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April 5, 2015

Sunday Shorts – Saints & Sinners: New Fiction from the Festival 2015

One of my favourite things to come out of the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival is the yearly fiction collection. Born from the Short Fiction contest – which, by the way, you should enter – these stories run the range of GLBT characters and cross all manner of genres, and the result is a collection as varied and as interesting as the festival itself.

This year being no exception, I read the book over the last week since I got it, and enjoyed every tale. So, without more delay, here’s Saints + Sinners: New Fiction from the Festival 2015.

The winner this year was Maureen Brady’s “Basketball Fever” and it didn’t take me long to see why – these are characters we rarely see, and a love story that isn’t often told. There’s a tendency in romantic stories to focus on the thirty-ish crowd (and younger) and it’s so refreshing to see characters older than thirty (or, in this case, older than forty, fifty, and sixty) still being the vibrant individuals they are. I loved it.

Frankly, I loved many of the stories, and liked them all. It’s a rare thing in an anthology to be caught by all the stories, but these collections haven’t let me down yet – I imagine part of that is the sheer volume of entries the contest receives, but also that the theme is loose enough (“Saints and Sinners”) that the freedom and range open to the writers is freeing.

Other stories that really nabbed me included “Hustler Court,” by Frank Perez (which was just overflowing with character, and has a one-two hysterically funny punch at the end of the tale); “Femorph,” by James Russell, which was one of the best spec fic short pieces I’ve read in a long time; and “Pageant Girl,” by Sam Hawk, which I have to admit totally drew me in with that “can’t look away!” vibe I always get from what seems to me to be the endless disaster that is pageantry.

Grab this one. You’ll love it.

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Published on April 05, 2015 05:43

April 2, 2015

Throwback Thursday – The Gay Agenda

Given the crap going on Indiana, I thought it was time to bring out the whole ‘Gay Agenda’ topic again. This post rescued from Livejournal, dated June 6th, 2012.

Ah, “The Gay Agenda.” I love the idea that we’ve all got this unified approach to, oh, everything. Like how we’re having sex, all the time, non-stop. Because, y’know, we’re gay. That’s what we are – and it’s all we do. Back in university, when I first came out, I missed the memo that said I was to be having sex all the time. I explained this oversight at one of my homophobia chats with a floor of residence that was having some issues with some nastygrams left on someone’s door, and the room had a good laugh.

I maintained a straight face (ha!) and further bemoaned that by not getting the memo about the “all the time sex!” directive, I felt less secure about my gayhood. It helped me illustrate my point about stereotypes, and how gay folk aren’t homogenous (ha!) and so on.

After, one of the people at that chat session sent me a memo apologizing for the previous memo not having arrived, and directing I was to be having sex all the time.

You would not believe the crap that memo inflicted on my G.P.A. Who had time to study? After that, it was one long bonerfest, and I was there to be a real gay and live up to the mandate of my people.

Mandate. Heh. Get it?

But back to The Gay Agenda. Allow me to first define the term, because there’s no point arguing about fruit if you’re not going to agree that a tomato is a fruit, right? (I actually don’t give a shit if a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable, since either way it’s gushy and awkward when it pops in your mouth, and that just brings back horrible flashbacks of my post-memo years in University.)

So. The Gay Agenda.

Likely, you’ve been told The Gay Agenda is something like the following:

Let me put forth here that there are some key indicators that what you’ve got here is not actually The Gay Agenda.

Item #1. “Destroy the sanctity of marriage.”

The sanctity of what, now? Seriously, take a gander at the divorce rates, and explain to me how adding queer marriages to the mix is going to ruin everything. This one pops up a lot on fake lists of The Gay Agenda.

