Podcasts about lambda award

Host Jason Blitman talks to Rivers Solomon about their latest book, Model Home, discussing its unique spin on the haunted house genre and the layers of personal and family dynamics within. Guest Gay Reader Margaret Cho shares anecdotes from her eclectic career and childhood experiences growing up in a gay bookstore, all while reflecting on her love for reading. Rivers Solomon writes about life in the margins, where they are much at home. In addition to appearing on the Stonewall Honor List and winning a Firecracker Award, Solomon's debut novel, An Unkindness of Ghosts, was a finalist for Lambda, Hurston/Wright, Otherwise (formerly Tiptree), and Locus Awards. Solomon's second book, The Deep, based on the Hugo-nominated song by the Daveed Diggs–fronted hip-hop group clipping, was the winner of the 2020 Lambda Award and was short-listed for the Nebula, Locus, Hugo, Ignyte, Brooklyn Library Literary, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy Awards. Their work appears in Black Warrior Review, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Guernica, Best American Short Stories, Tor.com, Best American Horror and Dark Fantasy, and elsewhere. A refugee of the transatlantic slave trade, Solomon was born on Turtle Island but currently resides on an isle in an archipelago off the western coast of the Eurasian continent.Margaret Cho Comedian. Actor. Musician. Advocate. Entrepreneur. Five-time Grammy and Emmy nominee.  Margaret Cho's strong voice has been lighting the path for other women, other members of underrepresented groups, other performers, to follow. Her recent television appearances – guest star on Season 2 of The Flight Attendant (HBO Max), guest star on Season 2 of Hacks (HBO Max) and two Netflix is a Joke comedy specials: Stand Out: An LGBTQ+ Celebration and Jane Fonda & Lily Tomlin: Ladies Night Live – have expanded an already wide-ranging career, and her role as the ‘mother hen' in the well-reviewed movie Fire Island solidifies why we all love Margaret in the first place. As a comedian Margaret has been named one of Rolling Stone magazine's 50 Best Stand-Up Comics of All Time, one of Vogue magazine's Top 9 Female Comedians of all time, while CNN chose her as one of the 50 People Who Changed American Comedy.  Thankfully, Margaret has more stories to tell, and her production company, Animal Family Productions, has multiple scripted shows in development for 2022 and beyond.BOOK CLUB!Use code GAYSREADING at checkout to get first book for only $4 + free shipping! Restrictions apply.http://aardvarkbookclub.comWATCH!https://youtube.com/@gaysreadingBOOKS!Check out the list of books discussed on each episode on our Bookshop page: https://bookshop.org/shop/gaysreading MERCH!Purchase your Gays Reading podcast merchandise HERE! https://gaysreading.myspreadshop.com/ FOLLOW!@gaysreading | @jasonblitman CONTACT!hello@gaysreading.com

Hey, look! It’s episode 105 of Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick, the podcast about making stuff (mostly writing), finding success as we each define it for ourselves, and staying healthy and sane in the process! This is an interview episode, this time featuring the author Juliet Kemp. From their website: Juliet Kemp (they/them) is a queer, non-binary, writer. They live in London by the river, with their partners, kid, and dog. The first book of their fantasy series, The Deep and Shining Dark, was on the Locus 2018 Recommended Reads list; the fourth and final book, The City Revealed, came out in 2023. They have written several novellas, and their short fiction has appeared in venues including Uncanny, Analog, and Cast of Wonders. They were short-listed for the WSFA Small Press Award in 2020 and 2023 and had a story in the anthology Trans-Galactic Bike Ride, which was Lambda Award shortlisted in 2021. When not writing or child-wrangling, Juliet knits, indulges their fountain pen habit, and tries to fit an ever-increasing number of plants into a microscopic back garden. They can be found on Twitter as @julietk, on Mastodon as @juliet@zirk.us, and on Bluesky as @julietk.bsky.social. Listen to hear us muse on fiction writing as a balm for anxiety, the challenges of defining just what sort of fantasy one has written, the validity of “comfort reads,” reaching the right readers, the benefits of working with a small press, procrastination and uncertainty, and why it’s okay to claim your writing as a priority in your life… and just how to go about actually doing that, too… This episode was recorded on August 19, 2024. The conversation with Juliet Kemp was recorded on February 5, 2024. Links and Topics Mentioned in This Episode What is Hopepunk? How about Solarpunk? Juliet mentions Greg Egan. I mention “the Killer Bs,” Greg Bear, Greg Benford, and David Brin. An Archive of Our Own is a haven for fan fiction. My Sonitotum episode on how to fix the Amazon bookstore. During the episode, I couldn’t recall the name of a tag-based reading recommendation website. It’s The StoryGraph. Juliet mentions digging the Doctor Who novelizations from the 1980s. I bring up Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan books and the shared world series Wildcards by George R. R. Martin and company. Juliet’s Marek series is published by Elsewhen Press. My oft-recommended choice for a full-screen / no-distractions / plain text editor, Q10, is recommended yet again! Speaking of focus: give Focus At Will a shot. Mechvibes gets another mention. Typewriter sounds for focus and momentum as your write! Big thanks to my Multiversalists patron community, including J. C. Hutchins, Zoë Kohen Ley, Jim Lewinson, Amelia Bowen, Ted Leonhardt, and Charles Anderson! I’m incredibly grateful for the support of my patrons. If Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick brings you joy, become a patron! Every month net earnings from my Multiversalist patron memberships is at least $100, I will donate 10% to 826 National in support of literacy and creative writing advocacy for children. Let’s go! Patron members get the uncut, unedited edition of every episode of Sonitotum. For this episode, that includes seventeen minutes of extra content just for them! This episode has extra content only available for patron members of the Multiversalists community! If you're a patron member at the Bronze level or above, please log in! Click here to learn more about the benefits of membership. This content is by Matthew Wayne Selznick and came from his website.

Happy Mother's Day, Sisters! We hope it will be a joyful one for you and your families. As we know well, our relationships with our moms can run the emotional gamut over the lifespan. We also know that some moms are made for mothering (or work really hard at it!), while some simply fall short because of circumstances they can't (or don't know how to) control.  In Liz Scheier's beautiful, honest memoir, Never Simple, she describes her difficult and complex relationship with her mother, Judith. As a result of Judith's borderline personality disorder (BPD), Liz's childhood was fraught with chaos and volatility. When Liz was 18 years old, her mother dropped two bombshells. One, that her mom had been married for most of the previous two decades to a man Liz had never heard of. And second, that everything she had told Liz about the man she'd claimed was Liz's dead father was entirely fictional. Never Simple is Liz's story about what happened next. We loved our illuminating and intimate conversation with Liz -- and you will, too. Never Simple has garnered praise from the New York Times, Publishers Weekly (starred review), Kirkus, Library Journal, Bookpage, Booklist, and bestselling authors Augusten Burroughs, Jenny Lawson, Isaac Mizrahi, Elissa Altman, Greer Hendricks, and Mira Bartók. It was chosen as a Best Book of March by Amazon and Apple Books, a People Picks by People Magazine, an Indie Next pick, a Barnes & Noble Top 10 Favorite Ebook of 2022, and was featured as one of “15 March Reads to Get You Through the Month” on Good Morning America. It was a finalist for a Lambda Award.  

Joshua shares a poetic narrative about being Indigenous and queer in Canada.Joshua Whitehead is an Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary and he is the author of Making Love with the Land, full-metal indigiqueer and Jonny Appleseed all of which have received a litany of accolades and awards. He is also the editor of Love after the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction, which won the Lambda Award in 2021. He performed this story at Sydney Writers Festival.Queerstories an award-winning LGBTQI+ storytelling project directed by Maeve Marsden, with regular events around Australia. For more information, visit www.queerstories.com.au and follow Queerstories on Facebook.The Queerstories book is published by Hachette Australia, and can be purchased from your favourite independent bookseller or on Booktopia.To support Queerstories, become a patron at www.patreon.com/ladysingsitbetter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason and Brett talk to Alex Gino (Green) about favorite sweets, book banning, their experience as a banned book author, using the singular they pronoun, and creating a safe world for young readers. Alex Gino writes queer and progressive middle grade novels, including the Stonewall and Lambda Award-winning Melissa. They love glitter, ice cream, gardening, wordplay, and stories that reflect the complexity of being alive. Alex is from Staten Island, NY and now lives in Western Massachusetts with Thunder the Wonder Cat. alexgino.comMelissa Cover FixGet your sticker if you have an old cover for Melissa HERE.More info about PEN America HERE. **BOOKS!** Check out the list of books discussed on each episode on our Bookshop page:https://bookshop.org/shop/gaysreading | By purchasing books through this Bookshop link, you can support both Gays Reading and an independent bookstore of your choice!Join our Patreon for exclusive bonus content! Purchase your Gays Reading podcast Merch! Follow us on Instagram @gaysreading | @bretts.book.stack | @jasonblitmanWhat are you reading? Send us an email or a voice memo at gaysreading@gmail.com

Edie Cay writes steamy feminist historical romance. Her debut, A LADY'S REVENGE won the Golden Leaf Best First Book (2020), as well as the Indie Next Generation Book Award (2020). The second in her series, THE BOXER AND THE BLACKSMITH won the Hearts Through History Legends Award, A Man for All Reason in 2019 as an unpublished manuscript, and then went on to win the Best Indie Book Award (2021). The third book, A LADY'S FINDER was a finalist for a Lambda Award, the most prestigious LGBTQ+ literary award in the world. A VISCOUNT'S VENGEANCE published in 2023. Previously, she has published short stories, poems, and non-fiction in small presses. She has co-written and starred in several short films and documentaries from MadLaw Media, including Big 5 Dive about scuba diving in the Great Lakes, and How to Be Sexy, a fictional short about confidence and self-worth. In addition to fiction, Edie writes and reviews for the Historical Novel Society. You can keep up with her by subscribing to her newsletter or following her on Instagram or Facebook @authorEdieCay. The Storytellers hosted by Grace Sammon focuses on individuals who choose to leave their mark on the world through the art of story. Each episode engages guests and listeners in the story behind the story of authors, artists, reporters, and others who leave a legacy of storytelling. Applying her years of experience as an educator, entrepreneur, author, and storyteller herself, Grace brings to listeners an intimate one-on-one experience with her guests. Visit Grace at her website www.gracesammon.net. Contact Grace about being a guest on the show, email her at grace@gracesammon.net Follow Grace: On Facebook https://www.facebook.com/GraceSammonWrites/ On Instagram https://www.instagram.com/GraceSammonWrites/ On Twitter https://www.twitter.com/GSammonWrites On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-sammon-84389153/ #TheStorytellers #Storyteller #Storytellers # Storytelling #AuhtorInterview #LetsTalkBooks #LeaveYourMark #AuthorLife #StorytellerLife #ArtofStory #AuthorTalkNetwork #BookishRoadTrip #AuthorTalkNetwork #AuthorsOnTheAirGlobalRadioNetwork #author The Storytellers is a copyrighted work © of Grace Sammon and Authors on The Air Global Radio Network.

