Tag: Macavity Awards

Shame

I have really come to love Bouchercon, and it’s always a highlight of my year.

Things have seriously changed for the better.

Queer Crime Writers after a dinner out in San Diego, with Marco’s lovely husband Mark Gutkowski

Bouchercon last week was a marvelous, marvelous experience. I had such an amazing time, saw some people I’ve not seen in quite some time (and quickly remembered why I love them so much), and stayed up way later every night than I should have–one of my many neuroses is FOMO, of course; I still regret not going to Dallas in 2019–but I laughed a lot, had some great panels, and made some new friends, too. I ate great meals, had some marvelous cocktails, and I really liked the hotel (once I figured out the shortcuts to the meeting spaces). It also made me think about my own history with the event, how things have changed for the better, and how I hope it keeps changing for the better. There were so few of us queer writers who used to go back in the day; now we have enough of us to have a happy hour where we get together and drink and chat about writing and the business and oh, how we all laugh. It’s wonderful.

When I first got started in this business, publishing was different. I had to explain this recently to someone I am hiring to do the ebook for Jackson Square Jazz for me; why I didn’t have a pdf file, because back then there were no ebooks and you got your page proofs in the mail, as well as your marked up manuscript for the editing process. So all I have on hand is the unedited version of the book I turned in. But what also was nice back then was there was a support system for queer writers that we no longer have–there were queer newspapers, queer magazines, and queer bookstores. We had a queer book of the month club–Insightoutbooks–and their influence in shaping and developing my career cannot be underestimated. After Hurricane Katrina and the six months spent touring for Mardi Gras Mambo, I kind of withdrew back into myself. I don’t remember much of 2006-2008, to be perfectly honest; I just know that I went back to work full time in 2008 and after adjusting my writing/editing schedule to that, it was around 2009 or 2010 that I resurfaced and started thinking about promotion and marketing again.

And what I found was that during those lost years (I call it the Hibernation) everything had changed. The queer newspapers and bookstores were mostly gone. ISO shut down. And I realized, with a sinking heart, that I was going to have to start going to mainstream conferences to promote myself. After working so hard in the mid to late 1990’s ensuring I could exist in almost entirely queer or queer-friendly places, I found myself having to essentially start over. Queer writers never mattered to the mainstream crime organizations and conferences, and I braced myself, knowing I was going to encounter homophobia yet again.

It didn’t take very long–although in retrospect, I’m actually surprised it took as long as it did.

I joined Mystery Writers of America, and later, Sisters in Crime. I also went to Bouchercon in Indianapolis and San Francisco. I didn’t know more than a handful of people and tended to glom onto the people I did know (sorry about that, guys; social interactions at events where I don’t know anyone ramps up my anxiety, so I glom onto the people I know). Indianapolis I wasn’t in the host hotel, I was across the street–and it was cold. It was the weekend of the Ohio State-Purdue game, I can remember that because my hotel was full of OSU fans, so I found myself mostly hanging out in my hotel room and reading, while braving the cold to go across the street for my panels and events. It was nice, and decided to go to San Francisco for it the next year. There I was in the host hotel and realized oh you really need to stay in the host hotel in the future, because it made everything easier. I was starstruck most of that weekend–I rode in the elevator with S. J. Rozan once and another time with Laurie R. King, which was incredible. I only had one panel, at 4 pm on Friday afternoon that no one came to, but I had a really good time—and even decided to put together a bid to host it in New Orleans (and that is a whole other story), before yet another person decided that it was time for a Bouchercon programmer to put the fag back in his place, letting me know that I and my books weren’t important enough (the exact wording was “surely you have to understand that someone who’s edited a couple of anthologies doesn’t really deserve to be on panels”–despite the fact that my tenth novel had just been released…and of course, the greatest irony of this was that I went on to edit three of their anthologies) to grace any panel, and that any panel I’d been given in the previous two years should be considered a gift.

Should be considered a gift.

A fucking GIFT.

(For the record, Paul is an event planner by trade. He is executive director of both the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival as well as Saints & Sinner, a queer litfest. Just to be certain I wasn’t overreacting and being a diva-bitch, I let him read the email. His response? “If one of my staff, interns or volunteers wrote an email like that to an attending author I would fire them on the spot.” And before anyone starts up with the “programming a Bouchercon is hard” I will remind you that Margery Flax and I wrote over one half of the program for Dallas in three fucking days and contacted everyone with their assignments and then reorganized and redid the program to accommodate schedules and wrong panel assignments for about two weeks before it was done–with the local chair constantly throwing things at us that made us start pulling threads and weaving it back together again….nothing like “oh, sorry, I forgot that I promised these people a panel for this” after you’ve redone it for the fourth time. That happened a lot. And the entire time, we were incredibly polite and friendly and did whatever we could to accommodate people; apologizing and fixing it repeatedly. NOT ONE PERSON RECEIVED A FUCKING EMAIL TELLING THEM TO CONSIDER ANY PANEL THEY GOT AS A GIFT.

But then, I’m not an unprofessional piece of shit whose pathetic ego sees programming as power to abuse, either.

I wasn’t saying (and was very respectful) oh I am such a big deal how could you not give me an assignment, all I asked was hey, I know how hard your job is, but I don’t understand how you get on a panel and what can I do differently in the future to get one? What am I doing wrong? I approached them with kindness and respect for the work they were doing and got bitch-slapped, demeaned, and insulted in response. No author who is paying their own way to a conference and essentially providing the event with free entertainment for its audience should ever be treated so contemptuously by event organizers, period. The fact that when I expressed these concerns to the national board all I got back was mealy-mouthed excuses and “we’re sorry you’re offended” told me everything I needed to know about the organization and its board; the way they were treating me about the New Orleans bid (I had planned on having Susan Larsen–former chair of the National Books Critic Circle, chair of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction twice, long time programmer for the TW Fest and a nationally respected book reviewer–help out along with Pat Brady, long time publications chair of the Historic New Orleans Collection, huge mystery fan, and also a long time programmer for TWFest only to be told their vast knowledge and experience wasn’t “good enough” and I needed to get the homophobic trash who told me I was nothing to program New Orleans–yeah, like that was ever going to happen) was also egregiously horrible, condescending, insulting, and unprofessional.

Needless to say I cancelled my trip to St. Louis and never considered attending Cleveland; I tend to not go where I am not welcome. I am not taking my hard-earned money from my “nothing career” and giving it to a homophobic organization, where I then get to beg for scraps and get treated like shit. I have better ways to spend my money, thank you. (And yes, I know who the programmers were and yes, I will carry that grudge to the grave.)

I withdrew my bid to host for New Orleans, and I washed my hands of the mainstream mystery community. Who needs it? They were never going to accept me or my work, they were never going to read my work, they didn’t give a shit about me, and it was pretty clear they never would. I was kind of at sea for a few years, there. There were no more queer newspapers, no more queer bookstores, no more gay Insightoutbooks.com book club, nothing. Outside of the TWFest and Saints & Sinners, I had no conference outlets to promote myself and my work. The mainstream mystery world clearly wanted no part of me, so what was I supposed to do? So, I just kept writing. I operated my social media pages as a promotional outlet for my work, and I kept writing this blog. I did finally return to Bouchercon when it went to Albany; friends convinced me to go, and one powerful friend requested me for a panel she assembled–and it came through. Having friends made a huge difference, really, and through my friends I met and made more friends, and Bouchercon slowly became a must-go event for me every year…eventually reaching the point where I never had to be concerned about getting on a panel, while at the same time no longer caring whether I did or not. It became more about seeing my friends and being around other writers than a work/promotional thing for me. Ironically, once I no longer cared or worried so much about being on things…I started getting put on more and more things, with bigger and increasingly more important co-panelists (I still can’t get over the fact that I was on a panel with ATTICA LOCKE in Minneapolis. I was too nervous to say anything to her; I spent that entire panel looking at my co-panelists and listening to them speak and wondering why the fuck I was on that panel).