But even apart from the obvious, no one would blame us for wanting to change the institution of marriage. For fuck’s sake, I have sat through so goddamn many of your weddings it’s only fair you take some constructive criticism here. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve had to explain to Single Cat Lady or Creepy Cousin or any of the rest of the denizens of The Awkward Table (admit it – you seat us at The Awkward Table) that, no, I’m not single, and no, the guy beside me isn’t single, and then sit back and wait for the moment of realization? It’s not that hard to figure out, honey. Our suits are fucking awesome and we can dance like the blazes. Do the math.

For the refusal to just give up on the awful birdie dance alone, marriage deserves to be desanctified. Let us in. We’ll fix it. Weddings could be fun again.

And you totally owe us for the tasteful and useful shit we’ve been buying you for years, even though we couldn’t cash in ourselves.

(Addendum: I should add that I’m speaking out of the corner of my mouth since I live in Canada, and we have marriage equality, and our wedding didn’t have the birdie dance, and it was awesome. We also handed out brown paper packages tied up in string – seriously, brown freaking paper and goddamn string! – to every wedding guest, inside of which was a book my husband or myself thought the guest would enjoy. See? Gay weddings. We totally classed that shit up.)

Item #2. “Recruit new gays.”

Where to begin. If you see Item #2 listed as above, then rest assured, you’ve got a false version of The Gay Agenda.

First, there’s no recruitment system out there that could make joining The Gay Agenda sound promising. “Act now, and we’ll toss in free helpings of public safety woes!” “Join today, and we’ll toss in a fifty percent off coupon for all love received from family members!” “Hurry, before someone else takes your place and can be fired without cause!”

Yeah, let me line right up.

I’m incredibly happy about who I am. Seriously. But getting to where I am now has – at times – sucked beyond measure (and not in the post-memo university sausage-fest good way). If you take nothing else away from me today, please believe this: No one in their right mind would choose to be hated, beaten, disowned, fired, bullied, broken, and outcast. That’s not said with self-loathing. Again, I love big gay me. I love my big gay friends, and my big gay husband, and all the other big gay stuff (except for Perez Hilton), but the younger version of me back in elementary and high school would have swallowed the “make me straight” pill in a second. There is no “make me straight” pill any more than there is a “choose to be gay” pill. Except for tequila, but that only works with certain frat boys, and the effects wear off and include “memory loss.”

So. The Gay Agenda is not recruiting. Got it? We’re not plotting ways to make you gay. Honest.

I think I could get a few (read: all) the ladies in the house here to agree that most fellas who are worried that they’re about to be swarmed by “teh gays!” are worried for naught. You don’t know it, but you’ve already found our kryptonite: you. Confidence can be sexy. What you’ve got isn’t confidence. It’s not confidence to smell like that, nor to wear those pithy t-shirts announcing “Fat Chicks Dig Me.” The way you burp and scratch and spit does not throw us into sexual apoplexy. You? Resistible. I don’t mean to sound cruel here, and I don’t mean to be harsh, but if The Gay Agenda really were some sort of fabulous Borg (with way better skin care) we would be warping on over to the Ryan Reynolds planet. Or the Chris Meloni planet. Or Idris Elba. Or the whole cast from True Blood – and I’m not being redundant about Chris Meloni, because we’d totally assimilate him twice.

Item #3. “Gain special rights.”

I cannot express enough how important it is to feel special. Specifically, I can’t express how important it is for The Gay Agenda to feel more special than you. It’s so wrong the way that everything is so much harsher for today’s straight white male, and it’s wrong for us to keep trying to take you down.

Oh, wait. Right. We’re not. This is another clue you’ve not got a real copy of The Gay Agenda.

Here’s the thing. When it comes right down to it, I want the rights you’ve got. The “you” here is more of a social construct than an individual. I want the letter of the law (and the intent thereof) to be an even field. For a while there, women weren’t allowed to vote. People of colour were property. Sometimes tone doesn’t come across well in text, so let me emphasize here: these things are not good. I would like for there to be nowhere left in the world where my love for my husband is a crime punishable by death. I would like for a gay man to be able to hold his gay husband’s hand while that husband dies in an I.C.U.

