Andrew J. Peters's Blog, page 10

Visual inspiration for Poseidon & Cleito

I started keeping inspiration boards for my writing the old fashioned way: cutting out pictures from magazines and gluing them to a sheet of oak tag. That old fashioned method had some advantages. It was nice having something to put up in my office where I write, and it was fun taking the time to snip out images that I liked and to place them on the board. But the variety of pictures was limited, especially since my writing takes inspiration from ancient settings. It also could be time consuming, and I knew at some point I would run out of wall space.

So, about six months ago, I converted to Pinterest for my boards. It actually could be just as time consuming. There’s almost an infinite number and variety of images to search through, not that narrowing down that search isn’t easy, but once you get started, it can be hard to stop. Still, overall, it’s much more efficient for me and gives me tons of ancient world and fantasy material to choose from.

For my Poseidon and Cleito board, I was interested in having some images that were evocative of the characters as well as some that reflected costume, setting and mythology. I shared on my board that Maria Sharapova was a modern day inspiration for Cleito, both physically and in terms of her relentless, impassive persona. That may not be fair to Maria. She’s probably a sweetheart off of the tennis court and would never consider murdering her family for wealth and power.

It’s #PoseidonWeek at andrewjpeterswrites.com!

 

Portrait of Andrea Doria as Neptune by Angelo Bronzino. Retrieved from Wikipedia Commons.

It’s Poseidon Week here at andrewjpeterswrites.com! From Monday, August 29th to Thursday, September 1st, I’ll be posting stories, images, and interesting facts about the famous trident-wielder to celebrate the August 29th release of Poseidon and Cleito exclusively on Amazon. You’ll also find excerpts and some extras from the book. And I’m running a contest. Drop a comment, like, or share any post on my website, or my Facebook page, and you’ll be entered into a raffle for Poseidon swag provided by Zazzle. Winners will be chosen Thursday, September 1st 9:00PM EST.

So what is it you could win? Your very own Poseidon t-shirt, Poseidon mug, or Poseidon notebook. Winners will need to provide their e-mail address and mailing address for shipping.

For today’s post, I thought I’d share some of my thoughts about Poseidon and some lesser known stories about him. Poseidon was never my very favorite personage from Greek mythology. Growing up, I was more drawn to the heroic tales of Jason, Perseus, and Theseus. When I came out as gay, I found new favorites in the stories of Zeus and Ganymede, and Apollo and Hyacinth. But there was always something sympathetic for me about gloomy, aloof Poseidon.

He strikes me as a lonely guy, perhaps misunderstood, lashing out at mortals from some inner torment, whether borne from being overshadowed by his older brother Zeus or something else that was never elaborated on. Most of the Greek gods could be said to be moody and capricious in their sorting out of mortal matters, but it seemed particularly tough to get on

Poseidon’s good side. Being a natural skeptic, I’ve wondered if that was a fair portrayal.

“Artemision Zeus or Poseidon,” a famous 5th century BCE bronze statue at the Athens Museum of Archeology

An interesting thing about Greek mythology is that it changed throughout the eras, and most of what endured, what we recognize today, is from the classical era when Zeus and Athena were prominent and beloved. Some scholars believe that the worship of Poseidon was more widespread in earlier time periods and that his significance extended beyond an association with sea and storm. To people of an earlier age, he was probably a beneficent god of an earthly realm, worshiped for fertility and good harvests. Another matter is that the similarity in Poseidon and Zeus iconography makes it hard to determine which god was most popular among the Greeks, or whether they were both offshoots of a father god archetype.

Poseidon remained an important figure in religious practice and folklore throughout and beyond the classical period (and of course, many centuries forward via the Romans co-opting him as Neptune). But for the most part, he was portrayed as fearsome and villainous in the stories from the classical era. In Homer’s Odyssey, for example, Poseidon is an antagonist to the hero Odysseus, preventing the Trojan war hero from returning home to Ithaca in retribution for blinding his son Cyclops. Plato’s story about Poseidon’s kingdom Atlantis in his Critias and Timaeus dialogues has the patron god’s country destroyed by a morally and–one would have to argue–supernaturally superior Zeus.

“The Marriage of Poseidon and Amphitrite” by Italian painter Felice Giani (image retrieved from Wikipedia Commons)

Poseidon and Cleito is a retelling of that legend, including the perspective of the woman Plato named as Poseidon’s wife. A more well-known wife of Poseidon’s from folkore is Amphitrite, who was a Nereid (a daughter of the archaic sea god Nereus), and a sea-goddess herself. Of more notoriety, Poseidon was said to have seduced or even raped the beautiful maiden Medusa in his sister Athena’s temple, which angered Athena so much, she transformed Medusa’s hair to serpents. The Greeks had little charity for women in their myths.