And now, of course, we have a group: the Queer Crime Writers, and a core group of us have been showing up together at conferences ever since we bonded at Left Coast last year (and bonded even more with more of us at Bouchercon Minneapolis last year): John Copenhaver, Marco Carocari, Kelly J. Ford, and Robyn Gigl–who’ve all become very dear to me over the last year or so. Teresa Cain/Carsen Taite joined us in San Diego, and became my con-wife; what a great time we had!

And somehow, I am getting nominated for mainstream awards, an outcome I could have never predicted. I won the Anthony for Best Anthology for editing Blood on the Bayou, and was nominated for Best Short Story at the Dallas event for “Cold Beer No Flies” (I lost to S. A. Cosby, no disgrace there). Last year Bury Me in Shadows was nominated for Best Paperback Original (losing to Jess Lourey) and Best Children’s/Young Adult (losing to Alan Orloff); neither of those losses were devastating because Jess and Alan are also friends of mine, and I couldn’t have been happier for them both. This year I had three nominations in three categories for three different books–Best Anthology for Land of 10000 Thrills (losing to S. J. Rozan for MWA’s Crime Hits Home); Best Children’s/Young Adult (losing to Nancy Springer for the latest Enola Holmes, hello, no disgrace there); and Best Humorous for A Streetcar Named Murder (losing to Catriona McPherson for Scot in a Trap)–again, with the exception of Springer, I lost to very talented friends I like very much (I’ve not met Springer). That’s seven Anthony nominations in total, to go along with the Macavity, the Agatha, the Lefty, and the Shirley Jackson nominations. Not bad for a queer writer, wouldn’t you say? Ten mainstream award nominations? I certainly never would have dreamed all those years ago when I was told “any panel you get should be considered a gift” by Bouchercon programming.

That doesn’t mean the community is free from homophobia; it’s still there. I have mentioned before the mainstream cisgender male author who is clearly afraid to acknowledge my existence and always beats a hasty retreat whenever I walk up; I find his homophobia amusing. You’re not hurting me, bro, because I don’t want to know you, either. It doesn’t mean that I can’t be sitting in a booth in the hotel bar with a bunch of friends only to have a straight man look at me, smirk and say “faggy” in a sentence, as though daring me to call his ass out because he’s so much more important than I am; no worries, asshole, I don’t even have to repeat the story to anyone because since then you’ve shown all the big names you’re buddies with that you’re actually a piece of shit, and yes, I’ve watched it all with the same fucking smirk you had on your face when you thought you’d pull out your micro-penis and slap it down on the booth table in Toronto, and when I hear stories about you, I am delighted to pull out “Well, I’ve known he was trash since he said faggy in front of me, looking me in the face and smirking as he said it”.

Assholes will always out themselves, at least in my experience–and I’m very patient. I store the receipts and pull them out to corroborate horrific behavior when the timing is right.

I’ll save the racism, sexual harassment, and homophobia I faced in Albuquerque at Left Coast for another time.

I’m very pleased with the progress that has been made in our community over the last five or six years–I mean, the Rainbow Diversity panel about queer crime writing in Toronto was packed, when such panels in the past only drew maybe four or five audience members. Codes of conduct have been implemented to protect attendees from sexual harassment and pervy conduct, as well as racism and homophobia.

Progress is often slow, and it is easy to get impatient. I don’t know if my involvement with Bouchercon has made things better for queer writers there, but I do know the award nominations show other queer writers that such things are possible for them. Nothing says you’re welcome here than seeing members of your community nominated for the awards. The more of us that attend also means that more of us will get nominated, be on panels, and be able to talk about our work to readers who might open their minds and read our books. Being visible at these events is crucial and important.

And like water wearing down a stone, we have to keep relentlessly pushing.

(John, Marco, Kelly, and Rob Osler have all been nominated for mainstream awards over the last year, along with me. Edwin Hill and PJ Vernon have also been recognized for their brilliant work, too. This is so wonderful to see–I’d be delighted even if I weren’t with them in this grouping. And if you’ve not read any of us, there’s not a single person I’ve mentioned by name you can go wrong with. It’s also exciting seeing the new queer talent rising in writers like Margot Douaihy.)

I was torn about going to Nashville next year; their anti-trans and anti-queer laws have me not really wanting to spend my queer money there. But the point was made that going and being very present was an act of defiance…and Lord knows I love defying homophobes, so I guess I am probably going to go. I can visit Dad either before or after, so it actually makes sense for me to go. I’ve decided to write a very gay story to submit to their anthology (which means I need to get back to work on it), and so yeah…I think defiance is the way to go.

Plus….I love my Queer Crime Writers. I can’t imagine not being around them next year, and I would absolutely go nuts from FOMO.

So, in closing, thank you, Queer Crime Writers. I love you all, and thank you for letting me into your group. Let’s keep making a difference, shall we?

I’ll Be Leavin’ Alone

…on a flight to Dallas this afternoon. However, in delightful news, I am sharing the Dallas-San Diego legs of the trip in both directions with none other than the Lady H, aka Lady Hermione, aka Carsen Taite. That is always fun. I don’t have enough time changing planes in Dallas on the way out to get Whataburger on the way (I’ll get Shake Shack at New Orleans airport before I leave) but here’s hoping I can get it on the way home, because I know I will be starving by the time I get to Dallas. (I just checked; I have two hours in Dallas on the way back so Whataburger fer shur! The departure flight is at eleven something California time, so I probably won’t eat anything before boarding….unless there’s donuts or something at the San Diego airport, which I am sure there is.) It’s truly sad how excited I can get about food options that I don’t normally have access to, isn’t it?

But I am all packed and ready to head to Metairie for my eye appointment on the way to the airport. It would probably be more accurate to say I overpacked–I really don’t know why every time I go to something like this I have to take so much with me, including books–what if I run out of something to read!?!?!? Um, bitch, you’re going to a convention for mystery readers. There will be free books in my conference book bag. Books will be given away at various times over the weekend. There’s a book room and several book sellers.

But yes, by all means, Greg, weight yourself down bringing coal to Newcastle.

My supervisor and I were looking around yesterday for pictures of our old office on Frenchmen Street for a presentation she is doing at the US Conference on AIDS (she’ll leave the day I return to work), and we couldn’t find any, anywhere. I knew I probably had some in my archive of photographs on the back-up hard drive (which is horribly horribly disorganized), and so I went digging around in those files after I finished packing last night. Oh, the memories–and oh, the fucking receipts! Apparently–not really a surprise to anyone who knows me–I’ve been keeping receipts for decades. Old assholish behavior from people who should know better that I’d completely forgotten about–both the person and the behavior. Also, some people have been assholes for a very long time. Stick with what you’re good at, I guess? But yes, at some point I am going to have to organize those picture files–and there are tons of duplicates.

So.

Many.

Duplicates.