Edie Cay writes steamy feminist historical romance. Her debut, A LADY'S REVENGE won the Golden Leaf Best First Book (2020), as well as the Indie Next Generation Book Award (2020). The second in her series, THE BOXER AND THE BLACKSMITH won the Hearts Through History Legends Award, A Man for All Reason in 2019 as an unpublished manuscript, and then went on to win the Best Indie Book Award (2021). The third book, A LADY'S FINDER was a finalist for a Lambda Award, the most prestigious LGBTQ+ literary award in the world. A VISCOUNT'S VENGEANCE published in 2023. Previously, she has published short stories, poems, and non-fiction in small presses. She has co-written and starred in several short films and documentaries from MadLaw Media, including Big 5 Dive about scuba diving in the Great Lakes, and How to Be Sexy, a fictional short about confidence and self-worth. In addition to fiction, Edie writes and reviews for the Historical Novel Society. You can keep up with her by subscribing to her newsletter or following her on Instagram or Facebook @authorEdieCay. The Storytellers hosted by Grace Sammon focuses on individuals who choose to leave their mark on the world through the art of story. Each episode engages guests and listeners in the story behind the story of authors, artists, reporters, and others who leave a legacy of storytelling. Applying her years of experience as an educator, entrepreneur, author, and storyteller herself, Grace brings to listeners an intimate one-on-one experience with her guests. Visit Grace at her website www.gracesammon.net. Contact Grace about being a guest on the show, email her at grace@gracesammon.net Follow Grace: On Facebook https://www.facebook.com/GraceSammonWrites/ On Instagram https://www.instagram.com/GraceSammonWrites/ On Twitter https://www.twitter.com/GSammonWrites On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-sammon-84389153/ #TheStorytellers #Storyteller #Storytellers # Storytelling #AuhtorInterview #LetsTalkBooks #LeaveYourMark #AuthorLife #StorytellerLife #ArtofStory #AuthorTalkNetwork #BookishRoadTrip #AuthorTalkNetwork #AuthorsOnTheAirGlobalRadioNetwork #author The Storytellers is a copyrighted work © of Grace Sammon and Authors on The Air Global Radio Network.

Rachel Krantz, the author of Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-monogamy joins us as we continue the discussion from the previous episode about grooming in the kink scene. However, in this episode, we broaden the conversation by including non-monogamy and we deepen it by exploring Rachel's first- hand experience with it. In the past, all three of us, Rachel, Sunny and myself, have been in kink and/or non-monogamous relationships that we came to realize had some toxic patterns of manipulation, grooming, gas lighting, etc. in them. Often such relationships are mixed with amazing highs that keep one hooked and brutal lows that leave one crushed. It is our hope that listeners who are currently in such relationships or healing from one might benefit from the insights in this episode. We start in the thick of it…that time when Rachel was immersed in such a relationship, including the strong emotional tidal pulls that are make such a relationship addictive, sexy, intoxicating, but deeply torturous. And then we can move to the first few years after getting free, followed by where Rachel finds herself now and finally, who she wants to become. Perhaps in doing so, the three of us can provide a road map, some coping tools, or at least some hope for someone who feels lost in this pattern within kink and/or non-monogamy. We hope that you join us for this vulnerable, bold and honest episode as once again, we dare to open deeply. Rachel's Bio: Rachel Krantz is the author of the reported memoir, OPEN: AN UNCENSORED MEMOIR OF LOVE, LIBERATION, AND NON-MONOGAMY, which is a 2023 Lambda Award finalist. She is the host of HELP EXISTING, a new podcast offering help on, well, existing! She is the namer of Bustle, and one of its three founding editors. At Bustle, she served as Senior Features Editor for three years, and Senior News Editor before that. She also worked at The Daily Beast as Homepage Editor, and at the nonprofit Mercy For Animals as Lead Writer. She's the recipient of the Peabody Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights International Radio Award, the Investigative Reporters and Editors Radio Award, and the Edward R. Murrow Award for her work as an investigative reporter with YR Media. She was the host of the Bustle podcast Honestly Though, a show about taboo topics recommended by The Guardian. Her work has been featured on New York Magazine's The Cut, Vice, LitHub, Vox, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, NPR, The Daily Beast, Newsweek, High Times, Men's Health, AFAR, USA Today, Buzzfeed Books, Publishers Weekly, Salon, Marie Claire, VegNews Magazine, and many other outlets. She is on the advisory board for Sentient Media and the board of directors of Our Hen House. How to find Rachel: Website: https://www.racheljkrantz.com/ Facebook http://facebook.com/rachelkrantz Twitter http://twitter.com/rachelkrantz Instagram: http://instagram.com/rachelkrantz Podcast: https://www.racheljkrantz.com/help-existing-podcast How to find Sunny Megatron: Website: http://sunnymegatron.com Facebook http://facebook.com/sunnymegatron Twitter http://twitter.com/sunnymegatron Instagram http://instagram.com/sunnymegatron Tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@sunnymegatron YouTube https://www.youtube.com/sunnymegatron American Sex Podcast https://open.spotify.com/show/2HroMhWJnyZbMSsOBKwBnk How to find Kate Loree: Website http://kateloree.com Facebook http://instagram.com/opendeeplywithkateloree Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@opendeeplywithkateloree https://www.facebook.com/kateloreelmft Twitter http://twitter.com/kateloreelmft Instagram http://instagram.com/opendeeplywithKateLoree YouTube https://youtube.com/channel/UCSTFAqGYKW3sIUa0tKivbqQ Open Deeply podcast is not therapy or a replacement for therapy.

BONUS EPISODE: In honor of the brilliant Rachel Pollack who passed away on April 7th, we're rereleasing our episode with her. May you rest in peace and power, Rachel, our eternal High Priestess of Heresy.

Have you ever spent a wild weekend with 15,000 big hairy dudes in the Redwoods? Award-winning cartoonist Justin Hall doesn't drink, but he knows he has to time his adventures carefully at Guerneville's Lazy Bear Weekend  - these men party hard, and ya gotta catch em before they're too drunk to f*ck. But when he sees the ass on Zardoz' beer-guzzling boy toy Brian, Justin blindly follows those glorious globes back to their hotel room. Soon 5 furry men are in the hot tub and the action under the frothing water is starting to bubble to the surface - until they all learn a hard lesson about handling your liquor (well, everyone butt Brian) #pornstache #Splash #Spitroasted #Hangover #bacchanalia #BearCub   Song: 'S.O.B. (Jake Shears)   About our Storyteller:   Justin Hall is an award-winning cartoonist and educator. Hall created the comics True Travel Tales, Hard to Swallow, and Theater of Terror: Revenge of the Queers, and has work in publications such as the Houghton Mifflin Best American Comics, Best Erotic Comics, and the SF Weekly. He created the Lambda-Award-winning and Eisner-nominated collection No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics and was Producer on the feature-length documentary of the same name, which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival and won the Best Documentary Award at Outfest in 2021. Hall is the Chair of the MFA in Comics at California College of the Arts, the first Fulbright Scholar of comics, has written about comics for various academic publications, and has curated international exhibitions of comics art. Episode links:   LIVE SHOW: This Saturday, Bawdy Storytelling is turning SIXTEEN this Saturday, February 25th! Our theme for the night is ‘HeartThrobs and DemiGods'  and we'll have stories from Ecosexual Beth Stephens (with an assist from her partner, Annie Sprinkle!), Hillbilly Drag Queen Jubilee, Gender Blender organizer and sex educator Trixie Lamonte, and the Queen of the Golden Age of Adult Cinema, Veronica Hart (Jane Hamilton). Live Show happens in San Francisco, but it'll be Livestreamed to wherever you are, so that you can be there with us, too. Tickets available now at https://tinyurl.com/BawdyTurns16   KikOff:  Don't let your credit control you: Kikoff is the easiest way to build credit, fast. If you have no credit or just want to boost your score, Kikoff is the #1 credit building app that has helped over a million people take control of their credit.  Kikoff is the real deal, with legit names like Forbes and NerdWallet saying it's a smart way to build credit fast. Plans start at just $5 a month, and every on-time payment you make with Kikoff is reported to the major credit bureaus. When they see healthy habits, you see a credit score boost. Go to https://kikoff.com/ and start building better credit in less than 5 minutes.   Beducated: I've been having a lot of fun with the courses on Beducated, and they're offering 50% off a yearly pass right now! What is Beducated? It's the Netflix of Sexual Wellness, and they're the  #1 online platform for sexual health & happiness. Beducated believes that sexual happiness isn't just something you're born with: you can learn how, and it's a gift that can last a lifetime. Their online course platform provides you with information and techniques to level-up your love life, via their easy-to-follow video, audio, and written guides. Get 50% a yearly pass at https://beducate.me/bg2304-dixie    Finally, Please consider a donation of any amount to Bawdy Storytelling. 2022 was financially devastating to this show, so your gift of any size can help us keep us going. Other live events and venues are dropping like flies around us, and your generosity can help us weather the storm. Our donation links are:   BuyMeACoffee: buymeacoff.ee/bawdy Venmo: Venmo.com/BawdyStorytelling Paypal: paypal.me/bawdystorytelling Zelle: BawdyStorytelling@gmail.com CashApp: $DixieDeLaTour   Every single dollar helps right now - and THANK YOU!   What's the Best way to support Bawdy? By becoming a Patreon member. This  means that you'll provide ongoing monthly support to your favorite show and podcast. Join Bawdy's Patreon now and you'll get exclusive Patreon-only rewards, and my eternal gratitude. As a Bawdy Patreon member, your monthly membership ensures that our podcast, live shows and livestreams can continue. Become a Member now at https://www.patreon.com/Bawdy   Wanna work one-on-one with Dixie? Want to learn to tell a compelling, relatable story? I can help you dig deep, gain understanding and communicate with clarity. Whether it's getting onstage, writing a memoir, creating a podcast, or learning brand storytelling for your business, I've got experience and can help. Email me at BawdyStorytelling@gmail.com and let's make it happen.   Bawdy Got Me Laid perfume, Bawdy Butter & more: Dixie has created her own fragrance: You'll love #BawdyGotMeLaid perfume, scented with golden honey, amber, ylang ylang, and warm vanilla. There's also our (scented or unscented) creamy Bawdy Butter, Hair & Bawdy Oil, & more. Bawdy Got Me Laid Merchandise means you can deliver your own great smelling Motorboats while supporting Dixie and Bawdy. Get yours today at https://bawdystorytelling.com/merchandise   Check out our Bawdy Storytelling Fiends and Fans group on Facebook - it's a place to discuss the podcast's stories with the storytellers, share thoughts with your fellow listeners, & help Dixie make the podcast even better. Just answer 3 simple questions and you're IN! https://www.facebook.com/groups/360169851578316/ ProTip: Subscribe to the Bawdy Storytelling email list & you'll be notified of all upcoming storytelling workshops, livestreams, podcasts, live shows and Special Events first at https://bawdystorytelling.com/subscribe   Thank you to the Team that makes this podcast possible! Team Bawdy is:   Podcast Producer: Roman Den houdijker Sound Engineer: David Grosof Archivist / Video: Joe Moore Bawdy Livestream pre-show video by Donal Mooney Live-streaming by Ty McKenzie and Rubeun Tan Storytelling support by Mosa Maxwell-Smith Dixie's Virtual Assistant is Roillan James & Bawdy Creator & Podcast Host Dixie De La Tour & Thank you to Pleasure Podcasts. Bawdy Storytelling is proud to be part of your sex-positive podcast collective!   Tags:   mandatory making out wrong tongue throat boy bear cub thick hairy young man's beard fluffy feel good balls butt wondrous gay angels sing song hot daddy boy fantasy moves lap around the pool daddies Portland old enough hotel hot tub jacuzzi drunk beer whirlpool brand name tampon giggling beautiful douchebag stumble back hot tub frothing waters magical beer inane lowering himself time push Brian splash submerges nimbleness flips sticks the landing semicircle neck face realizes hnext day last party smoking pot flirting Hungover recognize distracted remember whatever fascination douchebag conversation action below revolver jumps Russian River redwoods eclectic mix urban gays addicted rednecks crunch granola hippie retirees invaded bacchanalia pubic hair glistening hotel ramshackle cabins pool restaurant bar packed tiny speedos sights smells sounds time frame heavy day drinking alcohol haven't licked toad alcohol drugs messy tall handsome dude pool play standing Zardoz red bandolier jockstrap pornstache ride ponytail deepthroating hoist slips spitroast moaning dark turn wicked dangerous wrong pops desperate splat midsection explosively sorry stumbles descend   Website: https://bawdystorytelling.com/ On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bawdystorytelling/ Like us at www.Facebook.com/BawdyStorytelling Join us on FetLife: https://fetlife.com/groups/46341 Support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/Bawdy Watch us on YouTube at http://bit.ly/BawdyTV Find out about upcoming Podcast episodes - & Livestreams - at www.BawdyStorytelling.com/subscribe  

