeffrey Ricker (who I speak of often, and whose piece in this collection left me thoughtful and maudlin for days), and “On Equality,” by Rob Byrnes, who managed to level his wit at the topic and put such a wry smile on my face even as he painted so perfect a picture with his words.

As I said, I walked out of the coffee shop—and this collection—with a lot to ponder. And while the general consensus of all the pieces in the book was pretty clear: Equality is a goal, not a destination we’re likely ever to truly reach, like all goals, it’s often forward progress that’s more important.

We might never get there, but that’s the last reason not to get closer.

Writing Wednesday – Special Thursday Edition

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Speaking of super-kind, my neighbour took the dog for a trip to the pit today to spare me my headache doing so.

Yeah, so yesterday didn’t work out very well. I had a headache for most of the day and though I managed to power through a Twitter launch party for Chicken Soup for the Soul: Random Acts of Kindness, I was out of steam and ready to lie down when it was over. Worse? The headache is one of the rarer sorts I get: just rough enough that after ten or fifteen minutes of activity I feel a bit sick and want to lie down, but not so bad that I don’t feel good enough to try again a half hour later or so—and repeat. Ad nauseum (no pun intended).

I’m even less thrilled I woke up with the damn thing still in place. Likely this is due to my impending surgery next Monday, and hopefully once that’s done I’ll be free of the general ick.

So. That’s why I was gone yesterday. Today I’m taking it easy on myself and giving myself a quiet day with as little screen time as possible (this is my only exception).

Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks

 

I finished my edits for Triad Soul, and they are away, and I’m playing catch-up with EPfTF, word-count wise, for what I missed while I was doing so. That said, I was ahead beforehand, so I’m not actually behind.

Thus, taking a headache day isn’t so bad. Besides which, trying to do more with a headache just leads to more headache, and I don’t want scotoma or a migraine.

Self-care. Trying to practice what I preach.

Of Echoes Born / Short Pieces

 

I was struck by a word in a conversation with my editor a while back. He asked me if I knew what it meant (and I did, thanks to my eons-ago OAC Art class): Pentimento.

If you don’t know what it means, don’t worry, it’s not exactly commonly used in conversation. It’s a term in reference to painting, where an artist’s changes to a project are detectable through scanning, careful study, the passing of time or what-have-you, to find what they’d originally painted underneath. For example, the shoulder strap in Portrait of Madame X used to be in the process of slipping off her shoulder (the scandal!)

Anyway, why do I mention this? Because part of my decision to create the “Of Echoes Born” collection was to specifically include new content. I rarely write just for writing’s sake—I almost always write short fiction in an attempt to meet a call for submission—but the idea of pentimenti, alongside my usual “nudge the world just a little bit to the magical,” turned into a short fiction idea. I’ve been scribbling notes ever since.

Open Calls for Submission

Lastly, Writing Wednesday updates include my list off all the various open calls for submission I’ve found and/or am trying to write for. If you know of any others, by all means do drop them in the comments and I’ll add them to the list. If this is helpful for people other than myself, it’s even better.

Totals: January: 6 submissions (4 reprints, 2 new), 1 acceptance; February: 1 submission (1 new).

Chicken Soup for the Soul – Various titles, various themes, various deadlines, 1,200 word count limit.
Clarkesworld – Currently open for art, non-fiction, and short story submissions.
Cast of Wonders – Young adult short fiction market, open to story submissions up to 6,000 words.
49th Parallels – Alternative Canadian Histories and Futures, Bundoran Press, deadline February 14th, 2017; 1,500-7k word count limit.
MM Superpowers anthology – This isn’t the only thing open at Totally Bound (you can click through for the full list), but this is the one I’m eyeing; deadline February 28th, 2017; 10k-15k word count limit, with erotic content.
Wet Summer Nights – White collar/blue collar, cross-town, wrong side of the tracks lovers theme; Mischief Corner Books; 10k-18k word count; deadline March 31st, 2017.
Alice Unbound – Think Alice in Wonderland, only speculative and may embrace fabulist, weird, myth, SF, fantasy, steampunk, horror, etc. Exile Editions; Submission window: February 1st – May 31st, 2017; 2k – 5k word count limit; Canadians and ex-pat Canadians only.

