I love the Staple Singers. I think the fact I was always drawn to great female singers when I was growing up was one of the first clues what my sexuality was going to be. Why precisely was I drawn to the women singers? I can’t answer that any more than I can answer why I was such a fan of the great women stars, like Crawford and Davis and Stanwyck and Hepburn. I definitely wanted to be one of the Pips singing and dancing behind Gladys Knight.
But I am one of the few, if not the only, gay men who doesn’t like The Wizard of Oz.1
I wrote 1300 words on a short story yesterday, but kind of got stuck. I know how I want to end this story, but I am a little stuck on the middle of it–where I always get stuck. So, I am going to stick a pin in it and work on revising something else; I usually solve problems in one work when I’m working on another, odd as that may seem (and last night, as we finished off The Survivors, I figured out the next part of the story; see how that works sometimes?). I was tired yesterday, too. Not sure why that was, but I did go by the mail on the way home (where my copies of Lori Roy’s The Final Episode and S. A. Cosby’s King of Ashes were waiting for me; huzzah!) and after we finished The Survivors, I did chores and got some things organized and ready for tomorrow. It was super nice coming downstairs to a clean kitchen this morning. My coffee is pretty tasty, too.
We had a marvelous downpour last night, along with some truly lovely thunder and lightning. I love rain, I really do, and as I sat in my chair watching the end of the show last night, I couldn’t help but feel so snug and comfortable and warm. There’s just something about rain that makes me relax and feel so content; years ago I used to listen to that “forest rain” CD to fall asleep, and I always fell into a deep one. I also realized that I write about the rain a lot. I love writing about rain; the short story I am working on is at about two thousand words now, and it’s raining in the story. It rains throughout the entire Scotty book that I also need to get back to writing once my creative muscles have regained their fitness and are strong again.
I also am feeling better. I am a little tired this morning, and yesterday I did hit a wall at work yesterday afternoon (but I also got all of my work done and so am on top of everything again, huzzah), and I did sleep well last night (thanks, thunderstorm!), but this morning feels like a Wednesday morning; I’m awake and alive but a little bit tired. But I just need to get through today and tomorrow before getting to sleep late (of my alarm kitty will allow it) on Remote Friday. I am not actually wishing my life away, the way I usually do; that’s another thing that has changed for me mentally since the height of the illness. I still haven’t made a to-do list for this week–so I need to do that today. I also need to make some calls about my treatment plan for this colitis; I spoke to my GI specialist’s office yesterday and he’s fighting with my insurance to get the infusions covered (because they of course declined to cover that, but the shots for the rest of my life they are fine with). Sigh. I knew it was too good to be true. Louisiana Blue (aka Blue Cross/Blue Shield) isn’t really much better than United Healthcare; deny defend depose. I am sure my specialist will win this fight, it’s just insane that an insurer can decide arbitrarily, without examining me or my chart, what treatment options are best for me over the recommendations of the person who correctly diagnosed me and put me on the road to recovery.
This country is so seriously fucked, and broken, because that’s the end result of capitalism. For-profit models do not improve service or keep costs down, the way the Right keeps insisting that the “market place” works and is therefore the best possible option because otherwise SOCIALISM! Yeah, well, you know what doesn’t happen in socialist countries? People don’t die from not having access to health care.
Are we great again yet? Asking for a friend.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll see you here again on the morrow.
Thinking about it now, I only watched it one time when I was a kid and maybe the flying monkeys scared me? Plus our television was black and white, so there was no difference between Oz and Kansas. I also only watched that one time and never again. ↩︎
Sunday morning! And LSU Gymnastics won the national championship yesterday! Woo-hoo! That accomplishment is worthy of its own post, so tune in later for that, okay? It was very exciting, I have to say, and the Lost Apartment was filled with excited cheers even as we held our breath as LSU clinched it all with a fantastic final rotation on balance beam. We kind of celebrated this throughout the night by watching replays and highlights before episode two of Sugar, which I am loving. Colin Ferrell, yum.
I was very tired Friday from running all those errands, and so was Paul. I was still fatigued yesterday, the physical and mental kind that I’ve not felt in a while–but sadly more evidence that my stamina is not back and needs to be worked on. The heat is also back; yesterday was pleasant, but Friday was eighty-eight degrees…in April. That doesn’t bode well for the summer, especially for one that’s going to be a more active hurricane season. But while I was so tired yesterday I managed to use what little nervous energy I had to clean and organize, and the apartment actually looks better this morning. It’s still not up to par–I need to do the floors to get there–but it’s nice to walk down to a neater first floor. I do need to run the dishwasher this morning, and finish filing before I read and write for the day. I do feel a little dragged out this morning, but hopefully getting caffeinated and cleaned up will take care of that problem.
