Redfern Jon Barrett's Blog, page 5

The Costs of 2017

This is an extremely personal post, and I’ve been debating with myself as to whether I should write it. It’s not going to be particularly well-written, it’s not going to be inspiring, and I’m not going to end it with my usual optimistic calls for love, hope, or solidarity. This is a post born of anger, fear, hatred, and nausea, and I’m sharing it because maybe you’ve found yourself in similar situations, and maybe reading this will help.

Now I’ve gotten into fights on social media before. Many, many times. Like many people who’ve received even a glimpse of attention on an issue I’ve had rabid strangers send anger, abuse, and threats. But yesterday hurt me, and it hurt me a lot more than a stranger ever could. Yesterday I ended a friendship of many years.

“Oh, but surely that’s immature! Surely you should be open to other people’s opinions, not cut contact with people you care about!”

In an ideal world such sentiments are true. In an ideal world opinions are just that–they don’t have real, terrifying, painful impacts on other people’s lives. In this ideal world we can tolerate every opinion, because those opinions don’t have any real consequences. But in our world, the one we’re living in and struggling with, that’s simply not true. What you say and what you do affects everything around us.

Like most people who’ll read this, I’m worried sick about where this is heading. I’m worried for those I don’t know, for the lives and families currently being destroyed–and I’m worried on a personal basis, because my partner is American and there are very real signs that future executive orders will bar me from his home country. I worry for my extended family who live in the U.S. Like many people reading this, I’m using that fear in the most constructive way I know how: by opposing this administration. By writing, by demonstrating, by engaging in every opportunity I have to try and make this world–our world which is so far from ideal–into a safer place for myself, those I care about, and total strangers.

My former friend was saying what too many people are saying: that we should ‘wait and see’, that to oppose what’s going on is divisive, that in fighting fascism we are as bad as fascists themselves. Granted, this person went further, saying I’m a coward for demonstrating, that I lack inner peace because of my will to fight, but we’ve all heard arguments like this (and let me be very clear that I don’t want ‘inner peace’ if it means I can’t stand up for what I believe in.) They’re the people who say we should ‘build bridges’–people who’ve never been anywhere near the ‘alt right’, let alone attempted conversation with them. As a historian I have to say it’s a fantasy, and there’s a good reason they’re harassing those who’re trying to do something. They’re the arguments of people who have been scared into submission, and who want you to join them.

This isn’t a happy post, or even a particularly hopeful post. I’m writing this because maybe you’ve lost friends, maybe you’re struggling with people trying to shame you for taking action. I just want to say: that’s OK. I feel anger, fear, hatred, and nausea, but I don’t feel regret. If standing up for the rights of others causes personal conflict, that’s one of the costs of maintaining a free and fair society. Fighting fascism comes at a cost–and if it costs you friendships, know that there are other people going through the same thing. For better or for worse, 2017 is going to define who you are, and none of this is going to be easy. Whatever action you take, it’s going to come at a price: just make sure that regardless of what else you do lose, you never give up your integrity.

In love, hope, and solidarity (I just can’t help myself),

Redfern

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2016: Year in Review

And thus concludes everyone’s favourite year. Thankfully my intense denial has rendered me immune from horrifying global events as thoroughly as though I were in my own lead-lined bunker, though with fewer rotting canned goods and slightly more daylight. Though I’m certain 2017 won’t disappoint in terms of increasingly less abstract horrors, for now I’ll be looking back at some of my favourite events from what has actually been a pretty successful year. You know, aside from all the bombings, shootings, and spreading collapse of liberal democracy.

So with all that put securely and irresponsibly out of mind, I bring you…

January: Forget Yourself was re-released by LGBTQ publisher Lethe Press!

Set in a sealed-off land without memories, Forget Yourself follows Blondie as she struggles to find the world she must have known, alongside a hundred fellow amnesiacs. Forgetting gender, forgetting sexuality, forgetting all the rules of outside, what are they able to build?

Thanks to Matt Cresswell for the wonderful cover design, and I’m very pleased the novel has received positive feedback and a significant engagement on Goodreads.

More information about the novel is available on Lethe’s website: http://www.lethepressbooks.com/store/...

 

February: The Giddy Death of the Gays & the Strange Demise of Straights at Other Nature Berlin

Huge thanks to Other Nature for what turned out to be a fantastic event, and to everyone who turned up to listen to me attempt convincing Welsh accents for an hour.

Special thanks also to writer RM Vaughan for sharing an excerpt from his latest release Bright Eyed: Insomnia and its Cultures from Coach House.

This was far from the only reading this year, but it was a fantastic event.

 

March: Threesome: Him, Him, and Me was released

A fantastic anthology edited by Matthew Bright and containing all manner of stories relating to male trios. I’m honoured to have contributed the afterword, titled Greedy, Deviant, and Perverse: Living and Writing a Trio Relationship:

There are no blueprints for being in a three-way relationship. There are few self-help books, novels, movies, role models, or even greetings cards for those with two partners. But with each passing year there are more. For every novel, TV show, and short story which shows our lives, our culture gets a little richer, and the lives of those different to the norm become a little bit easier. It is stories which provide us with hope for the future, and which for each new generation drive change the previous would scarcely have believed possible. Ultimately it is stories in which we find freedom—especially for us greedy, deviant, and perverse people with two boyfriends.

 

March #2: ‘Polyamory and the New Struggle for Civil Rights’ was published in Guernica

Though this has been a busy year writing-wise, I’m immensely proud to have this nonfiction piece in Guernica, on a matter which is of great personal importance to me, as well as to thousands of poly families without legal and social representation. I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity to get the word out there.

 

April: Interviews!

April seemed to come with an abundance of interviews, from Strassenfeger magazine to Mark William Lindberg’s insightful interrogation, which can be read here.

“This is going to sound very much like a meme your aunt just shared on Facebook, but think about what type of life you want to lead, and then live it. Be weird, make up your own traditions, and always be kind to people. You never know what they’re going through.”