Sunday Shorts – “Teddy Bears,” by Brandon Witt

I’ve been a fan of holiday novellas since I first stumbled onto them. For queer folk, the holidays can really, really suck, and anything that manages to put a bit of cheer back into a time of year I find difficult is fine by me.

Unfortunately, a lot of the time, I have to really screen which holiday stories I’m reading. I seem to be mentioning this every five minutes lately, but if the main focus of a queer holiday tale is the reunion and reconciliation with an estranged family, it gets a pass from me. I want my queer stories to have chosen families, and to show queer folk finding their own way back to happy times.

Something a bit more, well, queer.

I’d never partaken in an Advent Calendar series before, and when I saw the theme of one was ‘Bah Humbug”?

I jumped on board.

[image error] Other than working the front desk of a gay bathhouse in Denver, Brian McKay is a bit of a recluse. At the best of times, his social life consists of work, role-playing games at a local toyshop, and making YouTube videos with his Teddy Bear hamsters. The arrival of the holidays—with the annoying music, Christmas shopping, and all the reminders of how he disappointed his father—just reinforces his reclusive nature.

When James Olsen, a gorgeous daddy bear who frequents the bathhouse, notices him, Brian is at a loss. He’s not proud of his own bear status or his struggle with weight. The idea that James has interest in him beyond an easy hookup is more than Brian can fathom. But with a little bit of holiday magic, James might help Brian learn to accept Christmas again—and himself.

So Teddy Bears was a great little novella that explored a queer holiday from a bunch of fresh angles that I can’t recall seeing before:

One: both of the guys involved aren’t in their twenties/early thirties. (I love reading about guys my age or guys older than I am, frankly.)

Two: bears who aren’t just muscle bears! (And one who’s struggling to be cool with his body, which—hey—we’ve all been there, no?)

Three: nerd/geek who isn’t “secretly gorgeous super-lean model type once he gets new clothes and reveals his abs.” (Because no.)

Four: Buffy/Spike/Angel dwarf hamster YouTube stars. (No, like, really.)

Five: a bathhouse setting for a romance? (Yep.)

So, with that in mind, if you’re in the mood for a holiday story that lives up to its description, you’re well advised to nab this one for the next time you want something jolly, sweet, a little bit smexy, and funny to boot. This was a wonderful bit of warmth for a frigid winter day.

So, thanks, Brandon Witt.

Play

I know very, very little about hockey. I should point out that I’ve enjoyed a few games live, but I’m not a fan watching games on television. More, my husband occasionally gets tickets to games, and I almost always offer those tickets to a friend of mine who is way, way more into hockey than I will ever likely be.

So. Why am I talking about hockey?

You Can Play.

Now, I didn’t really know much about You Can Play, either, until today when a friend on Twitter pointed out that Andrew Shaw (a name I did know, unfortunately) has become one of the ambassadors to You Can Play. You Can Play was a vague, nebulous thing I’d heard about with queer sports or something.

Now, quick info burst for those who don’t want to read the article: Andrew Shaw got suspended and fined for firing off some queerphobic trash during a hockey game, did an apology (which seemed pretty sincere), and has, as far as I can tell from my super-limited exposure, since been pretty good about not outwardly or loudly hating on queer folk.

That? Good.

Having him as an ambassador to an organization promoting queer athletes?

Uh… Not so good?

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Come to think of it, I did write a queer hockey story once. Probably not quite what You Can Play is talking about, though.

This actually parallels to some degree my discussion about how the whole “redemption of homophobic parents” is poorly placed in queer narratives (especially queer romance) I wrote a couple of days ago.

So. Let me break down where I’m coming from here.

When you put someone into a position as a queer ambassador and they’re not queer, their history becomes centre stage. In this case? Crappy history. As an imperfect parallel, would you want a football player who was caught, fined, and suspended for, say, animal cruelty or dogfighting to be a face for the SPCA, no matter how much he reformed, apologized, or donated? Likely not.