I did do some things writing-related yesterday. I found the epigraphs for the next Scotty book, for one, and also wrote the opening of The Crooked Y in my head yesterday as I cleaned and organized. I created some working folders for projects that are forming in my head, and I did write notes down in my journal occasionally. I also did some electronic file cleaning up, which is proving to be an endless, endless process that may never be finished. But as long as I can still search for everything in a finder window, it should be okay. I also thought of how to open The Summer of Lost Boys, too. I’ve been listening to the Billboard Top 100’s for the years I am considering setting the book in, and I think I am settling into 1974, which was when I originally wanted it set in the first place, the summer (in my life) between junior high and high school. It’s kind of fun, if a little painful, to go back to that time and remember it for myself, but I think it’s going to be a really strong book once it’s underway. I also started getting the current book a bit better organized. I feel better about things, if that makes any sense? Hopefully I’ll be able to get a lot of writing done. I want to finish the rewrite of “Passenger to Franklin” and start the revision of “When I Die,” before diving into the book headfirst and trying to get the rest of it plotted.
I think I’ve been a bit overwhelmed lately, in all honesty, and I need to get calmed down and focused again. I need to remember how to harness my brain ADHD-driven creativity and focus on one thing the way I used to be able to do so. I have been very pleased with the (sparse) writing I’ve been doing, but I also think that might be partly due to the stamina issues I’ve been having since the surgery. I am trying to rush to get back to “normal” (or what passes for it around here) and getting ahead of myself, and I need to reign in my impatience and take things slower. It’s okay because it’s temporary, and this too shall pass. Take a breath, remember you had a rough go of things last year, and you have to build everything back to the point it was before the injury.
I’ve also been remiss in not congratulating award winners lately in my field; I am very pleased to report that J. M. Redmann won the Hansen Prize for queer crime fiction for Transitory, which is now also a Lambda finalist AND a two category Goldie finalist. Yay Jean! I’ve known Jean for almost twenty-five years now, she was my boss’s boss for about eighteen years, we’ve co-edited anthologies together, and now I am her book editor. Transitory is a terrific book, and being Jean’s editor is pretty easy, actually. Ivy Pochoda recently won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Best Crime Novel for Sing Her Down, and Ivy is pretty awesome, too. I am behind on her books (I’m behind on everyone’s books, really) but her Wonder Valley was fan-fucking-tastic. Way to go, Ivy! (That was a loaded category, too–other nominees were S. A. Cosby, Cheryl Head, Jordan Harper, and Lou Berney.)
And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines, eat something and get cleaned up and ready to go for this glorious morning. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will chat at you again later.
I always say my first identity is reader; I was a voracious reader long before I realized that loving to read and loving books predestined me to become an author, a teller of tales. Certainly author is my primary, preferred identity; sometimes I worry that my identity is entirely too wrapped up in being an author. But trying not to worry and be anxious about anything and everything in my life is my new mantra.
Anyway, I had the great pleasure of meeting S. A. (Shawn) Cosby at Bouchercon in St. Petersburg. I don’t really remember much of the weekend–I met a lot of people and I drank way too much–but I know I met and liked him enough to get a copy of his debut novel, My Darkest Prayer. I loved the book, and saw in its pages an incredible talent, for character and place and dialogue and language, and when I reviewed it on here I predicted an incredibly bright future for him as a crime writer.
I was right,
Titus woke up five minutes before his alarm went off at 7:00 A. M. and made himself a cup of coffee in the Keurig Darlene had gotten him last Christmas. At the time she’d given it he’d thought it was an expensive gift for a relationship that was barelyfour months old. These days, Titus had to admit it was a damn good gift he was grateful to have.
He’d gotten her a bottle of perfume.
He almost winced thinking back on it If knowing your lover was a competition, Darlene was a gold medalist. Titus didn’t even qualify for the bronze. Over the last ten months he’d forced himself to get exponentially better in the gift-giving department.
Titus sipped his coffee.
His last girlfriend before Darlene has said he was a great boyfriend but was awful at relationships. He didn’t dispute that assessment.
Titus took another sip.
All the Sinners Bleed is Shawn’s fourth novel (as a solo author–he also co-wrote a book with Questlove). In the wake of My Darkest Prayer, he released two novels to extraordinary success and acclaim, Blacktop Wasteland and Razorblade Tears. Both were amazing, and somehow each book is somehow better than the preceding one–which is really saying something; I’d happily retire if I ever reached anything comparable to those two with any two of my own.
But they were just warm-up acts for this incredible new novel.
Something that has always interested me over the years is the integration of American police forces on every level. How do, for example, Black and/or Latinx/Hispanic cops feel when their fellow officers commit racially driven police brutality? How does it feel to be a part of a police force–particularly in the deep South, but also in places like Los Angeles–that has always been historically racist and oppressive to non-whites? For that matter, how does it feel to be a queer police officer?
All the Sinners Bleed takes on that question with our main character, Titus Crown, the recently elected first-ever Black sheriff in a pretty racist little corner of southeastern Virginia. Titus was born and raised there; his father and brother live there, and he returns to his hometown after a stint with the FBI. He ran for sheriff not expecting to win, but to try to break the stranglehold of power always held by money and white supremacy there. (I have another essay or entry to write about small Southern counties/parishes, and how they all too frequently are run like corrupt authoritarian dictatorships with the power being passed down within a few families, sometimes only one. Exhibit A: the Murtaughs in the South Carolina low country.) As the first Black sheriff of Charon County, he has to uphold the law–which he intends to do to the best of his abilities.