National Book Award finalist and Lambda Award winning author and poet, Danez Smith creates poetry that viscerally examines the intricacies of gender, the recognition of Black family and kinship, rebirth and growing to know and learn themselves anew every day. They are the author of three books: [Insert] Boy, Don't Call Us Dead, and Homie. They join us to discuss their craft, how poetry saved their life, and their dreams of a Black Queer future.

National Book Award finalist and Lambda Award winning author and poet, Danez Smith creates poetry that viscerally examines the intricacies of gender, the recognition of Black family and kinship, rebirth and growing to know and learn themselves anew every day. They are the author of three books: [Insert] Boy, Don't Call Us Dead, and Homie. They join us to discuss their craft, how poetry saved their life, and their dreams of a Black Queer future.

Ep: 152 Jeffrey Round returns to talk extensively about his writing career plus his work as a model, film maker, musician, and poet. Where does his carefree attitude come from. It was an honor to have him as the last guest on Queer Writers of Crime.Jeffrey's Website:https://jeffreyround.com/To cover the cost of producing Queer Writers of Crime, some of the links below are affiliate links. At zero cost to you, Brad will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.A Cage of Bones by Jeffrey Roundhttps://amzn.to/3SiaGZnJeffrey Round's Amazon Pagehttps://amzn.to/3RZKZNoJeffrey Round is best known as the Lambda Award-winning author of two mystery series--the gritty Dan Sharp books and the comic Bradford Fairfax series. He is also an award-winning filmmaker, television producer and songwriter. His first novel, "A Cage of Bones", was topping bestseller lists around the world. Both "A Cage of Bones" and "The P-Town Murders," first in the Bradford Fairfax series were listed on AfterElton's Top 100 Greatest Gay Books in 2008. Jeffrey's "Endgame" was called a "brilliant recreation" of Agatha Christie's best-selling mystery "And Then There Were None", giving the original what one critic called a "punk-rock reboot." It became a best-selling e-book in the US in 2016.Support Requeered Tales re-publishing award-winning, post-Stonewall gay and lesbian fiction — with a focus on mystery, literary and horror/sci-fi genres.requeeredtales.comKindly give to The Trevor Project, a much-needed charity focusing not only suicide prevention for LGBTQ youth, but also helps to get answers and information to support them and connect with an international community of LGBTQ youth aged 13 - 24.https://www.thetrevorproject.org/Subscribe to Queer We Are on your favorite podcast app. Links can be found at queerweare.com

An evening of writers talking about writing and celebrating the publication of "Refuse To Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts," by Matt Bell, published by Soho Press. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Refuse To Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/refuse-to-be-done-ht-write-rewrite-a/ Matt Bell is the author most recently of the novels "Appleseed"(a New York Times Notable Book of 2021), "Scrapper" (a Michigan Notable Book), and "In the House upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods"(a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award). His stories have appeared in Best American Mystery Stories, Esquire, Tin House, Conjunctions, Fairy Tale Review, Gulf Coast, and many other publications. A native of Michigan, he now teaches creative writing at Arizona State University. Kirstin Chen is the author of "Soy Sauce for Beginners" and "Bury What We Cannot Take." Her new novel, "Counterfeit," is forthcoming from William Morrow/HarperCollins in June 2022. She has received fellowships and awards from the Steinbeck Fellows Program, Sewanee, Hedgebrook, Djerassi, the Napa Valley Writers' Conference, the Toji Cultural Foundation, and the National Arts Council of Singapore. She teaches creative writing at the University of San Francisco and in Ashland University's Low-Residency MFA Program. Born and raised in Singapore, she currently lives in San Francisco. Jac Jemc is the author of "False Bingo," "The Grip of It," "My Only Wife," and "A Different Bed Every Time." "My Only Wife" was a finalist for the 2013 PEN / Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and winner of the Paula Anderson Book Award, and her story collection "False Bingo" won the Chicago Review of Books Award for fiction, was a Lambda Award finalist, and was longlisted for The Story Prize. Jemc has been the recipient of two Illinois Arts Council Professional Development Grants and currently teaches creative writing at UC San Diego. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

PI Mitch O'Reilly is hired by big time Hollywood director T.J. Mooney to follow his son Austin who is starting an acting career without riding the coattails of his powerful father. T.J. isn't happy his beloved son has changed his last name and chooses to live in a sketchy apartment and not the family mansion in Bel Air.To Mitch it's another routine stakeout until Austin's body is found on the hill below the Hollywood Sign. Was the body left there to send a message? If so, deciphering that message could lead Mitch to solving the crime.“Brad Shreve serves up a Chandler-esque Los Angeles full of show biz types and perverts, mansions and bad neighborhoods. At the center of it all is Mitch O'Reilly a deeply troubled detective with an attitude who can't find his way to the quiet life he craves.” - Marshall Thornton, three time Lambda Award winner and author of the Boystown, and Pinx Video series.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/houseofmysteryradio. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The girlZ are in VENICE BITCH with Victor P. Corona! Victor Corona Ph. D., is a sociologist and author of Lambda Award nominee Night Class: A Downtown Memoir (Soft Skull Press, 2017) and a book in progress about Hollywood. Born in Mexico City, he earned a B.A. at Yale and Ph. FOLLOW VICTOR: https://www.instagram.com/victorpcorona/ This podcast is for entertainment purposes only! If you are struggling with your mental health you are NOT alone. Contact NAMI today: nami.org  Follow @GirlZ Interrupted on Instagram! Follow @Zara Barrie on Instagram! Follow @Dayna Troisi on Instagram! For more mentally ill prolific content head to girlzinterrupted.com Help support this pod & and consider buying Zara Barrie's debut book: GIRL, STOP PASSING OUT IN YOUR MAKEUP

Ep: 112 Jeffrey Round reads from Threads, a poetry collection. In addition, he discusses with Brad Jeffrey's four Bradford Fairfax Murder Mysteries, Murder in P-Town, Death in Key West, Vanished in Vallarta, and Bon Ton Roulet. Plus, they talk about Jeffrey's career as not only an author, but a poet, a playwright, a musician, a stage director - Is there anything Jeffrey Round hasn't done?Podcast Website:   www.queerwritersofcrime.comSign up for the show's Queer Writers of Crime newsletter.Check out Queer Writers of Crime Guest's blog.Help Support This Podcast   buymeacoffee.com/queerwriters   Disclosure: To cover the cost of producing Queer Writers of Crime, some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, Brad will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.Threads: A Poetry Collection by Jeffrey Round  https://amzn.to/3JxfHbUBradford Fairfax Murder Mysteries by Jeffrey Roundhttps://amzn.to/38Lg3inDan Sharp Mysteries by Jeffrey Roundhttps://amzn.to/3vnxdKAJeffrey's Website: jeffreyround.comJeffrey Round is an award-winning author, filmmaker, and songwriter. His breakout novel, A Cage of Bones, was listed on AfterElton's 50 Best Gay Books. Lake on the Mountain, first of the seven Dan Sharp mysteries, won a Lambda Award in 2013. His short film, My Heart Belongs to Daddy, won prizes for Best Canadian Director and Best Use of Music. In 2021 he took top juried awards for his music video, Don't You Think I Know. His latest book is Threads (2022) from Beautiful Dreamer Press.Brad's Website: bradshreve.comSupport Requeered Tales  re-publishing award-winning, post-Stonewall gay and lesbian fiction — with a focus on mystery, literary and horror/sci-fi genres.requeeredtales.com

Ep: 103 Marshall Thornton and Brad discuss writing multiple series at once, where have the gay hangouts gone, and the different settings for each series.Sign up for the show's Queer Writers of Crime newsletter.Check out Queer Writers of Crime new blog.Help Support This Podcast   buymeacoffee.com/queerwriters Queer Writers of Crimes is rated by Buzzfeed as one of the 20 Best Queer Podcasts to Tune in to While Going About Your Daily Queer Life. Disclosure: To cover the cost of producing Queer Writers of Crime, some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, Brad will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. Marshall Thornton writes several popular mystery series, most notably the  Boystown Mysteries and the Pinx Video Mysteries. He has won the Lambda Award for Gay Mystery three times. HIs books Femme and Code Name Liberty were Lambda finalists for Best Gay Romance. Other books include My Favorite Uncle, The Ghost Slept Over and Fathers of the Bride. He holds an MFA in Screenwriting from UCLA.Marshall's website marshallthorntonauthor.comMarshall's BookBub page bookbub.com/authors/marshall-thorntonMarshall's Amazon Page amazon.com/Marshall-Thornton/e/B003NQP0RQ Brad's Website: bradshreve.comSupport Requeered Tales  re-publishing award-winning, post-Stonewall gay and lesbian fiction — with a focus on mystery, literary and horror/sci-fi genres.requeeredtales.com