Everything Andrew Shaw says will come through a kind of filter. When you put a former abuser or hater or queerphobe on the podium, you’ve made it about abusers or haters or queerphobes. Not queerfolk. Even if the message is a good one, it’s no longer directed at the queerfolk, it’s directed at non-queerfolk.

The message of “Don’t be a dick like me,” is a good one. Don’t get me wrong. Because here’s the thing: yes, we totally want queer haters to learn/change. But we don’t have to want to hug ’em after. There’s no prize for reaching basic awareness that queer people are just people and shouldn’t be hated or hurt or unwelcome. That includes us being nicer to you for having made that journey.

Hey, you’ll get polite. Everyone who doesn’t smack me down in some queerphobic way gets polite. Totally. But those high school assholes who roughed me up on a daily basis have changed, too, and we don’t get together for drinks.

I certainly wouldn’t want to play on the same team as them.

And that’s where I think his placement in this role is a misstep. It’s not a welcoming move, so much as it’s a public cautionary tale for those who made (or will make) others unwelcome. “Don’t do what I did.” doesn’t hold a candle to “We want you, please join us.” said to people you’re talking to, rather than speaking to those who did wrong to them.

Andrew Shaw’s story is not an unimportant narrative to have. I just think it would have been a better narrative if another ambassador had it with him. An ambassador with a history of positive queer representation as an ally. Hey, I get it. No one wants to be an out NHL player, apparently (which, hey, take a gander at Andrew Shaw’s previous actions to maybe suss out why). You don’t have a handy queer hockey player to put into the position. And even if you did have one or two of them handy, maybe they don’t want to be reduced to solely being “the queer hockey player.”

But maybe finding a player who has queer relatives might have worked? Or a player who’s a big brother for a queer kid? Or… y’know… someone who doesn’t have a history of being a homophobic ass on the ice?

It’s totally possible I’m missing the mark here, and that other queerfolk would see Shaw as a decent choice. That’s totally valid. And I’m obviously not the target audience. But hey, I’ve learned something about You Can Play, which is good to know about, and I’m at least happy it exists.

But to be clear: As happy as I am I now know about the program, someone like Andrew Shaw—as well meaning as he very well may be—in an ambassador position would keep me away.

Because his voice isn’t “You Can Play.” His voice is “Sorry I Didn’t Let You Play. My Bad.”

Writing Wednesday – Edits!

 

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Editing! (Also, you can preorder!)

I got my edits back for Triad Soul, and I’ve been plugging away at them this week. I have more items for my “personal foible” list now (who knew it was possible to be addicted to em-dashes?), but as always, the editing process is my favourite bit: it’s where I get to see where I need to work on my craft, and where I get to see my awesome editor (Jerry L. Wheeler, by the way) take the rough thing I made and polished it and made it shiny.

Also, it’s the point at which things start to feel “real” to me. The Triad boys are fun to write, and it can be easy to overindulge their characters. Jerry keeps me in line, and he’s fun to work with. I love reading his comments, even when they’re snarky.

Scratch that. Especially when they’re snarky.

It’s nice to have that kind of relationship with your editor, and it’s certainly an asset to my writing.

Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks

I’ve been working on Triad Soul, of course, so I willingly put EPfTF aside for the last few days to get the edits done. I should be done today, and then I’ll catch up the word-count, nasal/jaw surgery notwithstanding.

The cast of characters for EPfTF are really starting to come to life for me. Cole’s father, who runs an online ASL interpretation service; Cole’s best friend, who is ace; and the rest of the Rainbow Club, who are a lot of fun to write as well.

They say YA is the genre of “Firsts” and I’m keeping that lens in mind as I go through the book. For Cole, this is the first time he’s bumping into things completely outside of his control and outside of his careful plans. And although he’s snogged it out with another guy in the Rainbow Club, there’s potential for a first serious boyfriend in the form of Malik. If, y’know, Malik might be at the Rainbow Club to do more than ask why Cole didn’t report being shoved into a locker…

Of Echoes Born / Short Pieces

I finished my story for the 11th Annual NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge, and sent it in. My assignment was “Ghost story, with an admission of guilt, and a stalker character.” The story I came up with was called “Filling Silences” and involved a cop with a suspect confessing to the stalking/murder of a young gay man. It’s the last case the cop worked on with his partner, who was killed in a drunk driving accident, and closing it means a lot to him. So a confession is great. Except why would a guy not even on their suspect list confess? Is it too easy? He seems afraid of someone, but it’s not the cop. And the longer they talk, the more the cop is convinced it’s not someone he’s afraid of, it’s something.