 

 

 

May: ‘Polyamory and the Social Politics of Sleep’ was published in Van Winkles

Another article of which I’m extremely proud, and I’m thrilled Van Winkle’s chose to publish my piece arguing that it is sleep, not sex, which truly brings about social change.

“How and where and with whom we sleep defines both our personal relationships and our social standing.”

 

June: Britain did something incredibly stupid

June #2: The Giddy Death of the Gays & the Strange Demise of Straight was a finalist for the Bisexual Book Awards!

It was a fantastic New York-based event and I’m pleased to have met some fantastic organisers and writers. I’m also thrilled to have had the opportunity to read from my novel, and to have been up against some incredible fellow finalists:

The Ambassador’s Wife by Jennifer Steil, Doubleday
The Giddy Death of the Gays & the Strange Demise of Straights by Redfern Jon Barrett, Lethe Press
Goddess by Kelly Gardiner, Harper360/HarperCollins
The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North, Blue Rider Press/Penguin Random House
The Small Backs of Children by Lidia Yuknavitch, Harper Books/Harper Collins

 

July: I was a guest on the wrote podcast

Special thanks to Baz Collins and Vance Bastion for having me on for the episode “Hell is Being a Conforming Adult”, which can be listed to here.

I’m also thrilled that they’ve invited my terrifyingly deep giant’s voice to be a part of Wrote’s monthly roundtable discussions.

 

August: I turned 32, which officially makes me the same age Brittany Murphy was when she died.

Goodbye again, Luanne.

 

 

 

 

 

September: My short story ‘The Ocean, We’ was published in issue 51 of Sleek Magazine

The Ocean, We is a poetry-based speculative story about a group of people who flee those on land to merge their bodies with the ocean:

“We rush through the warm murk

From the high sun-sprinkled dazzle

Down we rush together, the ocean we

We plunge; the cold ever-growing

To the biggest beasts of the cold low low

Then upwards, we

the rock ground lifts

The sea shrinks small

To river.”

 

October: I was selected as a judge for the 2017 Bisexual Book Awards

I was really pleased to have been asked to join next year’s Bisexual Book Awards as a judge!

 

November: America did something even worse than Britain

November #2: Roundtables!

November was a time of much discussion, for pretty much everyone. Not wanting to be left out, I took part in two roundtable discussions in November: The Future Fire’s look at polyamory (it’s been a poly-heavy year!) can be read here.

“As a writer I’ve found that speculative fiction often grants us freedoms the present can’t allow, a space in which alternate ways of living can gain a greater sympathy from the reader than one which might conflict with their idea of how things should be done right now. Somehow ‘what can be’ is less threatening than ‘what we can change more immediately.’ I think that’s the reason polyamory (along with a whole host of other issues) turns up more frequently in future-based fiction. My first novel Forget Yourself was speculative for that exact reason, as were many of my short stories. People approach speculative and science fiction with an open mind.”

November also marked the first time I was invited to Wrote’s roundtable discussions, looking at queer responses to the election of Donald Trump to some far-off land called America. It can be listened to here.

 

Demember: Onwards and somedirectionwards

This month has been spent working on a number of projects for 2017, each of them tempting my tendency to drastically overwork. Still, hopefully there will be exciting things to announce in terms of fiction, nonfiction, and even the art world, all as I willfully ignore the pattering of machine gun fire and cleansing rain of nuclear warheads.

Until then, apocalypse-fans!

– 2016fern

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The Political Center is Dead

Like much of the world, I’m writing this in a sleep-deprived haze, an orange phantom haunting my dreams and walling off sleep. This isn’t a surprise, it’s been creeping in plain sight, stalking the borders of our conscience. The latest dreaded signpost to something increasingly difficult to avoid:

The political center is dead

And its death cries have been echoing for years, ever since markets crashed and the pockets of the poor were picked for their rebuilding. they’re in the rattling gasps of Brexit, in the wheezing demise of the British Liberal Democrats and the German FDP. They’re there in Francois Hollande’s zombie approval ratings. The flatline echoes across the Atlantic, because

The political center is dead

And I’m spelling this the American way, which will soon be a way of guns and walls and shouting at your neighbor. Not for everyone, not even for most, but for too many, the angry chorus crying that

The political center is dead

And while we were talking about black issues, and gay issues, and trans issues, we forgot to talk about the poor as well. Especially in America, progressives have been hammering out all privilege but class. Now the issue erupts in a mass of seething white anger, foaming over established principles. You called them stupid, but they won the election.

The political center is dead

And it’s died before. And the same mistakes were made then, as now. And then, like now, the media dressed and propped up the corpse and announced everything was fine. Because the only alternative is one they would never admit to, one they would never look in the face. The sad farce was maintained, all to avoid the fact that

The political center is dead

And you can’t just call people stupid. You can’t just blame millennials and third party voters. You can’t continue with the status quo. No blaming everyone but yourself, no sticking your fingers in your ears and hoping for the best, not when

The political center is dead

Because if we’re to defeat fascism, we have to face another fact which may be hard to swallow: the only way we can win is by giving people an alternative. We need to learn from our mistakes, and remember once more that those who survive are those who adapt.

The political center is dead

And it’s not all cause for terror, the horizon holds more than just doom. Every crisis is an opportunity, and the silver linings on dark clouds might just reflect a bright new dawn–one far away, but one no less real. We just need to listen, we need to provide a positive, hopeful alternative. We can show that fairness and equality hold just as much promise as blame and division. Our own brand of populism, because the left can appeal to the working class as well. If only we stop the hand-wringing, if we make ourselves more than anthropomorphized gloves for corporate interests. We need to show the unhappy and disaffected that we can build a better world than the one we have now. Because we can. We really can.

The political center is dead.

But maybe in the midst of it all our ideals can be revived.

In love, hope, and solidarity,

Redfern

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My Life Over the Past Six Months: An Intervention By Meddling Loved Ones

[TRANSCRIPT; SEPT 2016]

MISSING PERSON A: I hope this works, I really do.