I would also like the role of the doctor to be played by Chris Meloni.

Why some people feel that means I’m asking for “special” rights, I’m not sure. (The lack of death penalty, I mean. Not the Chris Meloni thing. ‘Cause that would be special.)

Item #4. “Destroy religion.”

Just how much time do you think I have, exactly? I have a day job. Destroying a whole religion is way more of a time commitment than I’m willing to undertake. Seriously – I have to D.V.R. “Glee” and catch up on Sundays. I’m freaking busy.

Okay, I’m not going to lie. There are some religions for which I have a little less love than others. That guy in the phallic hat who keeps telling nuns to go protest stuff instead of helping the poor and the homeless? I think his priorities are a bit messed up. But I quite like faith. I think faith and ritual can help bring people together. It’s just when it starts to do so by setting other people apart that I get annoyed.

And if there’s a book of rules tied into a religion and you’re going to start freaking out about those rules, you don’t get to pick and choose. It’s like gym class when the teacher makes two kids take turns selecting the students to make their teams – someone will have to take the least athletic, least popular kid (which was me, by the way, and I shall hate you forever, gym teacher). If you’re going to go all Leviticus on my ass about… well… my ass, then get ready for some discussion about polyblends, seafood, and tattoos. Also, I’ve read that book. Cover to freaking cover. I’ve even listened to the audiobook version (James Earl Jones – I was totally waiting for God to tell Jesus that he was his father). It may have needed a better copy editor, but there’s some lovely stuff in there. If you’re going to pick some stuff out at random, might I suggest “Love thy neighbor”?

Item #5. “Muzzle teachers and parents and force children to learn about gay sex.”

I promise you, from the depths of my heart, that if I had the singular power to muzzle any of the individuals listed above, it would be the children. They’re so fucking annoying.

The rest is also just untrue. Besides, why should I deny adolescent teens the sheer joy of trying to figure it all out as they go along, complete with all the humiliation, mistakes, awkwardness, and terror that I got to enjoy? If there’s anything we’ve learned, it’s that not talking kids about sex leads to much less sex, and far less sex-related problems.

R-i-i-i-ght. I’m glad we’re clear on that.

Seriously, though, I’m not suggesting grade five screenings of Brokeback Mountain (which, by the by, would be a great film on the importance of lube – those cowboys wouldn’t have swaggered half so much if they’d thought to bring some lube with them). I’m suggesting that education can destroy ignorance, and increase health and safety for all concerned.

And Chris Meloni could teach my class.

Item #6. “Flaunt the gay lifestyle at every opportunity.”

Yes. Yes. Yes. There’s nothing like that special thrill I get when I lean over and kiss my husband’s cheek while we’re out and about somewhere. My heart pounds, my palms sweat, and I think to myself, I hope no one beats the shit out of me.

This particular item is a bit of a sore point with me, and is always a way to know when you’ve found yourself a false version of The Gay Agenda. There are so many things wrong with that statement that I just don’t know where to start. Flaunting? Lifestyle? How about an illustration, instead? Look here:

That, folks, isn’t “flaunting.” That is me and my husband in a garden centre in New Orleans. I have my arm around him. That’s it. We can’t do that just anywhere, I might add – the owner of this garden centre is gay, and as such, felt comfortable posing for the shot. We couldn’t do that at a movie theater, for example, without wondering if our “flaunting” would inspire comment, ridicule, or violence. A single kiss, holding hands, a term of endearment – none of that is a queer couple “flaunting” anything. That is a couple in love being a couple in love.

Only with the added danger of potentially being assaulted for doing so. This ties back into that whole “special rights” fallacy a few items ago. There’s nothing special about it. Well, except he’s my sexy dimpled penguin and that’s super special.

Got it?

