Read any good LGBT lit lately?

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Kitty Pryde

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Oh, I just read Are You My Mother, the sequel to Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. Both are amazing autobiographical graphic novels. The second was harder to read but equally engrossing.
 

maxmordon

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Oh, I just read Are You My Mother, the sequel to Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. Both are amazing autobiographical graphic novels. The second was harder to read but equally engrossing.

I'm actually reading Fun Home at the moment. I told to myself not to start any books I bought in my recent trips abroad until I had finished those I started before travelling, so I started to read the first bit one night and before I knew it I had already left a third of the book behind!
 

Kim Fierce

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I am reading "The Girl Who Played With Fire" by Stieg Larson, even though I haven't read "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" yet. I didn't know the MC was going to be bi. Nor that a male writer would write about a bi female and a different lesbian character and that so far I'm not horridly offended haha. I haven't had the chance to get too deep into it. But it seems several of the main characters have genderqueer characteristics, which is very interesting.
 

KTC

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Oh boy! Have I! I'm commenting in this thread now so I remember to let you know the name of the book once it sells. I had the opportunity to read one of the best YAs I have ever read recently. (I beta'd for the author...she is unknown and it is NOT published. She did however just get a very good agent to sign her on. Because, frankly, her book is exceptional. The agent will sell it to a publisher...then I will come back and give you the title and author. She's superstitious about announcing anything just yet.)


(-: Hope you don't mind the tease. I'll share the title just as soon as it sells. (-;
 

DiloKeith

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I enjoyed these enough to look for more books by these authors:

"The Men from the Boys" and "Where the Boys Are" by William J. Mann
They follow the intertwined lives of several men and raise issues about gay "culture". This quick description doesn't do them justice, sorry.
There's a third novel in this series I haven't read.

"Looking For It" by Michael Thomas Ford
A group of men who frequent the gay bar in a small town are all seeking something in their lives.
He's written several novels.

Goodreads has a detailed description of these three and others by both authors.
 
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Timmy V.

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I can never find enough gay fiction that I enjoy. Of course I have a long list of pissy noes: NO coming out stories, NO street kid/rent boy stories, NO story that has AIDS as the central plot point, premise and/or theme. And, good god, no high-class literary nonsense with the grammar--I know, some people are artistes, but I want a book I can cuddle up with in bed at night.

I am currently working my way through the Cambridge Mysteries (Charlie Cochrane), gradually. They are modest fun. A Book of Tongues has been on my list forever, but--no matter where I register--no one seems to buy it for me! Oh, bother. Some folks on another GLBT writers group were not overly enthusiastic about Eminent Outlaws, but I do love C Bram. In fact I think the last gay themed book I loved loved loved was The Notorious Dr. August...So I am sure I'll get to it eventually.

Oh my God I love this post. I'm a gay man who has given up on Gay Lit. When I read gay lit it's as if we come out, then absolutely nothing is written about our lives, and then we die some horrible death either to AIDS, or drug addiction etc. or we get stabbed on the subway because we're prostitutes. I've never read so many books, seen so many awful movies, where the hero of the story dies some awful death. Even Brokeback Mountain the hero is torn to pieces on the side of the road. SCREAM!!!!

When does that happen in movies with straight heroes? And this awful stuff is written by gay people. At least I think there written by gay people. Not Brokeback Mountain.

The big movies "Circuit" the hero kills himself. In Fluffer the hero takes on a life of crime. The Jon Rechy books kill me now horrendously depressing. The Edmund White books dysfunctional longing.

The gay men of my life experience, and my own gay life, have been very happy, can't we have gay lit on how the mainstream gay man lives? Sure the gay men in my life experience party, and do drugs, and yes most of the men in my life experience, had a lot of partners. But...it turned out well!!! we had a great time.

Geez its almost as if the publishers don't want to equate gay happiness with partying, drugs or a lot of partners. Yes sometimes things turn out bad, but many times things turn out just fine. Many times my friends and acquaintances from all over the world have been immensely successful physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially.

