'Nathan Burgoine's Blog, page 105

‘In Memoriam’ e-launch has e-launched… for free!

Also, can we take a moment to bask in the glow of this cover? Inkspiral Book & Cover Design, folks. Learn it, live it, love it.

I had no idea it was happening, but it turns out my solo e-novella In Memoriam has launched. It was originally published as part of Wilde City Press‘s On the Run collection, so if you’ve got that, you’ve already got In Memoriam, but if you haven’t, and you like your romance bittersweet (but still funny), and with a healthy dollup of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, then I shall point you in the right direction.

Even better? As of right now, the novella is free on Kindle, thanks to Lethe Press. I mean, it’s only gonna be a buck when it’s not free, but free is better, no?

Canucks? You can find said freebie here. US folk? Here. I’m not sure if it’s free on the other various Kindle sites, because I can only see pricing on the Canadian site thanks to my being here in Canada, but my understanding is it should be free across the various Kindle platforms, so… *waves hands* Ta-da!

The audiobook hasn’t launched yet, but I got to hear it yesterday and oh my gosh folks it’s perfect. The performer (who happens to also be author—and also the original editor of the novella—Jerry L. Wheeler, because why have one talent when you can have three?) The voice is spot-on. I’ll squee to high heavens when that’s available, I promise.

Sunday Shorts – Got Short Fiction?

Hey shorties!

Husky kisses. Just because.

I’ve got a couple of Q&As on the go at the moment (stay tuned next week for Jeffrey Ricker and the week after that will likely be Trebor Healey). I’ve also got a few anthologies I’m reading on the go, but I thought I’d take today to ask short fiction authors who would like to chat to pop in and say hello. Hit me up. I’d like to “fill my bucket” so to speak. I promise the Q&As are painless, and though I can’t claim a giant audience, they do see quite a bit of traffic, and as far as I’m concerned, anything that gives more attention to short fiction is fine by me.

Given that today is also the Transgender Day of Remembrance, I wanted to specifically request if any of my trans readers or trans authors wanted to suggest titles (or themselves). I’d really appreciate it.

Thanks!

‘Nathan

Deaf Writers on Access, Audience, and Achievement.

Right, so where was I?

Oh! I hadn’t barfed or burped in front of some legends of queer literature, and I’d made it through my reading, and the whole of Naked Heart now stretched before me with zero sense of stage fright, imposter syndrome, or anxiety.

After the reading, I trotted over to Buddies in Bad Times, and settled in to enjoy my first panel of the festival. Deaf Writers on Access, Audience, and Achievement had been calling to me since I first saw it appear on the list, and I couldn’t wait to attend.

Of the four presenters, I’d only really encountered one: Raymond Luczak. Alongside Luczak, for the first time I got to encounter Sage Willow, Maverick Smith, and Carlisle Robinson.

Now, a sidenote before I begin: I used to be somewhat decent at ASL. I qualify that by saying I never quite had proficiency with the actual syntax and structure of ASL, but was capable of communicating with a Deaf young man I used to babysit, and his father, who was hard-of-hearing. I took college courses while I was in high school to make this happen, and worked with the family. Looking back, I probably drove the kid nuts wanting to learn more signs and practice with him when really he just wanted to play with his Transformers, but it was a really solid time in my life in no small part because I’d met the family immediately after moving to another nowhere town, and I knew no one in my own age bracket for months (until high school started).

As soon as the panel began, I realized that those skills—at whatever level they might have been—were pretty much atrophied into non-existence. I could catch maybe one thought in five, and in no time had admitted this to myself and was beyond grateful for the interpreters. Kudos for Naked Heart there, as I can count on one hand the number of literary events I’ve been to that brought interpreters, and I wouldn’t even use my thumb.

The discussion was engrossing, and I loved the intersections at play between the Deaf community and the queer (and especially) trans community that were brought up.

Crappy photo is crappy. My apologies to the panelists.

Carlisle did an incredible job of describing the active role of engagement those of us can have in the lives of others. It was also Carlisle, I think, who—as a visual artist—mentioned that it’s perfectly valid to keep the ‘in-jokes’ (for example, something funny in Deaf culture that doesn’t ‘translate’ outside). You may want to think of how (or if) you make it accessible, and I liked that—it’s a theme that comes up in writing any culture, and context can be king, but sometimes trusting a reader to figure it out or look it up is fine, and Carlisle mentioned the use of a footnote in one strip, for example. Nothing has to be censored out of a narrative if it’s a part of a culture.