MISSING PERSON B: It has to.

MISSING PERSON C: Do you really think he’ll listen? Lately he’s been–

MISSING PERSON B: Quiet, here he comes. Hi, Redfern!

ME: Oh wow, all my friends and family are here? Is this a party?

MISSING PERSON A: No, this is–

ME: How thoughtful! And only 11 months before my birthday!

MISSING PERSON A: –an intervention, we’re worried about–

ME: Still, you might have got some balloons, it’s quite drab in here. Blah.

MISSING PERSON A: –the fact that you’ve locked yourself in your room for half a year.

MISSING PERSON B: Look, Redfern, I know you’re calling yourself a writer–

ME: How nice of you to mention! I am a writer. In fact the past few months have been going great. Let me tell you about it…

MISSING PERSON B: No, wait–

#NEWS ITEM 1: MY SHORT STORY ‘THE OCEAN; WE’ IS AVAILABLE IN SLEEK MAGAZINE

‘The Ocean; We’ is a sci-fi story following a collective which travels the world’s waters, molecules blending with hydrogen, oxygen, and one another. Mixing poetry and prose, it gives glimpses to the strange lives of the wet wet ‘we’.

‘Our bodies, lone on land, merge with water. We are we, we are one another. Skipping across molecules of hydrogen and oxygen, our bodies melted and melded, minds scattered and whole.

(If we go too long we will lose our lone selves, they say, lost in drifting molecules, they say. We are careful, we. Sometimes, though, sometimes I me I do not mind this idea, this loss of I me I.)

We are neither conscious neither unconscious. Not group not scatter. For a time we are lone, for a time we are ocean, for a time we are we.’

Available in issue 51. More details at Sleek‘s website.

MISSING PERSON A: Your ‘stories’ are difficult to read when you write them on toilet paper with highlighter pens.

MISSING PERSON B: Maybe take a break? Just for a day or two, just get some nice fresh air, maybe eat something that doesn’t come in a jar?

ME: A celebratory dinner sounds delightful, but alas, there’s no rest for the wicked! Or those deliberately undergoing the process of becoming a forgotten hermit!

#NEWS ITEM 2: MY ARTICLE ‘POLYAMORY AND THE SOCIAL POLITICS OF SLEEP’ WAS PUBLISHED IN VAN WINKLE’S

It’s a piece I’m particularly proud of, looking at the ways in which sleeping arrangements can cause more social upheaval than our sex lives ever could. Sounds unlikely? Read it yourself here.

MISSING PERSON C: Look, that’s nice, but you’ve not been getting sunlight or eating properly. You look ill.

MISSING PERSON D: We’re not saying this to attack you, we just want to help.

MISSING PERSON C: You’ve not spoken to anyone in months.

ME: No-one except…

MISSING PERSON D: You’re not listening–

#NEWS ITEM 3: I WAS INTERVIEWED ON THE WROTE PODCAST

Speaking with the charming hosts SA Collins and Brad Vance, we talk about polyamory, representation, and the things that terrify me. The episode is titled ‘Hell is Being a Conforming Adult’ (because it is), and can be listened to here.

MISSING PERSON B: Do they know you nailed the door to your bedroom closed? Did they hear the strange noises coming from there?

# NEWS ITEM 4: I WAS ALSO INTERVIEWED FOR THE MAY EDITION OF STRASSENFEGER MAGAZINE

Talking about Berlin, alternate living, and art for the ‘Arm, Aber Sexy’ (Poor, But Sexy) issue.

MISSING PERSON D: Being interviewed does not count as proper human contact!

#NEWS ITEM 5: I WAS ALSO INTERVIEWED BY THE AUTHOR AND ARTIST MARK WILLIAM LINDBERG

‘In truth how I identify is rarely constant, but some of the labels I most commonly use are (in no particular order): Queer, homosexual, biromantic, writer, author, polyamorous, nonmonogamous, Pagan, cis male(ish), pessimist, optimist, “oi you, yeah you, the tall lanky bastard”, leftist, Humanist, British European. Oh, and don’t forget concise. Very concise.’ Full text here.

MISSING PERSON C: If he talks about one more interview I’m going to scream.

Me: Should I mention that my interview with Poly Role Models has been updated?

MISSING PERSON C: OH MY GOD I HATE YOU, I MEAN IT, I HATE YOU.

MISSING PERSON A: We’re not getting through to him.

MISSING PERSON B: Redfern, please, we miss you. Please come back to us.

#NEWS ITEMS 6, 7, and 8: REVIEWS!

I’m extremely pleased to have had some wonderful reviews come out these past months. Among my favourites were Rising Shadow’s review of The Giddy Death of the Gays & the Strange Demise of Straights:

‘Redfern Jon Barrett’s The Giddy Death of the Gays and the Strange Demise of the Straights is one of the wittiest and most thought-provoking novels I’ve ever read. I like the author’s direct approach to sexuality, because he writes boldly about various aspects related to sexuality and doesn’t judge how people live their lives. If you enjoy reading stories about relationships, please take a look at this witty novel and give it a try, because it’s something different.’ (read here.)

They also did a lovely review of ‘Forget Yourself’, available here.

There was a wonderful video review on The Youtube by Virgina Woof, for her ‘Bi Buddy Read’ section, which can be viewed here.

 

MISSING PERSON E: Look, I’ve had enough of this. You’re not a writer, and there’s no such thing as ‘writer’s snuff’. That dirty carrier bag you keep huffing from is just filled with rice flour and laundry detergent.

ME: That’s not all that’s in there.

MISSING PERSON C: I’m leaving.

MISSING PERSON B: Just wait, just five more minutes, I think we might be getting through to him. Look, he’s actually making eye contact!

NEWS ITEM 11: I’M LEADING AN EVENT AT VILLAGE BERLIN: ‘MORE THAN TWO: POLYAMORY, RELATIONSHIP ANARCHY, AND OPEN LOVING’

‘In a society which teaches us that we can only have a relationship with one person at one time, how do we navigate alternative ways of loving and living?