In the shadows of both the beeriest and brightest cities in America lurk crime and corruption. One well dress civilized man wearing a snap brim fedora fights against the forces of evil. Who is this man? David S. Pedersen has written some wonderful noir detective stories, and been short listed for the Lambda awards. He is an amateur architect, and doesn't know why they are called snap brim fedoras either. These, and other questions are discussed in episode 133 of Writers Drinking Coffee. … Continue...Episode 133 – The Noir Snap Brim

Critic, writer, and editor Jerry Wheeler discusses small press collections, the joy of good titles, the business of editing, among other things, and answers our questions. He brings a joyous voice and intelligent eye, and has advice worth listening to. … Continue...Episode 128 – Interview with Jerry L. Wheeler

It's our season finale! In this episode Elaina and Sophia wrap up their discussion of Love After the End, a Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Anthology edited by Jacob Whitehead. They discuss climate change and land sovereignty, and later their favorite subject colonialism and space exploration. Buckle up, because it's an hour long special surveying the full array of short stories from this Lambda Award winning novel. If you can, please consider donating to the Lenape Center and the Indian Residential School Survivors Society. You can also sign up for the free (with the option to donate) Indigenous Canada online asynchronous course offered by the University of Alberta. Please rate and review Bookshelf Remix wherever you listen to podcasts as this helps other people find the show. You can follow Bookshelf Remix on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @bookshelfremix and you can support the podcast by becoming a monthly supporter at www.ko-fi.com/brpod. Transcripts also live on our Ko-Fi page for free. You can follow Élaina @ElainaGMamaril on Twitter, @spinoodler on Instagram and check out her work at www.elainagauthiermamaril.com, and by listening to Philosophy Casting Call. You can follow Sophia @themetropolitanist on Instagram, @metropolitanist on Twitter, and on her website www.maisonmetropolitanist.com.

Historical Crime Author John Copenhaver joins Queries, Qualms, & Quirks this week to discuss getting an MFA, querying via snail mail, changes in the mystery genre landscape, what happens if you never get published, and the importance of forming relationships in the industry. ✦ John Copenhaver's historical crime novel, Dodging and Burning, won the 2019 Macavity Award for Best First Mystery Novel and garnered Anthony, Strand Critics, Barry, and Lambda Award nominations. His second novel, The Savage Kind, was just released. He writes a crime fiction review column for Lambda called “Blacklight,” and cohosts on the House of Mystery Radio Show. He lives in Richmond, VA. ✦ John: Query | Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Amazon | Bookshop | LibroFM | IndieBound ✦ QQQ Home Base | Support on Patreon ✦ If links aren't clickable, find them here: https://bit.ly/qqqcopenhaver

Chaz has new books out and coming soon, and we are all terribly excited about it! Chaz talks about his new collection the "Best of", along with a new story on Tor.Com. And then there's the Boarding School books and Outremer and a cookbook for next Christmas. And Karen got in print, too! There's tons to celebrate at the Brenchley house, and you're invited to share it. … Continue...Episode 118 – Beans with Chaz

Danny Lavery welcomes Julian K. Jarboe, author of the LAMBDA Award-winning short story collection, Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel.  Lavery and Jarboe give advice to a letter writer who is wondering if her friend group will recover after discovering a secret relationship among two members. Also in this episode, Jarboe reads an excerpt from their piece, Trauma As Morality. Slate Plus members get another episode of Big Mood, Little Mood every Friday: sign up now! Need advice? Send Danny a question here. Email: mood@slate.com Production by Phil Surkis Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Danny Lavery welcomes Julian K. Jarboe, author of the LAMBDA Award-winning short story collection, Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel.  Lavery and Jarboe give advice to a letter writer who is wondering if her friend group will recover after discovering a secret relationship among two members. Also in this episode, Jarboe reads an excerpt from their piece, Trauma As Morality. Slate Plus members get another episode of Big Mood, Little Mood every Friday: sign up now! Need advice? Send Danny a question here. Email: mood@slate.com Production by Phil Surkis Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Imagine that you have spent years believing your father was dead, then a $15 palm reader asserts that your real father is very much alive. Now imagine discovering that this wild statement ends up being true. In her Lambda Award-winning graphic memoir and newly launched podcast, Nicole examines the fallout of making such a world-shaking discovery. Listen to Nicole's new OPB podcast https://www.opb.org/show/relativefiction/ And find us on... Our website: https://hybridpubscout.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/hybridpubscout/ Twitter: twitter.com/hybridpubscout Instagram: www.instagram.com/hybridpubscoutpod/ Our newsletter: eepurl.com/gfajR9

Filthy Boys: M/M Erotica By M. Christian "M. Christian's stories are the fairy tales whispered to one another by dark angels whose hearts and mouths are brimming with lust. He goes beyond the pale, ordinary definitions of sexuality and writes about need and desire in their purest forms. Listeners daring enough to stray from the safety of the path will find in his images and words a garden of delights to tempt even the most demanding pleasure-seeker." ― Michael Thomas Ford, Lambda Award winner --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

For the first ever LIVE Bible Bash, Peterson, Liam, and guests, take on the topic of Biblical Bottoms. Who is a bottom in the Bible and what does that even mean?? We talk bottoms, tops, subs, doms, power bottoms, agency, consent, and much more. Hear about Jonah, Hagar, Samson, Delilah, and others. It is a fun, informative, and insightful conversation.  This episode is very different from previous ones. In mid-December 2020 Bible Bash held the very first LIVE on-line  event. It was a chance to converse with listeners while discussing a topic--Biblical Bottoms in the Bible! As a result, we had many voices contribute to the conversation.  For the "Other Text, Peterson's husband, Glen Retief, read, The Museum of Stones, a poem by Caroline Forché. (Copyright © 2007 by Carolyn Forché. Originally published in The New Yorker) Glen is the author of the Lambda Award winning memoir, The Jack Bank.  Another difference you will find in today's show is the sound quality. Since we conducted this meeting on Zoom, the quality is not the typical Rock Candy Production standard audio. It is such a rich conversation though, we hope you will not be distracted by the click and zips that happen at some points.  Enjoy this presentation which was recorded live on December 15, 2020.  Many thanks to the guests that showed up! Thanks to those who spoke out: Autumn, Don, Sherri, and Penina. Available NOW! Check out Liam Hooper's NEW Book In Trans-Forming Proclamation, Liam Hooper tenderly explores gender and the Bible. This book actually defies genre. With rich patches of poetry, memoir, and devotional, Liam weaves together inspiring literary insights with grounded, original, and informed scholarship. Trans-Forming proclamation: A Transgender Theology of Daring Existence is new wine in a new wine skin. It is Inventive, artful, and liberating. Available on Amazon and published by Otherwise Engaged.   About US In each episode of Bible Bash Podcast, Peterson, cisgender gay Bible scholar and co-host, Liam Michael Hooper, a trans Bible scholar, take turns presenting the text. They then discuss. In addition, each episode they present another text, a non-Biblical text of note--religious or secular--that may or may not correspond to the Bible text.  Bible Bash Podcast is a project of Ministries Beyond Welcome.  Our theme song is Playbill by The Jellyrox. It is available on iTunes, Spotify, or through Rock Candy Recordings To share your questions, comments, requests for passages to be discussed, or suggestions for guests who can talk about texts, email Liam & Peterson:  ministriesbeyondwelcome@gmail.com Follow on Twitter @beyond_welcome Peterson @p2son Liam @LiMHooper Bible Bash Podcast is part of the Rock Candy Network  Bible Bash logo was designed by Diana Coe at Crone Communications Check out other Rock Candy podcasts Brown Suga Diaries Sacred Tension by Stephen Long Bubble&Squeak by Peterson Toscano Eleventylife by EleventySeven Common Creatives Magnified Pod

Loaf around with award-winning writer A.C. Wise as we discuss how her first professionally published fiction ended up printed on a coffee can, the 24-hour challenge which led to the creation of her Lambda Award-nominated collection, which comic book character obsesses her the most, how individual stories can act as commentary on all stories, why she enjoys wielding the power of ambiguity, how workshopping with other writers can help make stories better, what The Queen's Gambit can teach us about dealing with reader expectations, the unexpected way a flash fiction piece turned into her first novel, and much more.

Welcome to the Shelf Care Interview, an occasional conversation series where Booklist talks to book people. This Shelf Care Interview is sponsored by Capstone. In this episode of the Shelf Care Interview, Maggie Reagan talks to Alex Sanchez. Alex Sanchez has published nine novels, including the American Library Association's Best Book for Young Adults Rainbow Boys and the Lambda Award–winning So Hard to Say. His novel Bait won the Tomás Rivera Mexican American Book Award and the Florida Book Award Gold Medal for young adult literature. His newest book, The Greatest Superpower comes out in February 2021 from Capstone.

PI Mitch O'Reilly is hired by big time Hollywood director T.J. Mooney to follow his son Austin who is starting an acting career without riding the coattails of his powerful father. T.J. isn't happy his beloved son has changed his last name and chooses to live in a sketchy apartment and not the family mansion in Bel Air.To Mitch it's another routine stakeout until Austin’s body is found on the hill below the Hollywood Sign. Was the body left there to send a message? If so, deciphering that message could lead Mitch to solving the crime.“Brad Shreve serves up a Chandler-esque Los Angeles full of show biz types and perverts, mansions and bad neighborhoods. At the center of it all is Mitch O’Reilly a deeply troubled detective with an attitude who can’t find his way to the quiet life he craves.” - Marshall Thornton, three time Lambda Award winner and author of the Boystown, and Pinx Video series. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/House-of-Mystery-True-Crime-History. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Season Finale! Rachel Pollack is a legend who is perhaps best known as one of the world’s foremost tarot experts, having written such classics as Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom and The New Tarot Handbook. She’s also the creator of The Shining Tribe Tarot and co-creator with Robert Place of The Burning Serpent Oracle and the Raziel Deck.But tarot is just of tip of the iceberg, as she is the author of 43 books of fiction and non-fiction, many of them in the speculative or sci-fi genres, including Unquenchable Fire which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and Godmother Night, which won the World Fantasy Award. She is also an accomplished comic book writer and pioneer, and during her run for DC Comics’ Doom Patrol in the 1990s, she introduced one of the world’s first transgender superheroes - and is now considered by many to be a transgender superhero herself.Rachel’s work has been translated into 16 languages, and she has taught and lectured on tarot, creative writing, gender, and innumerable other topics in the U.S. Canada, Europe, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and China. And until her retirement, she was a senior faculty member of Goddard College’s MFA in Writing program.Rachel’s most recent book is The Beatrix Gates, a volume which collects several of her most visionary stories as well as a brand new essay on magic and transgender living. This year it was nominated for a Lambda Award.One can see why poet Cat Fitzpatrick called Rachel “a living national treasure.”On this episode, Rachel discusses the relationship between tarot and comic books, the importance of visionary transgender storytelling, and why her religion is Heresy.Pam also speaks about following magical clues long term, and answers a listener question about practicing fire magic in the home.Our sponsors for this episode are Clarissa Eck Pottery, Max Razdow’s Mage Cards on Kickstarter, BetterHelp, and Clever Kim’s Curios