The book opens with a shooting at the local high school; this was hard for me to read and part of the reason it took me so long to get into it; I thought this was going to be a school shooting novel and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read that. But I was wrong; yes, there was a shooting at the school and yes, that shooting was pivotal to the plot, but it wasn’t a mass shooting: a young Black man goes to the school and murders one of the teachers, and on his way out he is shot and killed by the cops when he won’t drop his weapon. Why would Latrell Macdonald shoot Mr. Spearman, a very popular teacher? As Titus starts looking into the strange shooting, he discovers another level of horror going on in Charon County, and once the story gets moving, it’s hard to put the book down.
Over the course of this all-too-short novel, Cosby tackles a lot of issues without either being preachy or over-the-top. Confederate monuments, the Daughters of the Confederacy, racism, white supremacy, the cruelty of poverty, police brutality, and the hard, cruel kind of Christianity practiced in poor, remote rural regions of the South. But the most powerful aspect of the book is how it handles grief; the three Crown men dealing with the loss of wife and mother, a wound that never heals–and the guilt that comes with moving on from such a loss. Cosby had a lot to say in just over three hundred pages; the fact that he said it all, and powerfully, by using character, place and story to get his messages across is testament to his great skil.
And this book is bound to piss off white supremacists. It will make a great Christmas gift for any in your family.
It’s hard to believe that it’s October already; but this year has also seemed to last forever, which is bizarre and weird. I slept really well last night, and had a pretty relaxing day overall yesterday. I ran my errands yesterday morning and got them all done, which was lovely and then came home to watch some football games. It was an odd day, and my primary takeaways were that LSU needs a new defensive coordinator because they’re defense is getting worse rather than better; Georgia looked surprisingly vulnerable; Florida looked terrible; and I think Alabama–even in an off year–is going to wind up winning the conference because they’re the only team with an elite defense. Paul went to the gym during the Auburn-Georgia game, and Tug slept on me the entire time he was gone, which was lovely and relaxing. I’ve missed that. There really is nothing quite as calming as having a cat sleeping on you.
It’s so lovely having a cat in the house again, and I’d forgotten what it was like to have a kitten. Scooter was supposedly two years old when we got him, but Skittle was a six month old kitten. Tug isn’t quite five (still not sure about that name) months yet, but he’s definitely got BIG KITTEN energy, He’s absolutely fearless and not shy at all. It’s also nice hearing his paws on the stairs as he comes down them. I’ve missed the sound of a cat coming down the steps. He’s not heavy enough for me to hear him jump down from the bed yet, but I’m sure he’s going to grow into a nice size. It’s always fun getting to know your new pet’s personality–and like I said, he can make a toy out of anything. Scooter also wasn’t the kind of cat who would knock things off surfaces just to see what happens–Tug appears to be both the kind who will accidentally knock things off but also will do it on purpose. He also wanted my ice cream yesterday! Like I said, he’s completely fearless–will explore anywhere, and he is also fascinated by the windows. He also can jump pretty high, and I think we don’t need to worry about bugs in the house anymore.
I’m trying out cacao instead of coffee again this morning; it doesn’t have the bitter bite of coffee that I really like, but the real test of cacao will be tomorrow morning. I have been having one cup before switching to coffee–and yes, I do wonder if it’s the caffeine addiction that makes me switch over after the one cup–but tomorrow I think I’ll have a cup of coffee when I wake up and then take cacao in my go cup for the office. I don’t think I will ever give up coffee entirely, but I think I need to bring down my dependence on it, and I should probably never have more than three cups a day anyway (the most I have when I go into the office; I drink more when i am home).
Today I have a lot to get done. I was lazy yesterday after the errands and just watched games all day. The Saints play at noon today, but I doubt I’ll have the game on today. My kitchen/work space is a disaster area, and there’s things to do–dishwasher to unload, more dishes to wash, things to file and put away–and I’d like to do some writing today if i can. I didn’t finish Shawn’s book yesterday as I’d planned, so I will finish it this morning and then move on to reading horror for the month for Halloween and do some writing this afternoon. I want to get some of these short stories edited and/or finished, and there’s some other writing clean-up that needs to be done. I also need to make a to-do list. So, I am guessing the cacao certainly wakes up my mind in the mornings, as mine is now racing. I feel a little asleep still physically, if that makes any sense, so I’ve moved on to coffee and there’s that bitter bite I like. But I am definitely going to be productive today, and the first step of that is to finish Shawn’s book. After that I’ll come back into the kitchen and clean up in here–as well as write about Shawn’s book–and do some organizing before some writing. I have so many projects in progress right now that I need to be better organized, and definitely better motivated. I know the organization thing is a by-product of the anxiety (if I stay organized I won’t get anxious worrying about things I’m forgetting to do; if I stay motivated I won’t get stressed by deadlines, and on and on and on), but coping mechanisms work and exist because they work; and anything that brings down my anxiety is okay with me.
And on that note, Shawn’s book is calling to me, and so it’s off to my easy chair with me. I’ll probably check in with you again later. And if not, have a great day, Constant Reader!