Raymond brought experience and anecdotes about placing ones self in various positions when seeking publication—and also how there’s a hunger for voices you might not even realize exists. He specifically told of people who have contacted him years after a publication to tell him how much the words meant to them, and that was a very moving moment in the panel. Be that from a gay reader or a d/Deaf reader, the result is that presence and experience of encountering someone-like-you in prose, and it’s incredible.

Maverick, closer to the start of a publication career, brought a very gentle reminder of how important it is to find and lift from within, and I really loved that note. Maverick had a real “gentle” vibe going on, and it was quite sweet. I want to seek out some of their work.

And, last but by no means least, Sage made me want to be her best friend immediately—Sage has this incredible charisma and attacks identity from so many different angles her answers to any given question had me rethinking all manner of topics.

I couldn’t possibly give you the whole play-by-play, and this doesn’t go anywhere near enough into how incredible the panel was, but I hope it gives you a slight glimpse of how much value there is in these literary events where we can bring people together who don’t often get time together in any environment, let alone a creative, open,  and queer one.

All this to say, I am so glad I took the opportunity to gain access to voices I don’t often manage to encounter. That can be said of the whole of Naked Heart, but if I had to narrow things down to one panel that I found the most personally rewarding, this was it.

I’ve often flirted with including a hard-of-hearing or Deaf character in stories, and out of real anxiety that I would fail on some obvious level, I’ve held off. After the panel’s answer to that very question—how do they feel about representation from outside the community—I’m actually feeling a lot more confident. Their answers were almost word-for-word what I always say when folk ask me about writing queer characters when they themselves aren’t queer. Read up. Educate yourself. Treat the character as a human being. It sounds basic, though it is work, and above all else, don’t make a character who is there to be that identity only.

That character who has been sitting in the back of my head for so long? He’s not inspiration porn (many reminders not to go there, writers). He’s a human being, not a token. So I’m going forward with the character.

Of course, likely I’ll screw something up. But if I learn, and do better, and follow all the damn advice I give to people who are writing queer characters when they’re not queer? I’ll listen to the feedback, and course-correct.

Yeah, that.

Great panel, and huge thanks to Naked Heart for having accessibility.

So You Want to Wear a Safety Pin

This is a fantastic read, whether or not you’re planning to wear a pin.

What a Witch

Great. This is a necessary behavior in the face of the election of the most overtly racist, sexist, xenophobic, anti- gender and sexual minority candidate in the history of the modern United States. You know the rhetoric of his campaign was wrong. It was the very worst thing about America and you want to do what you can to combat the result. Good. Do that.

But don’t do it without a plan. Because the very last thing a tense situation needs is someone full of good intentions but with no knowledge of de-escalation tactics or self-defense. Your intentions are not a tangible shield. If you don’t make a plan, you will get yourself or the person you are trying to defend very killed.

Let’s avoid that.

So make a plan.

Some of you can stop reading now. You have, or know how to make a plan and you don’t need…

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Speculative Brunch

As you likely know (and will soon likely be tired of hearing), I was at Naked Heart last weekend, and it was freaking amazing. Part of said freaking amazing was being on a reading in the very first timeslot on the first full day of the festival. So, at 10:30 in the morning on a Saturday, Steven Bereznai, myself, David Demchuk, J.M. Frey, Stephen Graham King, Michael Lyons, and James K. Moran got up to do our thing.

Here’s the thing about readings—you’re always, always sure no one will show up, and then half-way through reading you’ll burp, barf, or have some sort of massive nosebleed. (It could be that’s just me, but I have it on decent authority that at least half the people at this reading were feeling at least the jitters, so let me have this.)

Another thing about doing a reading is you’re often sitting in the first row, and you arrive early (of course, all the better to fret) and stare at a display of books.

Bless you, Glad Day Bookshop, for this bounty that my Mountain of To-Be-Read books is about to receive…

When the event actually begins, it’s not until you get called upon to stand up and face the audience that you realize…

Oh. Look at that. The chairs are full.

(For the record, that’s an incredible feeling, and far, far more often the reality is ‘Oh! Good! I’m outnumbered by audience! Win!’)

That’s what happened. That it happened at the first slot on the first day, opposite workshops on getting an agent and on writing craft, was stunning.