What options exist for those who want to engage in physical, sexual, and/or emotional intimacy with multiple partners?

As a polyamorous activist and author with two partners of his own, Dr. Redfern Jon Barrett explores the historical, social, and personal worlds of ethical non-monogamy.

Salon is a regular program of Village Berlin animating discussions between experts and community members in a cosy atmosphere of a safe and supportive social space.’

The workshop will take place November 11th. More details here.

MISSING PERSON B: See, that means he’s going outside. Maybe?

ME: I’ve already been outside. I even went on a real airplane and everything.

MISSING PERSON E: I know for a fact he hasn’t been anywhere, he’s not even left that soiled crate he calls a desk chair.

#NEWS ITEM 10: LIBRARIES

Whilst in New York for the Bisexual Book Awards, I was thrilled to find my novel The Giddy Death of the Gays & the Strange Demise of Straights in the Jefferson Market Library! Just off Christopher Street, the library is just a short walk from the Stonewall Inn, and it means a great deal for it to be in a place so central to queer history.

The Giddy Death of the Gays & the Strange Demise of Straights is also available in libraries in Midtown Manhattan, the Bronx, as well as Colorado, Texas, Washington DC, California, Australia, and Switzerland!

MISSING PERSON E: He was never in New York, and all the libraries were closed by the Austerity Council.

MISSING PERSON A: Oh dear, I think we’ve lost him.

MISSING PERSON C: I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS.

MISSING PERSON B: No, he’s coming around, I just know it…

ME: Just one more piece of news, then we can get this party started!

MISSING PERSON A: Party? There isn’t any party–

NEWS ITEM 11: My review of Matthew Cheney’s ‘Blood Stories’ has been published with Strange Horizons

Read the review here.

MISSING PERSON C: RIGHT, I’M OUT OF HERE.

ME: But why? The party’s about to start!

MISSING PERSON B: Red, Red look at me. We’re gathered here because we love you and we’re worried about you. We’ve been trying to help.

ME: If you wanted to help you might have put up some balloons or colourful decorations. But it’s OK, I brought my own.

MISSING PERSON D: That’s just more toilet paper.

MISSING PERSON E: This isn’t right.

MISSING PERSON A: *gentle sobbing*

MISSING PERSON C: GOODBYE.

ME: You can’t leave.

MISSING PERSON C: WHY WON’T THE DOOR OPEN?

ME: It’s rude to leave before a party.

MISSING PERSON E: I mean it, this isn’t right.

MISSING PERSON A: *gentle sobbing*

MISSING PERSON C: THERE’S NO LOCK BUT IT WON’T OPEN.

ME: I brought enough writer’s snuff for all.

MISSING PERSON B: Please. Please. It’s not too late to stop this.

MISSING PERSON E: I can’t feel my hands.

MISSING PERSON C: OH, JESUS. LORD JESUS, HELP US.

MISSING PERSON A: *gentle sobbing*

ME: I. Brought. Enough. Writer’s. Snuff. For. All.

Well that’s it for this time! Join us next time when nosy, interfering ‘love ones’ won’t try and interrupt my work, because no-one will ever find them! Until then, intervention-fans!

– Writerfern

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Interview with author Bret Josef Grubisic

(This interview originally appeared on  Queer Voices,  14 April 2016.)

An English Professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Brett Josef Grubisic writes fiction, arts journalism, and scholarship. He’s published three novels:The Age of Cities, This Location of Unknown Possibilities, From Up River and For One Night Only. Other projects include Contra/Diction, Carnal Nation, Understanding Beryl Bainbridge, National Plots, American Hunks, and Blast, Corrupt, Dismantle, Erase: Contemporary North American Dystopian Literature.

I spoke with Brett about teenage dreams, queer loving, and sex work in small town Canada.

RJB: You have an upcoming novel from Now or Never Publishing, titled From Up River and For One Night Only. Would you pretend I’m an extremely busy and unforgiving agent, and give me your best elevator pitch?

BJG: OK, here goes: “It’s August 1980 in a Canadian logging town that’s seen better days. Inspired by magazine pictures of London and New York, four students (a pair of gay lads who are friends and their keen younger sisters) decide to form a New Wave band and enter a Battle of the Bands contest. On 13 February 1981, they’re on stage for their first and only performance. During that six-month period before, they’re educated on the compromises, sacrifices, and ethical dilemmas that result from their ambitions.”

RJB: Even though the novel is set in 1980-1981, many of the teenage (mis)adventures are disturbingly familiar to those of myself and my friends in the late 90s—from Jesus camp to queer sex, and even sex work. Do these deviant protagonists reflect the goals and cynicism of ‘Generation X’, or teens of all decades?

BJG: Life in River Bend City offers these kids what they see as an insulting pittance. Instead of accepting crumbs, they want the whole cake. They seek it, regardless of the lies, secrets, and criminal activities undertaken to claim it. I’m not so sure it’s a generational thing. Old novels by Edith Wharton and F. Scott Fitzgerald show a similar kind of will-to-power. And there’s Gertrude Slojinski in All About Eve, too. That story was published in the 1940s. For all I know, we could probably trace the archetype back to the ancient Greeks!

RJB: There’s a continual, playful disdain for both wild adolescent dreams and mundane adult realities. At the risk of sounding like an ‘It Gets Better’ video, what would you tell your teenaged self in order to soften the brutal transition into adulthood?

BJG: Despite their naive fantasies about moving to a far-off metropolis and becoming both established and renowned in a matter of months (a belief that, according to televised singing competitions that I see now and then, is more popular now than ever), these kids are savvy enough to understand their native abilities and current circumstances. As gay boys in a small town in 1980, Gordyn and Jay aren’t offered a place at the table. Ditto for Dee and Em, girls who won’t settle for gender norms. They all know they must leave because it’s true. And they all comprehend that as outsiders with unconventional dreams and desires, they need to find that themselves because it’s not going to be offered to them. I think the impulse to ‘get out of Dodge’ and head for the city was the best option at that time.