PI Mitch O'Reilly is hired by big time Hollywood director T.J. Mooney to follow his son Austin who is starting an acting career without riding the coattails of his powerful father. T.J. isn't happy his beloved son has changed his last name and chooses to live in a sketchy apartment and not the family mansion in Bel Air.To Mitch it's another routine stakeout until Austin’s body is found on the hill below the Hollywood Sign. Was the body left there to send a message? If so, deciphering that message could lead Mitch to solving the crime.“Brad Shreve serves up a Chandler-esque Los Angeles full of show biz types and perverts, mansions and bad neighborhoods. At the center of it all is Mitch O’Reilly a deeply troubled detective with an attitude who can’t find his way to the quiet life he craves.” - Marshall Thornton, three time Lambda Award winner and author of the Boystown, and Pinx Video series. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ten minutes with... is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they're reading right now and what's getting them through these difficult times. Today Jonathan fires up Skype and points it towards Kolkata to talk to Lambda Award winner and Crawford, Otherwise, and Shirley Jackson nominee Indrapramit Das about getting through the Great and Terrible Pause, what books he is reading and recommends, and his new story, "Incarnate", which appears in Ann VanderMeer's Avatars Inc.  anthology. Books mentioned include: The Devourers by Indrapramit Das Chosen Spirits by Samit Basu The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories edited by Ellen Datlow "The Mist" by Stephen King My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories by Gilbert Hernández      

I am the Lambda Award-winning author of the Dan Sharp mystery series, the comic Bradford Fairfax mystery series, as well as several other books of fiction and poetry. I am also a song-writer and filmmaker.A case brings PI Dan Sharp to the northern Ontario wilderness, where he has to face his own dark past.Lion's Head Revisited;When a four-year-old autistic boy disappears on a camping trip, his mother is reluctant to involve the police. Instead, she calls in private investigator Dan Sharp after a ransom demand arrives. On investigating, Dan learns there are plenty of people who might be responsible for the kidnapping. Among them are an ex-husband who wrongly believed the boy was his son; the boy’s surrogate mother, now a drug addict; the boy’s grandmother, who has been denied access to her grandson; and a mysterious woman who unnerves everyone with her unexpected appearances.A trip to Lion’s Head in the Bruce Peninsula, where the boy disappeared, brings Dan unexpectedly into contact with his own brutal upbringing. But when a suspected kidnapper is found dead, Dan suddenly finds himself chasing the ghosts of the present as well as the past. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Shelter in place for lunch with Scott Edelman, host of Eating the Fantastic, as he answers questions from listeners and former guests of the podcast, revealing his love for The Twilight Zone (and the negative effect it had on him as a beginning writer), the origins of the Scarecrow character he created for Marvel in 1975, what it was like editing a professional wrestling magazine, whether the difficulties he faced in getting his Lambda Award-nominated novel The Gift published during the ‘80s still hold true today, the embarrassing things he wishes he hadn’t done as editor and publisher of Last Wave magazine, how it felt seeing one of his comic book creations on the big screen in Captain Marvel, his opinion on the James Tiptree Jr. Award controversy, and much more.

Ep:018 Jeffrey Round discusses his newest Dan Sharp novel, his music, and more.Links:gaymysterypodcast.comjeffreyround.comHigh Cotton Writer's RetreatThe Cuckoo is a Pretty Bird by LM KrierTo be a guest on the show: Be a GuestJeffrey Round is best known as the Lambda Award-winning author of two mystery series--the gritty Dan Sharp books and the comic Bradford Fairfax series. He is also an award-winning filmmaker, television producer and song-writer. His most recent books are "The God Game", fifth in the Dan Sharp series, and "Bon Ton Roulet", fourth in the Bradford Fairfax comic mystery series. His first novel, "A Cage of Bones", was published by GMP (UK), topping bestseller lists around the world. "The P-town Murders", first in the Bradford Fairfax series, was published by the Haworth Press (US). Both titles were listed on AfterElton's Top 100 Greatest Gay Books in 2008. Jeffrey's "Endgame" was called a "brilliant recreation" of Agatha Christie's best-selling mystery "And Then There Were None", giving the original what one critic called a "punk-rock reboot." It became a best-selling e-book in the US in 2016.If you have questions, comments or suggestions you can leave a message at 424-328-1008. Your message may be used on the air. Or email us at info@gaymysterypodcast.comSupport the show (http://patreon.com/gaymysterypodcast)

What would we do without our phones? Edward Field is a WWII vet in the 8th Air Force and shortly after his service began writing poetry in earnest. He has published numerous volumes of poetry, one which received the Lamont Poetry Prize and another the Lambda Award. He edited the anthology A Geography of Poets with Gerald Locklin and Charles Setler. He could play a mean cello, and won an Academy Award for the documentary film To Be Alive for which he wrote the narration. He lives in the Westbeth Artists Community in New York City.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE: In this episode Megan chats with Alex Leslie, the author of We All Need to Eat: Short Stories that was nominated for the 2019 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. In addition to hearing Alex read from her newly released book of poetry Vancouver for Beginners, Megan and Alex talk about writing about place and what it means to write about home and the place you grew up in as an uninvited visitor and settler on Indigenous land. ABOUT ALEX LESLIE: Alex is a poet and fiction writer born on unceded Musqueam territory in Vancouver; her heritage is English and Ashkenazi Jewish from Ukraine. She was born and raised in Vancouver. She's published two collections of short fiction and two collections of poetry. We All Need to Eat was published by Book*hug in Fall 2018 was shortlisted for the 2020 Kobzar Prize; it was a Top 10 book of 2018 by Now Magazine and a fiction pick of the year by 49th Shelf. Alex's collection of prose poems The things I heard about you (Nightwood)was shortlisted for the 2014 Robert Kroetsch Award for innovative poetry. The collection of short stories People Who Disappear was published in 2012 (Freehand ), shortlisted for a Lambda Award for debut fiction. Her writing has won a CBC Literary Award for fiction, a Gold National Magazine Award for creative non-fiction and has been published in Granta‘s first spotlight issue on Canadian contemporary literature (2017), the Journey Prize anthology (McClelland & Stewart), Best Canadian Poetry in English (Tightrope) and Best Canadian Stories (Oberon). Alex received the 2015 Dayne Ogilvie Award from the Writers’ Trust of Canada for emerging LGBT*Q2S writers. She was shortlisted for the 2018 ARC poem of the year award for her poem ‘The Purity Detector.” She has been a guest fiction mentor at the Banff Centre for the Arts and a Writer-in-Residence for the Vancouver International Writers Festival’s school outreach program. She is currently writing a novel. ABOUT MEGAN COLE: Megan Cole is a writer based in Powell River, British Columbia. She also works at the Powell River Public Library as the teen services coordinator where she gets to combine her love for books and writing with a love for her community. Megan has worked as a freelance journalist and is working on a memoir which tackles themes of gender and mental health. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com ABOUT THE PODCAST: The BC and Yukon Podcast, tentatively titled *Writing the Coast*, is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

Catch the YouTube version of this episode: (https://youtu.be/ymy4I_qoRv8). -- Poet, writer, and scholar Larissa Lai reads and discusses her original works, the differences between fiction and poetry, and introduces Affect Theory as a comparison to the enlightenment-bound self. -- About Larissa: Larissa Lai has authored six books including Salt Fish Girl and The Tiger Flu. Recipient of an Astraea Award and finalist for the Lambda Award, the Books in Canada First Novel Award, the Tiptree Award (twice), the Sunburst Award, the W.O. Mitchell Award (twice including this time), the bpNichol Chapbook Award, the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and the Gabrielle Roy Prize for Literary Criticism, she holds a Canada Research Chair at the University of Calgary, where she directs The Insurgent Architects' House for Creative Writing. She makes her home in Calgary (Brentwood) where she lives with her father. (www.larissalai.com) // (www.tiahouse.ca) // ● The Poetry Vlog is a YouTube Channel and Podcast dedicated to building social justice coalitions through poetry, pop culture, cultural studies, and related arts dialogues. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to join our fast-growing arts & scholarship community (youtube.com/c/thepoetryvlog?sub_confirmation=1). Connect with us on Instagram (instagram.com/thepoetryvlog), Twitter (twitter.com/thepoetryvlog), Facebook (facebook.com/thepoetryvlog), and our website (thepoetryvlog.com). Sign up for our newsletter on (thepoetryvlog.com) and get a free snail-mail welcome kit! ● The Fall 2019 Student Team: Mandy Cook - Team Manager // Wil Engstrom - Video Editor // Parker Kennedy - Video Editor // Kristin Ruopp - Digital Marketing & Outreach // Reagan Welsh - Social Media & Communications // Mel Kuoch - Video Editor // Season 3 of The Poetry Vlog is supported by The Simpson Center for the Humanities, with support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Jack Straw Cultural Center. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This week’s interview features author Marshall Thornton, mystery maestro, prolific writer and current Michigander (or, if you prefer, Michiganian). Marshall talks with me about his career trajectory, his life past and present, and the realities of making a living as a writer. About Marshall Thornton: Marshall Thornton writes two popular mystery series, the Boystown Mysteries and the Pinx Video Mysteries. He has won the Lambda Award for Gay Mystery twice, once for each series. His romantic comedy, Femme was also a 2016 Lambda finalist for Best Gay Romance. Other books include My Favorite Uncle, The Ghost Slept Over and Masc, the sequel to Femme. He is a member of Mystery Writers of America.

Lambda Award-winning writer and activist Michelle Tea has always considered herself “radical queer,” – those outside-of-the-mainstream LGBTQ folks who have nothing left to lose and make their own rules about everything. As she describes it in an essay for Buzzfeed, for Tea and the queer friends she shared a radical subculture with, “that meant prioritizing freedom, glorifying poverty, experimenting with our bodies in every way possible. The possibility of having children was raised only to highlight how absurd that would be….[we] mostly viewed kids as a potential drag on [our] liberties, or simply an impossibility.” Which is why almost everyone who knew her was shocked when she suddenly decided to get pregnant and become a parent at 40 years old – while single, uninsured, and living in an expensive city and working a somewhat unstable job. Spoiler alert: It’s now several years later and parenthood has ultimately worked out well for Tea and she’s learned some important lessons and made some unexpected (straight!) friends along the way. She shares her adventures on this episode.  Later in the show, Chicago-based rapper and actor Mykele Deville stop by the studio to discuss his role as Verb in the rousing production of Idris Goodwin’s “Hype Man: A Break Beat Play” at Actors Theatre of Louisville, which runs thru October 13th.

Jennifer Natalya Fink won the Catherine Doctorow Prize for Innovative Fiction in 2017 for Bhopal Dance (which is now a finalist for the Lambda Award),  and the Dana Award for the Novel for The Mikvah Queen.  She is a professor at Georgetown University, where she helped found the Program in Disability Studies, and is the author of five other books. She founded The Gorilla Press, a nonprofit aimed at promoting literacy through bookmaking. Fink is at work on All Our Families: Finding Our Disability Lineage, a disability memoir, and A Mischief, a novel about rats, love, and catastrophe. 