And here we are at a manic Monday yet again, and shortly I will be heading into the office for yet another exciting week of the day job. Hurray and huzzah? I slept really well on Saturday night, getting up just after seven yesterday despite not going to bed until almost midnight; I found myself reading some things Saturday during the games that I shouldn’t have started–one of them being Queen Margot by Alexandre Dumas; I have the ebook–and I was also reading legends and stories about Louisiana’s past as well as Alabama’s; I have an ebook called Warrior Mountains Folklore: An Oral History by Rickey Butch Walker (which is an Alabama name if I’ve ever heard one); which isn’t necessarily about the Alabama county I’m from, but the ones directly north, including notorious Winston County, which contains the Bankhead National Forest. It also tells stories of the indigenous people of the area, and reminded me that Tuscaloosa actually is the Creek words for “black warrior,” meaning the Black Warrior River is actually the Tuscaloosa (tusca loosa); this will all go into the construction of my fictional Alabama county, which is ongoing. (And yes, the irony that one of the greatest–if not the greatest–college football programs is in a town named Black Warrior in the native tongue is hilarious.)
(It has occurred to me that I don’t necessarily have to connect all of my Alabama stories just as I don’t need to connect all my Kansas stories–which I realized while writing #shedeservedit–which was kind of freeing. I need to think in terms of multiverses rather than one single interconnected universe with my writing, don’t I? It certainly makes things easier than trying to keep the continuity and so forth going.)
Anyway, I am sure my Alabama just-for-fun research will undoubtedly pay dividends in future writing, no doubt. I also have been having ideas for more stories set there; I may give Jake’s boyfriend Beau his own story at some point; I keep going back to the legend of the Blackwood witch from antebellum/early statehood days, because the witch story is one I’ve always wanted to tell. Beau, being an archaeology major with a minor in Alabama History, is just the perfect person to tell the story of the witch I’ve always wanted to tell. But is it weird to have another vengeful spirit in the woods behind the Blackwood place, and the Civil War ruins? Or could it be tied to the lost family cemetery, still out there in the woods somewhere? As you can tell, I’ve been thinking about it lately.
I managed about a little more than twenty-five hundred words on the new Valerie yesterday, which felt great to do, really. I wanted to write some more on the Jem sequel, too, but after finishing the Valerie chapter I just felt mentally fatigued. I’m not used to writing this much in a short period of time anymore (just over an hour or so) and it’s going to take me a while to get back up to the proper writing speed I cannot maintain year-round. But it felt great to be creating again, and I do love the plot of this book. I also spent some quality time with Shawn Cosby’s marvelous All the Sinners Bleed, which is going in a direction I did not see coming and one that I am really enjoying. Shawn is such a master story-teller! I can’t wait to finish this so I can write about it–and I hope I finish it in time to read Lou Berney’s new one before I switch to October Halloween Horror Month. I think I may try out a Grady Hendrix novel for one of my horror reads and of course, I am terribly behind on Stephen King, and there are also some other lovely horror novels and collections in my piles of books to be read that could make for a fun reading month: Stephen Graham Jones, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Paul Tremblay, Christopher Golden, Sarah Pearse, and Katrina Monroe, among so many others–I need to get back into the habit of reading for at least an hour every day. The only way to get through all the books i want to read is to make a daily time allowance for reading and stick to it.
After the abysmally disappointing Saints game, I went back to my easy chair and rather than delving back into Shawn’s book, I decided to start reading Jackson Square Jazz, the finished and published edition, to get a better handle on the story again. It’s been a long time, and I knew it had to do with a young figure skater, the Napoleon death mask, and the Cabildo fire, but not really much beyond that–although I think it’s actually the book where Scotty is in his first canonical car accident. Again, I am distant enough from it now not to immediate go into editing mode as I read it–ironic, since I need to re-edit it–and just read it. I really need to stop being so hard on myself. I know I’ve already made great strides in that direction, and I like my new positive attitude toward writing and publishing. I think analyzing why I am so hard on myself, recognizing the mentality I defaulted to when reading my work meant needing to flip a switch in my brain and going into a different mode other than editorial and doing it consciously makes a lot of difference. I was pleased rereading my short story collection, and was pretty pleased with rereading Jackson Square Jazz, particularly since it’s an early book in my canon and it’s been over twenty years since I wrote it.
(It’s kind of awe-inspiring and terrifying at the same time to realize just how long I’ve been doing this. Bill Clinton was president when I signed my first book contract.)
Well, that made me feel rather elderly.
I slept super-well last night, too. I was very tired and falling asleep in my chair, so I went to bed around nine and only woke up once, around two, and then woke up again half an hour before the alarm (as usual). Hopefully, I will not be too tired to function later today.
And on those two rather sad trombone notes, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will be back before you know it.