What awaits them—what awaits all of us—in adulthood in impossible to predict. I’m not convinced there’s much that can be done to soften that, except what they do: cultivate a sense of their individual value and hang on to others who share those outlooks.

RJB: Having read both your 2006 work ‘The Age of Cities’ as well as ‘From Up River’, there’s a strong division between the urban and the rural, which can’t help but lead to other divides: the traditional and the perverse; the mundane and the magical; the heterosexual and the homosexual. This might be a loaded question coming from a polyamorous queer who moved from Wales to central Berlin, but is urban space necessary to sexual and social freedom?

BJG: The easy answer: heterogeneity. By virtue of their size and inherent diverseness, cities tend to be progressive…and filled with anonymous spaces and a beneficial indifference to others’ business. Typically, you can’t and don’t get that in small towns, particularly when sexual minorities are concerned.

Still, there’s something about simply journeying from A to B that’s magical too.

My second novel, This Location of Unknown Possibilities, takes two jaded urbanites to a semi-wild film shoot location in the Okanagan, BC’s arid orchard and grape-growing region. The change of circumstances and exposure to non-urban greenery act as a kind of nurturance that enables beneficial changes to take place.

RJB: The run-down locations and small-town inhabitants of River Bend City are described in detail, with a familiarity which feels like loving contempt, from the run-down Canadian-Asian restaurant to the local head shop and dive bar. How do you feel toward ‘The Bend’?

BJG: Thanks to death, divorce, and other family crises, I moved around a lot when I was a kid. And River Bend City is closely based on Mission, a town where my family set up shop a few times. The novel’s characters are based—loosely—on my deceased sister, my best friend at the time, and his sister; and all of those relationships really developed there, especially during high school. And whenever I think about my formative years, it’s that town that springs to mind. Whenever I visit now, I remain pretty much ambivalent. Your description of “loving contempt” seems pretty accurate. To my eyes at least, there’s not much there. The natural setting is pretty, though. Certainly for queer youths and their supportive, rebellious sisters…there was even less circa 1981. Still, without its pressures, restrictions, and overall strangeness, I wouldn’t be sitting here as I am and writing about it.

RJB: Finally, the 1980s teenagers in the novel yearn for life in the city—New York City. Do you think young Canadians nowadays can dream of Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal in the same way? Does urban Canada have space for young, fucked-up dreamers?

BJG: As a professor, I read tons of CanLit as a matter of course. Based on that, then, the dominant story of small towns is still “leave or succumb.” From early books by Alice Munro to Margaret Atwood to queer coming of age novels, the predominant trajectory is: leave the restrictive and unwelcoming habitat or suffer the consequences. Offhand, I can’t think of a single novel in which a queer character is depicted as happily settled in a small town context. Yet in queer novels like Don Hannah’s The Wise and Foolish Virgins, Kim Fu’s For Today I Am a Boy, R.M. Vaughan’s Spells, and Tamai Kobayashi’s Prairie Oyster, town culture reflects a conservative heterosexual monopoly that has little to no ‘extra’ space for minorities, sexual or otherwise. In them, characters either die or suffer. It ain’t pretty.

From Up River and For One Night Only is now available from Now or Never Publishing:

http://www.nonpublishing.com/from-up-...

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Threesomes, Bisexual Book Awards, and Other Deviant News

Spring for writers in 2016 is much like spring will be for everyone in 2116: it’s that time of year when you get to eat discounted chocolate eggs, insert a slightly brighter bulb into your desk-side SAD lamp, and conjure up the increasingly distant memory of flowers.

(Pretty sure that’s it.)

If you’re anything like me (and the increasingly concerned looks from those around you will confirm that you are), it’s also the traditional time for taking stock of everything you’ve accomplished this year, before writing it all on your blog and then announcing it via megaphone to the local shopping precinct/discount supermarket. So before I bless the patrons of the local Lidl with my deeds, here are the last three months condensed into distressingly few words.

The Giddy Death of the Gays & the Strange Demise of Straights  has been nominated for a Bisexual Book Award!

Perhaps the most exciting news this years, the Bi Writers Association have announced the finalists of the 2016 Bisexual Book Awards, and my novel is shortlisted for the fiction category, alongside some pretty fantastic authors. Here is the fiction shortlist in full:

• The Ambassador’s Wife by Jennifer Steil, Doubleday

• The Giddy Death of the Gays & the Strange Demise of Straights by Redfern Jon Barrett, Lethe Press

• Goddess by Kelly Gardiner, Harper360/HarperCollins

• The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North, Blue Rider Press/Penguin Random House

• The Small Backs of Children by Lidia Yuknavitch, Harper Books/Harper Collins

Which means I’ll be attending the awards ceremony in New York this June! Read the full entry at examiner.com.

The novel also got a lovely Valentine’s Day mention on Pridesource, and is now included in Risingshadow’s database of speculative fiction. It’s been continuing to get positive reviews from readers of all orientations: Hemant Rajput on Goodreads writes, “This book was an interesting read. I was a bit anxious about it as I had never read any story revolved around Gays. But I was totally wrong in my assumption. The author puts across the story beautifully without bringing any Gay cliches that we see on every TV series.”

My article ‘Polyamory and the New Struggle for Civil Rights’ was published in Guernica Daily

“Many people feel no need to expand their relationships beyond a single person, and I fully support their right to do so. But by definition, we do not have equality until everyone is beneath the equality umbrella.”

The article details my own three-way relationship, the issues polyamorous families face, and the increasingly urgent need for legal recognition. It’s the most comprehensive article on polyamory I’ve yet written, and I’m extremely happy that Guernica chose to feature it. The full piece can be read here.

The ‘Threesome’ anthology, for which I wrote the afterword, has been released and received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly!