A point of contrast with Zeus: while his older brother was the father of some of the most popular heroes from Greek mythology (Perseus, Heracles), Poseidon was the father of some of the most well-known monsters, such as Polyphemos, also known as the Cyclops, and Charybdis, the female whirlpool monster, of the famous Scylla and Charybdis, aka “the rock rock and a hard place.”

One last bit of trivia, Poseidon had male lovers too. One particularly interesting story is that of Nerites, who was the handsome brother of the beautiful Nereids (sea nymphs). Both Aphrodite and Poseidon fell in love with Nerites, and the young man refused the love goddess and chose Poseidon, who made him his charioteer.

Let me know what you think about Poseidon by dropping a comment below, and I’ll enter you in the raffle for Poseidon swag!

 

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Pick up Poseidon and Cleito for just $2.99 through this weekend

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Brought to you by the fabulously handsome Chris Hemsworth (or, I guess I should say his lovely public domain gif), this jaw-dropping announcement:

Just through Sunday, August 28th, you can buy my upcoming release Poseidon and Cleito at Amazon for the ridiculously low, pre-order price of $2.99!!

That’s like nothing. You probably spend more on your morning coffee. Next year, if you’re a New Yorker, you’ll probably spend more on a subway trip. It’s less than a 16 oz. package of Nutter Butter cookies at Walmart. Nutter butters make for a great snack while reading the story by the way.

So, how can Amazon afford to offer the book at such a low price, you might be asking? I have no idea. I’m not an economics major. I’m hardly versed in e-book marketing, and christ knows it feels like a chunk of my heart is being carved out with a scalpel when I think about the years it took me to write the book all costed out at the price of a medium-sized Tupperware container. But my guess is it has something to do with Amazon looking at the long-range gains if lots and lots of people buy the book and tell their friends, generating a tidal rush of buyers that will make them tons of money when the price goes up to $5.99 on August 29th.

What I see is a win/win situation. I mean, you probably don’t care about the fat cats at Amazon getting richer. So why not buy their product for three bucks less and really stick it to them?

Maybe that was a bit crass. Truly, the reason you should buy Poseidon and Cleito is it’s a great story about a man who becomes known as the god of storm and sea and his wife who the Greeks conveniently left out of his legend because, let’s face it, if you think male writers tend to be sexist today, that’s nothing compared to the way misogynists like Plato and Sophocles treated women back in the day. Do you like stories with strong female characters? Do you like revisiting legends from a totally different point-of-view? Do you have an e-reader and an extra $2.99 laying around the house? If you answered yes to any of those, Poseidon and Cleito is the book for you.

Now how about a little more Chris Hemsworth?

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In closing, buying Poseidon and Cleito for the crazy, early release price of $2.99 may just be the most important thing you do this year. I mean, I’m not saying there aren’t a lot of big things going on in the world, like presidential elections and global warming and economic uncertainty. But why not take a little break from all of that unpleasant stuff and immerse yourself in an amazing adventure story? You’ll be contributing to adult literacy. You’ll impress people with your reading cred when you can drop into conversation: “Yeah, I happen to be reading a really excellent book too.”

I guess what I’m saying is you can’t afford not to buy Poseidon and Cleito at this amazing, early release price. As the great Ted Cruz said at the Republican Convention: “Vote your conscience. E-books matter!” OK, maybe he didn’t say that last part. But do you care?

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Flamecon 2.0: I came. I flamed. I was entertained.

What a weekend! I had been feeling quite an emotional build-up over the past few months in anticipation of Flamecon 2.0. It came and went in a blink as did the Rio Olympics, which I had also heavily anticipated and watched with lots of emotions. Between the two happenings, I was drained, which is why this post-event note is coming out on a bit of a time delay.

Geeks OUT did a tremendous job with the con. Super well-organized, full of great programming, and staffed by amazingly friendly and helpful volunteers. Flamecon 2.0 was a big expansion on the inaugural event last year, and the organizers met that challenge, garnering crowds for two days and impressive media coverage. They already announced that because of the success, they will be putting on the con next year.

My one regret is that I didn’t take more photos. I had been hoping to tweet and Facebook throughout the weekend, but I got snagged by unreliable Wifi and cellular connectivity. I’m sharing the few photos I took along with some of the highlights for me.