Today, while I might not get a lot done on Of Echoes Born (see above, re: edits), it did occur to me that if “Filling Silences” doesn’t make it to the next round of the contest, it’ll be well suited to Of Echoes Born with some tweaking and flushing out.

So, in a way, I did work on  the collection, too.

Open Calls for Submission

Lastly, Writing Wednesday updates include my list off all the various open calls for submission I’ve found and/or am trying to write for. If you know of any others, by all means do drop them in the comments and I’ll add them to the list. If this is helpful for people other than myself, it’s even better.

Also, January totals were solid: 6 submissions (4 of which were reprints, 2 were new pieces), 1 acceptance.

Onward to February (thus far, unsurprisingly, zero).

Chicken Soup for the Soul – Various titles, various themes, various deadlines, 1,200 word count limit.
Clarkesworld – Currently open for art, non-fiction, and short story submissions.
Cast of Wonders – Young adult short fiction market, open to story submissions up to 6,000 words.
49th Parallels – Alternative Canadian Histories and Futures, Bundoran Press, deadline February 14th, 2017; 1,500-7k word count limit.
MM Superpowers anthology – This isn’t the only thing open at Totally Bound (you can click through for the full list), but this is the one I’m eyeing; deadline February 28th, 2017; 10k-15k word count limit, with erotic content.
Wet Summer Nights – White collar/blue collar, cross-town, wrong side of the tracks lovers theme; Mischief Corner Books; 10k-18k word count; deadline March 31st, 2017.
Alice Unbound – Think Alice in Wonderland, only speculative and may embrace fabulist, weird, myth, SF, fantasy, steampunk, horror, etc. Exile Editions; Submission window: February 1st – May 31st, 2017; 2k – 5k word count limit; Canadians and ex-pat Canadians only.

Blood and Water

As I’m sure is obvious by now, I read a lot of books with queer characters, and quite a few of them are romances. There are themes and ideas that repeat throughout genres, and romance is no different. Some pop up in queer romances more often than others, and some… Well.

I’m going to do something I rarely do, and I’m going to ask you, gentle reader, to shut up for a second, and listen to a sub-sub-subset of an #ownvoice for a moment. And, especially, I’m talking to writers who don’t belong to that subset.

Now, what subset am I talking about?

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A few readers did notice that none of my main characters in the Triad books have family. It’s on purpose.

Those of us who got kicked to the curb. The disowned and disinherited. The queers who, upon coming out, ended up losing biological relatives. Not due to our nature, but due to theirs. Their hateful or bigoted or ignorant choice to cut us off.

Now, I bring this up because I just bumped into yet another book where a queer character is treated abysmally and tossed to the curb by their family and by the end of the book the family has come around, and this is seen by all as a good thing, and the whole they’re family and family is acceptance and love trope has played out in full.

And I hate it.

If you’ll bear with me, I’m going to draw two (perhaps imperfect) romance parallels.

Parallel the first: A woman is emotionally abused by a man she is seeing and living with. He treats her terribly, manipulates her, destroys her self-worth, all because he feels a woman’s place is to be heard, not seen, and he finds her desire to be a sexual being in control of her own choices disgusting and backward. When she dares to tell him she wants to be in control of her body, he locks her out of their home, changes the locks, empties their joint account, and leaves her with nothing. She is very, very lucky and survives being penniless and alone long enough to put her life back together. Then he contacts her, and tells her he’s changed.

Would you want to read a romance novel where they reconnect after he wakes up to the bare bones basics of feminism and they end up together? Would you maybe wonder about the message being sent by a novel that paints this man as the romantic hero, or this woman as the romantic heroine, given that she gives him another chance?