The afterword, ‘Greedy, Deviant, and Perverse: Living and Writing a Trio Relationship’ is featured in the ‘Threesome: Him, Him, and Me’ anthology, edited by Matthew Bright. It’s a fantastic collection, and well worth a read (please note: I am incapable of bias). The full review from Publishers Weekly can be read here

The public reading of The Giddy Death filled the room at Other Nature Berlin!

Thanks to everyone for attending what turned out to be a fantastic event at a wonderful venue, and thank you to the ever-wonderful RM Vaughan for reading from his newest book, Bright Eyed, released by Coach House. Thanks also to Other Nature for hosting the event.

Damn, I’ve already exhausted my self-imposed supply of sincere thank yous for the year. Be prepared for some ungrateful and uncomfortable silences comes my birthday.

My review of Dave Hutchinson’s Europe at Midnight was published in Strange Horizons

“Combining considerable cultural insight with sexist tropes, vividly constructed alternate worlds with an unimaginatively bland future, and a plot which begins and ends on a high whilst getting somewhat lost in the middle, Europe at Midnight is at once a novel both flawed and fascinating.”

Though the novel has its issues, its assessments of European struggles and challenges in the 21st century are both enlightening and of extreme importance to a crisis-strewn continent. The full review can be read here.

 

I was interviewed by both Lethe Press and Indian author Fiza Pathan

“I don’t have any techniques or tricks [to writing]. I write because if I didn’t I’d be wandering the streets screaming creative fiction at strangers (note: most strangers don’t like that, but the ones that do are new best friends). As such I have to be disciplined in working less – making sure I leave time for things like ‘leisure’, ‘friendship’, and ‘not neglecting those two boyfriends I live with’. Left to my own devices I’d eventually starve to death.”

– Lethe Press interview

“All art is propaganda, and my fiction so far has definitely had the aim of introducing people to polyamory and other atypical relationships—in that sense it’s polyamory propaganda. I can write articles and petitions, I can give speeches, but it’s in telling stories that we form emotional connections with people, and it’s stories which people can really relate to. It’s stories which bring us closer together.”

– Interview with Fiza Pathan



Well, that’s everything this year so far! Many [GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT REJECTED; SUPPLY EXHAUSTED] to everyone I’ve had the opportunity to work with so far. For now, I shall be mentally tranquilising myself with more wonderful memories of flowers.

(Pretty sure that’s right.)

– Newsfern

 

 

 

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“Get over it”: Reagan, AIDS, and Clinton apologists

This isn’t something I’m especially happy about writing, because I think generally the US liberal-left needs to stand together, but responses from many Clinton supporters to the latest controversy are so sickening and inexcusable that I’m actually currently trembling with upset and anger. What could provoke such a reaction? In truth just three words, and ones I’ve seen repeated over and over in the past hours:

“Get over it.”

Some background for those who haven’t heard what’s been going on. Talking about Nancy Reagan, Clinton praised her and her husband for their response to the AIDS crisis. For context, the Reagan administration did nothing but (literally) make jokes about the epidemic, and the first time it was even publicly addressed was in 1987 – by which point tens of thousands of queer people had died horrible deaths, often whilst forcibly separated from those they loved.

“Get over it.”

In my opinion nobody who claims to be an advocate for LGBT/Queer rights could make a mistake as large as praising the Reagans over HIV/AIDS, but to be fair we do all make mistakes (even me, somehow), and the best we can do is apologise for them – which Clinton (lukewarmedly) did. But it’s important to understand that many queer people are upset about this, and have the right to be so – particularly since right-wing news outlets are praising and repeating Clinton’s remarks. Yet over and over I’m seeing queer people told to

“Get over it.”

As though we have no right to be angry, as if all the lives lost to the disease matter less than the campaign opportunities of a politician. “There are bigger issues,” so we “shouldn’t dwell on this”, and you know what, I wouldn’t, were it not for straight Clinton supporters dismissing the concerns of LGBT/Q people. I’ve seen Dan Savage told to “stop the pearl clutching.” I’ve even seen younger queers told they have no right to be upset because they weren’t alive at the time – as though we have no right to our own history.

So you know what, though this was something I (and many others) would have grudgingly accepted as a mistake, the apologists mean I won’t “get over it” anytime soon. Queer people went through a decimation, and we – whatever generation we are – will not be silenced simply because our upset is inconvenient for your candidate. You will not shut us up because, as anyone with an actual knowledge of HIV/AIDS history knows, Silence = Death.

In solidarity,

Redfern

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Common Phrases (Used By People You Should Probably Ignore)

Recently it has come to my attention that the internet is good for things other than locating vulnerable people in order to cleanse their minds of the lives they once knew so they may join your sacred order and begin afresh as a jumpsuit-clad Follower named Redfern #48242. It’s also good for finding restraints, copious amounts of mind-altering hallucinogens, and jumpsuits. Also, debate. Terrible, terrible debate.

Generally I try to avoid getting drawn in to aggressive discussions online, be they about upcoming elections, civil liberties, or relatives desperately pleading for me to cease all activities and come home. But once engaging in online debate, how can you tell which people are reasonable ones to listen to, and which to avoid like the plague the Followers may or may not be unleashing upon humanity in the near future? Well, the ever-wonderful Dr. Morkel “Redfern #391191” Mintman and I have been hard at work identifying common phrases used by total dickfaces.*

*If you feel unfairly included in this list, please direct all complaints to:

Donald J. Trump

Trump Tower

Hell

With that we are delighted to bring you:

Common Phrases (Used By People You Should Probably Ignore)

“Political correctness”

This had to go first. It’s an oldie, but sadly one still in use – especially by those who suffer a mild aneurysm every time they see a same-sex couple holding hands. “Political correctness gone mad” has been a mainstay for tabloid newspapers for decades, and has been used to complain about everything from the existence of other races, to homosexuality, and the existence of other races.

Oddly, the phrase implies that political correctness is in a state of poor mental health, which is unlikely seeing as it’s apparently been going ‘mad’ for at least four decades, and for the fact that it’s a strawman construct designed to bring fervent reactionaries to dangerous levels of irateness. A synonym for: “What was that? Black people? Are black people going to rob me?”