Without a doubt, the best part of the con was meeting up with my fellow Genre Junkies to work our table. I was glad to be back with David Swatling, who I had joined up with last year. Christian Baines and Joel Weinberg were pretty new to me, and luckily they both turned out to be terrific guys. Joel even gave me a signed copy of his book True Religion, which I look forward to reading.

Here we are, the Genre Junkies, l to r: me, David Swatling, Christian Baines and J.L. Weinberg.

Of course, there were a ton of exhibits to check out, and I picked up an “Expecto Patrnonum” t-shirt, which was exactly what I’ve always wanted even though I didn’t know until the moment I saw it. That’s kind of what Flamecon is like in a nutshell. You realize just how right everything in the world can be. A dude walking around in a t-shirt emblazoned with a lizard waving a rainbow flag. A girl in pigtails wearing an R2D2 mini-dress. Boys with purses shaped like hamburgers, and a trio of con-ers weaving through the crowd strumming ukuleles.  For me, It was the little things that made the biggest impressions.

I had the chance to attend the panel: “Breaking the rules of teen lit” with authors Laurent Linn (Draw the Line), Bil Wright (Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy), Allison Cherry (Look Both Ways), and Michael Barakiva (One Man Guy). They are each impressive writes who have made it into the mainstream via big house publishers. One thing that stood out from their talk was Cherry’s discussion of the challenge of writing bi teen characters, what she called a “lose, lose, lose, lose” situation. Closely paraphrased, she talked about how:

A. If you write a bi girl character who ends up with a boy, you’re criticized for portraying bisexuality as a passing phase.

B. If you write a bi girl character who ends up with a girl, you’re criticized for portraying bisexuality as merely a passage to lesbianism.

C. If you write a bi girl character who ends up with neither, you’re criticized for suggesting that bisexual characters don’t deserve a happy ending.

D. If you write a bi girl character who ends up in a polyamorous, or open, or multi-gender relationship, you’re criticized for propagating the stereotype that bisexual people are greedy and promiscuous.

Such is the position of those of us writing characters who stand in as representatives of everyqueer. Happily, more YA books about bisexual and other queer characters are getting published each year, so hopefully, readers of LGBT YA can appreciate that a single story is just one perspective on being B or L or G (even slower to gain a variety of perspectives: the Ts, Qs, TS’s, Is and As).

Though I wonder sometimes: we’re an awfully passionate community. I expect that debate about “good” and “bad” portrayals will persist beyond my lifetime; and that’s not a terrible thing. As the panelists’ stated, we’re all entitled to speak our truths.

Here are the few photos I took while I took a break from the Genre Junkies table and wasn’t too distracted taking everything in.

Here’s Flamey, the con mascot, who greeted us at the door.

The main exhibit hall

 

Con’ers lining up for Saturday’s contest.

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Check out the latest dispatch from Hogwarts’ G.S.A.

Perry Moore, image retrieved from perrymoorestories.com

Over at Queer Sci Fi, the Hogwarts G.S.A. was inspired to write up a retrospective piece in tribute to author and activist Perry Moore.

Moore was an openly gay man in an industry where, if being gay was not exactly taboo, it certainly wasn’t talked about much. With his credentials, he could have quietly continued as a successful, big budget filmmaker, or separated his activist life from his professional life. But Moore’s twin passions of fantasy and LGBT social justice led him to be a crusader in the entertainment industry. He wasn’t the first person to speak out about homophobia in Hollywood and comics, but his platform made him an effective champion of the cause.

You can read the full article here.

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Flamecon 2.0: THIS weekend, August 20th-21st

The summer has flown by, and I’m surprised myself that it’s already time for Flamecon 2.0. I’ve actually been looking forward to it since last year’s event which was hugely successful and a lot of fun. The con’s second run has expanded to two days: Saturday, August 20th and Sunday, August 21st. The 21st has been designated as Youth Day. Anyone under 20 enters free.

Last year sold out, and this year is getting close. So if you’re not under 20, I might recommend purchasing passes in advance. Visit the Flamecon website for all the particulars on the location and the schedule of events. And of course, if you go, be sure to look for me at the Genre Junkies booth.

Genre Junkies are an amalgam of authors including Christian Baines, who writes young adult (Puppet Boy) and paranormal fantasy (The Beast Without, The Orchard of Flesh), David Swatling, who writes crime fiction (Calvin’s Head), J. L. Weinberg, who writes paranormal horror (True Religion), and myself. We’ll have autographed books and giveaways and hopefully something for anyone who likes gay genre fiction.

We’ll be at booth #128 (see the map below). I plan to tweet and post photos on Facebook throughout the weekend. Tweet me back (@ayjayp #flamecon2) and stop by the booth for some freebies.