Nevertheless it was a fun way to pass an hour or so while the laundry laundered and the dishes washed in their respective machines. There are so many things I need to be better about–the picture files, for example, could be incredibly useful for inspirations and/or putting me into the mood to write a particular kind of story. I found the photo file of the pictures I used to help me visualize and write Timothy; I did do this for Mississippi River Mischief, but never took the time to look at the photos before diving into writing or trying to get the work done. It probably would have helped some, and therefore I need to remember the value of visual aids for my writing going forward. I am taking stuff with me to edit over coffee, or to muse over and/or think about; I always take my journal with me when I go to panels because people say things I want to remember later, or make me think about something I am working on, sometimes solving a puzzle I’d be trying to untangle. I love being around other writers, I really do. It’s always fun, and I get to hang around smart people and listen to them tell funny stories and laugh and be amazed that I get to know all these amazingly brilliant and smart and witty people and get to call them friends? The teenaged kid in Kansas whose house had a corn field across the street and dreamed big dreams in that bedroom with the ugly beige walls and brown shag carpeting would have slept well and gotten through life a little easier had he known his life would turn out even better than he’d ever dared to dream. I complain a lot. I whine a lot. I get irritated easily and my temper frays and flares a little more lately than I’d prefer, frankly. It’s also so, so easy to go down the dark path to depression and who cares and why bother and all that morose self-pitying nonsense that doesn’t make anything any better but certainly can make everything seem worse. But I do know how incredibly lucky and blessed I am. People also seem to think I’ve led an interesting life. I don’t think so, but it’s also all I know so it just seems normal to me. I get to write books and stories and get them published. People read them, seem to like them, and want me to write more of them. I even get nominated for awards here and there and now and again…quite a lot of times, actually.

And while it may not seem like it most of the time when I’m complaining, I’m pretty happy with my life and how it’s all turned out. I’ve also realized that I’m incredibly lucky and blessed with my writing career. I’ve been nominated for the Anthony Award seven times now–twice for Best Anthology, once for Best Short Story, once for Best Paperback/Ebook Original, twice for Best Children’s/Young Adult, and once for Best Humorous. That’s really not a bad haul, you know. I’ve also been nominated for a Lefty and an Agatha and a Shirley Jackson and a Macavity–not bad for a big old queer writer of queer books, you know? It’s also lovely seeing these mainstream awards starting to slowly recognize queer writers and our books. I also found, you see, a lot of pictures of conferences and signings and readings and book events and conferences from throughout the length of my varied and odd career. It’s been a lovely ride so far, and I really wish I would allow myself the luxury of enjoying myself and enjoying my career.

My goal for this weekend is to have as much fun as possible, hug as many people as I can, and relax and enjoy the ride as a three-time Anthony nominee. That’s pretty amazing, and something that queer teenager back in Kansas couldn’t have dared to dream.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. I need to do one more load of dishes before i depart and the kitchen will be thus clean. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and as always I will probably be updating social media with today’s travel shenanigans. Don’t know if or when I will be back here, but will do my best.

Blood Bitch

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment.

The ZOOM thing I had to do yesterday went well; I am always self-conscious about these things. But I got to read from #shedeservedit, which I hadn’t done before, and it was lovely to be able to say that it was nominated for both Agatha and Anthony Awards. As Constant Reader is obviously aware, I don’t really boast or brag or broadcast about good things that happen to me, but damn it, I’m going to for just a goddamned minute. I can’t say for sure that #shedeservedit was the first queer book to get an Agatha nomination, but I can say for sure it’s one of the few that ever have–and I feel very confident in saying it was definitely the first time a book from a queer press has been nominated. Bury Me in Shadows might not have been the first queer book nominated for an Anthony, but it was certainly the first queer one to be nominated in two different categories. Last year’s Best Paperback Original category for the Anthonys was the first time two queer books by two queer writers from two different queer presses were nominated (shout out to the amazing Cheryl Head, who shared the honor with me!). I am also one of the few authors to be nominated in two different categories at the Anthonys in the same year; this year saw me become of the few authors ever nominated in three different categories in the same year.

When I actually take the time to stop and think about it, it’s actually pretty fucking amazing and groundbreaking. I certainly never saw any of that in my crystal ball, or would have ever dared to dream about that happening. I’ve also been nominated for a Macavity, a Shirley Jackson, a Lefty, an Agatha, and a total of seven nominations from the Anthonys (I did win the first time I was nominated, for Best Anthology for Blood on the Bayou), which is a pretty nice resume, really; I’d be super-impressed by those credentials if they belonged to someone else, so why am I so reluctant, cautious, scared to take pride in my own accomplishments? It’s one thing to be self-deprecatory about your writing and your career, but awards are something you have no control over, so why not take pride in them? If the mentality I was raised with was “be humble and let other people acknowledge your work” why can’t I be proud of myself when other people are acknowledging my work?

Heavy heaving sigh.

I slept well again last night. Paul got home late and I spent most of the evening reading nonfiction. I was very tired most of the day yesterday, but got chores done around the work-at-home duties and thus the apartment isn’t a complete and utter disaster area this morning. I do have a load of dishes to put away and have some more things in the sink that need to go into the dishwasher, but overall the kitchen/office is in pretty good shape this morning (the living room is an entirely different story, of course). Today is Gay Pride, and Saints and Sinners has a booth, so Paul will be gone most of the day. Yes, I am not going to Pride again this year, because i have to stay home and get all of this work done, or at least progressed a bit further. It’s going to be hot as hell out there, but I have the entire apartment to myself for almost the entire day, which never happens, so I need to take full advantage of this opportunity. I’d like to get caught up with several chapters revised today; have to look over another manuscript, and I want to get some reading done today. I am probably also going to take some time to answer some emails and try to get the inbox emptied out. I also need to write another Pride post–but I don’t want to write about anything negative, so maybe I’ll go finish one of my “wistful memories about the past” posts; I’ve started several of these and it would be kind of fun to finish them; at least fun for me; I never know if any of my Constant Readers find these entries fun. In a way, it’s kind of like working on my memoirs, and just remembering things the way I remember them–whether I remember correctly or not–is okay for a blog post, methinks. Posts about gay joy are a lot more fun than the ones about what it’s like to be oppressed.

And maybe later I can get caught up on Superman and Lois, which I forgot that I was watching. Whoops! Not sure why this season didn’t grab me the way the previous ones did; the Jonathon Kent recasting kind of threw me off a bit, but that’s really not fair to the replacement actor now, is it? No, not really. And I should spend some time with the book I’m reading today as well, so I can finish it because really great books (the one I am reading is also great, make no mistake) but this is what I have on deck now: Beware the Woman by Megan Abbott; All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby; The Hunt by Kelly J. Ford; Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper; and Ozark Dogs by Eli Cranor (lots of Southern Gothic there, which is delightful, to say the least) and there’s also these old anthologies I ordered from eBay. I need to write a lot today; I’ll probably did into the next chapter as soon as I finish this and do some filing to clear my mind and get it ready to write fiction.

Writing about my award short-lists had me thinking once again about what to do with my papers. The thought of having to catalogue them myself is unpleasant and means it would never get done (why is there no ebook of Jackson Square Jazz, Greg?), and I had pretty much come around to the point of view that I could easily just throw it all away but thinking about the award recognition made me question that decision all over again. But…while the blog itself only shines a light on a very carefully curated (right?) segment of my life, I also talk about writing and so forth on here, so future scholars (should my post turn of the century career be of any interest to any such future scholars) can always just come here and read to learn about me. My papers are just manuscripts, anyway; marked up and revised and scribbled all over–and I have most of that as a digital record, anyway. So, yes, that makes the most sense, and the project for this summer will be getting rid of all this paper hanging around here and up in the attic and over in the storage place. Besides, I’m not that interesting, really. I don’t think I am an influential voice in queer crime writing, either, and probably within a few years of my mandated-by-will cremation, will be most likely forgotten. I am actually fine with that, to be honest; very few writers from every generation are remembered–probably less than ten percent from every period, really; and whether or not I helped raise the bar for queer crime writers isn’t for me to say.