“Special little snowflake”

See above, but for the Millennial generation. When applied to an argument, this phrase has the magical ability to make the user sound like a grumpy old man. Very often this is used to attack esteem-building exercises for children (such as participation trophies), because FUCK CHILDREN, they apparently deserve to continually feel bad about themselves.

Basically these people would still be beating up kids for their lunch money if it weren’t for those damn special little snowflake law enforcement agencies and those trophy-wielding kids!

Example: “These days people think they deserve food, income, and a place to live just for existing. Well you special little snowflake, you can just bed for scraps at the gate to daddy’s mansion until you get used to the concept of ‘oligarchic dystopia.'”

“Sheeple”

Are you writing an angry comment on Digg in the year 2007? No? Then you probably shouldn’t still be using this term. But you are, because the idiot masses keep watching TV news whilst refusing to adopt your libertarian belief system LIKE ANIMALS. WOOL-CLOAKEN ANIMALS.

“Free thinker”

Often used by the same demographic who’re willing to class the entire rest of humanity as sheep, use of the phrase indicates the user believes themselves to be Neo from The Matrix. Will often go alongside “WAKE UP”.

Good rule of thumb: if someone uses a term to describe themselves that implies everyone else is either ignorant. stupid, or suffering from severe blunt head trauma, they’re probably not a nice person.

But hey, they’re a “free thinker”, not a “decent human being with enough basic empathy not to view other living, breathing people as soulless automatons.” Sheep!

“This won’t be a popular thing to say, but…”

This won’t be a ‘not despicable’ think to say, but…

Example: “This won’t be a popular thing to say, but women aren’t to be trusted around computers.”

“I’m not being funny, but…”

This one is more specific to Britain, and is basically a catch-all term covering “I’m not a racist, but”, “I’m not a homophobe, but” and “I don’t believe in global nuclear annihilation, but”. Basically “I’m not being funny, but” is almost always followed by reactionary bullshit that is, in the end, unintentionally funny.

Example: “I’m not being funny, but don’t you think we should ban trans people from using public libraries?”

“To be fair”

Very rarely precedes a point which is actually fair.

Example: “To be fair, gays have brains half the size of normal people.”

“To be honest”

Very rarely precedes a point which is actually honest.

Example: “To be honest, gays have brains half the size of normal people.”

“Actually …”

How can a single word have made it onto this list? See, the word ‘actually’ is harmless enough, so long as it appears anywhere except the beginning of a sentence. There has yet to be a single instance of someone beginning their point with ‘actually’ without following with a statement so condescending it would make the most virulent of men’s rights activist weep warm misogynist tears.

Always comes with a metaphorical raised index finger.

Example: “ACTUALLY, I AM ABOUT TO MANSPLAIN EVERYTHING TO YOU.”

“Pillars of [western] civilization”

Have you seen one of the ‘pillars of civilization’? No? Well they’re big and invisible and always there, and if you chip away at them even a little bit, we will plummet into the infinite barbarian abyss. The pillars may be ginormous, but they’re incredibly weak and risk buckling every time a man kisses another man, or a Muslim immigrant crosses the border.

Overall it’s probably best to ignore anyone using grand fictional constructions as the central point of their argument. See also: “The invisible hand of the free market”; “God”.

“Them’s the rules”

“The rules are justified because they exist” is an argument you would think appeals to only the greyest-faced of Stalinist bureaucrats, but no! Also, did you know “the rules” are eternal and unchanging? Well you should, because them’s the rules! This anti-argument goes perfect with a complacent sense of smug self-satisfaction, and can be used on virtually any subject!

Example: “I don’t care if you don’t want your child thrown into this experimental solution of cat blood and battery acid. THEM’S THE RULES.”

“Please enlighten us…”

“I am referring to myself in the plural because in my mind I am an entire legion of conservative trolls.”

Example: “Please enlighten us why you somehow think poor people have souls.”

“You have no right to keep me here, my name is not Redfern #0428545 and I demand you give me my normal clothes back.”

Ugh, people can be such absolute dickholes.

That’s it for now! Join us next time when we’ll be listing the reasons I should be made absolute monarch of Japan. Until then, people who accidentally found my blog by searching for pictures of dead baby birds!

Argumentfern

If you liked this post, why not check out my novels? For more from Morkel, his blog can be located here.

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News from the desk I’m currently chained to

Hello! Now you may have noticed that I have been absent since October. This is because I’ve been very very busy. As such, I would like to correct the following rumours:

1. I was not ‘buried in an avalanche’ and it was not ‘just what he (I) deserved’. The snow in Berlin is not that deep, and at worst I deserve slipping on some ice and falling down a small flight of stairs.

2. I did not ‘get involved in organised crime and become a Mafia don’ nor did I ‘first fight my way through the ranks of a Chinese crime syndicate’. Like the rest of my life, my crimes are disorganised.

3. I did not ‘get extensive plastic surgery to look like Nick from the Jonas Brothers so I could dance for coins on Venice Beach’. I have never been to Los Angeles, and if I were to have plastic surgery it would be to look like Mystique from X-Men, so I could then shapeshift into whomever I wanted.

So rather than talk about the things I vehemently deny and probably didn’t happen, here is a list of things that did.

My novel ‘Forget Yourself’ was released by Lethe Press!

The new edition has an awesome new cover, and is available both in bookstores and the following places online:

Lethe Press

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Smashwords

Hive

And many other places! For more information, check out my novels page. Remember, strange science fiction always makes a great present for friends, neighbours, and confused strangers! In short: YAY.

My novel The Giddy Death of the Gays & the Strange Demise of Straights (a title my publisher describes as ‘untweetable’) has received positive reviews and is up for two awards

The reception for The Giddy Death has been wonderful, and I’m happy to announce it received good reviews from Lambda Literary, The American Library Association, My Gay Toronto, Out in Print, Kirkus, Illiteraty, GA Bixler, and writer Rebekka Steg.