That Samuel R. Delaney and Felice Picano were there in the audience? Well, let’s just say that the whole burp-barf-nosebleed thing felt like a very real possibility. It didn’t happen, but it sure felt likely.

I read from Triad Blood, the very short opening scene with the three guys at the table. I like how it shows their relationship(s), and it lets me drop in the first geeky Curtis Firefly moment, which—to my great relief—garnered laughter in the way it was supposed to. It was a spec fic reading. One assumed there would be Firefly fans in attendance.

The traditional, if fuzzy, group selfie shot, courtesy of Michael Lyons.

Steven Bereznai‘s book, I Want Superpowers, sounds awesome (hey, you all know how I feel about superheroes, no?) David Demchuk—who pulled double-duty as host—read a really chilling piece complete with witches dining on the flesh of children. J.M. Frey read from her second book (soon to release!) in The Accidental Turn series, which involves characters who pop in and out of our real world from a book not unlike a George R.R. Martin epic. Stephen Graham King treated us to a sneak-peak from the next Maverick Heart book, Gatecrasher, which follows up the awesome Soul’s Blood. Michael Lyons read from his story in an Egyptian steampunk anthology that blended Lovecraftian horror with steampunk and it was creepy as all get out (watch out for the anthology, Clockwork Cairo). And James K. Moran gave us a scene of despair from his haunting Town and Train.

The audience was friendly, the readings were lively, and the anxiety was done right off the bat. Who could ask for more?

I cannot express thanks enough to Glad Day Bookshop, and everyone who volunteered and organized the Naked Heart Literary Festival. It was amazing. If you’re considering going next year, please let me be a voice telling you you should.

Naked

I tried to spell out some of my Naked Heart Literary Festival experience over the weekend via Twitter and Facebook, but now it’s Monday morning, I’m back home, and it’s time to collect my thoughts, have a tea, walk the dog, and return to the daily routine of my life. And in many ways, I’m doing so with a completely recharged soul after the festival.

I need to explain that a bit.

My life isn’t very much in a queer space. Or, put another way, the vast majority of my interactions are not with queer people. I am surrounded by people with whom I know I am safe—allies in the greatest sense of the word—but for myself and my husband, often we are the queer folk in the room. Not always, no. But very often. Most of the time.

That? It takes effort.

I joke about being an introvert quite a bit, but the truth is—and I think this is a truth for a lot of queer folk—it’s not so cut and dried. Because this weekend at Naked Heart was another reminder that in a queer art space, I relax. I’m not the me looking over my shoulder before I say the words “my husband and I.” I’m not the me who has to judge between saying, “I write spec fic, mostly,” and “I write queer spec fic.” I’m not the me wondering if I’m going to get the “we haven’t had that talk” comment from a parent of a young kid, and thus be asked if I could gloss over parts of my life until they feel ready to “explain” me to their child.

No, at Naked Heart, I am able to be the real, safe, complete me without wondering, filtering, and considering everything I’m about to say. I’ve talked about this at panels and workshops (especially when I’m the only queer guy in the room) in the sense of “kisses goodbye” and “holding hands” in public with my husband. Yes, we can do both things—and we do—but never without that extra step. Where are we? Who is watching? Is this safe? Sometimes the answers to those questions mean we cannot do something as simple as kiss each other goodbye without a risk we’re not willing to take.

Not having that extra layer over every interaction and discussion? It’s a rare and wonderful feeling. It’s the “naked” of the Naked Heart, I think. We can take off our armour. Pull off the masks. Wear the skirt. Use the words we want to use. Be.

As well, the ability to have living exposure to so many queer voices—including some legends of queer literature—is so very humbling. This weekend I read from my second novel, Triad Blood, and when I got up to the stage and smiled at the audience, I realized Felice Picano and Samuel R. Delaney were sitting right there.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so privileged in my life.

Also, y’know, ready to toss my cookies, because “hurr-hurr, vampires and demons and wizards, oh my!” But I got over it. I’m a genre writer, and I feel zero shame about that, and the reality is these men—among so many others—made it possible for me to be standing there and reading my fun and fluffy stories.