Hey there word nerds! Today I am delighted to have Tiffany Reisz on the show! Tiffany is the USA Today bestselling author of the Romance Writers of America’s RITA®-winning Original Sinners series from Harlequin's Mira Books. She has also received a Lambda Award in Gay Fiction for her novel The King and two Romantic Times Editor's Choice Awards for Best Erotic Romance and Best Series Romance. Her erotic fantasy The Red—self-published under the banner 8th Circle Press—was named an NPR Best Book of the Year, a Goodreads Best Romance of the Month, and received a coveted starred review from Library Journal. Her latest book, which is set in the world of The Red, is the erotic fantasy The Rose. Tiffany lives in Lexington, Kentucky with her husband, Andrew Shaffer (who I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with previously on the show), the New York Times Bestselling author of Hope Never Dies. She has two cats. The cats are not writers. So listen in as Tiffany and I chat about her amazing new novel, The Rose, and why embracing the delete key, no matter how many words you must trash, can be the thing that takes your book from good to great. In this episode Tiffany and I discuss: Using a framing device to craft an erotic romance. Elements to consider when writing a sex scene. How to discover your own erotic vocabulary. Finding the key that opens up your story and lets the words flow. How to know when you need to trash your existing draft and start over. Plus, Tiffany’s #1 tip for writers. For more info and show notes: DIYMFA.com/248

These Are the Attributes By Which You Shall Know God by Rose Lemberg   Father is trying to help me get into NASH. He thinks that seeing a real architect at work will help me with entrance exams. So father paid money, to design a house he does not want, just to get me close to Zepechiar. He is a professor at NASH and a human-Ruvan contact. Reason and matter­—these are the cornerstones of Spinoza’s philosophy that the Ruvans admire so much. Reason and matter: an architect’s mind and building materials. These are the attributes through which we can know God. And then, of course, there’s particle technology.   Full story after the cut: Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 68 for March 18, 2019. This is your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to share this story with you. Today we have a GlitterShip original, "These Are the Attributes By Which You Shall Know God" by Rose Lemberg, and "Female Figure of the Early Spedos Type, 1884-" by Sonya Taaffe. This episode is part of the newest GlitterShip issue, which was just released and is available for purchase at glittership.com/buy and on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and now Gumroad! If you’re one of our Patreon supporters, you should have access to the new issue waiting for you when you log in. For everyone else, it’s $2.99. GlitterShip is also a part of the Audible Trial Program. This means that just by listening to GlitterShip, you are eligible for a free 30 day membership on Audible and a free audiobook to keep. Today's book recommendation is The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison. In a world ripped apart by a plague that prevents babies from being carried to term and kills the mothers, an unnamed woman keeps a record of her survival. To download The Book of the Unnamed Midwife for free today, go to www.audibletrial.com/glittership — or choose another book if you’re in the mood for something else.     Sonya Taaffe reads dead languages and tells living stories. Her short fiction and poetry have been collected most recently in Forget the Sleepless Shores (Lethe Press) and previously in Singing Innocence and Experience, Postcards from the Province of Hyphens, A Mayse-Bikhl, and Ghost Signs. She lives with her husband and two cats in Somerville, Massachusetts, where she writes about film for Patreon and remains proud of naming a Kuiper belt object.       Female Figure of the Early Spedos Type, 1884- by Sonya Taaffe   When I said she had a Modigliani face, I meantshe was white as a cracked cliffand bare as the brush of a thumbthe day we met on the thyme-hot hills above Naxosand by the time we parted in Paris, she was drawinghalf-divorced Russian poets from memory,drinking absinthe like black coffeewith the ghosts of the painted Aegean still ringing her eyes.Sometimes she posts self-portraitsscratched red as ritual,a badge of black crayon in the plane of her groin.In another five thousand years,she may tell someone—not me—another one of her names.   Our story today is "These Are the Attributes By Which You Shall Know God" by Rose Lemberg, read by Bogi Takács.   Bogi Takács (prezzey.net) is a Hungarian Jewish agender trans person currently living in the US as a resident alien. Eir speculative fiction, poetry and nonfiction have been published in a variety of venues like Clarkesworld, Apex, Strange Horizons and podcast on Glittership, among others. You can follow Bogi on Twitter, Instagram and Patreon, or visit eir website at www.prezzey.net. Bogi also recently edited the Lambda Award-winning Transcendent 2: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction 2016, for Lethe Press. Rose Lemberg is a queer, bigender immigrant from Eastern Europe and Israel. Their fiction and poetry have appeared in Strange Horizons, Lightspeed‘s Queer Destroy Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Uncanny Magazine, and many other venues. Rose’s work has been a finalist for the Nebula, Crawford, and other awards. Their Birdverse novella The Four Profound Weaves is forthcoming from Tachyon Press. You can find more of their work on their Patreon: patreon.com/roselemberg       These Are the Attributes By Which You Shall Know God by Rose Lemberg   Father is trying to help me get into NASH. He thinks that seeing a real architect at work will help me with entrance exams. So father paid money, to design a house he does not want, just to get me close to Zepechiar. He is a professor at NASH and a human-Ruvan contact. Reason and matter­—these are the cornerstones of Spinoza’s philosophy that the Ruvans admire so much. Reason and matter: an architect’s mind and building materials. These are the attributes through which we can know God. And then, of course, there’s particle technology. The house-model Zepechiar has made for my family is all sleek glass. It is a space house with transparent outer walls; the endlessness of stars will be just an invisible layer away. “I do not want to live in space,” dad hisses. Father hushes them. Zepechiar’s model for our new house is cubical, angular, with a retro-modern flair. The kitchen is the only part of it that does not rotate, a small nod to dad’s desire for domesticity. Outside of the kitchen capsule, the living spaces are all zero-g with floating furniture that assembles itself out of thin air and adapts to the body’s curves. There is no privacy in the house, but nobody will be looking—out there, in space, between the expanses of the void. “Bringing the vacuum in is all the rage these days,” the architect says. I pretend indifference. Doodling in my notebook. It looks like nothing much. Swirls, like the swirls our ancients made to mark the landing sites for Ruva vessels. For thousands of years nobody had remembered the Ruva, and when they returned, they did not want to land anymore on the curls and swirls of patterns made in the fields. They had evolved. Using reason. They razed our cities to pour perfectly level landing sites. They sucked excess water out of the atmosphere and emptied the oceans, then refilled them again. But then they read Spinoza and decided to spare and/or save us. Because we, too, can know God. If we continued studying Spinoza, Ruvans said, we’d be enlightened and would not need sparing or saving. I want to build something that curls and twists between hills, but hills have been razed after the Ruva arrived. Hills are frivolous, an affront of imagination against reason, and it is reason that brought us terraforming particle technology that allowed us to suck all usable minerals from the imperfections of the earth: the hills, the mountains, the ravines, the trees, leaving only a flatness of the landing sites between the flatness covered by angular geodomes. I learned about hills from the rebel file. Every kid at school downloads the rebel file. All around the world too, I guess. I don’t know anybody else who actually read it. I do not notice anything until my father and dad wave a cheerful goodbye and leave me, alone with Zepechiar. He’ll help me with entrance exams. Or something. He pulls up a chair from the air, shapes it into a Ruvan geometry that is perhaps just a shade more frivolous than reason dictates. He says, “Your father lied about the purpose of your visit. What is the reason behind it?” I mumble, “I want to get into NASH.” “Show me your architectural drawings,” Zepechiar orders. His voice is level. Reason is the architect’s best tool. I hesitate. Can I show him— No. I need something safer, so I swipe the notebook, show him a thing I made while he was fussing over dad’s kitchen: a cubical model of black metal and spaceglass, not unlike Zepechiar’s house model for my family. The distinction is in the color contrast, a white stripe of a pipe running like a festive tie over the steel bundle. Zepechiar nods. “Show me what you do not want to show me.” There is something in his voice. I raise my hand to make the swiping motion, then stop mid-gesture. “You could have convinced dad to say yes to that kitchen,” I say. “They would have cooked breakfasts for eternity, looking out into an infinite space until their heart gave out.” “I’m selling my architecture, not my voice,” he says, but something in his voice is bitter. Bitterness. Emotion, not reason. He is being unprofessional on purpose, perhaps to lull me into trusting him. “Why did you decide to become an architect?” I ask, to distract. A tame enough question. My father’s money bought me an informational interview. “Architecture is an ultimate act of reason,” Zepechiar says. It’s such a Ruvan thing to say. I must have read it a hundred times, in hundreds of preparatory articles. “I teach this in the intro course. Architecture is key to that which contains us: houses. Ships. The universe. The universe is the ultimate container. The universe is God. God is a container of all things. We learn from Spinoza that we can only know God through reason; and that is why we approach God through architecture.” “If God contains all things, would God contain—” swirls? Hills? Leviathans? “The thing you do not want to show me?” says Zepechiar. His voice lilts just a bit, and I am taken in. I swipe my hand over the notebook, to show Zepechiar what will certainly disqualify me from NASH. It is a boat that curves and undulates. Its sides are decorated in pinwheel and spiral designs. There is not a straight angle anywhere, not a flat surface. I have populated my Ark with old-style numbers—the ones with curves. There are two fives, two sixes, a pair of 23s. Zepechiar rubs his forehead. “What are the numbers meant to indicate?” “Um… pairs of animals.” I read that in the rebel file, but I do not know what they are supposed to look like. “This… is hardly reasonable,” says Zepechiar. “You know what Spinoza said. The Bible is nothing but fantasy, and imagination is anathema to reason.” I am stubborn, and yes, I’ve read my Spinoza. Scripture is no better than anything else. But God’s existence is not denied. I say, “You could use reason to replicate the Ark in matter.” “Yes,” Zepechiar says. Yes. We can use particle technology to manipulate almost any matter. Even sentient matter. His voice hides a threat. “I want to know where you learned this. And why did you draw this.” God told Noah to build the Ark and save the animals. Ruvans just sucked all the water out of the seas, froze some, boiled the rest, and put it back empty of life. The rebel file does not always make sense, but this is clear. “I wanted to recreate the miracle of the Ark, to imagine the glory of God.” Zepechiar says, “No. It is only through reason that you can reach God. God is infinite, but reason and the material world are the only attributes of God that we can reach. I want to know where you learned this.” His voice. His voice bends me. The rebel file. Everybody knows about the rebel file. Nobody cares about the rebel file. I can speak of it. Nothing to it. Just say it. Do what he says. Use reason. Straighten every curve. I mumble, “Ugh… here and there, kids at school, you know.” “I don’t.” He squints at me, halfway between respect and scorn. “Erase the Ark.” I breathe in. I have always been stubborn. “I do not want to erase the Ark. It is a miracle.” He breathes in. His hand is on my arm. “Miracles are simply things you cannot yet understand. Like particle tech and sentient matter.” He folds me. I’ve heard of the advanced geometry one can only learn at NASH, but this is more than that, this is something more. It is nauseating, like I am being doubled and twisted and extended. Dimensionally, stretched along multiple axes until my human hills—my curves, my limbs—are flattened into a singular geometric shape, a white pipe that runs around along the lines of the design studio, wrapping around the cubic shape of it like a festive ribbon. I am… not human anymore. I am sentient matter altered, like the rest of Earth, by Ruvan/human particle technology. I see Zepechiar from above, from below, in multiple angles. I have no eyes, but some abstract form of seeing, a sentience, remains to me. “I want to know,” Zepechiar says, “who altered you.” He falls apart into a thousand shiny cubes, then reassembles himself again, a towering creature of glimmering metal, a Ruvan of flesh behind the capsule of dark steel. I, too, am altered by him now, a thousand smaller cubes scattered by his voice, reassembled into the dimensional model of the house in the void. I see dad and father standing above my form. Perhaps they never left. They do not seem to care if Zepechiar is human or Ruvan. Zepechiar speaks to dad. “The perfect kitchen just for you—look at these retro-granite countertops, self-cleaning—” He pokes me. “Where did you learn this?” I think back at him, quoting the Scripture the best I can. “Two by two, they ascended the Ark: Male and female in their pairs, and some female in their pairs and some male in their pairs, and some had no gender and some did not care. Some came in triangles and some came in squares. And some of them came alone.” Like the Leviathan. The Leviathan holds all the knowledge the Ruvans discarded for reason’s sake, all the swirly landing sites, their own hills, their poetry. The Leviathan is the Ruvans’ rebel file. I no longer know my initial shape. I am made of hundreds of shining squares. My parents are here, in the room, but they do not know me. They are human—all curves and lilts of flesh. Forever suspect. I am Ruvan/human now. I am an architectural model, sentient matter transformed by an architect’s reason—and architects are the closest thing to God. “Think about all the damage scripture did,” says Zepechiar. “Holy wars, destruction, revision, rewritten over and over by those who came after but made no more sense. Think about what imagination did to this planet and to ours. It is dangerous. It makes you dangerous. But I will make matter out of you.” I am a house. Floating in space, rotating along all my axes. Inside me, the kitchen is the only thing that is still. I have been human or Ruvan, I do not remember, but I carry two humans inside me. They no longer remember me, but they came in a pair. I am their Ark. Zepechiar made me. A Ruvan/human architect. An architect is the closest thing to God. But so are the buildings architects create. So am I. Slowly, I begin to shift my consciousness along the cubic geometry of my new shape. Slowly, I move the space house, away. Where, in the darkest of space, there swims a Leviathan.   END   “Female Figure of the Early Spedos Type, 1884-" is copyright Sonya Taaffe 2019. “These Are the Attributes By Which You Shall Know God” is copyright Rose Lemberg 2019. This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library. You can support GlitterShip by checking out our Patreon at patreon.com/keffy, subscribing to our feed, leaving reviews on iTunes, or buying your own copy of the Summer 2018 issue at www.glittership.com/buy. You can also support us by picking up a free audiobook at  www.audibletrial.com/glittership. Thanks for listening, and we’ll be back soon with a reprint of “Ratcatcher” by Amy Griswold.