It’s also up for the Lambda Literary Award (against the likes of Jeanette Winterson – eek!), and the Bisexual Book Award. Fingers (and any other possible appendages) crossed!

I’ll be giving a reading from The Giddy Death at Other Nature Berlin on February 8th!

If you’re in Berlin, please come along and give your enthusiastic (or at least, lukewarm) support. I will reward you with some free words and a hug. More information is available here.

A sequal to my short story ‘Liquid Loyalty’ was published in The Future Fire X – the ten year anniversary anthology of The Future Fire

The piece, which takes the form of poetry rather than prose, looks at the first story ten years after it ends. For info on the anthology and where to get a copy, visit the official site. For more information on this and ‘Liquid Loyalty’, take a look at my short stories page.

I’ve written the afterword for the upcoming Threesome: Him, Him, and Me anthology!

It’s titled ‘Greedy, Deviant, and Perverse: Living and Writing a Trio Relationship’ and I’m very pleased to have been asked to write it. Coming this March!

I’ve been working with both Guernica and PEN America as a reader!

I’m very happy to have been working with both these organisations, one for fiction, the other nonfiction. Not only have I had the opportunity to read some wonderful pieces of writing, but it also fulfills my secret desire to judge others (not really; sort of; not really).

I was interviewed on Berlin’s radio station Alex, for the Schlampenreport.

It was my first time doing a radio interview, and I managed not to make a complete fool of myself. Many thanks to hosts Daniel Aldridge and Ian Hansen.

I was invited as a guest speaker for UCL Debating Society’s debate ‘This House Regrets Monogamy’

It was an honour to be invited, and I had a lot of fun–not least because I wound up arguing for the audience to abstain on the vote rather than trying to get them to vote in proposition like I was supposed to. And abstain won! It was a great sign for all those who believe people should be free to live and love as they want, be it via monogamy or polyamory.

I spoke at the University of Lisbon’s ‘Nonmonogamies and Contemporary Intimacies’ conference

I gave a paper on polyamory in science fiction, looking at Robert Heinlein and Marge Piercy’s work. The conference was a fantastic mixture of academics, activists, and artists, and it was a great opportunity to hear on polyamory and other forms of alternate love from around Europe and the wider world.

I’m on the review committee for UC Berkeley’s International Conference on the Future of Monogamy and Nonmonogamy

Something else it’s an honour to be involved with, and I’m pleased to be able to help raise the profile of alternative relationships.

I have another upcoming review for Strange Horizons

Reviewing Dave Huthinson’s Europe At Midnight. Check out my Facebook fan page for info on when that’s out. In the meantime, I wrote a short piece for Strange Horizons’ 2015 Year in Review:

“I have to talk about Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time (1976). The latter half of the twentieth century may have seen utopian fiction take a backseat to its neon-fronted cyberpunk cousins, but Piercy’s work stands out in providing a vision of a world free of prejudice, inequality, and environmental destruction. Tying in themes of racial oppression, abuse of women, poverty, and even ageism, Woman on the Edge of Time provides an intersectional feminist reading of society’s ills decades before those words fell from the mouths of a million Millennials.”

Read the rest here.

I wrote this blog update

Which is less exciting than all the others, perhaps, but it pleases me. With that I shall leave you with a picture of me next to slightly younger me, that my face may haunt your dreams and provide comfort until the next post.

With that I bid you farewell. I promise that there will be a new, worrying comedy update soon.

Till then!

Workfern

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The 62 Most Popular Baby Names for 2030

Now I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t understand babies. They’re loud, they’re smelly, and they’re sub-par at handling the most basic of firearms.

USELESS.

In fact, I’m pretty sure the only reason people have babies is so they get to name something, a name that something will have to live with for the rest of its life. Though many countries restrict the ability of parents to name their baby ‘Colonel Barabbas 9/11’, thankfully lands which speak the language of Queen Shakespeare generally allow you to fuck with your child’s future as much as you want.

Now, you may remember that  Also, I hope that someday there will be a law forcing every baby to be named ‘Redfern’ (it’s important to have ambitions). But we don’t think much about the history of baby names, and what they can tell us about society. For example, 1900s Protestantism gave us delights such as ‘Temperance’, ‘Chastity’, and ‘SayNoToSuffrage’, whereas 1930s Germany gave us ‘CENSORED’, ‘VERY CENSORED’, and who could forget the classic ‘CENSORED BY UN RESOLUTION’.

But what about the future? Well, thanks to my time machine (glue, a carrier bag, and a Cher album played backwards and at half the normal speed) I have determined the most popular baby names of 2030, that we may learn what the future has in store. “Enjoy”.

The 62 Most Popular Baby Names for 2030

62. Brian

61. Barbie

60. Cissabelle

59. Kim Jong Un

58. Susan

57. Princess

56. Zippora

55. Erik

54. Burning

53. Radiation

52. Poisonsoil

51. Steve

50. Help

49. Ted

48. Tedx

47. Sherlock

46.Tim

45. Rocky

44. XXX

43. Militia

42. Princessabelle

41. Borg

40. Celebrity

39. Sonic

38. Peter

37. Water

36. Weneedwater

35. Thirst

34. Scorch

33. Winnie

32. Temperence

31. Diamond

30. Pyongyang

29. Wiseau

28. Harry

27. King Bieber

26. Cholera

25. Mirage

24. Gaga

23. Apple(TM)

22. Richard

21. Donaldtrump

20. Prinbarbiebelle

19. Cocaine

18. Stripteasia

17. King Jong Il

 

16. Smog

15. Facemask

14. Asthma

13. Choke

12. Stuart

11. Pleasehelp

10. Cain

9. Georgia

8. Juche

7. Kim Il-Sung

6. Surrender

5. Annexed

4. Occupation

3. Supremeleader

2. Worldcult

1. Redfern

So there we have it! Join us next month when I’ll breaking into birth records offices and writing my own name on all the certificates!

Until then, baby-namers!

Redfernfern

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