And besides, the thing I am most likely going to be remembered for is longevity, anyway, and I am fine with that.

Which sounds like a lovely place to segue into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will be back at some point.

Me Against The Music

Saturday in the Lost Apartment, let’s goooooo!!!!!

I slept really well last night and feel good this morning. I had decided already–yesterday morning–that I was going to not do any writing after work yesterday and to take today off as well, and it feels nice. Finishing projects is always lovely, because once you’ve finished them the release of pressure is pretty marvelous. I also had a ZOOM meeting with my Scotty editor yesterday to get the book back on track, and I felt pretty good after that as well. It’s interesting how pressure and stress can affect your brain and your thinking when you are juggling things. But I have no doubt I can get the book done in time for it’s November release (moved back from September) and the release of that particular pressure valve was marvelous. I’m actually looking forward to diving back into the book again headfirst. Today I have a ZOOM thing for Queer Crime Writers at one, and so I am planning on heading out on errands around eleven; so I have time to also make groceries and get back home in time for the ZOOM meeting. After that I am going to probably finish reading Lori Roy’s marvelous Let Me Die in His Footsteps at last, and then I get to choose my next read, which is kind of exciting. I also have to prepare to interview Margot Douaihy for Saints and Sinners’ Pride Month celebration, which I want to do a very good job on because she’s amazing and so is her book.

I also need to take today away from the computer a bit so I can figure out what loose ends are dangling out there that I need to tie up. Not to mention what a mess the Lost Apartment is. I did get caught up on the dishes last night, and the laundry. The kitchen isn’t the mess it was developing into but could use some touching up, which I should try to do today or tomorrow morning. I also need to start brainstorming on some other things that I want to do. I’d like to take the rest of this year (once this one is finished) actually finishing things I’ve not been able to get done and thus off my plate: the short story collection, the novellas, and two in-progress books that I already have started. That’s what I would like to spend the rest of the year doing, frankly; getting that stuff off my plate and out of my hands into the world, so I can start 2024 with a fresh slate and figure out what I want to write that year. Of course, things always change; an opportunity you can’t pass up can come along at any minute, throwing off your plans and schedule (this happens to me a lot more than one might think); I also have some short stories to write and other short stories that need finishing. I’d like to get some more short stories out there in the world, so if anyone reading this is doing an anthology and needs a crime story (preferably queer) let me know because I can always find something for you. It is very rare that I pass up an opportunity to get a story in an anthology or publication of some sort.

It’s really nice to be busy, you know? I complain about it all the time–my freakish productivity and the pressure to keep it up–but I do like accomplishing things. I do need to be kinder to myself and perhaps not be quite so hard on myself as I am used to being; it’s nice to be able to sit around and take stock of your life and your career without it being deemed arrogant. And when I look at things from an outside perspective–someone whose thinking isn’t cluttered up with all my neuroses and self-loathing–it does look kind of impressive. I think I’ve been nominated for a Lammy fourteen or fifteen times? I don’t have the most nominations–that would be Michael Thomas Ford, Ellen Hart, and Lawrence Schimel, and not in that order–but hey, I’m in the top five of most nominations, which isn’t bad. This year’s three Anthony nominations brings me to a total of seven nods there from the Bouchercon membership, which is a lovely pat on the back for a queer author most of them hadn’t heard of even five years ago. I can add Agatha and Lefty finalist to the other awards I’ve gotten a single nomination for–the Shirley Jackson and the Macavity. I won some young adult independent press medals, too, along the way, which was lovely. (I am very happy Sleeping Angel and Lake Thirteen won those medals; I was very proud of both books, frankly.) Forty-three novels, twenty-two anthologies, over fifty short stories, two short story collections, and two novellas–and countless articles, interviews, book reviews and blog posts.

Not bad for someone told by his first creative writing teacher in college he would never be a published author.

There have been plenty of slings and arrows along the way, of course; things that happened so long ago that no one today who knows me and my work may even know about–the Virginia incident, Paul’s bashing, my service with the National Stonewall Democrats–so the rollercoaster of my life has certainly had its highs and lows. It’s been an interesting life, I guess; I’ve certainly met and knew a lot of interesting people and celebrities and authors. I’ve also learned over the years that there’s nothing wrong with ambition; I always am so busy and behind on everything that I forget that sometimes it’s nice to take a break, step away from everything, evaluate the situation as it is currently and make plans on where to go and what to do next. I’m feeling very content this morning, which is a very pleasant (and unusual) thing for me to feel; this brief reflection on my career and where it is now has, for once, brought a sense of satisfaction and pleasure instead of you still have so much more to accomplish! It’s not like I’m going to rest on my accomplishments, take my ball and go home, of course–but it’s very nice to think if my career ended now–for whatever reason–I could walk away from it and be proud.

I’ll never stop writing, of course. I will write until the day I die or can’t sit at the computer or hold a laptop or iPad; as long as I can still scribble in a journal I’ll be writing. I love creating, I love writing, I love telling stories. I love exploring character. I love taking a situation and thinking okay, what has to happen for this to happen, and where is the true starting place for the story? Who are these people and how did they come to be involved in this?

But it is nice every once in a while to stop, take a step back, and see things as they really are, or at least trying to take a look and see what other people see since they aren’t wrapped up in my neuroses.

And there’s nothing wrong with being proud of yourself, which I am. It feels weird, but I am proud of myself. I’m proud of my career and what all I’ve accomplished since moving to New Orleans in 1996.

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader–take the day off and rest–and I’ll be back later.

If Anyone Falls

I absolutely loved the tag line for the marvelous television adaptation of Megan Abbott’s equally brilliant novel Dare Me: “There’s something dangerous about the boredom of teenaged girls.” It’s also incredibly accurate; our teen years often impact and influence who we become and can color the rest of our lives. I loved Dare Me; it was lyrically, hauntingly written, and the story it told, while actually pretty simple, showed how the intricacies of relationships between young girls and authority figures who aren’t much older than they are, can become so complicated and complex; layers of love intermingling with hate and jealousy, the power dynamic shifting and changing as the characters themselves shift, change, and grow from their experiences.

I write, sometimes, books where the main characters are young–teenagers, either in high school or college or having just completed college–and those books are often labeled and marketed as “young adult” fiction, even though I generally just consider them novels about young people. I mean, technically novels about young people are young adult novels, and yet while I am resigned to this marketing label I am never certain if my books truly qualify or not. Perhaps that’s some kind of internalized arrogance and a sense of subconscious superiority to what I consider something lesser; it’s definitely something I should unpack at some point. But I think it is also an interesting starting point for one of my endless essay ideas, and perhaps someday–when I am less scattered, less all-over-the-place mentally and creatively–I’ll be able to sit down and write all those essays I want to write.

Which brings me to John Copenhaver’s second novel, The Savage Kind, which I just finished reading yesterday.

If I tell you the truth about Judy and Philippa, I’m going to lie. Not because I want to, but because to tell the story right, I have to. As girls, they were avid documentarians, each armed with journals and buckets of pens, convinced that future generations would pour over their words. Everything they did was a performance. Everything they wrote assumed an audience. After all, autobiographers are self-serving, aggrandizing. Memoirists embellish. It’s unavoidable. To write down your memories is an act of invention, to arrange them in the best, most compelling order, a bold gesture. Some of the diary entries that follow are verbatim, lifted directly from the source, but others are enhanced and reshaped. I reserve my right to shade in the empty spaces, to color between the lines, to lie.