Tell the Phoenix Fox, Tell the Tortoise Fruit by Cynthia So   On the day Sunae turned nine years old, there was no joyful feast. A monster burst from the sea that night and ate five people. The Mirayans gathered upon the shore to watch this, as they did every Appeasement. Sunae’s mother covered Sunae’s eyes, but Sunae still heard the screams. The crunch of brittle bone between teeth. The wet gulp of gluttonous throats. Sunae prayed to the Goddess that the warrior Yomue might rise from the dead and defeat the monster yet again. No warrior came, but a hand grasped Sunae’s and squeezed. A hand as small as her own. When it was over, Sunae’s mother murmured, “Now we will be safe for another ten years.” She removed her hands from Sunae’s eyes, and Sunae flinched from the gore before her. The older children always said that this was why Miraya’s beaches were pink, but she hadn’t been convinced until she saw the sands now drenched with fresh blood. Dark red on dusk pink. Full transcript after the cut:     Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 66 for March 5, 2019. This is your host Keffy, and I'm super excited to share this story with you. Today we have a GlitterShip original, "Tell the Phoenix Fox, Tell the Tortoise Fruit" by Cynthia So and a poem by Chanter, "The Lamentations of Old Money." This episode is part of the newest GlitterShip issue, which was just released and... is very late. The "Summer 2018" issue of GlitterShip is available for purchase at glittership.com/buy and on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and now Gumroad! If you're one of our Patreon supporters, you should have access to the new issue waiting for you when you log in. For everyone else, it's $2.99, and all of our back issues are $1.49. GlitterShip is also a part of the Audible Trial Program. This means that just by listening to GlitterShip, you are eligible for a free 30 day membership on Audible and a free audiobook to keep. If you'er looking for an excellent book of short queer stories to listen to, you should check out Bitter Waters by Chaz Brenchley. This book is full of speculative fiction featuring gay men and was awarded the Lambda Award for best LGBT speculative fiction. To download Bitter Waters for free today, go to www.audibletrial.com/glittership -- or choose another book if you're in the mood for something else. Up first, our poem:   Chanter is a proud Wisconsinite who took flight (alas, not literally) from her originating small town, headed for the big city’s more accepting climes and never looked back.  She’s proudly asexual, demisensual, and some flavor of bi- or panromantic that’s as yet proving difficult to define.  She’s also brand squeaky new (emphasis, occasionally, on squeaky) to official publication.  Besides holding down a day job, she’s an active shortwave radio DXer and ham operator, as well as a crowdfunded author currently based mainly on Dreamwidth.       The Lamentations of Old Money by Chanter   Jennifer doesn’t want a white dress. She doesn’t want a church,an altar, a tangle of coast-grown flowers,sisters in matching silk, trained doves, stained glass,twenty overlaid colognes and splintering sunlight,rehearsed organ music andrecorded pop shorthand warbling through weak speakers,biting April breezes, overthought hair and makeup,snow in hardwood aisles. Jennifer doesn’t want a wild time. She doesn’t want hips around shoulders, tools and toys,filthy supplications and hot breath ideas,hours between bedsheets, sticky aftermaths,bruises as tawdry mementos in hard to reach places,hands and mouths, teeth and tongues and fluids,too many entrances,the junctions of legs and legs and legs. Jennifer doesn’t want hard edges. Not for her, leashes, spike heels and bad girl pretense.not for her, the bite of too-demanding fingertipsgrinding at her biceps,cold and bruising at her cheeks,clamped into the flesh of her wrists.Not for her, orders with teeth both behind and in them,whipcracks in voice and deed.Not for her, daddy’s little anything, mommy’s little anything,a schoolgirl’s life, a paddle’s life,princess, flower, whore.Not for her, latex and custom-made chains,iron protocol and a child’s tear-stung punishments,revoked names and Halloween’s expected trappings. Not for her, anonymity.Not for her, all of the spiceand none of the wine to mull with it. What Jennifer wants? Fits on a two-sided coin. One side: Jennifer wants nights asleep in a hayloft, clothes on,with siblings in arms—and black coffee,and cotton-coarse humor, and blood—to her left and right. Jennifer wants a uniform,wants honest lamplight with a wick beneath it,wants a hundred songs and a hand-tuned fiddle,a guitar played at a campfire,laces and burlap, branches and homespun wool,antique language, tactile camaraderie,respected rank and unresented ceremony,world-spanning care so personal it can’t be feigned,so simultaneously subtle and frank that it confuses,so elegant it’s genuine,so casual it’s ancient.“To be fair, that one does drive me utterly mad of an afternoon butGod be good, dear fellow, why wouldn’t I?” Jennifer wants a certain amount of ignored anachronism,wants a world where ‘dear fellow’as affectionate genderless address is just fine,where ‘she’s a good man to have beside you in a fight’is perfectly acceptable wording,but where the phrase ‘man up’ is both soundly off limitsand considered decades or centuries distant, depending;a world where, at the end of the day,it’s quietly acknowledged and otherwise near-forgottenthat oh yes, that one there, she’s a girl.As in woman.As in, see also, dame. Noun.Example I: To go to work for the war efforton the road under cover of darkness,on the air for the BBC,or on the battlefield firing decisive cannon blast volleyslike a real dame. Example II:I’m a girl, and mostly,I prefer other dames to fellas. Mostly.But when I don’t, I kinda have a type? Ahem!” Somewhere, a coin is balancing on its edge. And the flip side: Jennifer wants to write a hundred stories and bind them in hard covers,wants modern skirts to her ankles,comfortable jeans and blue corduroy coat sleeves,wants city streets, steel toes and long hair,near-distant clocktower bells,silver jewelry bought by her own hand, in her own name,a rocking chair made to last for decades,a damn fine radio setup,the solid strength of a wooden door at her backafter she and she - he and she - they and sheafter they’ve crashed through itand, fully clothed, battered it closed behind them. Both sides: Jennifer wants her wrists pressed flat against that wooden door,all benevolent force, all warmth,all welcome gravity, all burgeoning life in orbit,all the steady strength of a starin symbiosis with a planet.Jennifer wants voices and voices and voices,innocent details and muscle-melting,breath-stealing turns of phrase,sound serving as light serving aslodestone to the iron in every millimeter of herexcept, except, for a bare and unbared few. One side: Jennifer wants the wind at her back,a message, a mission, a reason and a warning,miles and miles and miles rolled outunder a sky filled with leaden stars,a purpose and a signal, a gesture,an anticipation of commandthat tenses her like a bowstringbefore—wait, wait, wait for it—rush for it— “Fire!” Both sides: Jennifer wants to be eager,to be teeming under her skin with silver,wants a reason and a cause and a leader who’sfallible by self-description, near-matchless by others’ accounts,wants to thrill to rank, surname, simple designation,wants to know at exactly what she’s aimed,near-precisely what will happen when she hitsand that yes, the trusted, entirely human handsof gravity to a planetare the only hands pulling or perhaps, perhaps,the only hands directing those pulling her string,wants to be entirely, mindfully, consensually willingto be fired like a longbow. And the flip side: Jennifer wants to bringa girlfriend home to her parents,wants to curl into accented wordslike they’re warm compresses and quilts,wants to make promises and keep them,find each others’ keys,play each others’ record collections,brush cat hair off each others’ sweaters,adore and be adored forever,not live together.Jennifer wants to never grow tired of hearing herself say“This is Elaine.” Or “This is Kim.” Or “This is...”“This is my better half.” Both sides: Jennifer wants orders that both delight herand fill her with clean purpose,stoking a fire that consumes every inch of herexcept, except, for the space between her thighs.Jennifer wants the intersectionwhere bravery meets well-placed loyalty.Jennifer wants to know exactly what she’s doing,wants to be utterly sure of her cause,to make up her entire mind, on her own,and then raise her voiceand throw herself into the thing with abandonbecause yes, this is right, this is reason, this is exuberanceand happiness and righteous fury blazing, this isbright history, this is justice, this is-- One coin. With two sides. Jennifer wantsthe rarity that is liking of, love for,acceptance and welcome ofboth the existence and the admissionof her two sides. Even when she’s difficult.Even when she’s horrible.Even when she’s irrational.Even when she’s just, so most people would say,plain off baseline weird. Especially when she’s weird. All of the wine to mull withall of the spiceground by capable hands.Hands ringed in silver. Hands at the ends of corduroy sleeves. The sleeves of a coat that may have,once or twice,been a makeshift pillow in a hayloft. After a night’s ride. After a night’s mission.       