I could walk you through the whole program of Naked Heart, and I could tell you panel by panel what it was like, and that’s normally what I do when I come back from a convention. I will do that, but instead I think I’m going to revisit those discussions over the next week or so, while today I’m just going to leave this:

The single theme I most often try to ensure my voice as a queer author carries is simple: You matter. Every queerling, every queer adult—you are loved, and you matter. The world will tell you otherwise. Hell, whole countries will have votes that tell you otherwise, but it’s untrue. Some queerfolk intersect multiple identities and get blasted from multiple sides with the message they don’t matter. Some queerfolk get it from within the queer community itself. But every time I can remind you, I hope you hear me when I say it.

You are loved. You matter.

Naked Heart was a whole weekend of being loved, and mattering.

Sunday Shorts – “Sugar Baby” Q&A with Rebekah Weatherspoon

You know how you know some authors who are just so damn good at what they do that you pre-order the hell out of whatever they write? Well, today, I’m pleased to bring you one of my pre-order hellions, Rebekah Weatherspoon. We’ve never met face-to-face (this is a tragedy, for the record), but I flipping adore her and so should you. Therefore, let’s talk Sugar Babies…

Desperate times call for desperate measures…

And desperate is the only way to describe Kayla Davis’s current situation. Out of work and almost out of money to cover her bills, Kayla finally caves to her roommate’s nagging and follows her to Arrangements, an online dating site that matches pretty young women with older men of a certain tax bracket.

Convinced this “make-rent-quick” scheme will surely fail – or saddle her with an 80 year old boyfriend – Kayla is shocked when Michael Bradbury, Internet billionaire and stone-cold salt and pepper fox, offers her a solution to all her financial troubles.
It’s hard enough for Kayla to accept his generosity, but what’s a girl to do when the wealthiest man she’s ever met is a dream in and outside of the bedroom?

NB: You took the billionaire story notion somewhere completely different in So Sweet. This isn’t some fresh-eyed young blond pretty thing the man decides he must have, this is a pairing where the couple are quite frankly on even footing, and the negotiation of their relationship skips all the things that usually drive me mental in the plot line: she’s a strong, hot lady who has sensuality and sexuality and man, I loved Kayla. And Michael, too. You walked the line there so well. He’s hot—and nerdy-hot!—but I didn’t want to punch him in the face (you’d be surprised how often I want to punch fictional alpha male types). How purposefully did you decide to tip the “billionaire” thing on its head?

RW: It’s funny that you say that they are on equally footing. I see Kayla at a massive disadvantage when it comes to Michael. She’s black, she’s broke, she plus size, she’s not straight, she’s out of work. Michael is in shape and rich and white passing and literally has a live in Jeeves. He also has a beard. I mean come on. It makes sense for Kayla to be wary of everything about him, but that’s why I wrote Michael the way he is. He has all of these advantages, but he didn’t let those things ruin him as a person. Michael is actually a good man and he loves the hell out of Kayla. Aside from finding jerks to be completely unattractive, Kayla was too important of character to end up with an ass. A new money, down to Earth billionaire, who actually has friends from all walks of life just seemed like the munch better way to go.

NB: You know, that’s totally it. You didn’t have her fixing him, and that has been such a staple of so many rich-man-poor-woman books I’ve read, and it’s always been the part where I want to reach in and tell her, “His money is so not worth dating this ass.” I never once had that feeling with Michael and Kayla. Nor did I ever feel like she didn’t have self-worth. You put a tonne of characterization in these two for the size of the novella.

And, Oh!  The novella format!

First off, you know I’m a fan of shorter fiction, but I have to say you really nailed the narrative arc with this trilogy of novellas. I love how the lengths work for setting the three pieces of the Michael-Kayla relationship in such pieces. Each piece—So Sweet, So Right, So For Real—read just as well standalone. Was it hard work keeping the tales so streamlined? I know you work magic in short fiction as well as novels, so was this middle-ground harder? Easier? A completely different animal?

RW: No? I am terrible at craft questions. I just know the story has to make sense and I go. *kanye shrug*

NB: It’s a good thing you’re awesome, because those of us who struggle with format and word counts are just maybe developing eye twitches right now.

RW: If something has to be longer I make it longer, if it has to be shorter I know I have to keep it tighter. People asked for Michael POV, but it was way easier to just do a type of stream of consciousness thing for Kayla. I let her hit all the important notes and that seemed to work out.

Why you can’t read gay romance and support Donald Trump

Brad doesn’t mince words here, but I’m not ready to try and put together my own thoughts, and he’s in the very country where this is happening.