You may balk, dear reader, but I don’t care. I need to get this right.

I could take different approaches. I could contrast the teenage girls: the black hat and the white, the harpy and the angel, the cunning vamp and the doe-eyed boob. Or I could draw them together, a single unit: Lucy and Ethel, Antony and Cleopatra, Gertrude and Alice, Holmes and Watson, or even, I dare say, Leopold and Loeb. But neither of those angles would work. The complicated facts are inescapable. These girls are both separate and together, but many times, they followed their own paths and even crossed one another. Things are never that simple, never that black and white, that good or evil, or that true or false. I’m not writing this to assign blame, or to ask forgiveness, or to tie it up in a bow for posterity. It’s not that kind of book.After all, an act of violence committed by one may have originated in the heart of the other. That’s to say, this is a story about sisters, and like many of those dusty and gruesome stories from ancient literature, here sisterhood is sealed in blood.

I should know. I was one of them.

Great opening, right?

John’s debut Dodging and Burning won the Macavity Award*, and was quite the impressive debut. II was completely blown away by the book myself–it showed a maturity and sophistication in theme, writing, and characters that one rarely sees in a debut novel. One of the things I thought was very interesting about the book was that while it did focus on a gay story, the main voices in the book were young straight women; I thought that was a risky thing to try to pull off, but he did a really excellent job.

As good as Dodging and Burning was, I wasn’t prepared for how good The Savage Kind would be.

The heart of the book is the friendship/relationship between two damaged young women in the post-war afterglow of the late 1940’s in Washington DC. (Both of John’s novels are set in the post-war period, when the world was trying to go ‘back to normal’ after the massive paradigm alteration of a global war that left most of Europe and significant parts of Asia in ruins; tens of millions dead, billions in property damage, and the world needed to rebuild from the rubble–and normal was also being redefined; the paradigm shift caused by the war made going back to “the way things used to be” practically impossible–which makes it a very interesting time to write about.) Philippa’s mother died giving birth to her and she has a slightly adversarial relationship with her stepmother, Bonnie. Judy was raised in an orphanage and adopted by a wealthy couple who had lost a daughter in a particularly brutal way–Judy was adopted to replaced their raped and murdered daughter, but her adoptive parents are still too scarred and damaged from the lost of their own child to raise and love another, and this history also colors Judy’s personality and who she is. The two girls find each other and become very close friends; so close that their love for each other might go even deeper than the Platonic ideal of friendship–their teenaged hormones raging out of control, are romantic/sexual feelings also developing between the two of them?

They are also playing girl detectives, trying to get to the bottom of a mystery that they don’t know has anything to do with them beyond the idle curiosity (and their dangerous boredom) but as they look further into the mystery revolving around a classmate, a favorite teacher, and that classmate’s family–as well as their own–they become more and more deeply enmeshed in danger and cling even tighter to each other.

As if that juggling act isn’t tough enough, Copenhaver makes all of these characters realized, fully developed and realistic in their emotions, their feelings, and their reactions. He also tells the story in alternating points of view between the two girls while they are experiencing the events, as well as a narrator voice from the future, telling the story in retrospect as well as talking directly to the reader. This is hard to pull off, particularly the omniscient future narrator–the last time I saw this used so effectvely and memorably was in Thomas Tryon’s The Other (at least, this is the book that popped into my head as I was reading, and it’s a favorite of mine).

The Savage Kind was nominated for a Lefty Award, and it very deservedly won the Lambda for Best Mystery recently. I highly recommend it!

*I may be wrong here, but I think he might be the first openly gay author of a book with gay characters and themes to win the Macavity Award; I know I was nominated once for a short story–but my characters and themes weren’t queer.

Spanish Harlem

Friday morning at last, and I am a more than a little happy to see this reentry week put to rest in the archives, if I am being completely honest. Reentry weeks are always a bit of a disruption, and the older I get the weird transition from one side of my life to the other inevitably becomes more difficult. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the different sides so much–I always feel that the day-to-day life, so disparate and different from the “writer” public life–is good for keeping me grounded as well as keeping my ego in check. After all, you could get whiplash going from being on-stage at the Edgars as the executive vice president of Mystery Writers of America back to lower-level clinic employee (although that’s really not a fair statement about my day job; my day job–while not in management or supervision–is actually important and I do help every one of my clients in a positive way every day; it’s just a vastly different enterprise than my life as a writer and/or everything that is involved, even peripherally, with that).

We finished watching Harry Wild, the new Jane Seymour crime series on Acorn and highly recommend it. Seymour is terrific in the leading role, and everyone in the supporting cast is also good. The young Black teenager who originally mugs her in the first episode eventually becomes her Watson, and they are great together. Paul and I, like so many Americans, are absolute suckers for British crime series, and now that we’ve (alas) finished Harry Wild, we’ll probably go ahead and finish Severance this weekend–we’re very close to the end of the first season, and I do find the show to be both interesting and disturbing at the same time; while I can see why the “severance” would be appealing to people–the utter and complete separation of day-job from personal life–at the same time it would seem incredibly weird and unsettling to me; not knowing what I did the rest of the time? It is interesting, and obviously there are deeper questions about morality and bodily autonomy here as well–and given what’s going on in this country at the current moment, it’s very timely.

I have big plans for this weekend. I have some self-care scheduled for tomorrow morning, and I am also doing an interview/event for Spirit of Ink on Saturday afternoon. I want to finish reading my Carol Goodman novel (it really is quite delicious); I need to do some writing; and of course, there’s always cleaning and organizing that needs to be done. We also had some horrific thunderstorms over night–I don’t remember if I woke up during the storms or not; the same thing happened Wednesday night and I do remember waking up to thunder; I think it was Wednesday night rather than last, honestly. I’ve really been sleeping great lately, and it’s marvelous. I still get terribly tired on the days I have to get up early–I don’t think that will ever change, frankly–but I am adjusting. I actually am planning on returning to the gym this weekend as well; I am hopeful that getting my act together and working out again will also help make me feel better, sleep better, and get more done. I’m really tired of carrying around this extra weight and not being in tip-top shape, but also have to recognize that it will take far longer than it used to now that I am older. It would probably go faster also if I started eating healthier…but I think we know how that is going to go, don’t we?

Yeah, not going to happen. I can try, but make no promises. I like fat and grease and breading and so forth too much to put my vanity (and it’s really not about vanity anymore, really) ahead of what pleasures I get from eating, to be honest. My relationship with food has always been skewed–so has my relationship with my body and my appearance, which I really need to write about sometime–and I always have to worry about my tendency to fall into compulsive/obsessive behavior (I really need to try to continue channeling those quirks of my personality into my writing and promotion of my career) when it comes to exercise and eating and so forth.

Ah, Greg’s personality problems and issues.

I turned my story into the anthology yesterday, and also found another (very short) call for submissions for another anthology I’d like to work on something for. I think my story turned out okay; it needs some tweaking and so forth, perhaps, but I am hoping the editors do like it. I also want to get a couple of other stories I’d also like to starting sending out to various markets to see if anyone wants them; it’s been a hot minute since I’ve sent anything out to other markets rather than the occasional anthology submission call. I wrote a story to submit to Land of 10000 Crimes, the Bouchercon anthology I am currently co-editing, but finally decided to not send in anything for the blind read; I made it past the blind reads in the last two anthologies I edited for Bouchercon, but I kind of got the impression (and it could be wrong; I tend to expect people to be critical and snarky of me and my work) that the fact that I made it past the blind reads on the anthologies I personally edited might look weird and/or suspicious to people on the outside–suuuuuuuure you made it through the blind read–but at the same time, I didn’t help myself by never submitting stories to the Bouchercon anthologies I wasn’t editing. But my story in Blood on the Bayou was a Macavity Award finalist, and my story in Florida Happens was an Anthony finalist, so that sort of makes it seem like my stories were worthy of being published?