The publishing world is lying if they omit the happy endings and only portray the disasters.

I'd love to know what is the strategy behind these awful publishings and movies? The strategy is certainly not demand since they don't sell well. The strategy isn't artistic since most often the books aren't written well, the movie scripts aren't written well.

So...what is the strategy?
 

Timmy V.

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The greatest and most honest Gay Lit book ever "Faggots" by gay author/playwright/activist Larry Kramer. It was a number one best seller. His detractors said he "stereotyped" and "generalized." The gay community despised him for writing it. They tried to chase him out of town. It was a number one best seller because it was brave and brilliant.
 
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MacAllister

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Timmy V - I'm honestly just done with your sniping and nasty remarks about this community, and about the moderation.

It stops here, okay? That was the last freebie cheap shot. Don't do it again. There's nothing in your post that couldn't have been said without trying to piss all over the community you're posting in, and the volunteers who give generously and freely to keep this place up and running.
 
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Deleted member 42

Oh my God I love this post. I'm a gay man who has given up on Gay Lit.?

Maybe you should read a lot more.

Armistead Maupin
Samuel Delany
Thomas Disch
Mark Marliss esp. American Studies

And maybe you might want to reflect that while you were out partying in the 1980s, some of us were trying to help friends, family members, and mentors dying of AIDS to die with a little dignity and peace.

You're 52. I'm fifty. I lost 5 friends and mentors from AIDS between 1985 and 1992. They're not alive to write their stories. We've lost a generation.
 

Timmy V.

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Maybe you should read a lot more.

Armistead Maupin
Samuel Delany
Thomas Disch
Mark Marliss esp. American Studies

And maybe you might want to reflect that while you were out partying in the 1980s, some of us were trying to help friends, family members, and mentors dying of AIDS to die with a little dignity and peace.

You're 52. I'm fifty. I lost 5 friends and mentors from AIDS between 1985 and 1992. They're not alive to write their stories. We've lost a generation.

I love Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City.

My husband John died of AIDS May 22, 1993 kicking and screaming at age 29. It was the most horrible experience of my life. I was 32. My brother died of AIDS June 2, 2011.

And yes throughout all this, the circuit parties are still in progress. And Provincetown is still booming. The tea dance still has dancing and laughing, so crowded one cannot move. As does Southern Decadence, and Palm Springs, Gay Atlanta and San Francisco. There is death always. And hopefully, there is happiness, and life always too.

I haven't been to a bar in twelve years, nor do I go to circuit parties. But I embrace the fact that gay men choose activities that make them happy.
 
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Deleted member 42

And yes throughout all this, the circuit parties are still in progress. And Provincetown is still booming. The tea dance still has dancing and laughing, so crowded one cannot move. As does Southern Decadence, and Palm Springs, Gay Atlanta and San Francisco. There is death always. And hopefully, there is happiness, and life always too.

Look, it's clear from this that you can write, and you've got a voice, and a great deal of ability.

So write the books you'd want to read. We've lost so much queer history because of untimely deaths, and we're losing our cultural memory.

One of the things that's getting you in trouble on AW is that you sometimes to be assuming/asserting that your experience is universal for everyone.

It isn't.

But you can absolutely can write about your own experience, fictively or not, as your experience.
 

Timmy V.

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Look, it's clear from this that you can write, and you've got a voice, and a great deal of ability.

So write the books you'd want to read. We've lost so much queer history because of untimely deaths, and we're losing our cultural memory.

One of the things that's getting you in trouble on AW is that you sometimes to be assuming/asserting that your experience is universal for everyone.

It isn't.

But you can absolutely can write about your own experience, fictively or not, as your experience.

Thank you for what you said about my voice.