Parallel the second: A woman finds an abused animal that has run away. She nurses the animal back to health, and slowly, over time, the animal recovers its ability to trust human beings. Then, one day, the animal reacts to a man when they are out for a walk. She learns this is the man who abused the animal. He has, however, since entered a discussion group for men with anger issues and come to terms with his reasons for kicking the dog and locking it outside with no food or warmth and letting it run away. He wants his dog back.

Would you want to read a romance novel where she hands the dog back over and falls for this guy because he’s changed? Would you be more in the camp of ‘people like that should never be given another animal ever again, let alone the one they hurt originally?’

You’re probably getting the point I’m trying to make here.

I’m not sure why this specific story—the queer kid kicked out who eventually gets the love of his family and they all get back together in a tearful ‘I’m so sorry’ moment—is told so often.

It’s certainly not realistic.

Now, I know what’s coming: it’s fiction. Fiction doesn’t have to be realistic (though, you know what, I’m not sure I agree there: if you ask me fiction has to have verisimilitude, and that’s harder than realistic—fiction has to make sense, which real life certainly doesn’t have to do).

But, more to the point, I imagine many of you are thinking: it’s not just a fiction, it’s a romance. Romances have happy endings.

Right. I agree.

So what’s so happy about reuniting an abuser with the abused? Why is it that this narrative about queer happiness includes someone who disregarded their health, safety, happiness, and emotions “getting” that they’re worthy of those things, and why does the story need the queer character to not just forgive them (which, let’s be clear, they do not have to do) but to also invite them back into their lives?

What’s the message of that narrative?

I bounced this one out as a question on Facebook, and the replies were pretty interesting and thoughtful. But there was a single thread I’m going to mention first going back to that whole “shut up and listen” thing I said at the beginning.

Not a single person I know who has lived through getting turfed to the curb wants anything to do with their families. Some might speak with them now—I’m one of those, though it’s out of a desire to connect with my niece and nephew more than anything else—but what none of us showed a desire for? Reconciliation and reintegration with the people who tossed us out.

What’s my sample size? More than you’d likely think. And my little post turned into a couple of posts on friends’ walls, too, and as I read those, the same thing happened: no one who’d lived through it had the slightest inclination to get their so-called “real family” back.

I say it jokingly, but I do mean it: Blood is only thicker than water in one way, as far as I’ve determined: it stains worse.

So. Knowing that, I looked at the books where I’d been seeing this narrative, and I noticed a few of things.

One, when it was possible to find out, the vast majority of these stories weren’t #ownvoice authors. That stood out. My first thought there was to wonder if any of the authors had spoken to someone who’d been cut off from their family, or if they’d just heard the facts about the rates of disowning/LGBTQIA+ homelessness, and used it as a plot point with no further research.

Two, the narratives written by #ownvoices which still included this “reunion/reconciliation” generally had a trace more realism, like one parent coming to terms and leaving the other to stand by the kid, or the queer child in question being very skeptical and not allowing the parent or parents in question access to their life on anything but their own terms. Or, the breakdown from the family wasn’t extremely harsh, or came later in life when the character has resources of their own, which still stings and is horrible, but if the turnaround on the part of the family is pretty quick it can almost read more like a fight or a bad reaction rather than the emotional abuse that is complete rejection and detachment.

Three, it was much, much rarer to find stories that rejected this narrative and lined up with something closer to the reality as I and so many others experienced it: where the queer character forms a chosen family, and the parents don’t return to be a part of the queer character’s life—and those generally were written by #ownvoice queer authors.

So my question is this: why? Why is this facet of queer kicked-out-youth reality dealt with so unrealistically in fiction?

I have a few theories, but no real answers.