Right, that was the last item on a false version of The Gay Agenda. Also please note the singular way you can tell this version of The Gay Agenda is complete bullshit is the font. Gays invented design, folks. Comic Sans? No. Fucking. Way.

Having cleared up what The Gay Agenda isn’t, I think it only fair to show you the real deal. If there was a memo telling me to keep The Gay Agenda under wraps, then I guess it was waylaid along with my original memo about the sexathon requirement. But, in the interest of full disclosure, I will present to you my own personal copy of The Gay Agenda, in total:

Shit!

I forgot the fucking milk.

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Published on April 02, 2015 10:46

April 1, 2015

Writing Wednesday – The Saints and Sinners Literary Festival

Usually, my ‘Writing Wednesday’ is an opportunity to force myself to publicly admit how much (or how little) I’ve been getting done on my novel and/or short pieces since a week earlier. The short answer this week is this: not much, because I went to New Orleans for the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival. A slightly longer answer would, however, include that I did send off a short piece for March, so I’m still on track with Jeffrey Ricker‘s challenge.

Instead, let’s talk Saints and Sinners. Mostly sinners, though there are some saints. Okay, a few. Okay, one or two. Okay, the saint is Paul, for doing so much organizing, and his volunteers, who make the whole shebang happen.

But you’d rather hear about the sinners anyway, am I right?

That pile there gives you some idea of the last few days. Most centrally, the festival handbook.

Now, there’s no way I’ll get everything into one post, but I will say it’s a good thing that my husband and I got there a day or two early, as it turned out a lot of other wonderful people we wanted to hang out with had done the same, and it let me learn that I am many things, but a drinker of more than two Sazeracs is not one of them. There was a “Sazerac hunt” with J.M. Redmann and her brilliant wife Gillian, and the group of folk that came and went throughout said hunt were wonderful. I got to meet Mark Merlis, who joined Rob Byrnes, my husband and I at the very start of the hunt. We were joined by Candice Detillier Huber, who owns the nerdgasmic Tubby & Coo’s Midcity Book Shop (which is going to be a separate post in and of itself), one of her friends (I want to say Rob, but if I’m honest with myself, I just thought of him as ‘Candice’s hot straight friend’ most of the time), the abovementioned Jeffrey (and his husband, Mike), Stephen King (no, not that one), my wonderful editor and friend Jerry L. Wheeler and Ron Suresha (another fellow I’ve been lucky enough to work with, who edits me for Bear Bones Books). About the time our numbers had dropped to around eleven, I stopped feeling my lips (see above, re: not a drinker) I swapped from Sazerac to beer, but by then, I’d already deserved the fireworks the city so lovingly put on for us all after our successful hunt.

No, seriously, there were fireworks.

The festival itself was superb. On the Friday, I made up for my inability to score tickets to the John Waters event by letting my husband abscond with my festival pass and pose as me to enter the interview of John Waters by Laura Lippman (which he said was fantastic), and then did my best to twinkle at the ‘Glitter with the Literati’ opening party at the beautiful Gallier House. Here I saw some of my favourite people, including Jeff Mann and his husbear, John. It was also fantastic to see Marie Castle, who I adore and met last year at the panel we were on about the paranormal and horror genres. We were the crossover people standing betwixt the lesbian discussions and the gay discussions, and personally I think we both deserved more fireworks for bridging the gaps once again.

I tried valiantly to talk to everyone before our dinner reservations, but I’m fairly certain I failed. That’s always the downside at this event – there are so many wonderful people; authors, readers, editors, publishers – and I never quite have enough time to talk to all of them as much as I wish I could.