If a post I write comes off the way you said then my writing of that post was sloppy, and I was lazy, and the post was a failure. I'm too emotional. I type too fast. I'm too conversational. I presume it is understood my experience isn't universal. My presumption is a big mistake. I'm a stranger of course to the AW community. I say things with laughter and great big childish mischievous smiles on my face so in person people howl with laughter when I say it but as a stranger in a writing forum, my tone is lost and the comments do harm. My whole body shakes when I upset someone. My last 65 posts or so I thought were carefully self-vetted. i did express fear in one recent post twenty or so posts back. I didn't mean to be snarky. I'm truly fearful.

I used to be a gorgeous gym body guy which was great, now I'm a fat, ugly, jolly gay guy(yay I'm free!!) which is great who says just about anything and can get away with it because I'm not a threat to anyone and people see me as a teddybear.

I love Lisa Lampanelli, Chris Rock, Margaret Cho, Joan Rivers and all their awful meanness I find hilarious. My musical tastes are very serious and somber - Melanie, Joni Mitchell etc.

I'm offending writers at times in my local writing community of 20 years too. Sometimes I find myself shocked that the same thing I said at lunch in the office that made 5 people roar with laughter - infuriates two of the four writers in my group that same night even though I've known them four years.

My approach to other writers is failing. Hence I must figure out why my approach fails. What is going on inside of me that my approach is different? Am I cynical about writing? Do I think of it more as a hobby than a serious vocation for myself? Am I jealous? I can swear to you right now, that I'm not really sure.

I only know that I do feel less free as a person amongst writers, in person, and on-line than i feel free amongst non-writers in my work world and my social circles.

But I have no right to offend, or to harm. No one has the freedom to harm or to offend.

I remember one time I wrote a story, a true story about how my husband died of AIDS and I survived. I tested negative after years of unsafe instances with that man etc A gay editor and a group of gay writers said "you cant' write that, you can't have that end happily, a publisher will never publish a story like that. That sends a terrible message. It will hurt the cause."

The non-writers in my life thought it was a beautiful story about hope.

I think then I gave up on any idea of ever being published.

One thing I need to apologize to the AW community for is I made a mistake of reading some internet reviews of AW before I joined the site. I came into AW on the defensive. I believe AW is the largest writing forum site in the world. At least I've seen that written in the internet. So obviously AW is very successful, healthy and a very positive experience for the vast majority. I should have kept AW's huge success at the forefront when I was perceiving the posts I read on AW.

I appreciate that many on AW are trying to be published, some are already published and very successful, many place their writing at the forefront of their lives.

I still identify myself as a government employee in the finance world that loves to write who will always be a government employee who loves to write - who will never be published.

And somewhere because of that, I'm dropping the ball in my interactions. I do totally see now why Mac was angry.

P.S. google Larry Kramer. woo e writers hated him. gay men hated him eek. Seriously Larry Kramer would have been banned. Because of Larry Kramer being Larry Kramer. I'm very sorry I placed any blame on AW mods. That blame was false. Mr. Kramer speaks the truth - but he's very offensive about it. Mr. Kramer before he was famous wouldn't have been banned for speaking the truth. Mr. Kramer before he was famous would have been banned for being offensive.
 

Deleted member 42

Thank you for what you said about my voice.

I meant it—and it's not something I say lightly.

I'm a stranger of course to the AW community. I say things with laughter and great big childish mischievous smiles on my face so in person people howl with laughter when I say it but as a stranger in a writing forum, my tone is lost and the comments do harm.

Read a lot. It's a giant place. And the different subforums have very different personalities. Look at the stickies; you'll note that the stickies in QUILTBAG are very different, for instance, from those elsewhere.

Timmy V.;7611488My approach to other writers is failing. Hence I must figure out why my approach fails. What is going on inside of me that my approach is different? Am I cynical about writing? Do I think of it more as a hobby than a serious vocation for myself? Am I jealous? I can swear to you right now said:
When we write anything, at all, all writers need to think about the effect of their words on their audience/readers.

Words are real things, with real power.

I remember one time I wrote a story, a true story about how my husband died of AIDS and I survived. I tested negative after years of unsafe instances with that man etc A gay editor and a group of gay writers said "you cant' write that, you can't have that end happily, a publisher will never publish a story like that. That sends a terrible message. It will hurt the cause."