One of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is how we don’t really have a Louisiana crime writer who explores and illuminates the damage we are doing to the ecosystem and environmentalism of the state the way John D. Macdonald infused many of his Florida novels with so frequently. Condominium, published in the 1980’s, is a stinging indictment of crooked developers and corrupt politicians putting up massive condominium buildings along the coastline of Florida, despite the damage they do to the environment, all in the name of a quick buck. I have been thinking about this because I spent a lot of time in the panhandle in the 1970s, back before Panama City Beach developed into what it is now. I’ve not been back there since 1980, at the latest; but just looking at Google Earth images it’s horrifying how different and over-developed that whole area has become. (I was looking at the images because I was thinking about setting a book along the Redneck Riviera/Baja Alabama/Emerald Coast/Miracle Strip, whichever name you use for the region.) Louisiana, nicknamed “Sportsmen’s Paradise” because of the abundant fish and game and the stunning natural beauty of the state, has pretty much spent the last hundred or so years (at least) destroying and despoiling the natural resources of the state of Louisiana, killing off wildlife species while introducing new invasive ones–and don’t even get me started on Cancer Alley, that stretch of the river between New Orleans and Baton Rouge lined with petrochemical plants parked next to poor, mostly Black communities that have, surprisingly enough, large instances of cancers in the residents. Now the level of the river is so low that it can’t keep the Gulf water pushed down, and the salty water is making its way up the river and intruding into our drinking water supply here in southeastern Louisiana. I’m sure the loss of so much of the wetlands to ensure oil company profits hasn’t affected this in any way, shape or form. There’s a really good environmental thriller to be written about Louisiana (if not more), and I think maybe part of the problem in writing about the destruction of Louisiana in the name of unfettered greed is that I don’t feel knowledgeable enough on the subject to tackle it, nor do I have the time to spend on the research necessary.
It’s really disappointing to me that James Michener never wrote one of his two thousand page plus books about Louisiana. Louisiana history, no offense, is a lot more interesting than Texas’.
And Sportsmen’s Paradise is a great title for a book about Louisiana’s environmental disasters.
I suppose I should just go ahead and do it, regardless of how difficult and long and tedious the process may be. I also think part of the reason I’ve resisted this aspect of writing about Louisiana is because no matter how dark my books may get, I always want justice to be done in some way and to end the book with some sort of hope; there literally is no hope for the future of Louisiana because our politicians are all too greedy and corrupt and only focused on the now rather than the future, no matter how much they beat the “but the children!” drum publicly to fool those incapable of deeper thought. There have been so many environmental disasters in Louisiana over the nearly three decades I’ve lived here I can’t remember them all; and yes, I definitely count boil water advisories in that, too. There was the sinkhole at Bayou Corne (anyone remember that?) and of course Deepwater Horizon, whose true impact and the damage it wrought on the Gulf and the coastline will not be fully known for generations.
The one consistent thing throughout Louisiana’s history has been the entrenched systemic political corruption. I have written about that.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about Jackson Square Jazz, as I get into this revision, and remembering why I wrote it and what I was trying to say within the book; there was a thread in it that ties directly into the new one, and there are also some thematic commonalities with S. A. Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed, which I am really enjoying reading. Shawn is such an extraordinary writer, with a gift not only for language but character, dialogue, setting and story; the complete deal, as it were, and definitely is going to be considered one of the definitive crime writers of this new generation of exceptional talent that has risen over the last few years. I am going to spend some more time with Shawn’s book this morning, too; I am really enjoying it and wanting to see where it goes and how it all ends. I also have the new Lou Berney on deck, and Lou’s books are always high-quality, clever, and engaging.
College football was interesting yesterday. My Tigers prevailed in a three-point nail-biter against Arkansas in Tiger Stadium 34-31, running the clock out and kicking the winning field goal on the last play of the game. Paul and I were stunned, as was the crowd in the stadium..,and then I laughed. “LSU fans aren’t used to smart clock management in tight games,” I observed, and Paul started laughing with me because the crowd in the stadium didn’t know how to react to the end of the game either. It almost seemed ant-climactic rather than exciting…how many games have we lost this century because of poor clock management skills displayed by the coaching staff? So it was lovely, for once, to see the Tigers play smart at the end of a game for a change. Alabama finally looked like Alabama for the first time this season–but only in the second half as they iced Mississippi. LSU now has to play Mississippi in Oxford next weekend; it’ll be interesting to see how LSU stacks up against our old Magnolia Bowl foe. Colorado finally lost, which brought out all the racist college football fans on social media. The Texas A&M-Auburn game was just sloppy, ugly and unimpressive, while Mississippi State fell to South Carolina. But the big game of the day lived up to its billing–Ohio State v. Notre Dame in South Bend, with the Buckeyes scoring the winning touchdown on the literal last play of the game, 17-14. I literally only saw the closing minutes of the game, switching over once the LSU game concluded. The Saints play at noon today at Green Bay, so the grocery run I need to make will happen around that time–no fool me; everyone knows the best time to make groceries is during a Saints game here.
Yesterday was pretty relaxing, over all; a lovely day for the weekend and a restful and nice one, despite the stress of the LSU game. I’ll probably have the Saints game on in the background because it’s too anxiety-making to watch the games. (I have yet to learn how to control the anxiety during a game; it was certainly there last night and while I tried very hard not to get negative during the game, I could feel the adrenaline spiking and my heart rate going up, but I managed to keep my mind from spiraling and going super-dark as well not getting overly emotional It is, after all, just a football game and LSU football success isn’t necessary for my mental well-being.)