 

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New title imagines Atlantis as real world prehistory

via GIPHY

So here’s a press pinata I’m bursting open today. My new title Poseidon and Cleito is on sale for a special pre-order price of $2.99 at Amazon, with delivery to your e-reader on August 29th. Thereafter, it’s on early release from Kindle Exclusive for $5.99 and available EVERYWHERE on December 5th.

My suggestion: use the three bucks you save to get a nice, grande iced coffee from Starbucks.

How about a look at the cover?

Nice, right?

Are you a book blogger, reviewer, or Goodreads user? Drop me a line, and I’ll send you an e-ARC to take a look at: ajpeters@andrewjpeterswrites.com. You can add the title to your Goodreads shelf here.

Here’s the publisher’s press release to tell you about the story:

Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy is pleased to announce the release of Andrew J. Peters’ fourth book Poseidon and Cleito, the story of how Poseidon became Poseidon and an intriguing portrait of the woman who Plato mentioned as his wife.
In the tradition of David Gemmell and Guy Gavriel Kay, Peters reimagines a well-known mythological character from a human perspective while illuminating a minor, female figure who was relegated to the margins by writers of the age.
Says Peters, “I consider Poseidon and Cleito my most ambitious book to date. Everyone knows Poseidon. It’s almost sacrosanct to break from the canon in portraying him. But I’ve always been curious about the origins of myths and the possibility that men became gods through the passing down of sagas that were embellished over the centuries. Similarly, I wanted to give a voice to a character who the Greeks didn’t tell us much about. Why didn’t Plato have more to say about Poseidon’s wife Cleito, other than putting her name in as a place-keeper in his very detailed account of the history of Atlantis?”
With rich description of its prehistorical setting, Poseidon and Cleito is parts speculative biography, a complex love story, and an action-adventure seasoned with a touch of fantasy. Peters plans to launch a series from this first book in his Atlantis saga.
“Poseidon and Cleito explores the Atlantis story from its early years,” Peters says. “It’s a kingdom that lasted for many centuries, and this first book provides some hints of what led to its demise and erasure from history. A mysterious magical element is introduced that will be developed more in future installments.”
The book is available through Kindle Exclusive through November, with worldwide retail release on December 5th.
Peters is best known for his portrayal of gay characters in mythic fantasy via The Seventh Pleiade, a 2014 Rainbow Awards Honorable Mention, and his 2015 title Banished Sons of Poseidon. Both took inspiration from the Atlantis legend.
Says Peters, “I guess I’ve become an Atlantologist like Lewis Spence and Edgar Cayce. I’m drawn to conspiracies.” On writing a book with heterosexual characters and relationships, he says he was undaunted. “In a way, Poseidon and Cleito is a prequel to my earlier work, and I handled the material with the same subversive approach, though not with the specific intention of ‘queering’ popular mythology. That didn’t feel right for this particular story. But there are gay supporting characters and bisexual supporting characters. I don’t think I’ll ever write a story in which queer characters don’t exist.”

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A YA panel on fantasy, multicultural perspectives, and information for teens

On the Queens Book Festival Young Adult Stage, from l to r: Daniel José Older, Carola Dibbell, Dominque Taylor, and me

Last Sunday’s panel: “Expanding the Landscape of Fantasy and YA Imagination,” was a really nice event. It was hot and shade was at a premium at Kaufman Astoria Studios outdoor space, but folks of all ages turned out for a lively discussion about challenges and opportunities in the realm of young adult fantasy.

The panel included Daniel José Older who writes stories from Latino perspectives (Shadowshaper, Bone Street Rumba), Carola Dibbell, whose début novel The Only Ones portrays teen motherhood and economic class in a near future, dystopian world, and me. We were moderated by vlogger Dominique Taylor, founder of The Storyscape, who had us talk about our works, read from them, and comment on how marginalized voices and cultures fit into fantasy worlds.

I spoke about the need for LGBT experiences to be reflected in YA fantasy, and some of the themes that emerged from our discussion were how personal experience and culture informs our work, the importance of sharing information with young readers, and the problem of withholding information on critical topics like sexuality.

The panel was videotaped for The Storyscape, and I’ll be sure to share it when it goes live.

Many thanks to Sherese Francis, Johanne Civil and all the volunteers at the Queens Book Festival who made the event happen. And thanks to Dominique for hosting a great discussion.

 

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25 Things You Don’t Know About Me: You Won’t Believe #5!