I think you might want to reconsider that. Again, look at Delany, who is and was very frank about his sexuality. So are a lot of other writers, of every stripe and orientation.

It's worth keeping in mind that queer studies is an actual academic degree now; I know people with Ph.D.s in queer lit and queer theory, and LGBT lit. Teaching LGBT lit at the college level has more than twenty years of history.

There's a lot out there now, of every conceivable sort; it's not all Rubyfruit Jungle and Maurice and Well of Loneliness.

One thing I need to apologize to the AW community for is I made a mistake of reading some internet reviews of AW before I joined the site. I came into AW on the defensive.

Here's the thing; AW is old, and well-established as a site. It's very very large. And there are a lot of people who hate the site, and quite specifically, hate Mac. You wouldn't believe all the shite she and the mods put up with because they care about writers.

The truth of the matter is that very few people are banned for anything other than outright spam. But bitching about the mods in public will get you in trouble.

Talk to the mods via PM, or to MacAllister via PM.

There are established members here who have had very very rocky starts. But they kept working on how they presented themselves via their words.

And your writing is worth you taking the time and making the effort to figure out how to present yourself, because I think you have a lot to offer.
 

Kim Fierce

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Ramble:
Sort of sounds like I'm lucky that I haven't read much "gay Lit", even though it's only because I don't know where to find any! lol My books are not the tragedies that have been mentioned here, and I'm glad not to have the outside influence, but I do want to read more now.

And I think Timmy's story needs a shot.

And I am 31 and was the only lesbian I knew until I was like 18 or 19, then didn't meet another one until I was 22!!! I don't always know about a culture which in Indiana only seems to exist in Indianapolis! I like to make my own culture and world with my wife and son at home, but even there sometimes we have to hear my wife's mom say that she doesn't agree with gay people and we worry about what she will tell our son as he gets older.

I think the books could be something I really relate to I just never really found any for myself, so I have started writing them, geared to young adults; I wish I could have had some positive stories when I was a kid myself!
 

Deleted member 42

I think the books could be something I really relate to I just never really found any for myself, so I have started writing them, geared to young adults; I wish I could have had some positive stories when I was a kid myself!

It's actually better for gay lit than it is for lesbian lit.

Which, if you think about it, isn't surprising.
 

HarryHoskins

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I wish I could have had some positive stories when I was a kid myself!

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson.

Okay, it's England and not Indiana. Fair enough, it's so ironic and clever a kid might not get it all. True, it does portray a rather awful treatment of a young lesbian ...

However!

It is the story of a girl who overcomes through wit and truth and honesty. It is a story whose humour far outweighs it's sadness and it is a story in which mothers who worry about what the neighbours might say are skewered until they burst.

I guess what I'm saying is, it's a great book and well worth proding onto peoples shelves.
 

Kim Fierce

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It's actually better for gay lit than it is for lesbian lit.

Which, if you think about it, isn't surprising.

Oucharoo! lol

Well, maybe me and my grandiose thoughts can step up the lesbian lit game. . . . although so far my MCs are lesbian, I really want to appeal to all GLBT. I'm working on a short story right now that I really do think will appeal to a wider variety. It's still in the beginning stages, but includes multi-cultural, muti-racial, male and female queers.

I do have a book that will be released in Jan. called "The Divide" where I branch out a bit, too. It's a futuristic dystopia, and I include everything in the GLBT spectrum, plus since it's the future, I decided that the world will truly be a post-racial era, no one is called white or black, most people would be classified biracial by our standards, and they are only labeled as dark-skinned, light-skinned, or pale, if at all. But the nation is also divided into normal towns and gay communities, and this is a problem for my 17-yr old lesbian MC who has been raised in a normal town.
 
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Deleted member 42

Well, maybe me and my grandiose thoughts can step up the lesbian lit game. . . . although so far my MCs are lesbian, I really want to appeal to all GLBT.

Here's the really amazing and wonderful thing about GLBT lit.

