Dylan Edwards’ TRANSPOSES

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Dylan Edwards' Transposes

Retrieved from Northwest Press

I recently received, and tore through, a review copy of cartoonist Dylan Edwards’ TRANSPOSES (Northwest Press, October 2012).

Having worked with LGBT teenagers at a youth center for many years, and being a writer and a fan of gender-bending characters, I found TRANSPOSES delightful and instructive.

The book comprises six illustrated stories of “queer-identified female-to-male transpeople” inspired by a series of interviews that Edwards undertook in his community. While he’s careful to point out in his Authors Note that the characters couldn’t possibly be representative of all queer-identified FTMs, I think it is extremely likely that readers, across the gender spectrum, will find something they relate to in this book.

With characters based on real life people, TRANSPOSES provides portrayals of ‘T’ individuals that are current and provocative. Issues like gender corrective hormones and surgeries play into some of the stories. But more often the characters are wrestling with, and learning about, and celebrating the experience of being themselves outside of social and medical preconceptions about gender and sexuality. As Henry, a bespectacled young FTM with an intellectual, OCD-leaning point of view, explains to readers in his chapter “The Museum of Natural Henry,”

“I do sometimes wish my body were more like a genetic man’s…but transition as a state of being rather than a temporary phase seems to be working for me.”

There’s amusing commentary on the perplexity of living in a binary gender-obsessed society. In the same chapter, Henry cleverly laments: “Frankly, I’d jettison all pronouns and gendered language if I could. But, as with pants, it tends to upset people if you leave the house not wearing any.”

Edwards establishes a wry tone from the start in his illustrated Introduction. Imagining himself addressing an auditorium, Edwards talks about the “cauldron of monkeys” awaiting trans-identity disclosures to family and friends. That cauldron gets opened pictorially, and the angry, mischievous monkeys fill the auditorium, demanding answers to such questions as:

“You used to be so pretty. Why did you have to ruin that?”

“How do you have sex?”

“You make me uncomfortable. Don’t you realize you owe me a justification for your existence?”

The stories frankly address such topics as coming out in a lesbian relationship (“Adam”), male role models and gay identities (“Avery”), as well as STIs (“Blake”) and recovery from childhood sexual abuse (“Aaron & James”). As such, I think TRANSPOSES is a trusty guidebook for young adults navigating the discovery of gender and sexual identity, and really for older adults too.

Edwards talks about aiming to create the kind of book he would have wanted when he was younger. I think in this regard, the author emphatically succeeds.

Hurricane Sandy Comes and Goes

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Thanks to everyone for their concern during Hurricane Sandy.

My honey-bunny and I (and Chloë) are just fine. We are extremely lucky to live on high ground in Queens.

We spent a nervous evening with wind gusts shrieking around us from all four corners of our eighth floor apartment. But we didn’t lose power, and we were safe and cozy, snacking on our Halloween candy and watching RuPaul’s Drag Race, as well as Golden Girls re-runs.

How and when I will return to work is a big question mark, with the status of subways and trains uncertain. But that’s a really minor inconvenience considering the damage in other areas of the city.

My best wishes to my fellow New Yorkers during the recovery.

View of Kew Gardens, October 30, 2012. Gloomy but pretty much unscathed.

On Cat Mysticism

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While doing research for my feline shapeshifter series WERECAT (forthcoming in March 2013 by Vagabondage Press), I came across some interesting stuff.

Cat mysticism is about as old as recorded history, or older if you consider pre-historic cave drawings.

Paleolithic cave drawing depicting a lion attacking what appears to be a wildebeast

We tend to associate cats with ancient Egypt. Bastet was a feline goddess, depicted with the head of a cat, and regarded as the protector of the pharaoh. In later dynasties, Sekhmet gained prominence as a lioness war goddess. Pet domesticated cats have been found mummified along with their wealthy owners in Egyptian tombs.

Bastet, ancient Egyptian goddess

But cats were also important in many other ancient world religions. The Hindus worshipped a fertility goddess Shashti who was pictured riding a cat. In Central America, the jaguar was deified by the Olmecs and the Mayans, and associated with war and power. The tradition of their shamans dressing in cat pelts and skulls is perhaps the origin of the werecat legend.

