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.
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 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.?
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.
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.
Thank you for what you said about my voice.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson.
QUOTE]
I'll have to look into that one!
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.
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.Oh my God I love this post.
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.Thomas Disch
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.Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson.