The Authors Speak Interview Is Up!!

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Bizarro author Eric Mays’ interview with me went up on The Authors Speak website!!   This was a great opportunity to get the word out about my projects and toss back and forth our perspectives on the publishing industry, the state of LGBT fiction, retold fairy tales and dreams of turning books into musicals.

What does “bizarro author” mean you might ask?  Well, bizarro fiction has emerged as a specialized genre described delightfully by its proponents as “the genre of the weird,” created by a group of small press publishers in response to the demand for good weird fiction, and “Franz Kafka meets John Waters.”  Having read Eric Mays’ “Naked Metamorphosis,” I’d call it urban fantasy meets “The Evil Dead” series.  I haven’t read much bizarro, but the titles are pretty damn brilliant– Cameron Pierce’s “The Ass Goblins of Auschwitz” for example.

So I’ve been basking in a little sun-shower of publicity and trying to get back to work on revising my latest manuscript.  Wish I could say it was cruising along but between work and social obligations plus a bit of a mental gnarl, it’s barely inching along.

Next week, my blog goes dark while my partner and I entertain house guests.  In July, hard core writing starts anew, I promise.

Gay Pride and Political Awakenings

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June 2010.  LGBT Pride events are happening across the country to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall Riots.  Some nifty trivia: in Germany and Switzerland,  the Pride celebration is called Christopher Street Day (CSD) because the riots,  considered the spark that ignited a Gay rights movement in the US and around the world, happened on Christopher Street in New York City.  Another reason why NYC really is the center of the universe.

Gay Pride rankles some people.  And not just non-gays but gay folks too.  You hear the angry questions:  Why do gays need a parade?  Why isn’t there a Straight Pride march?  Why does Gay Pride have to be so in your face with drag queens, dykes on bikes and leather daddies?

My thoughtful answer is:  Gay Pride is about community celebration and empowerment.

My less thoughtful but more gratifying answer is:  Sorry but you just don’t get it.

I saw my first Gay Pride parade when I was five years old.  My family went to Provincetown every summer for vacation , and it’s a great oddity of my childhood that years before I would come to terms with my sexuality, I was immersed in the gayest community in the Northeast.

I remember the parade seemed to just up and happen all around us—men in wigs and impossibly high heels, shirtless guys holding hands, floats filled with people wearing so much make-up I thought they were clowns.  I wasn’t scared, more curious than anything, and I certainly had no idea what it was all about.  But my parents quickly ushered me and my brother down a side street and away from the commotion.

We stopped going to P-Town a few years later when my mom heard about a deadly disease infecting gay men and worried that it was contagious.  Our family vacation moved to “safer,”  more “family friendly” places like Nantucket and Kennebunkport, Maine.

I wouldn’t see another pride parade until I was twenty-two years old.

But my social-political consciousness started growing before that and continues to grow today.  The seeds were planted early, and I credit my mom.  Notwithstanding her past squeamishness about gay people (she’s become a quiet but adamant supporter of gay rights since then), she instilled in me strong values, wrapped up in something she told me at a young age:  “Your only obligation in life is to help make the world a better place.”

I took her words to heart.  In grade school, I used part of my allowance to make contributions to the National Wildlife Federation.  In junior high, I passionately debated gun control against my NRA-influenced peers.  For my high school newspaper, I wrote op-eds against censorship in music and anti-youth discrimination by local merchants.   And while lacking the ability to accept myself personally, I always stood up for gay rights.

My first real foray into political activism happened when Operation Rescue, Randall Terry’s pro-life extremist group, came to Buffalo to picket abortion clinics.  A bunch of us, all guys, decided to participate in an early morning counter protest.  Admittedly, it was an impulsive decision—we’d been up all night drinking beer (we were college students).   We held up signs, chanted and stared down the faux-fetus-wielding bible-thumpers.

In the dim light of wintry upstate New York, that was my moment of recognizing political power.  It was some parts internal and some parts external.  I felt with certainty that what I was doing was important and right.  I was surrounded by people who also believed as I did, and they believed, we believed together that we could make a difference.  I sought out that experience again and again at college demonstrations for divestment from South Africa, Earth Day rallies, anti-war protests (the first Persian gulf war:  NO BLOOD FOR OIL) and many, many gay rights causes.  And in recognizing my political power, I began to recognize myself.

Nowadays, I go to Gay Pride events to support the organizations, hold hands proudly with my partner, and feel the rush of thousands of us taking over the streets.

Somewhere at every parade there’s someone, young or old, taking part for the first time.  Somewhere,  someone is awakening to his or her political power.

Happy Pride!!

Alex Sanchez interview on La Bloga

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My interview with Young Adult author Alex Sanchez went up on La Bloga today.  Alex’s fresh, matter-of-fact portrayals of American gay teenagers have taken YA LGBT lit into the mainstream and garnered a good heaping of critical praise.  He was also a wonderful guy to interview.  You can check out the article here.