But I can certainly get why it’s for the best that I didn’t submit anything to the anthology. But I also really like my story, “The Sound of Snow Falling,” and I’d like to get that out for submission; it’s pretty close to being finished and perhaps maybe one more go-round with it could be in order. There are a few others I’d also like to get out for submission as well–“Death and the Handmaidens” is certainly one of those–and so I am going to add that to my weekend to-do list; look at the some of the almost-completed stories I have on hand, and see which ones can be sent out next week. It’s never a bad idea to keep my hand in, you know.

And now that I am sort of feeling like myself again. I might as well ride this train as far as it will take me before it goes off the rails again.

Have a happy Friday, Constant Reader..

Together Again

Oh, wow, it’s pay the bills day and I didn’t even see it coming! How weird is that?

I managed to write 1500 words or so on a short story yesterday–AND I went to the gym. I slept well again last night, which was also pretty marvelous. It’s lovely to feel rested, as well as to feel awake when I leave the house, rather than walking and driving in a fog I don’t remember later. As such, my moods have been better and I haven’t been on edge, either. While this is all quite marvelous, at the same time I find myself reluctant to deal with odious chores or tasks–simply because I worry about opening Pandora’s box and releasing the demons of stress, irritation, and insomnia into my little world again.

The short story I am working on is called “The Sound of Snow Falling,” and it was one I had thought up in order to submit to the Minneapolis Bouchercon anthology I am co-editing with the marvelous Terri Bischoff. But I have also been thinking lately that I probably shouldn’t submit anything to the blind read; I did for the other two I edited, and my stories were chosen. No one ever said anything, but after the books were released I always felt a little uncomfortable because it could be seen as improper (the New Orleans story was nominated for a Macavity Award and the St. Petersburg for an Anthony, so that helped alleviate that somewhat), but I am thinking this time around that it’s better to not mess with it at all. I like the idea behind the story, and I might try to actually go the submit it to a magazine route, but we’ll see. Right now I am just regurgitating stuff up on the page that I’ll have to whittle down later to make it work, but I love the title and I am interested in the story, so will keep going with it and see how it turns out. I am thinking this weekend I am going to edit stories–I have one that was rejected by the last MWA submissions call that needs a bit of work, and of course, the novella; hopefully I’ll have a first draft of this one finished to edit this weekend. I also would like to do some reading this weekend–but this is all dependent on how things go with the tooth extraction. If I am still on painkillers this weekend, well, it’s not very likely I’ll be writing or editing or doing much reading–if my memory of painkillers is accurate–but I am not going to worry about any of that now, and am just going to proceed with making my plans. It won’t be the first time life interfered with the plans of mice and Greg.

I am enjoying writing again, frankly, and it feels very good, to be honest. I am enjoying going to the gym again. I feel like in some weird way that I am more of myself now than I have been in a long time, and I am not really sure what that is all about, to be completely honest; like I’ve just been going through the motions for a very long time and somehow in a dark cloud that turns everything into an odious chore, one more thing I need to check off the list, one more task to accomplish on the slow descent into the grave or something. Plotting out the Scotty is also turning out to be something a lot more fun than I had thought it would be; I am enjoying thinking and plotting and creating, and also thinking of other ways to challenge myself and stimulate myself into taking bigger chances with the writing and pushing myself harder. I’ve been thinking a lot about one of Michael Nava’s questions for us all on the San Francisco Public Library panel on queer crime writing–how do you keep your series fresh? It also came up during Laura Lippman’s interview on CBS This Morning that I watched the other day; and it’s a valid question. One of the reasons I stopped writing the Chanse series was a sense that I had fallen into a repeating pattern with the stories–and now that I am thinking back on the Scotty series, I am also seeing patterns developing in the last few books. I’ve already mentioned here about someone asking how many car accidents HAS Scotty been in?–which is actually valid; I think he’s been in one at least four times out of eight books–and last night I was thinking, you know, the last two Scotty books opened at parties–or rather, with him GOING to a big party, which then set up the story for the rest of the book…

Not good, Gregalicious. But this new one–working title Mississippi River Bottom, although Mississippi River Mayhem fits the alliteration pattern of the previous books in the series better–will NOT open at a party, and there will be some changes for the boys as well–no, I am not moving them out of the Quarter, no worries on that score–but some significant changes nonetheless. For one thing, and I’d hinted at this in Royal Street Reveillon–Scotty has bought the building from Millie and Velma, who have retired to the Florida Gulf Coast (which will give me a chance to the send the boys to the panhandle at some point to solve a mystery). But I’ve also got a sticky note on my computer reading NO CAR CRASHES THIS TIME.

I also worry about repeating myself with short stories and the novellas, frankly. I was thinking about my 1994 New Orleans novella, “Never Kiss a Stranger”–and realized that the scene I originally envisioned for my main character meeting the younger man he becomes involved with I had lifted and used in another story, “A Streetcar Named Death.” I mean, there’s clearly no reason why my character can’t first see the young man on the streetcar in the early hour of the morning–it happens, and it’s definitely a way for people to meet in New Orleans, for sure–but there’s always that nagging worry about have I done this already? Is this story pattern the one I default to following all the time?

Sigh. It’s never easy being a Gregalicious,

And on that note, tis off to the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader!

People on the High Line

Several years ago–I have no concept of how long ago; time and its passing literally have no meaning to me anymore–I started what I called “the Short Story Project.” I wanted to become a better short story writer; it’s a form I’ve always struggled with, and it always seemed to my hypercritical self that whenever I was successful in writing a short story, it was more of an accident than anything I had planned when I embarked on writing the story. I’ve also become a little bit easier on myself on that score–sometimes, not every idea will work as a short story, and writing isn’t something that can ever be forced without it showing to the reader–and I did have a wonderful period of productivity with short stories after setting course for the Project–which not only entailed writing them but reading as many of them as I could. After all, what better way to improve my own short story writing skills than by reading good stories? I have, over the years, collected any number of single-author collections as well as anthologies, and yet, with few notable exceptions prior to the start of the Project, had rarely ever cracked their spines. Lately, as I have struggled with time and focus while I’ve been working on this revision of the Kansas book (aka #shedeservedit) I find myself unable to focus much on reading novels; my mind inevitably wanders, or I will set it down and not get back to it for days. So, this morning I decided, before getting in my work on the book for the day, to read some short stories over my coffee this morning, and I wound up reading four of them; all of them marvelous in their own unique, distinctive ways. The stories I read this morning were, in order: “Better Days’ by Art Taylor, from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine; “Mischief in Mesopotamia” by Dana Cameron, also from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine; “Hop-frog” by Edgar Allan Poe; and finally, “To Build a Fire” by Jack London.

Maybe I wasn’t the only one on our stretch of the North Carolina coast who picked up the Washington Post on a regular basis, but I doubt anyone else it like I did–scanning the bylines, measuring the thickness of the paper and the heft of it, stifling the envy.