Brad Vance Author

I had to make a few regrettable unfriend decisions on Facebook today. The “Whoo Trump!” people are long gone, but these are people who said, stop posting hate, let’s come together, let’s respect each other’s opinions, and if you can’t do that, unfriend me.

So I did. Because this is not Pepsi vs Coke. I’m gay. I’ve got chronic illness and (obviously lol) mental health issues. I’m a loud and proud atheist. I’m everything they want to kill. And if you support those who want to kill me, or even think I should just lie down and respect their opinion on the subject of kicking me to death, I’m done with you, because clearly you don’t have skin, so to speak, in the game. Or, worse, you do and you have your head in the sand.

And if you enjoy reading gay romance? Let me give you a little taste…

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Naked Heart – Spec Fic for Brunch, Anyone?

It’s almost time for Naked Heart, Glad Day Bookshop‘s LGBTQ Literary Event, held in Toronto. If you don’t know about Naked Heart, the short version is the event was created last year to amplify love, language, and freedom in the LGBTQ literary community.

The longer version you can check out at their website, linked above.

The event runs from Friday November 11th through to Sunday November 13th, and on the Saturday morning you can, if you’d like, join myself, David Demchuk, J.M. Frey, James K. Moran, Michael Lyons, Stephen Graham King and Steven Bereznai for a Speculative Brunch at 10:30a.m. There’ll be coffee, and there’ll be spec fic. What better way to start the day?

Do check out the whole program. I went to the initial Naked Heart and it was fantastic, and it only shows signs of being better still this year. And right now is your last shot at the early-bird pass. You can absolutely get in to any single event for $5, $10 or $15.

An all-access Festival Pass is $39 in advance, or $19 in advance for youth and seniors.

Hope to see you there!

It’s not a witch-hunt to discuss a blurb.

Quite a few people are in an uproar about something happening in the m/m writing world over the past little while.

Must be Monday.

Gay for You? AGAIN?

I know, right?

Now, honestly, on the topic of Gay for You stories—and my general loathing thereof—I’ve really already said my piece. (For those of you playing the home game, it’s here.) But something I said a little there I’m going to say a bit more clearly now, and expand upon it a bit.

When the first reaction to criticism is “I don’t see that,” it seems to me the first question on the part of the author (or disagreeing reader) should be “Why don’t I see that?”

I’m willing to bet that very often the answer is “I haven’t lived that.”

Rather than a declaration of opposition to the criticism, and dismissing it out of hand, it’s worth parsing. Every writer has gotten edits or criticism they’ve chosen to ignore. But a good writer knows even those ignored edits or criticism have value, and might point out something worth clarifying or exploring more. If an author didn’t intend harm, but harm is perceived, there’s likely an opportunity to clarify the message to reduce that accidental harm.

Now, there’s some confusion I’m seeing between criticism and someone telling an author what they can and cannot write, and I think there’s an inversion here at play in the way criticism is being perceived.

If a reader says, ‘You’ve written a character portraying a harmful stereotype,’ or ‘You’ve really misrepresented a culture here,’ or the like, they’re not saying, ‘You shouldn’t write this.’ They’re saying, ‘You didn’t do a good job writing this.’

See the difference?

Once You Know It? You Know It.

Now, to quote myself again (I know, I know, so gauche):

[W]hen those who belong to the group you’re writing about tell you in no uncertain terms that they feel harm by a message you’ve delivered, you can’t unknow that. If you keep doing it, you’ve chosen to do so. This works inclusively and exclusively. If you never have a character who isn’t white, or all the trans characters you write are always killed, or the person who uses a wheelchair is a prop to remind your main character her life could be worse, you’re propagating a problem. And you know it. And you’re choosing to do so.

And that’s totally within your right to do so as an author. No one will deny that. I certainly won’t. And I’ve heard authors bemoan that they’re just trying to write fun sexy romantic stories for their readers, and that we queer folk shouldn’t ruin their fun. But if an author chooses to put their reader’s fun over active harm their portrayal of queer characters does, then they’re going to get called out on it.

Don’t be surprised if people point it out, and don’t feel slighted if others don’t suggest your work because of it, or let others know the content included should be avoided by those who aren’t looking for one more reminder of how they’re not worth inclusion.