Angel Fiction Wars: Anne Rice vs. Danielle Trussoni

Some months back, I read Anne Rice’s Angel Time and posted my impressions here.  I just finished Danielle Trussoni’s Angelology, so it’s time to throw the literary gauntlet down.

A quick synopsis of Trussoni’s book:  The story is about Evangeline, a young nun/librarian, who is pulled into the secret world of Angelology by a seemingly routine request.  A scholar Verlaine, hired by a mysterious, ailing man, wants information about a correspondence between her convent’s founding abbess and the philanthropist Abigail Rockefeller.   Quickly, Evangeline’s quiet and secluded world unravels.  The two women’s archived letters point to a conspiracy to protect Evangeline from a brood of fallen angels (the Nephilim) and a hidden society of angel “scientists” determined to release mankind from Nephilim oppression.

While Rice and Trussoni take inspiration from Catholic angel lore, the contrasts between their books could hardly be greater.  Rice’s angels are beneficent otherworldly souls; Trussoni’s are re-imagined creatures, some led astray by their lust for mortal women (The Watchers), and their hybrid offspring (the Nephilim) are as status-hungry as the 18th century French aristocracy.

Rice treads the themes of lost love and redemption.  Trussoni’s story is essentially a young woman’s coming of age against a backdrop battle of good versus evil.  Stylistically, Rice writes lush prose infused with startling emotion.  Trussoni is a story-weaver who threads biblical, art history and ancient mythological intrigue at a pace that draws comparisons to Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code.

Another contrast is the two books’ reception in the market.  Angelology wins out big in terms of press reviews.  Angel Time received measured praise but actually edges out Angelology according to readers (at least based on Amazon reviews).

Rice delivers an elegant, tragic tale that starts out slow but draws you in with a great sense of character and place.  Trussoni gives you an awesome page turner that stumbles a bit in the middle, picks up steam again, and then the ending, ugh the ending (no spoilers here, but you can check out what readers have to say at Amazon).  Trussoni sets the bar high with an amazingly researched, complex premise so I give her points for that.

When the people speak (per Amazon), Angelology gets 3 stars and Angel Time gets 3 and 1/2.  I think that’s about right, and I’m the first one to be surprised by recommending an atmospheric, slow-burner over a gripping, layered mystery.  But they’re both good reads, and I’ll entertain all protests on Angelology’s behalf.

On the Gay-o-Meter, it’s no contest; Angel Time wins hands down.  Angelology’s Verlaine is a self-proclaimed Metrosexual, and if you squint real hard you could possibly imagine him as a sexy guy.  But Angel Time has dark, brooding hitman Toby O’Dare who plays the lute, and the portrayal is totally believable.  I’m afraid you just can’t beat that.

On Riding Trains

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About a year ago, my lifestyle changed dramatically when my beloved VW Golf was totaled in a multi-car collision.  Thankfully, I wasn’t in the car at the time.  It was parked peacefully, legitimately, minding its own business street side when the accident occurred, and it served as an airbag for one of the cars spinning out of control.  A total loss.  But since the car was nine years old, with 140,000 miles on it, my insurance pay out was just a few thousand dollars.  Not enough to replace it.  So after I maxxed out the days that my insurance pays for a rental, I became a train commuter.

There are a lot of advantages to taking the train versus driving to work in the NYC metro area.  It’s a far healthier lifestyle.  I get more exercise since I have to walk further to the station than I walked back and forth to my car.  There’s a lot less stress letting someone else do the work of getting there while meanwhile I can read, write, or send cutesy text messages to other people.  I’ve almost missed my stop on several occasions because I get so immeresed in these activities, and the time goes amazingly quick compared to sitting on a parkway, staring at an endless carpet of cars stretching into the distance, searching with a fool’s hope for a sign of movement.

I also see a lot more people by traveling on the train, and as a writer, that makes for occasional inspiration.  I get to eavesdrop on one-sided cellphone conversations all the time.  Strangely, they’re almost always some kind of fight between girlfriend and boyfriend, daughter and controlling mother, or divorced husband negotiating child visitation with wife.  Or maybe people just sound angrier on their cell phones.

The morning trip is blissful.  I do a reverse commute so everyone gets a two-person or three-person seat to themselves, often with lots of empty seats in front and behind them, and everyone is sleeping, looking as cozy as though they were tucked in their beds.  It’s quiet as a library and I can read and write with full concentration.

Then there’s the occasional cute conductor to pique my interest and random people carting tons of luggage, looking horribly aggravated as they lumber to disembark at Jamaica station, onward to the shuttle at JFK (this has gotta be one of the greatest miseries in life).

And I now have the self-righteous claim that I’m reducing my carbon footprint by commuting.  I do care about the environment, but the truth is I’m just too cheap to buy another car.