So begins Art Taylor’s “Better Days’, which won the Macavity Award for Best Short Story and was a finalist for both the Agatha and the Anthony Awards. Art is one of crime’s best short story writers (and one of my favorite people), and it’s easy to see why he has won every award under the sun for crime short stories. Art’s stories are always tightly written, with characters so real and honest and human that you can’t help but care about them, as well as having a bit of an edge to them. He manages to capture the resigned despair someone whose career path didn’t quite go the way he wanted perfectly; the former Washington Post journalist downsized and back in coastal North Carolina, working for the local paper while still thinking about his past with an uneasy regret. The story focuses on a love triangle between the main character, the local bar owner he’s been seeing, and a newly arrived tourist on a yacht with money to burn. This story tightly plotted, flows perfectly, and the characters are people I wouldn’t mind spending some more time with. In some ways it kind of reminded me of John D. Macdonald; maybe it’s the sea and boats and so forth that put me in mind of Travis McGee. Highly recommended.

I sat across from a row of decapitated kings, gods, and heroes waiting for them to speak to me. I didn’t know a word of their language, and they’d been dead–their monuments erected, sanctified, and decaying–long before anyone speaking my language was born. Still, I waited, if not as patiently as they did.

That’s the opening paragraph of Dana Cameron’s “Mischief in Mesopotamia,” originally published in the November 2012 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and it went on to win both the Agatha and Anthony awards for Best Short Story the following year. (I initially met Dana the weekend she won the Agatha; she’s been a constant source of joy for me ever since.) The story features her series character Emma Fielding, and reading the story is my first encounter with her–and now I am going to have to go back and read the entire series of novels with Emma (you may also know her from the television films made from some of the books in the series, with Melrose Place alumnus Courtney Thorne-Smith playing Emma). Set on a tour of museums and archaeological sites in southeast Turkey, Emma and her group happen to be on-site when a museum robbery occurs–and Emma solves the crime through her keen observations of her fellow tour group members. The voice is delightful, as is Emma–there’s a hint of my fiction goddess Amelia Peabody about her–and the story is enormously satisfying.

I never knew anyone so keenly alive to a joke as the King was. He seemed to live only for joking. To tell a good story of the joke kin, and to tell it well, was the surest road to his favor. Thus it happened that his seven ministers were all noted for their accomplishments as jokers. They all took after the king, too, in being large, corpulent, oily men, as well as inimitable jokers. Whether people from fat by joking, or whether there is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I have never been quite able to determine; but certain it is that a lean doer us a rare Avis in terris.

Yes, that first paragraph made me squirm a bit as I started reading Edgar Allan Poe’s “Hop-frog,” which I suppose can be held up as an example of how things don’t age well (the notion that overweight people are jolly, as evidenced here). The story itself, which is about a court jester who is also a little person (“dwarf”) and crippled at a royal court, mocked and laughed at and the butt of the jokes of the King and his advisors, along with another female who is also there for their entertainment–whom Hop-frog appears to love, eventually reaches his own breaking point when they mock him one time too many and when the female begs them to stop, the King throws wine in her face and humiliates her. There is a costume ball coming up, and Hop-frog chooses this for his revenge, convincing them all to dress up as “ourang-outangs”, which will require covering themselves with tar and pitch and fake fur….and they waltz right into his punishment, as they are set aflame and are burned alive. This is based in actual history–Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror details the “the dance of the burning fools,” where King Charles VI of France and some of his buddies costumed themselves in such a manner with the same outcome–some of them caught fire and were burned to death, although the King was not one of the victims. When I was rereading that book in the early pandemic days, I came across this true story and thought it might make for an interesting short story; doing further research, I discovered that Poe had written a story based on this actual event, and bookmarked it to read later. As with everything classic, my education in Poe is limited; but all the earmarks of a Poe’s story’s justice are here: justice is meted out to the foolish king and his cruel advisers…but it’s not one of his better efforts, which is why, undoubtedly, it’s not as well known.

Day had dawned cold and gray when the man turned aside from the main Yukon trail. He climbed the high earth-bank where a little-traveled trail led east through the pine forest. It was a high ban, and he paused to breathe at the top. He excused the act to himself by looking at his watch. It was nine o’clock in the morning. There was no sun or promise of sun, although there was not a cloud in the sky. It was a clear day. However, there seemed to be an indescribable darkness over the face of things. That was because the sun was absent from the sky. This fact did not worry the man. He was not alarmed by the lack of sun. It had been days since he had seen the sun.

I originally read Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” in high school. It was assigned for us to read when we were studying short stories and fiction; it was assigned as an example of the theme “man v. nature.” I’ve never forgotten the story–I loathe the cold, as Constant Reader is aware, and London does an amazing job of getting that frigid climate across to the reader. The man is never given a name–his name doesn’t matter–and neither does the wolf-dog by his side have a name; their names don’t matter. This story is about human hubris–he isn’t worried about the cold, despite being warned about it, and he wants to get back to his camp. His job was to go upstream and see if its possible for logs to be floated downstream when the temperature is warmer and the waters of streams and rivers and creeks not frozen solid. His mission accomplished, he is heading back to his actual camp, with some food stored under his shirt next to his body and a pack of matches in case he needs to start a fire. The dread in this story builds slowly and smoothly as he begins to suspect he made an error in not respecting the cold for its ability to kill him; occasionally London goes into the perspective of the animal who is also beginning to sense the man–food and fire provider, nothing more–is out of his depth. Eventually he succumbs to the cold, after a series of misadventures that come about because he isn’t paying enough attention and is careless. Whether that is because the cold has affected his ability to think and reason clearly is never part of the story or his own consideration. Even now, after all these years, the story has the ability to make me wince and shiver and think yikes, there’s no fucking way I’d ever go outside when it was 75 degrees below zero, let alone make a trip of many miles through wilderness on foot.

And on that note, now I am finished with my morning and its back to the spice mines with me,

Here

Another Saturday and lord, so, so much to do–and absolutely no desire to do any of it, quite frankly. I had some trouble sleeping last night, but I feel okay this morning; it may have taken me a few hours to go to sleep, but when I finally did, the sleep was deep and restful, which is all that matters. I woke up again before seven, then slovenly stayed in bed for another couple of hours because it was comfortable. Yesterday was one of those days where I got overwhelmed with everything, primarily because it was humid and muggy and sticky and nasty; and staying down in the garage at the office to screen people and help with the syringe access program was miserable. That kind of weather literally sucks the energy out of you, and by the time my shift was over and I was on my way home, I was enormously grateful that I remembered to get up early and put the turkey breast into the crock pot, so all I had to do when I got home was shred it and make the instant stuffing for dinner.

We watched another episode of Gold Digger–still not sure where this story is going, but the way it’s filmed, it has to end with some kind of crime or something happening; whether Julia Ormond’s much younger lover ends up being killed and killing someone from her family in self-defense remains to be seen–or he may just kill her once they are married; it’s definitely filmed as a crime show, but I’m not really sure where it’s going, to be honest. It’s very well done and very well-acted, and as I have a short story in progress that follows the same sort of set-up (“Please Die Soon”), it’s intriguing to see how and where the story goes.

We also got caught up on Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, which is also incredibly well done, and I really love that they are showing the Latinx community in Los Angeles during this time period. There was a moment when I remembered the Zoot Suit riots, and vaguely remembered a movie about them from the early 1980’s called Zoot Suit, and yep, there it was–the racist LAPD breaking up a Latinx dance club where all the guys were wearing zoot suits. It’s really interesting, now that I think about it, how little of a role the Latinx community of southern California plays in most crime fiction of the time, or set in the time (although I will admit I’ve yet to read most of James Ellroy); it’s amazing how little representation minorities have in crime fiction, or in fiction in general.