Borrowing from the popular tabloid feature, and more so from its parody made popular by my favorite political comedian Bill Maher, I offer you, my curious fan, or reader, or idle surfer who stumbled on my page while goofing off at work: 25 Things You Don’t Know About Me.

Likely, I could fill this page with 25,000 things you don’t know about me. Starting with who I am and why I have this website. I’ll let you browse through the menu if you’re curious about that. But here is my revealing, and let’s hope, shocking list.

25. I wrote under the ingenious pen name Peter Andrews from age 7 to 12, creating such multifarious works as the illustrated children’s book The Secret of Friendship, the mystery novel The Murders of Moosewood Mansion, and the stage musical Hey, Lucy McKay!

Mmm…I love JIf.

24. In times of stress, I eat Jif peanut butter out of the jar.

23. I worked as an assistant zookeeper, which largely entailed shoveling shit, hauling bales of alfalfa, and chain-smoking.

22. I later worked as a biochemistry lab technician, which coincidentally largely entailed a good amount of chain-smoking.

21. I play four musical instruments, poorly: the piano, the cello, the guitar, and the recorder.

Yeah, that’s me, 2nd from the left, in shades, tailgating at a Grateful Dead show.

20. I used to sell love beads outside of Grateful Dead shows.

19. I’ve never owned a car other than a Volkswagen.

18. I’m half Hungarian, but I don’t like paprikash, or water polo. I do like Hungarian water polo players.

 

Go Team Hungary! Photo courtesy of thehoopla.com.au

 

17. I saw my first gay pride parade at age five, by accident, when it erupted around my family while vacationing in Provincetown, Cape Cod. These things leave impressions.

16. I have honorary degrees from nowhere.

15. My date to the high school prom was the daughter of a Perkins Prize winning author.

14. Besides that brush with celebrity, I also lived next door to the house where Vladimir Nabokov wrote Lolita, and to entice sub-letters, I advertised it was the house where Vladimir Nabokov wrote Lolita.

Why do I keep getting Beanie Babies?!

13. Some of my character names I can barely pronounce myself (Aerander, the Seventh Pleiade, Calyiches). I also loathe having to say anesthetic.

12. While in practice as a social worker, it somehow caught on for clients to give me gifts of Beanie Babies, though I was secretly mildly annoyed and embarrassed.

11. While stuck in traffic, en route from the wedding reception to the hotel, both my husband and I pissed in the limousine’s ice bucket.

Me and Chloë, who doesn’t pay enough attention to me.

10. My past Halloween costumes include a Spanish toreador, a pirate, and the Unabomber.

9. I get angry at my cat when she doesn’t pay attention to me.

8. As a teenager, I had an inexplicable crush on Urkel from Family Matters.

7. If you ask to take me out to Cold Stone Creamery, I’ll go with you, even if I don’t like you.

6. When I worked at an animal hospital in high school, I used to sneak my friends in after hours to look at the dead pets in the ice locker.

Wasn’t he cute?

5. I cry sometimes when I listen to the soundtrack from The Phantom of the Opera.

4. Instead of playing cops and robbers, I used to convince my childhood friends to pretend we were waiters at a high end restaurant.

3. I like Madonna in the abstract more than I like her in reality.

2. I’m not entirely sure what #3 means.

1. I’m still waiting for the day when I can Google myself and appear to be more famous than Andrew Peters, the former NHL player, and Andrew Peters, the disgraced Boston mayor, or even Andrew Peters, the concert organist from St. Louis.

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Join me at the Queens Book Festival YA Stage!

If you’re in the New York City area this weekend, why not come out to the inaugural Queens Book Festival on Sunday, August 7th at Kaufman Astoria Studios?

It’s a totally free event that is being called: “the largest and most inclusive literary gathering in the ‘World’s Borough’ of Queens.” There will be talks and exhibits by over 100 authors, many, like myself with local ties. The festival will also have a focus on activities for children and teenagers, and I’m quite excited to be part of the Young Adult Stage.

At 12pm, I’ll be on a panel titled: “Expanding the Landscape of Fantasy and YA Imagination.” Here’s the description:

For a genre like Fantasy that includes fairies, witches, werewolves, aliens, and supernatural powers, the inclusion of the diverse worlds of humans is surprisingly lacking. How are the boundaries being pushed in YA Fantasy to be more inclusive and challenging? What is considered “inappropriate” works for young adults?

The other panelists include Carola Dibbell (The Only Ones) and Daniel Jose Older (Salsa Nocturna), and the panel is moderated by Dominique Taylor. I’ll also have signed copies of Banished Sons of Poseidon for purchase.

Sound like a good time? I hope so.