My goals for today are to read Shawn’s book for a few hours, get cleaned up and make a grocery run; while finishing the first chapters of the new Valerie and Jem books (tentatively titled, thus far, The House of the Seven Grables and You Gone, Girl) and also wanting to do some short story work as well, which is always fun. This Friday I am getting fitted for my new teeth (hurray!) and I have also reached the point where I can eat and enjoy noodles, so yesterday I made box mac’n’cheese (not Kraft, but one that came from the refrigerated section and simply needed microwaving and stirring; it wasn’t bad, either). Tonight I am going to make ravioli for dinner; we’ll see how that goes, although I am sure I won’t be able to eat any garlic bread. (I am able to eat Cheese Puffs, though.) I really want a burger, more than anything else. We are also making a trip to the SPCA to adopt a cat this coming Friday, which is perhaps the most exciting thing of all! I’ve really missed having a cat; they are such darling animals, and of course we want to get another ginger boy.
And on that note, I think I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back–if not later, than tomorrow.
I’ve been toying with an idea for an essay for a while. It began as a blog post, but as I worked on it I realized it might be too long for a blog entry, were I to cover the entire scope of the issue even in abstract form. I moved it from here into a Word document yesterday, which may or may not mean something bigger in store for it than simply a blog entry. I don’t know. It will probably wind up here at some point as one of those long rambling things I do from time to time when I feel passionately about something. Consider that your warning. I’ve been thinking about masculinity a lot lately–it’s been an albatross hung around my neck since I was a child (“Boys don’t play with dolls! Boys don’t read Nancy Drew!”) and after reading so many bad takes about how “men are in crisis”–which basically boil down to an inability to adapt to cultural and societal change that is so intense that they resist such adaptation violently–I started thinking about masculinity and what it means to be a man; if it means anything, really. It’s probably too important an issue for me to take on in a personal essay, but personal essays are supposed to be revealing, and no one expects me to have an encyclopedic knowledge of everything ever written about American masculinity, and to discuss it; thinking I can’t write something for whatever reason is self-sabotage of the worst kind, and something I am guilty of, over and over, throughout my life and career.
And yes, self-sabotage is 100% a by-product of my anxiety.
I also have Justin Baldoni’s book about masculinity, Man Enough, which is also an exploration of masculinity. Baldoni played the incredibly hot and sexy father of Jane the Virgin’s baby, and so as a gorgeous male actor/sex symbol, he has some gravitas to speak on the subject. I’m looking forward to cycling around to his book, once I finish my reread of a Charlemagne biography I really enjoy. I also spent some more time with Shawn’s All the Sinners Bleed, which I am liking and savoring as I go–and can’t wait to spend some more time with it today. When I finish, Lou Berney’s Dark Ride has preempted everyone and been moved to the top of the TBR pile. It’s so lovely having so many great options of what to read next. I also think once October rolls around I am going to read only horror that month, in honor of the season–so I need to finish Shawn and Lou’s books before the month turns.
It also occurs to me that many of my books–unbeknownst to me–have explored the topic of masculinity in great detail already.
I slept really well last night, and only got up once. Ironically once I did wake up, I thought wow you really slept late and then saw it was quarter past seven on my alarm. I guess how it feels matters more than how long it actually was, and what truly matters is that I woke up feeling rested and relaxed and ready for my coffee this morning. I am debating right now whether I want to take the books to the library sale and the beads to the donor bins as well s make a slight grocery run–but am leaning towards not making the trip outside the house. I don’t really need anything from the store until Monday at the earliest, and the boxes of books and beads are out of the way and not bothering anyone, let alone my need for order and open space in the living room. I also want to work on some writing today before the games, so maybe leaving the house today isn’t in the cards–or am I just being lazy? It’s definitely possible that laziness and procrastination and my tendency to self-sabotage is what is really going on here. It’s possible. I do tend to put things off I consider unpleasant (and by unpleasant, I mean have to put some effort into it)…
LSU plays Arkansas tonight in Death Valley, and tonight we’ll find out two things: basically, how good either time is. It’s hard to say this early in the season how much quality your wins and losses have; the Florida State-Clemson game today will impact how good the LSU loss to the Seminoles was, and of course we aren’t sure how good Mississippi State is, so we don’t know if that was a quality win yet or not. Arkansas lost to BYU last weekend, so there’s also no telling how good they may or may not be, either. The whole conference seems to be down this year, but a tight win for Georgia can be shaken off as meaningless this early, and Alabama may bounce back; a Nick Saban coached Alabama team has never lost more than three games in a season since 2010 and only twice overall; sure, they looked unimpressive against USF and lost badly to Texas in Tuscaloosa, but does that mean Alabama isn’t going to rebound and is destined for a bad season? No, I don’t think so. Love them or hate them, Alabama consistently wins, and an early season loss means nothing to their program. Sure, LSU could run the table, win the West and potentially even the conference title game and make it to the play-offs; but they have to run the table on a schedule filled with landmines, including both Alabama and a rebuilding Auburn as well as the always hated Florida Gators. There are some great games today, which is why I want to spend some time reading Shawn’s book this morning before the games start, and I plan on rereading and revising Jackson Square Jazz during the games today.
