2016 In Words
The general consensus of 2016 was that it was a giant garbage fire of a year. Fortunately for me I’m a pessimist, an existentialist and a writer, so the general meaninglessness of existence and the absurd horror of our world make this just another year for me.
This past year has actually been an incredibly successful one, personally and professionally, because I:
not only continued to survive on writing, but picked up a number of creative contracts and projects
published episode 4 and episode 5 of LongStory with the amazing team at Bloom Digital
contributed to my first tabletop RPG project
celebrated a forth year of writing History Boys with my colleague and partner in crime, Jeremy Willard
finished a second major draft of my steampunk murder mystery adventure novel, and have begun to cautiously cast about for literary agents
am looking forward to contributing short stories to a few of anthologies in the coming year
I don’t often take time to celebrate my accomplishments so, from Chinese lesbianism to dystopian superheroes to queer black gunslingers in the Old West, I put together a year end roundup of some of my own favourite pieces of writing from 2016, some more read than others, but all beloved as if they were my weird little children. I stuck to one per month, but cheated in a couple of places–October, for some reason, was an incredible month for me!
If you’re reading this, thanks for your support and your eyeballs! MAKE 2017 WEIRD!
January
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Original illustration by Stephen McDermott
Lesbian love in historic China
PUBLICATION| DailyXtra
PUBLISHED| January 5, 2016
During the Han period — at the mid-second century of the common era — historian Ying Shao observed one practice among women in the emperor’s household: “When palace women attach themselves as husband and wife it is called dui shi. They are intensely jealous of each other.” It may be conjecture, but one translation I found on a Mandarin Chinese dictionary translates dui shi as “to look face to face” — an observation of the kind of sex they had, perhaps?
February
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Original illustration by Stephen McDermott
Sodomites, crime and punishment
PUBLICATION| DailyXtra
PUBLISHED| February 2, 2016
Copley notes that two men, Patrick Kelly and Samuel Moore, have the unfortunate honour of likely being the first men convicted of homosexual sex between two consenting adults in Canada. Their names appeared in The Western Herald on June 16, 1842, explaining that the two were convicted of sodomy, “to be executed on the 15th day of July next.”
March
#GDC16 Greatly Approved of the Romance & Sexuality Roundtable
PUBLICATION| FemHype
PUBLISHED| March 26, 2016
Alongside “how to represent desire + not be cheap” and “body diversity,” McDonald posts “CULLEN’S BUTT” and “MORRIGAN’S BEWBS.” “IRON BULL’S DONGLE” also gets discussed and added to the wall eventually.
April
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Original illustration by Stephen McDermott
Beautiful, buff Mamluk warriors
PUBLICATION| DailyXtra
PUBLISHED| April 5, 2016
In an Islamic world given strongly to homosexual predilections, Mamluks were revered as much for their aesthetic and erotic potential as their military prowess. Historian Everett K Rowson outlines the multitude of ways the foreign slaves were coveted for their beauty. Rowson shares a couple of poems from the (male) Arabic upper class:
Look there and you will see one with an innocent gaze,
Ruby-lipped, hazing with an eye adorned by kohl,
A son of the Turks, whose languid glances are arrows
Shot from his eyelashes at every noble man.
May
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Original illustration by Stephen McDermott
Art and porn in Edo period Japan
PUBLICATION| DailyXtra
PUBLISHED| May 3, 2016
“I think this art versus pornography is a really Western binary,” says Ikeda, an assistant professor of art history at Fordham University. “The reason why I think it’s part of this Edo visual culture is that many major artists did produce erotic prints. It was really part of that culture and, aesthetically speaking, they’re very well done. It’s not just pornography for disposable purposes, but also very beautiful, and also very expensive. I think we can call it art as well.”
June
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Photo by Bella from the Torontoist Flickr Pool
Toronto Police Apology for Bathhouse Raids is Too Little, Too Late
PUBLICATION| Torontoist
PUBLISHED| June 22, 2016
Keep in mind that it was only 25 years ago that the TPS declared the gay and lesbian community as one entitled to protection and policing in a lead up to the 1991 Pride Parade. This didn’t stop police from seizing lesbian porn zine Bad Attitude from Glad Day Bookshop in 1992 and regularly sending plainclothes officers on the hunt for obscene material. The morality squad also raided Remington’s strip bar in 1996, ensnaring 19 people including dancers, patrons and staff. Glenn Wheeler in NOW magazine wrote: “The charges laid at Remington’s included some prostitution-related ‘bawdy house offences.’ (Dancers held sessions with patrons in private cubicles, allegedly for monetary considerations.) There were also charges related to performing ‘an indecent theatrical act’—to wit, jerking off onstage to the delight of hundreds of patrons, except for the complainant who called the cops.”
July
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Original illustration by Stephen McDermott
PUBLICATION| DailyXtra
PUBLISHED| July 5, 2016
Recruits in training were also exposed to death and were included in prisoner executions. A French naval officer recalls watching an inexperienced teenage Mino lop off a prisoner’s head in three swings, remove the blood from her weapon and swallow it. When warriors walked the streets, slave girls followed them ringing bells, warning people of their approach. People avoided looking on them as they were considered death incarnate.
August
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Original illustration by Stephen McDermott
How one homosexual couple helped shape Athenian democracy
PUBLICATION| DailyXtra
PUBLISHED| August 2, 2016
The trouble began when Hipparchus became enamoured with a young man named Harmodius, described by Thucydides in The History of the Peloponnesian War as “then in the flower of youthful beauty.” Hipparchus tried to seduce Harmodius but was rejected, as the youth was already in a relationship with Aristogiton, a middle-aged citizen of Athens.