Maybe it’s intended as a hopeful message that people can change. Well, yeah. Of course that’s a goal in queer culture. That’s the whole point of education and fighting the roots of queer hate in the first place. Obviously we want people to change and move away from hating us queerfolk. But this narrative goes a step further than showing that people can change, in that it takes the abuser and turns elevates them to a position of respect, trust, and love, and assumes (or enforces) a forgiveness on the part of the abused. Let’s talk random bigots who attack us. Do we really want to snuggle up with the people who used to shove us into lockers, throw garbage at us, or beat us up on the street? No. We just want them to stop. When it’s the ones who were supposed to love us who are doing the hating, that doesn’t change. If anything, it makes their initial rejection all the more scarring.
Maybe it’s intended to show the reader that family is more important than… something? Anything? Hate? Bigotry? Whatever? That one’s biological family has an inherent value that needs to be maintained and repaired no matter what? Because, well, no. An abusive relationship is toxic and should be escaped for your mental, emotional, and physical health, regardless of blood relation. We have whole departments and organizations to help people escape toxic environments. Hell, a tonne of queer youth on the streets are afraid of those organizations because they don’t want to be forced back to live with their families.
Maybe it’s intended to show queer kids want their parents to love and accept them? Well, yes. Don’t all kids want that? But here’s the thing with this: that story is already told when the parents reject the child, too. It’s pretty clear that’s not what the queer individual wanted. So, message received. That sucks, and isn’t what we wanted. But if the story continues to bring in the parents after that, then you’re not telling the queer kid’s story any more. Now the narrative is as much about the journey to acceptance the parents are making. And if I can be blunt, as I said up above, the last thing any kicked-to-the-curb queer I know wanted, after abuse/being kicked out, was the love and acceptance of the people who did the kicking. Some wanted love, sure, but not from their parents. Most would have preferred never having to see them again.
And maybe, if I allow myself to be a bit more cynical, it’s just thoughtless. It’s a trope, after all, based on a pretty culturally-pervasive fallacy reinforced by pretty much every kind of entertainment narrative we see. Family comes first. Blood is thicker than water. Maybe these are cases of writers who haven’t lived a certain experience and haven’t realized what the reality is like, and so projecting without considering there’s a message being propagated at all.

So. Where does that leave me?

To put it clearly: I can think of no reason I’d ever want to be closely reunited with my abuser/family under any circumstances, period. I don’t want it—I have faith in the love and trust I’ve found elsewhere that I can’t even imagine trying to have with my biological. And this doesn’t feel like a loss or a failure.

I do not have to forgive. I am not broken if I don’t forgive, or holding on to some toxic poison that will give me a spiritual sickness. Forgiveness is conflated with a lot of things. Reaching a state where someone doesn’t think about it any more, or can think about it without feeling shame/pain/hurt is a kind of forgiveness, and has nothing to do with the abuser. People seem to think reaching peace has to include facing the person and letting them know/letting them apologize if they’re willing, and that seems a dangerous a conceit in my experience. Some people take a path that includes forgiveness, being face-to-face with their abusers, and that’s fantastic. But it’s not the only path.

If that’s the only story ever told, I think there’s a problem. What message is that sending to queers in that position? Hold on to hope, they may come around if you wait long enough, and there’s inherent value to having a relationship with these people just because they’re related to you?

That’s… just not true.

So, that’s where I ended up, and it occurred to me that perhaps it was worth sharing. If you as a writer are including in your queer character’s narrative a familial disowning or breakdown or kicked-out scenario, and you’re not drawing on an #ownvoice experience, I’d like to ask you to take a moment to ask yourself why you’re doing so if the narrative ends in a reconciliation.

Country – Jeff Mann (Lethe Press)

I’m over at Out in Print today, where I was lucky enough to get to review Jeff Mann’s “Country.”

Out in Print: Queer Book Reviews

Buy from Lethe Press

Country music isn’t a place I ever expected myself to venture as a fiction reader. Music in general isn’t something I find easily translated to text, and yet two recent books I’ve read have had music intrinsic to their core narratives, and have done so deftly.

But country music? I can’t imagine a genre of popular music less open to a gay experience than country music. Don’t get me wrong, some of the country music stars themselves are definitely fetching (their names I sometimes vaguely know thanks to magazine covers from my bookstore days), but the industry itself—and the fan base—have never struck me as remotely friendly.

Obviously, I know that’s a sweeping generalization, and even this Canuck has heard of Steve Grand, but beyond a few recent blips, my experiences in the rural Canada of my youth has left me with a less than welcoming…

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