Artist’s rather hunky depiction of an Aztec jaguar warrior

Many centuries later, the Aztecs were known for their “jaguar warriors” who were an elite military unit that wore the costume of the cat to inspire fear in their enemies.

I’ve always been fascinated by cats, and I think there is something godlike and mysterious about them. They’re uniquely capable of dominating their environment. They overpower smaller creatures, sometimes just because they can it seems.

Alternately, they are remarkably tender and protective of their young; well, female cats are at least. House cats also make a compelling case for having preternatural abilities if you’ve ever been alone with a cat in a room when it’s staring in a corner, or at the ceiling, apparently at nothing, with its tail swinging back and forth. Do they see dead people?

Then, there’s the fact that they spend about two-third of their lives asleep, leaving one to wonder: what’s going on in their heads when they’re sleeping. Or maybe they’re off in another world, astral-projecting somewhere.

Note: Factoids mentioned above were drawn mainly from an article by Sarah Hartwell, “The Role of Cats in Myth and Religion” , and a little from Wikipedia.

WERECAT Coming Out in Vagabondage Press

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My insanely happy news–that I’ve been holding in until it became official–is that my paranormal fantasy novella WERECAT has sold to Vagabondage Press. The anticipated release date is March 2013!!

Earlier in the year, I dropped some hints about the story as it was in progress. There are rounds of editing and proofreading to undergo, in addition to developing promotional materials. The few words I can say for now is that WERECAT is about a young man’s wild Spring Break in Montréal that launches a terrifying and erotic journey into the world of feline shapeshifters.

More to come as marketing rolls out. I am highly honored to have this project picked up by Vagabondage Press, which publishes high quality, unusual stories from underrepresented points of view. You can check out their offerings here.

 

James Vachowshi’s OUTSPOKEN

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If you like smart-alecky, underdog, anti-establishment teen characters as much as I do, you should check out James Vachowski’s OUTSPOKEN (Vagabondage Press, 2012). Following a successful e-pub run, OUTSPOKEN recently came out in print.

The story is a clever high school political drama that reminded me of Robert Cormier’s classic THE CHOCOLATE WAR, albeit significantly updated for our time.

High school senior Abraham Lincoln Jenkins is an overachieving Black student, born of the projects and a troubled, single mother. His life’s dream is to go to Harvard and escape the intellectual mediocrity of Charleston, South Carolina. With his preternatural academic record and drive, Abraham gets an early acceptance letter. The only problem is: he overlooked the fact that to graduate from high school, he needs two credits in phys ed. That problem gets worse when he’s assigned to a Junior ROTC class to fulfill the credits.

Abraham’s discontents with the world are far-ranging – racial-profiling, U.S. foreign policy, the lack of motivation within his own low-income community – and being forced to take part in a military organization is the perfect circumstance to set off his sarcastic and well-articulated ire.

The story is told, very funnily and effectively, through a series of hyper-eloquent letters from Abraham to various authorities, in pursuit of waiving his phys ed requirement, and later, grieving the many policies of Junior ROTC that are an assault his freedoms (and those of everyone else in the world, to Abraham’s view). The tone is perfectly adolescent, perfectly indignant and perfectly venomous. It took me back to my own teenage years when Injustice felt like the air surrounding me.

Woven through Abraham’s letters are contemporary issues like U.S. militarism, the corruption of public education by soft drink companies, and gay rights to name a few, but I wouldn’t call OUTSPOKEN a political novel necessarily. Abraham’s views on these matters are certainly left of center, but few on any point of the spectrum are spared from his literary indictment, including the United Negro College Fund, which he sees as patronizing.

Further, Abraham’s carefully-worded appeals to liberal causes such as the National Organization for Women come off with such self-interest and underhanded collusion, he exposes himself as just as much of a hypocrite as the right-winters he despises. It’s really a skewering of American politics in general, a la Tom Wolfe’s BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES or Christopher Bram’s GOSSIP.

Yet it was hard for me not to root for young Abraham, even after reading his ridiculously arrogant letter declining an offer of acceptance from Princeton.

“I would like to congratulate you on the prestigious honor of remaining one of my top-ranked safety schools…If I happen to hear of any other students within my failing public school whose SAT scores are anywhere near mine, rest assured that I will refer them to your institution.”

This is a teen character who is a lot of fun to follow.

For more about James Vachowski, check out his site.