All people have the capacity to love, to be happy, to be engaged, to be involved.

And of course, we all have the capacity to be evil, and hateful, and unloved, and hostile.

So if you write hard, if you write real, if you write about all manner of real people, if you write true

You're writing about all of us, for all of us.

Write true.

You'll be fine.
 

JohnnyGottaKeyboard

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Oh my God I love this post.
That doesn't sound at all like me. It's very lighthearted and whimsical. Maybe I was drunk that night...Though I am working my way through the historical mysteries of Charlie Cochrane and I do like Christopher Bram...Not a big fan of Faggot though. In my youth I could never get through it. Maybe I should try again.
Thomas Disch
On Wings of Song was a life changing book for me--I read it at exactly the right age and in exactly the right place to have it completely blow my mind. I loved The Businessman too. The MD starts out strong but I felt it sort of lost it in the third reel. Both The Substitute (title?) and Priest were good--tho the latter confused me somewhat. Echo Round His Bones literally gave me nightmares.

Poor Thomas.
Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson.
I read this because it was listed as one of the 501 Books to read before you die. Along with James Purdy's The Nephew, which I'd also never heard of. Oranges is the better* book but both are well worth a read.

*(Better? Maybe more enjoyable. I felt better at the end anyway.)
 
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maxmordon

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So, last night I read Fun Home by Alison Bechdel in one sitting. I'm not usually someone who reads a book twice in so little time, shame on me, I know; but I felt it was quite strong and complex.

It's a memoir, but it's also an analysis of her father through herself and an analysis of herself through her father. And that, without counting the whole and inevitable comparision between the two of them as gay people trapped by small town-big family conventionalism and how, in a way, identify the peculiarities in each other, contrast them but can't quite put their finger on, making not a legacy but more of a "enjoying the liberties those before us didn't have" ordeal from it.

It was also different from the type of stories one tend to see more in the mainstream, more real and mighty. Instead of boisterous homophobia, there was simply quiet repression and denial. Instead of big coming-out comfrontations, just snide remarks and an artificial indifference. Instead of answers and clear endings, questions that will never be resolved. Nobody's the villain, nobody's a hero, just regular folks trying to be happy but also abiding to their own responsibilities.
 
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Kim Fierce

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This may not be the right place for this, but I do have something posted in announcements and events about a e-book giveaway for my debut YA novel. It's published by Queerteen Press, so I just wanted to make sure my QUILTBAG people got a heads up on it! There are still 3 more days to enter.

The link for the contest is here, if you are interested:

http://terrirochenski.blogspot.com

This isn't my blog, but she has quite a following! 47 entries last I checked!
 

Kitty Pryde

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Read the new David Levithan book, Every Day. Better than his last one by far. The MC is, I guess, pansexual and pangender. Every morning he wakes up in a different body, someone of his own age. Well, he felt like a he to me, but he says he doesn't feel like a particular gender. Anyway, he never gets attached to anybody, but then he falls in love with a girl, who is understandably not always attracted to the body he's in. Weird setup, but very relatable for any queer person I think.

I also found this historical UF book from the nineties about a lesbian vampire, called The Gilda Stories. I am excited to read it!
 
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I just finished "The Difference Between You and Me" by Madeline George and "Between You and Me" by Marisa Calin. Despite the similar titles, they were very different books. Really enjoyed both of them!
 

Kitty Pryde

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The Gilda Stories was decent and interesting, but extremely slow paced. More of lesbian chick lit than vampire fantasy or horror.

I'm reading Alchemist of Souls by our own Anne Lyle. MC is bisexual (I think?) and his BFF is gay. It's very smart and fast paced historical fantasy with lots of good Shakespearean themes. I haven't finished but I do recommend it!

And also reading Tree of Bones by Gemma Files, third book in a gay fantasy/horror/western/smut trilogy that I am obsessed with. If you like rowdy cowboy sex, magical fireballs, cussing, and extremely pissy Aztec deities, this book is for you. Highly recommend!
 
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