This morning Facebook reminds me that last year on this date the Anthony Award nominations for 2019 were released; I’m still thrilled and honored that I was nominated for Best Short Story for “Cold Beer No Flies”, from Florida Happens. I think one of the biggest surprises to me in my career thus far is that award recognition from the mainstream mystery community has primarily come to me for short stories; I was nominated for a Macavity for “Survivor’s Guilt” and then an Anthony. (I won an Anthony for Best Anthology for Blood on the Bayou.) I’ve been writing a lot of short stories over the past few years–more so than in general; usually I simply will write a short story or find one I’ve worked on at some point when there’s a call for submissions for an anthology. I am hoping to pull together another collection of stories–its current working title is Once a Tiger and Other Stories, but that will inevitably have to change, unless I can come up with something different for “Once a Tiger”; the original concept of the story doesn’t seem to work–and last night I did get an idea for a new version (I’ll undoubtedly finish writing the other, only with a different title) which is something more workable, I think, and I also like the idea of Chanse finally dealing with his past with his fraternity at LSU.

I have a board phone call this morning, and I have to do a live on-line reading tonight for another story, “The Dreadful Scott Decision,” from Peter Carlaftes’ anthology The Faking of the President. I have yet to work myself up into a state of complete and utter anxiety about this yet, but there’s still plenty of time. I hope to carve some time out this afternoon to rehearse–but one can never be certain, can one, that you won’t stumble over words when you read your work out loud, which is always mortifying. This afternoon I intend to do some work–I am debating the wisdom of going to the gym, which is probably not wise; but my body really needs to exercise….

I also want to work on the Secret Project, now that I’ve found my character’s voice, and I also need to clean and get organized; I also need to go to Office Depot at some point and buy an ink cartridge for my printer and a new journal, as the current one is filling up. And at some point, I should go back through all the new journals to look for notes and so forth on projects–and ideas I scribbled down in the heat of the moment in order to write later.

All right, these dishes arent’t going to do themselves, so let me get started on that mess.

And until tomorrow, have a lovely weekend, Constant Reader, and as always, thanks for checking in.

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Take This Job and Shove It

My very first job was at a McDonalds.

I was sixteen, a senior in high school, and I actually wanted to work; make my own money to buy things for myself. I was a very good employee; I wasn’t to begin with, but an honest conversation with an encouraging manager turned me into one. I knew how to do everything by the time I quit; I could open or close; work the grill, a cash register, or the drive through; I could clean grills and take apart the ice cream and shake machines and put them back together again; I knew how to slake french fries and how to package hamburgers; how to dress them and toast the buns; how to clean the floors and drain the grease vats; to tube tartar and special sauce. I knew how to make pancakes and scrambled eggs; Egg McMuffins and sausage patties. My uniform was brown polyester and a paper hat. I could take your order, tray it, ring you up and give you your correct change within ninety seconds. Thank you and come again with a smile to every person I worked with; you were given orders with a please and you acknowledged with a thank you. We weren’t allowed to stand around–if I heard if there’s time to lean then there’s time to clean once, I heard it so many times it felt like I heard it in my sleep. I was paid $2.25 an hour; minimum wage increased after a year and I also got a nickel raise per hour, bringing me up to a whopping $2.60 per hour.

I’ve had a lot of jobs over the course of my life, and no matter how crappy a job it was, I always tried to make the best out of it and do the best I could at it. I usually would get bored once I’d mastered an aspect of my job; I needed to learn new tasks and do different things in order for me to not eventually quit–or get so bored on the job I’d make a heinous and stupid mistake that got me fired. I always took getting fired as a sign that yeah, I should have moved on already, thanks for the kick in the pants. All I ever really wanted to do was write–and for so much of my life I was convinced that it was just a pipe dream that would never ever come true, for so many varied and different and just plain sad reasons, with the end result that I was always trying to find a career, something that could hold my interest, and to no avail, with the end result that I was completely miserable.

Every once in a while, whenever I get frustrated or angry with the publishing business–whether it’s a late payment, or another rejection, or another publisher that isn’t paying their authors, or systemic oppression of some kind or another–and I start to think fuck this business, it’s brutal and it sucks and why on earth do I keep doing this to myself…I do something to remind me how grateful I am for this career, this crazy, infuriating, never really quite what I want it to be career: I like to  think about the path that it took to get here, some of the jobs I’ve had;  all the missed opportunities and how easy it was to get discouraged and for self-doubt to insinuate itself into my consciousness and get me to give up again for a period of time…

But I always somehow came back to the wanting to write.

This was a good year for me, although I don’t seem to remember ever thinking that over the course of the year as it passed. I published the eighth Scotty Bradley novel this past October, Royal Street Reveillon, and I am, for once, actually rather pleased with a book that I’ve published (which is a step in the right direction, right?). I also published a collection of short crime fiction stories; some originals, others previously published: Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories. Two of the stories were nominated for awards; the eponymous title story was a Macavity finalist and “Cold Beer No Flies” (originally published in Florida Happens, the St. Petersburg Bouchercon anthology) was an Anthony Award finalist. Pretty cool, right? There was also that Anthony nomination, and I couldn’t have been more pleased to have lost to Shawn Cosby. My story “This Town” was included in Holly West’s Murder-a-Go-Go’s anthology, a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood, a cause near-and-dear to me. The story is one of my personal favorites of my own, and got some really nice feedback from people. I also got my story “Moist Money” in the Dark Yonder anthology, which is also a fundraiser for a food bank.

I managed to write several drafts of a new novel manuscript, but it remains incomplete at this time; I also have two other novels in some sort of progress just sitting around waiting for me to get them done. I do not see this as a failure (I used to do just that; something unfinished? You failed) but as symptomatic of me taking my time and trying to do better work. I felt like I was getting stale, and so I decided to take some time away from writing as well as try to rejigger the way I work on fiction. And if it means that it takes longer to write a book I’m completely satisfied with, so be it.

I also came up with a great idea for a new noir novel, set in the ambiguous early 1950’s–Chlorine–and even took a few hours to bang out a first chapter. Likewise, I also came up with ideas for another Scotty book and another Chanse book, as well as a stand alone crime novel built around Venus Casanova, at least in conception; I may not be able to  use the “world of New Orleans” I’ve built in my two series and several short stories, which are all kind of interconnected. I wrote several short stories this year, but still have any number of unfinished ones and others than need additional drafts. I started planning out another short story collection, and an essay collection.

So, in retrospect, it was kind of a good year for me as a writer. I also made several recommendation lists, for people to check out my work–both as a gay writer and as a New Orleans writer. I still have some things on my bucket list to check off, like getting a story into Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and an MWA anthology, doing a Noir at the Bar, among many other things.

So, while I may have spent most of the year feeling miserable about my writing career, a look back shows just how negative I actually was being–which is something I really need to work on. I’m trying to not be so self-deprecating as I have been my entire life, belittling my own accomplishments, because it’s kind of self-defeating. Sure I could have probably written more, and done more, and gotten further along in my career–but everything happens the way it does for a reason, and I have to believe always works out in the best way possible for me–I have to believe that because it has proven true, over and over and over again.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines. LSU plays Oklahoma this afternoon in the play-offs, and while obviously I want LSU to keep winning and keep this magical season going….the disappointment won’t be too great if they do lose; because we do have this magical season to look back on.

Have a lovely last Saturday of 2020, Constant Reader.

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