There’s the rub. Once the discussion has been had, if an author thereafter becomes a repeat offender, well… they’re a repeat offender. There’s no limitation on the number of times someone gets to say ‘This person’s representation in their fiction is kind of awful and harmful.’ There’s no, ‘Well, they’ve already been told once, so I should let it pass from now on.’

In fact, that’s the opposite of what’ll happen.

So, y’know, don’t be surprised, maybe?

Blurbs. They’re for Judging.

The third thing—and this one maybe surprises me a little less, but still—is the notion that you can’t judge a book by its blurb, and you shouldn’t judge the book by its blurb because it’s unfair and you haven’t read the story.

Okay. So. How can I put this?

That’s literally what the blurb is for.

I’m serious. Let’s draw a different parallel. I’m not at all a fan of gore. Like, I’m the anti-fan of gore. And I am so not down with zombies. In visual form, in written form, in audio form, doesn’t matter. No gore. No zombies. No gory zombies. There’s a reason I’m not often a reader of horror. It squicks me out, gets in my head, and I end up having bad dreams for days. (Yes, I just admitted that horror gives me nightmares, but whatever, I’m a grown adult and I can own my permeable subconscious.)

Recently, I listened to the audiobook of Leviathan Wakes. The blurb is this:

Humanity has colonized the solar system – Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond – but the stars are still out of our reach.

Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for – and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations – and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.

This hit all the right notes for me, we bought the audiobook, started listening, and then, about thirty chapters in or so? Total gorefest. Like, (mild spoiler here), vomit-zombie gore. Nowhere in that description did I get the slightest notion that I’d be in for a gooey, gory, vomit-zombie story. Luckily, it didn’t last long, and we finished the book. I’m still not sure how I felt about the book as a whole thanks to that, but I’d definitely warn other weak-stomached low-threshold-for-zombie folk I know about the book.

Here’s the thing: if the review had made mention of the gorefest, or even mentioned the word zombie? I would have chosen not to read it. That’s just as much a function of a blurb as the stuff that made me want to try it out: to let me know if a book isn’t something I’ll enjoy.

The blurb is one way a reader chooses to read—or not read—a book.

So, when I hear ‘you’re judging a book by the blurb!’ as though it’s a bad thing, that’s why I scratch my head. Of course readers are. That’s the whole point. The judgement of whether or not a reader wants to read the book can come very much from a blurb. Or reviews. Or discussions of the book.

And if the blurb makes it clear the story is a Gay-for-you plot—something a reader already knows they dislike, something they’ve already made very clear isn’t just something they dislike but something they actively believe can and does do damage via bi-erasure when handled in particular ways—then it’s perfectly cool for a reader to say, ‘No. This book? I do not want to read this book. Another book that erases bisexual and pansexual identities is so not going to get my time.’

They’re allowed to say that out loud. They’re allowed to share that opinion. They’re allowed to point it out to other readers who might not realize the undertones, damage, erasure or what-have-you will likely be in play in said book.

The author? The author can write whatever they want. And readers? The readers can read whatever they want—and they can not read what they don’t want to read. Readers—especially readers who are members of a living, breathing culture the writer is representing—get to speak about what the portrayal does, how it affects them, and if it is damaging. The author doesn’t get to say they’re wrong. Other readers can say it doesn’t bother them, but, like I mentioned above, those other readers can’t un-know the effect this writing can have.

Rachael wrote a great post on this subject, frankly: How to be a fan of problematic things.

So, just to be clear, this is a perfectly valid series of events:

Author writes a gay-for-you book that erases bi and pan folk.
Readers, including queer folk and especially bi and pan folk, point out how that erases them, and the damage done with portrayals in gay-for-you stories.
Author responds to accusations. Poorly, or well; with an apology, or not. Or, doesn’t respond, or rails against the criticism. Either way, it’s fairly certain the criticism has been heard.
Another book comes out. The blurb makes it clear this is a gay-for-you story, and refers to characters in gay-for-you terms, and describes the book as more of the same.
Readers, including queer folk and especially bi and pan folk, choose not to read the book, and are loud about how yet again they’ve been erased.
Rinse and repeat.

At no point there does the author have to stop writing books that erase bi folk. At no point there does the reader have to back off.

But the author? They sure as hell don’t have the moral high ground. A group of living, breathing people has said, ‘Hey, this does harm.’ Maybe the author didn’t mean to. But if we’re hitting the next book, and the next book, and the next book?

It’s a choice.

Choices have consequences.

These discussions?

They’re consequences.