Tag Archives: queer writers

A Night Celebrating Local Authors and LGBT Spaces

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Authors Panel at LGBT Queens Book Night

L to R: Nancy Agabian, Tim Fredrick, Shelley Ettinger, Andrew J. Peters and Rigoberto Gonzalez

Just in case you missed last week’s 2015 LGBT Queens Book Night, here’s a recap.

Sponsored by Newtown Literary Journal and Poets & Writers, the event brought together four local authors to discuss and read from their 2015 releases. The program was moderated by Nancy Agabian, and a nice Q&A took place at the end, ranging from questions about the status of LGBT characters in fantasy to the importance of LGBT-specific (or queer) literary events. More about that later.

As it happened, three of the four of us had participated in Lambda Literary Foundation’s Fellows program. Rigoberto Gonzalez was one of its first faculty. Shelley Ettinger was a fellow at its second annual program, and I was a fellow in 2011. We reminisced and tried to explain to the audience what the experience had meant to us. We each felt that it was one of those rare life-changing moments from which we emerged wiser and stronger. For me, it was an affirmation of my identity not only as a writer but as a queer writer. It gave me the push to get my work out in print.

Queens Pride House hosted the event, which was wonderfully appropriate for a program celebrating the work of local authors. Kew Gardens has been my home since 2001. My husband and I moved into an apartment together in the neighborhood right after our wedding, and we bought the place in 2009.

One thing that we Queens residents are proud of is the tremendous cultural diversity of our borough–the most diverse borough in New York City. Just walking around the block, you have exposure to cultures from around the world. Queens doesn’t have the glam of Manhattan or the hipster vibe of Brooklyn’s trendy neighborhoods. But it has a comfy, down-to-earth feel, and it’s truly a microcosm of the world.

Nancy asked each of us about our take on queer spaces for writers. I can’t say verbatim what my response was, but I know it was enthusiastic. There’s an age-old debate over whether creating queer spaces provides needed validation and support or keeps us segregated from the mainstream. I’ve heard non-queer people say that by closing ourselves off, we deprive them of our experience and point-of-view. That’s something I understand to an extent when I think about the parallel process in other minority communities.

But I don’t think it’s a sufficient argument against creating queer spaces, or spaces just for women or just for other minority groups. It’s based on a false dichotomy. We’re not either in our own community or in the broader community. We’re continuously in that broader community from the time we leave out for work in the morning to the time we come home.

I believe we need our own spaces. For many of us, our lives are full of social, family and professional circles where we exchange and interact with non-queer people, and naturally we grow and change through those experiences. But something special happens when we get together, just as us, unchallenged by real or potential non-queer disapproval. I don’t mean that it’s necessarily more valuable or profound than other spaces that we share with non-queer writers. But it’s a different way of nourishing our souls.

 

Birthday reflections

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I’ve never worked on my Birthday.  The idea is inherently repellent to me. Maybe I’ve been spoiled, growing up in a family that always took vacation during the last week of August.   But I’m breaking the tradition this year.  Truthfully, I did a little frontloading to get this post out on a Wednesday, which happens to be my 42nd birthday.

It makes me reflect on my writing career, which could be characterized (generously) as a slow-burner.  I got my first academic publication before I turned 30.  At that time, I set a goal to have three times that many, and maybe a book out before I turned 40.

Not to be. I managed to get a series of academic pubs, mostly in my early 30s.  Teetering toward the edge of thirtysomething, I got my first fiction break.  The late John Stahle gave me a chance by publishing my retold fairytale The Vain Prince.

I could qualify things by pointing out that I’ve worked a demanding full-time job for the past 17 years.   In fact, through most of my post grad life, I’ve taken part-time work on top of that.  But there’s two sides to the coin. I’d love to have lots more time to write, and I think I’d be more productive and faster if I didn’t need a full-time job to sustain myself.  But there’s also the wise adage: if you want a job done well, give it to someone busy.

I think about my writing in the same way that I think about my coming out at times.  What if I had started younger?  Think of all the amazing experiences I would have had…all the wasted years.  But regret doesn’t stick with me as much these days.  Things happen for a reason.  It’s not a religious sentiment (perish the thought), it’s more like being practical.

Every experience I had shaped my life as a writer, and as a queer man. I could only do what I did at the time with what I had at the time.  Besides, the Japanese just proved that time travel isn’t possible. No going back and switching majors in college or swaggering around campus as a self-empowered queer.

So, my goal for this decade is to write as much as I can, to build my readership, and to try not to take myself too seriously.  I find that last one gets easier with age.   I don’t mean not taking my writing seriously, or not setting ambitious goals.   Ambitious goals are good.   I mean being open to the knowledge that’s out there beyond my inner world.

Socrates put it this way:  the more I learn, the less I know.

The photo isn’t my Birthday cake.  It’s just a stock image I found and thought was funny.  Who wouldn’t want a Chuck Norris Birthday cake?

Queer Writers, Queer Community: The LLF Retreat

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I’ve been riding a wave of pride, community, and inspiration, since returning from Lambda Literary Foundation’s 2011 Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices.

There were forty-two of us Fellows in the program, and I’ll be adding blog links to some of the fabulous writers I connected with.

Many people have been asking me to describe the experience. On a nuts-and-bolts level, it’s easy.

I was in the Genre Fiction workshop (Genre Queer, we quickly named ourselves).   There were ten Fellows in that track.   The instructor was lesbian mystery and sci fi author Katherine V. Forrest.

For six days we participated in half day workshops that were part didactic, in terms of craft, and part critiquing each others’ work.   Then there were evening programs with panels, featured speakers (including trans historian and artist Susan Stryker), and readings by the Fellows.

All this was great, and gave me a fresh perspective on my writing, the publishing biz, etc.   What was less expected, and a bit harder to describe, was how the program impacted my identity as a queer writer.

A writer’s life can be a lonely.   For minority writers, it can feel even more alienating.   This I was aware of well before the retreat, but meeting queer writers from parts of the country where there’s even less queer visibility drove the point home deeper.

A debate among LGBT/queer authors comes up frequently.   Are you an LGBT author?   Or are you an author who “happens to be” LGBT?

We’re all searching for a readership, and I guess folks who respond better to the latter question resent being limited in their reach because of who they are.   Or, they may prefer to say, being queer is an infinitesimal part of who they are (thank you very much), and it has nothing to do with their writing.

Fine.

I’ve always felt solidly in the queer-identified author camp, and the LLF retreat reinforced that.   A different way of looking at the debate is: how does being an out and proud queer author expand your reach?   I think it does, since it tells readers what they can expect from you, not merely in terms of what kinds of stories you tell, but also your point-of-view.   You have to define your product in order to market it.   You have to know yourself in order to sell who you are to other people.   Yes, I believe writing is necessarily an extension of who you are, whether it’s intentionally autobiographical or not.

So, back to the retreat, I guess it was the experience of being surrounded by so many other queer writers, who love queer fiction.  We were all eating it up ravenously, no questions about “will this play to a non-queer audience?” or “will other readers get it?”   This was what changed me.   I want to celebrate queer lit.   I want to shout it from the bell towers.   I found the place where I belong, and it’s fucking great!

Queer lit can change the world.   It’s happening every day.

LLF’s Writers Retreat is Almost Here!!

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Had to sneak in a post about the upcoming Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices, sponsored by Lambda Literary Foundation.

I am astounded, thrilled and just a little bit frightened that it starts this Saturday—one week of intensive, immersion with queer writers, established authors and publishing gurus.

LLF created a web page for its 2011 Fellows, so you can see little ol’ me, in the genre fiction track, amidst a very impressive list of writers.