And of course, there’s always filing and organizing to be done. I have seriously messed up my filing system so thoroughly and completely that it’s going to require a major overhaul to begin with, but I also have to think about putting together a new and workable system that will be easier to maintain than this haphazard way I’ve been doing things–and of course the computer files are an utter disaster as well. Heavy sigh.
I’ve been doing a lot more research (or rather, falling into research black holes on the web) about New Orleans during the decade of the 1910’s. I am definitely going to write a Sherlock pastiche for the Bouchercon anthology–which of course means I will most likely be rejected. Perhaps a Sherlockian-type character, and if they turn it down I can simply turn him into Sherlock and toss the story into my short story collection? I need to finish the revisions of “Whim of the Wind” and finish a draft of “Parlor Tricks,” which will probably go into that collection as well. What particularly interests me now is “Manila Village,” a settlement of Filipinos on Barataria Bay, settled by native Filipinos who were forced to serve in the Spanish navy and escaped to Louisiana. There’s still a strong Filipino-American community here (which I actually didn’t know before falling into this wormhole of research), and I do feel that Holmes, living in New Orleans in that decade, would probably embrace them and their culture. (I also need to research the Isleños; descendants of the Canary Islanders who settled here.) New Orleans was also dramatically different geographically back then; the New Basin Canal was still there, for one thing, and I am not entirely sure when the Carondelet Canal (also called the Old Basin Canal) was filled in, but it came right up next to Congo Square; the streets in the Quarter were either dirt or cobblestone, and the lower part of the neighborhood had been almost entirely taken over by Italian immigrants.
I’ve also got strong starts of first chapters for another Jem book (sequel to Death Drop) and another Valerie (sequel to A Streetcar Named Murder); so there’s plenty of writing to be done this weekend as well. I’m not feeling overwhelmed by any or all of this writing that must be worked on and done; this morning I literally feel like all I need to do is roll up my sleeves and dive into the word documents head first, which is a great way to feel.
And on that note, it’s spice mine time this morning. Have a great Saturday and I’ll probably check in with you again later.
Monday morning and back to the office with me once I’ve woken up, cleaned up, and showered. It was a good weekend for the most part, mostly anticlimactic feeling after the visit with the surgeon on Friday morning; I’d say the best word to describe the weekend would be relief. I slept well last night, and yesterday was a nice, relaxing one. I cleaned and read my own works in progress and made some revising notes; I also started writing the opening of the next Valerie book in my journal, which was kind of fun. There’s a bit of a mess that needs to be cleared up before the book really starts going, but that’s what rewrites are for. At some point this week I’ll need to transcribe what was written into a Word file– I also need to do that with “Parlor Tricks,” a short story I freeform wrote some stuff in my journal for–and I also want to get back to writing again. I’ve been lazy lately–burnout maybe from the back-to-back writing of the most recent two–but I need to start working again.
But it’s always nice to revisit works-in-progress you’ve not progressed on or thought much about in over a year other than the occasional idle thought: oh, I should probably finish that novellaor short story or whatever and then make a note or something and promptly forget about it. I’d not realized how far I’d gotten with a Chanse (!) novella until I read it yesterday, and even as i was reading it I was thinking tweak this or this would be a good place to go into this and oh you can restate that paragraph to make it a lot more powerful , which was nice. I also reread the starts of several short stories in progress, several of which I’d forgotten about, like “A Little More Jazz for the Axeman” and “Please Die Soon”–a really fun exploration of gaslighting as well as unreliable narration, and even the main character isn’t sure if she’s being gaslit or if her mind is fucking with her, which is a super-fun concept to work with. I also looked through “Festival of the Redeemer” and “A Holler Full of Kudzu” and “Spellcaster”; all of which have a lot more potential than I remembered or would have thought.
We got caught up on The Morning Show last night–it really is a strong show, kind of like The West Wing about a television network, in some ways, and the cast is simply superb–and then started watching Suspect on Britbox, which I am not sure I am sold on, to be honest. It’s a great concept and has a great cast, but…I’m so tired of “something happens to child of bad/absent father and so angry father must appease feelings of guilt by tracking down killers/rapists/kidnappers/etc. to avenge child they neglected while alive.” I fucking hate this trope because they always portray the dad as some sympathetic hero. Sorry, if you beget children, you need to be a good parent to them and present while they are alive, and “avenging” said child doesn’t make up for it. (I really think S. A. Cosby ended this trope forever with Razorblade Tears; Shawn took a very tired trope, breathed new life into it, and wrote the definitive book on the subject; no one else need bother anymore unless you do better than Shawn…and good luck with that.) Was Liam Neeson not available to play Super-dad in this? Someone needs to do a lengthy critical essay book about the trope of the super-father in fiction, the societal problems they mask, and their unrealism bordering on fantasy to the point of being inadvertent straight male camp. (Which really is what James Bond, Mission: Impossible, and The Fast and the Furious franchises are, just like the Marvel/DC comic book movies are–there’s a dissertation for a PhD in Women’s Studies for someone. You’re welcome.)