On the Saturday, it was time to put on my former-bookseller-turned-author hat and be a respectable human being with knowledge and stuff. Happily, I’d only had one Sazerac the night before, and even then, I’m such a lightweight it’s unheard of to get a hangover. That’s how, at 10:00am sharp, I was bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to talk YA with my fellow panelists, Jeffrey Ricker, Greg Herren, and Bridget Birdsall, alongside our fabulous moderator Ruth Sternglantz, to discuss our topic: Forever Young: Writing for the Teen Market. To say it was a great time would put it mildly, and thanks to Ruth’s steering the ship, we stayed on topic and the audience seemed quite engaged. It was a great discussion, and as always, I ended up leaving feeling quite inspired. It was also my first time meeting Bridget, and I finished her book, Double Exposure the day before the panel – I try to do my homework – which was both a good thing and an intimidating thing. I’ve only ever written short pieces for YA, so I relied on my bookseller role in the discussion, given the other three had novel(s) under their belts.

At 11:30a I hit my first major agonizing choice. There were people reading I wanted to hear. There were also two panels I wanted to see – one about LGBT romance, and one about LGBT history (and the writing and researching thereof). I ended up relying on my usual rule of thumb in these situations: do the thing you’ve had the least exposure to and know the least about. I’ve written only one short piece that might barely be considered to have some historical content, so I went to the brilliant Historial Outings: Keeping it Real or Making it Up? Here, panelists LaShonda Katrice Barnett, Jamison Currier, Clayton Delery-Edwards, and Jeff Mann were guided by David Swatling in what I have to say was my favourite panel of the whole event. Again, I know nothing of writing history, but the glimpse these four gave into their world of writing was fascinating, and I even left with an idea for a historical novel – and a much greater appreciation of how much work it would be to do such a thing correctly. More importantly, I’ve learned of multiple new books I need to read, despite knowing that I will feel such rage and sadness at the LGBT history and what was that led us to what is. In particular, Clayton Delery-Edwards’s book about the fire at the upstairs bar in New Orleans is one I need to read.

I also made a rash decision to make it to something at every time slot, so I dashed out for a banana, and a pre-packaged sandwich and then ran back in for the 1:00p slot, in time to hear Bridget Birdsall, Scott Bailey, Clayton Delery-Edwards, Jeffrey Ricker, James Russell, and Shawn Syms read, as well as one other fellow – I didn’t catch his name fast enough, unfortunately, and he was a late addition to the program. All the readers were fantastic (more books to add to my list!), and Evil Mark didn’t have to blare the buzzer at all.

By 2:30p, my banana and sandwich were gone, and I raced over to Make ‘Em Laugh: Humor for Escape and Survival. Here, I got to hear Rich Barnett, Ken O’Neill, Rebecca Chance, and Russ Gregory talk about humour and I basically spent the entire time laughing, gasping for breath, or scribbling down madly in my little notebook. Two major delights here – one was discovering Rebecca Chance, who is so over-the-top funny you’ll want to make sure you’ve done your ab crunches before speaking with, and Ken O’Neill, who has the most brilliant comic delivery I’ve seen in ages. I’ve got books by them both and can’t wait to dive in.

At 4:00p, it was time to put on my grown-up hat again, and go read. Now, I shall preface with saying that it went well, because it did, but I did make one small, minor, itsy-bitsy mistake. At no point did I mention the title of the book from which I was reading.

Yeah.

So, if you went to that reading, the book I read from was On the Run, and my novella from that collection is called “In Memorium.”

Right.

The other authors readings also went wonderfully – N.S. Beranek, J.D. Horn, J.M. Redmann (who Evil Mark buzzed), Cindy Rizzo, and David Swatling gave stirring readings (and once again, I added more books to my pile of ‘to be read’) that pleased the crowd. And they even told the crowd what they were reading, which was pretty clever of them.

At this point I was feeling light-headed, but the 6:00p launch party for the Short Fiction Contest (and the induction for the Hall of Fame, and the Emerging Writer Award winner) was soon, so we hoofed it to the top of the hotel, got ourselves some wine and nibbles, and the festivities began. I finally got to chat some with Greg Herren, watched the wonderful Carol Rosenfeld get her due with her entry into the Hall of Fame alongside Mark Merlis, and we got to listen to some of the short fiction contest winners read before we had to dash off to a bear leather bar.

