Pride Month: Coming Out Again

P-Town Pride Lazer InstallationIt's Pride Month and I started it out by celebrating at P-Town's first ever Pride. What an awesome weekend we had up on the cape. Truly wonderful to see so many out and proud people. Then I return as SCOTUS brings down a ruling on the infamous bakery who wouldn't bake a cake for a same sex couple. That prideful feeling turned into one of sorrow. (Yes, many people have pointed out LGBT people STILL have their rights, but I'm fearful of this slippery slope and worry daily of discrimination and bigotry becoming the norm in America.)
All of this has been on my mind since working on my latest project,  Hiding in Daylight . More thoughts about pride, fighting for our rights, making sure we stay on top of injustice...and not being frightened in the process.

I was frightened several years ago. Right as my autism awareness children's book was taking off, I attended the LGBT Book Fair in NYC. There I met a publisher who had interest in a manuscript I had been shopping to other publishers...and this one didn't want me to rewrite the ending as others had requested! I was so proud of that book when he published it. However, I made the decision to publish under a pen name because my new career as "children's book author traveling to schools" was taking off. The book went on to win the 2012 New England Book Festival for Best Gay Fiction, a second place winner in the 2012 Rainbow Awards for Mystery/Thriller, and was chosen among the best in LGBTQ Lit for 2012 by the Indie Reviewer. Those were incredible moments for any author...yet it KILLED me that all of that was under a pen name and I couldn't share any of those wonderful accolades with anyone.
I continued writing under that name and had two more books published: all of which are LGBT books. 
I'm not hiding any more. 
Google Drake Braxton - he did pretty darn well for a few years. Though I haven't written anything as him since 2013, it's bothered me that I could never take credit for those three books - the award-winning Missing was (I think) the best thing I've ever written. All from a dream of losing my incredible husband and it twisted and turned into this VERY twisty book. 
So, I'm coming clean this Pride Month. Out of the closet one more time. No more hiding. It goes against everything I discuss now as I talk about equality and standing up for ourselves. If a school decides to not hire me as a speaker due to my writings for my own community - there is nothing I can do about intolerance. I'm proud of what I've written as Drake. (Two are no longer in print as that publisher closed down, but Dreamspinner Press still has  Destiny on the Tracks  based on a time travel musical I wrote back in the 90s.) 
I apologize to friends and reviewers that I duped. I appreciate those few who held my secret. I read countless comments of people trying hard to figure out who Drake Braxton was and the reviews/comments on Goodreads over that first book were polarizing. (He had a vocal social media presence for a while, but it wore me out trying to keep the split personality going. I even interviewed myself at one point. CRAZY to just keep my secret and divide my two worlds as a writer.) 
From here on out, I write as myself and who knows...maybe there is more Drake inside of me that has stories to share. I happen to believe he's had a little to do with Hiding in Daylight. 
For now, I no longer have to be stumped when people ask me how many books I have published. I constantly have to subtract out Drake's. It's 4 novels, 3 shorts, and 3 children's books. I'm damn proud of them all...and proud to be a part of the LGBT community.