Harmodius told his lover of Hipparchus’ desire, and the older man feared that the powerful tyrant might take his beloved by force. Thucydides says that Aristogiton “immediately formed a design, such as his condition in life permitted, for overthrowing the tyranny.”
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Photo by Keiran Meyn
Uncivil ceremony: Judy Virago gets hitched
PUBLICATION| DailyXtra
PUBLISHED| August 16, 2016
“I’ve asked all the girls to do a wedding-themed performance . . . it’s all going to be a surprise to me, so I can only imagine there’s going to be incredibly blasphemous and anti-matrimonial sentiments expressed,” she says. “Allysin [Chaynes] wants to be the best man, Dottie [Dangerfield]’s going to be the flower girl . . . Nancy [Bocock]’s absolutely the drunk uncle and Igby’s the mother of the bride.”
September
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Original illustration by Stephen McDermott
A dirty tale from Japan’s Book of Acolytes
PUBLICATION| DailyXtra
PUBLISHED| September 6, 2016
The Chigo no soshi notes that the priest yearned for his acolyte, but he had had so many sexual encounters throughout his life, that his penis “was like an arrow just brushing against the mountain.” It wouldn’t be a good Japanese story without some sweeping nature metaphors, after all. Time (and erectile dysfunction) make fools of us all.
October
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PUBLICATION| Third Eye Games
PUBLISHED| October 3, 2016
President Eleanor Klein let out a sigh of frustration, rubbing her temples, staring at yet another piece of anti-AMP legislation as she leaned over the desk in the Oval Office. Her desk, she supposed, though it certainly didn’t feel like it.
It had been barely a month ago that her boss, the late, great, often irate Harry Lewis had been killed right where she sat. By the former President. Who was an AMP? Or with the help of an AMP? The whole situation made her head spin and no security expert available could give definite answers.
Klein had signed onto Lewis’ campaign as a much needed moderate voice. Her name on the ticket was the only way the party could put Lewis forward as a serious candidate, since even bigoted lunatics sometimes needed to be convinced they weren’t completely off the rails when they voted.
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Original illustration by Alexander Barattin
A gay werewolf tale from the 12th century
PUBLICATION| DailyXtra
PUBLISHED| October 4, 2016
The lais starts with a happily married Breton knight. He and his wife love each other, but she worries when he disappears into the woods for days at a time, returning “happy and gay.” What double life does he lead? Does he have another lover?
She prods and pries, and the nobleman fears how she’ll react if he tells her, before he finally relents. The nobleman explains that he is “bisclavret”— the writer compares this term to the Norman lore of the “garwolf,” a savage beast that, “eats men, wreaks havoc, does no good / Living and roaming in the deep wood.”
2016 Canada’s Walk of Fame Magazine
PUBLICATION| Canada’s Walk of Fame
PUBLISHED| October 6, 2016
Liberal House of Horrors: Enter If You Dare!
PUBLICATION| Medium
PUBLISHED| October 30, 2016
Standing outside the Liberal House of Horrors was a handsome, shirtless man with flowing chestnut curls in a pair of maple leaf boxing shorts. Amara couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was something unsettling about how perfect he was. He seemed to always be way too well lit… way too shiny… “Hi! My name’s Justin! I’ll be taking you on a tour of our Fun House!” Everything he said seemed to be followed by an enthusiastic exclamation mark.
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Issue cover art by cloven
PUBLICATION| Shousetsu Bang*Bang
PUBLISHED| October 31, 2016
He couldn’t have been much older than me, but he had this energy about him. The way his mop of dark hair flopped in his eyes, his scowl, the way he wore his hood up, the dark clothing, baggy and shapeless, like he’d sewn them himself, made him look like some rebellious teenager, like he was trying to hide inside himself, but then when you saw his eyes… a beautiful blue-silver. There was something so guarded and mature about them like I’d never seen in someone our age. Didn’t hurt that he wore his weird, baggy clothes effortlessly, like they were straight off the runway, and had that sort of ‘I’m hot but I don’t give a shit’ vibe about him. Also didn’t hurt that Yoxall greeted him by name and motioned for him to get ready behind a screen. To undress.
November
LongStory Episode 5: Make Up fanart comic
This is a special one, and begs some explanation. I was absolutely thrilled to have this fanart comic series passed along to me by the LongStory team. This incredible young artist drew a comic from Episode 5 of LongStory, and I can’t begin to describe how much it means to me to see my words paired with such gorgeous artwork.
ARTIST| Bofable
PUBLISHED| November 9, 2016
December
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Original art by beili
Obsidian Devil and the Dead Man’s Hand
PUBLICATION| Shousetsu Bang*Bang
PUBLISHED| December 12, 2016
Slick Sam stood to run but my trigger finger twitched and a kiss from the Iron Queen sent him stumbling backwards. A second bullet whizzed past his shoulder, shattering the window behind him, and I stood and walked over, kicking the man out to fall into the pile of glass just outside. He gulped in pain, twitched and then laid still. I holstered my iron and turned to face the women who looked on, silently.
“The rest of the men?” I asked Old Carol.
“Dead, or they wish they were.” She tossed me my herbalist pack, much lightened of its atropa belladonna.
I nodded. “And Slick Sam seems to have come down with a fatal case of lead poisoning.”