No, really. We had to.

See, at The Pheonix Bar in New Orleans, we had a ‘LitBEARy’ event – a bunch of us did a reading from The Bears of Winter or other Bear Bones Books titles, and it’s a bit of a hike to get there. We made it, and myself, Jeffrey Ricker, Jerry L. Wheeler (that man can perform!), Ron Suresha, Jeff Mann, and Lewis DeSimone (who, by the way, does a wicked Hepburn) got up on a totally unsafe “stage” and read our hearts out as the puppy play leather boys arrived for their contest. The bestiality donkey-sex stories Ron read between each performer really added to the general ambiance of the night.

No, really.

Actually, it was pretty awesome, except for the smoke (which I’m not used to) and once the reading was done, we grabbed a small group and headed out for late night beignets and hot chocolate with Stephen King (no, still not that one) and Ken O’Neill (seriously, his comic timing is sheer perfection) and the Ricker-Wallersteins. By the time bedtime rolled around, I pretty much keeled over.

Sunday, I paid for my mistakes. I had a decent breakfast from the Clover Grill with my fella, because I’d woken up with that hollow feeling I get when my blood sugar is way off. Here he is: isn’t he adorable?

I made it to the 10:00am The New, New Publishing: Navigating the Industry Right Now, where I got to hear David Johnson moderate a panel with Bill Lavender, Benjamin Morris, Michael Allen Zell and Radclyffe that touched on the world of publishing, marketing, and how things are not cataclysmic. It was refreshing, and honest, and while it didn’t pull punches, it was certainly not depressing. Also, I got to see Sandy Lowe again, which was nice. Apparently, she has finally bumped into someone who said their first impression of her was more “off” than mine (I may have intimated that I was surprised she wasn’t an Angry Librarian the first time we met), in that William Holden said he thought she’d be a weathered older woman, worn down and broken by life. I felt bad for her, but then she told me I write really slowly, so I got over it. (Sandy, I’m kidding. You’re awesome.)

At 11:30a, I dashed over to the Love and Murder: Writing Romantic Suspence panel with Rob Byrnes, Rebecca Chance, David Holly, and Radclyffe, once again moderated by the wonderful Ruth Sternglantz, and proceeded to laugh so much I’m fairly certain I snorted a few times. Also, I may have brayed like a donkey. Radclyffle still somehow managed to find a way to dish out phenomenal advice on pacing and structure in between entertaining the audience alongside the never-stop-joking Byrnes and Chance (who need to be an act you can see off Broadway). By the end of that session, I added another few ideas to my list of stuff I could work on if I wasn’t a writer who wrote so slow (thanks, Sandy!)

And then I crashed.

To be fair, I knew it was coming, and the whole beignets for dinner after a day of just-a-sandwich-and-banana was setting myself up for failure, but my hands were shaking, my vision was going sideways, and it was time to admit I wasn’t going to be able to keep going. So I didn’t get to hear Rebecca Chance, Greg Herren, Jerry L. Wheeler, Jeff Mann, or Carol Rosenfeld read, because I had to go stuff my face at the Gumbo Shop alongside my husband, Jeffrey Ricker, Ken O’Neill, and Stephen King (no, still not that one). By the time I’d had rice, my hands weren’t shaking, and I could see properly again. Bless Candice for telling us of a nearby place where we wouldn’t have to wait too long.

Speaking of Candice, at 4:00pm, I gathered a small group to take a road-trip (or, actually, a Streetcar-trip) to go see her bookstore. But that’s a post for another day, as this one is already a bajillion words longer than anyone would bother to read and I want to make sure everyone sees how awesome her shop is.

And after that? Well, after that we had to head back to the hotel for our ungodly early flight the next morning. We had to say goodbye to the wonderful New Orleans.

Until next year.