I also, in reading the stacks of paper-clipped drafts in one of my stack of inboxes, found another draft of “Whim of the Wind” I’d forgotten about–see what I mean about my shitty memory?–where I’d undertaken a thorough rewrite, and I’m not certain I don’t prefer this opening to the most recent attempt to revise the story. So I am going to compare/contrast the two of them, and see what comes out of it. I also am not certain I like the new ending I came up with, because it doesn’t really work with the tone and voice of the story (it’s also very reminiscent of how I’ve ended a couple of other stories lately, and I don’t like being repetitive, which I find in short stories a lot more frequently than I’d like, to be honest), so I am going to give it yet another old college try to see if I can’t finally whip this damned story into publication strength (after forty years, it’s the least I can do for it). Writing freeform in longhand yesterday in my journal also seemed to unlock something in my mind–the creative stall or whatever you want to call it–but I feel like writing again, and I don’t dread it or even think meh not doing anything today isn’t going to hurt anything, which is incredibly stupid (but one of those lies my brain tells itself to get out of writing).
And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, everyone, and I’ll check in with you again later.
There’s really nothing like a country adultery song, is there?
The stitches in my gums are starting to dissolve, which means healing is happening. I don’t know if and when I can eat something a little more solid–like bananas and watermelon–but trust me when I say I cannot wait to eat something I can gum a bit. That really doesn’t sound appealing, does it? But much as I love protein shakes and ice cream (please note the lack of mentioning baby food), I really want something else. I really want Five Guys, to the point where I’d buy one and puree it if I wasn’t aware enough to know that it would be disgusting and still inedible for me.
In a little bit I’ll be heading to the Tulane Institute of Sports Medicine where I am finally meeting with the kind of specialist who can potentially work on my left arm injury. It’s a very long and tragic story, how I got here at any rate, and I’ll probably go into more at another time, but it’s not something I feel like talking about at the moment. The primary problem is I don’t remember if I’ve talked about it here already or not? The joys of getting older and having a much more slippery memory than I used to have, I suppose. I slept really well last night–certainly could have slept longer, so I think this weekend will entail a lot of sleeping in, quite frankly. I don’t feel tired and worn out the way that I remember feeling before on Friday mornings, so I guess that’s a good sign. I’ll run some errands on the way home and hopefully won’t have to go out much this weekend. I also need to get back to writing something other than emails and blogs, to be honest. I was thinking about this last night, and since I’ll take Shawn’s book with me this morning to read in the waiting room, hopefully that will crack the trouble I am having reading since coming home and I think the answer to cracking the writing issue is to start the actual editing of Jackson Square Jazz. Why not? It needs to be done and it’s just been sitting there waiting for me to do it for years now. I also think I’m going to pull that short story collection I’ve been wanting to get into print, and see how close it is to being finished and what unpublished stories there are on hand that need more work on them. I think those are both valid projects for me to make some progress on this weekend around cleaning and watching football games, I think.
We got caught up on both Ahsoka and Only Murders in the Building last night, which was nice. I was tired when I got home from work last night–very tired–and was actually able to come straight home from work for once. I finished a load of laundry–still sitting in the dryer, actually–and a load of dishes that need to be unloaded once I get the kitchen back into some kind of decent shape.
As I sat in my chair last night waiting for Paul to come home while watching a documentary on Youtube about the final collapse of the Hapsburg dynasty, I wondered if my ability to now recognize anxiety for what it actually is as it starts (I just always thought everyone’s brain worked that way before) and fend it off had anything to do with with my not writing? I think I may have burned myself out a little bit with all the writing work I’ve done this year; juggling two new novels at the same time wasn’t the smartest move I’ve made in my career–but I had no way of knowing what my life situation was going to be like last fall, winter and spring either. I also think if I can get over the reading hump, the writing hump will melt away like nothing before my very eyes. It’s a lovely thing to believe (we tell ourselves lies in order to live), and it may very well be true–reading always inspires me and makes me want to get back into my chair at the keyboard and working away at something. I also just checked and my new glasses are scheduled to arrive on Monday, which is great, as my prescription has grown stronger but I am still wearing my old ones. This is, if you will recall, the year of getting things done–hence the hearing aids, the mouth surgery, and following up on getting my arm taken care of. I am looking forward to being able to see properly again, and chew again, to go along with my new ability to hear, which is lovely and something to which I’m still adapting.
So my big plans for this weekend involve cleaning the house (as always), revising and reediting Jackson Square Jazz, and reading All the Sinners Bleed, which has a very strong and powerful opening. I may do other things–I do have a hefty to-do list to take care of this weekend, but nothing I can’t really handle–and of course I’ll be watching the LSU game tomorrow morning as well; using the nervous energy LSU games always give me to clean the living room. If it weren’t for the early start time of that game, I’d take some boxes of books to donate to the library sale, but that will have to wait until next weekend, alas. (They’ve been in the living room since Labor Day, and I’ve not pruned the books again since because, well, there’s already too many boxes in the living room.)
And on that note, I’m going to get another cup of coffee and head into the spice mines to start getting ready to head uptown for the doctor’s office. Wish me luck, Constant Reader, and I will chat at you some more probably later on. Have a great Friday!
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?
Queer and Loathing in America 