Cynthia So is a queer Chinese writer from Hong Kong, living in London. She spent her undergrad crying over poets that have been dead for 2,000 years, give or take. (She’s graduated now, but still crying.) Her short fiction has appeared in Anathema, Arsenika, and Cast of Wonders. She can be found on Twitter @cynaesthete. Zora Mai Quỳnh is a genderqueer Vietnamese writer whose short stories, poems, and essays can be found in The SEA Is Ours, Genius Loci: The Spirit of Place, POC Destroy Science Fiction, Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler, Strange Horizons, and Terraform. Visit her: zmquynh.com. Rivia is a Black and Vietnamese Pansexual Teen who has a passion for reading, video games and music. She says “I’m gender questioning but also questioning whether or not I’m questioning...Isn’t gender just a concept?” You can hear her vocals on Strange Horizon’s podcast for “When she sings…”   Tell the Phoenix Fox, Tell the Tortoise Fruit by Cynthia So       On the day Sunae turned nine years old, there was no joyful feast. A monster burst from the sea that night and ate five people. The Mirayans gathered upon the shore to watch this, as they did every Appeasement. Sunae’s mother covered Sunae’s eyes, but Sunae still heard the screams. The crunch of brittle bone between teeth. The wet gulp of gluttonous throats. Sunae prayed to the Goddess that the warrior Yomue might rise from the dead and defeat the monster yet again. No warrior came, but a hand grasped Sunae’s and squeezed. A hand as small as her own. When it was over, Sunae’s mother murmured, “Now we will be safe for another ten years.” She removed her hands from Sunae’s eyes, and Sunae flinched from the gore before her. The older children always said that this was why Miraya’s beaches were pink, but she hadn’t been convinced until she saw the sands now drenched with fresh blood. Dark red on dusk pink. She looked at the girl next to her, the girl who was holding her hand, and she saw a determination in those eyes as bright as the moon, as bright as her own. A determination to make sure that this would never happen again. “I’m Oaru,” the girl said. “What’s your name?” Sunae looked down at their clasped hands and told Oaru her name.   The Temple of the Moon Goddess is the most beautiful place on the island. There are no straight lines and sharp angles within, but everything is curved and gentle and swooping. Shades of blue deepen as one enters through the front, the colors of twilight intensifying into midnight, accented by silver and broken up by patches of brilliant white that gleam through the dark. A pool of water from the Moon Lake shimmers in the atrium. Frosty glass cut into lunar shapes hang from the ceiling in long, glittering threads. All of it is flawless craftsmanship, except for the wall of the prayer hall. The hall is perfectly circular. Spanning a semicircle on the wall is a painting of Yomue, splendid in lustrous armor, wielding a sword as black as her hair and an expression as fierce as the sea. The sand of the Mirayan beach is pink beneath her feet, and she glares at the monster that towers over her. Its writhing, many-headed form is etched into the blackness of the night. The moon hangs above them, solemn and full. The other half of the wall is blank, its contents effaced and forgotten. Warrior confronts monster. What’s the rest of the story? Monster leaves island alone for a hundred years. Warrior dies, and monster comes back. It is starved and salivating, with too many teeth. Every ten years, it must be fed. Is that what was on the other half of the wall? Sunae’s mother buys her Carrucean books to read, because Carrucean is an important language to learn well. In Carrucean tales, monsters are always slain. Heroes sometimes journey into foreign lands and kill other people’s monsters for them, and they are rewarded with riches and brides and thrones. Sunae is ten years old, but she knows this: there are Carruceans living in Miraya. Miraya was owned by Carrucea for hundreds of years, and then there was a treaty of some sort not long before Sunae was born, and now Miraya belongs to the Mirayans again. The Carruceans came here to their island. They governed the island and lived here for centuries, but no Carrucean ever killed the monster for them. Yet here they are on the island still, with their wealth, their power. Their Mirayan wives. “Mother, have any Carruceans ever been fed to the monster?” Sunae asks. Her mother frowns. “Can’t we talk about something more cheerful?” Sunae just wants to know how to defeat the monster. If no Carruceans will come to their aid, then who will?   The old Library of Miraya is a burnt husk with a blackened facade, secluded from the town and set into the side of a hill, a little way from the Moon Lake. Sunae doesn’t understand why it hasn’t been torn down to make way for something new when fire ravaged it long ago, but perhaps its remote location preserved it. Evidently the Mirayans of yore prized a peaceful reading environment. Sunae can hear nothing of the bustling town here, only a chorus of birds. She also doesn’t understand why she is letting Oaru drag her into the grim ruins. Inside, the half-collapsed roof lets in some lemony sunlight, but there is an unpleasant smell like overripe tortoise fruit, and rows of charred shelves loom and menace. “It went this way,” Oaru says, and drops to her hands and knees to crawl through a tiny hole in the wall. Sunae sighs and follows. She gets stuck, her shoulders being broader than Oaru’s, but Oaru wrenches her free with a painful yank. She emerges into a cramped and airless space, illuminated only by the glow of the phoenix fox, which is swishing its enormous tail back and forth, sweeping away layers of ash and dust from the wall behind it. Sunae coughs, but Oaru grabs her arm excitedly. “There’s something on the wall!” Oaru leans over the fox and scrubs at the wall with her sleeve, gradually revealing the faded colors of a painting: a woman in an ethereal blue gown, sitting with a brush in her hand. A long scroll of paper unfurls before her, inked in an illegible, swirling script. “Doesn’t that look a bit like Yomue?” Oaru asks. It seems impossible that this serene woman should resemble the powerful warrior in the temple, but she does. It’s in the proud tilt of her jaw, maybe. Sunae reaches out and traces the woman’s chin. She has never been permitted to touch the temple mural, though she has longed to. “What is she doing?” Oaru wonders. “Writing poetry?” Sunae ventures. The phoenix fox smirks at her and stretches lazily before slipping out through the hole in the wall, leaving them in absolute darkness. Oaru yelps, “I’ve got to catch that fox!” She tugs at Sunae’s elbow and Sunae reluctantly goes with her. It’s as much a struggle to get out as it was to get in, and the fox is nowhere to be seen by the time Sunae has wriggled through.   The new Library of Miraya is a clean and functional building, centrally located, right next to the Town Hall. Most of the space is dedicated to Carrucean books, with the Mirayan literature section tucked into a dismal corner. Sunae asks a librarian to help her find Yomue’s poems. “Yomue wasn’t a poet,” the librarian says, puzzled. “But I can recommend poetry from the same time period. Not much of it survived, what with the old Library burning down... But there is some, and it’s very beautiful. Do you know how to read Classical Mirayan, though?” In the end, Sunae walks away from the Library with a few books and a leaflet for free Classical Mirayan lessons. By the time she turns twelve, she has read all the Classical Mirayan poetry that the Library has to offer—and all the modern Mirayan poetry, too. She tries her hand at writing her own poem. She writes about Yomue and the monster. Yomue’s husband, wrongfully convicted of murdering a man, chained to a pillar on the shore, awaiting his execution. Yomue weeping at his feet. The moon trembling in the sky, the Goddess watching. Yomue dressing herself in armor, carefully lacing her breastplate, looping her belt through the buckle. Whetting her sword and sheathing it. Her hair, tied back with a ribbon given to her by her husband. Her boots hitting the ground, her armor jangling. The monster howling, crashing back into the sea where it nurses its wounds for a hundred years. Sunae wins a competition at school with this poem, and gets a shiny badge that she pins to her satchel. She is fourteen, and she writes about nature: trees touching, sands blushing. The ocean embracing the coast. Leaves tender for one another. Mountains asleep next to each other. The moon observing everything. She is sixteen, and Oaru bets a boy she can beat him in a swordfight. Sunae has watched Oaru practise in her garden every week for five years, first with a toy sword, then with a real one; Oaru is graceful and deft with it where Sunae has always fumbled and flailed. Oaru and the boy are wearing white clothes and using wooden swords dipped in red paint; the boy soon looks like a bloody mess and yields, while Oaru is still pristine. “You were amazing,” Sunae says afterwards, as Oaru is cutting into a celebratory tortoise fruit. Oaru waves a slice of it in her face, and Sunae grimaces at its distinct mustiness. “Ew, no thank you.” “How can you not like tortoise fruit?” Oaru says, shaking her head. “Are you even Mirayan?” Sunae sticks her tongue out. “It smells like a sweaty armpit and it tastes even worse.” Oaru eagerly bites into the purple flesh of the fruit. “You should know though, you kind of looked like a tortoise fruit just then, when I wafted it under your nose.” Sunae blinks at the wrinkled skin of the tortoise fruit in horror. “I looked like that? Don’t be so mean!” Oaru laughs and nudges her side. “All right, I’m sorry—but hey, do you think I’ll be good enough to defeat the monster someday?” No. Don’t you dare try. Sunae swallows. Oaru must be the best fighter Miraya has seen in generations. Surely if anyone has a chance to ward off the monster and stop more Appeasements from happening, it’s her. How can Sunae be so selfish as to hold Oaru back for fear of losing her? She says, “You look so much like Yomue in the temple mural when you’re moving with that sword.” Oaru’s breath catches, and Sunae suddenly understands what it is she has really been trying to write poetry about all this time. They are alone in Sunae’s bedroom, and Sunae kisses Oaru. There is tortoise fruit on Oaru’s tongue, cloying and bitter, but Sunae doesn’t scrunch up her nose. She doesn’t mind at all. “That has to be the boldest thing you’ve ever done,” Oaru whispers, her lips soft and purpled, her hair mussed by Sunae’s hands. “I guess you inspired me,” Sunae says, and Oaru grins and grips Sunae’s arms. “Remember that time I tried to catch the phoenix fox?” Sunae nods. Every day she thinks of the painted woman lit by the phoenix-fox fire. The nameless poet buried in the rubble, her face so strangely like Yomue’s. Sunae returned to the shadowy wreckage of the old Library once, but she has grown and can no longer contort herself to fit through that hole in the wall. “I wanted to give the fox to you,” Oaru says. Oh. It is a Mirayan custom for young men to present phoenix foxes to girls they wish to marry. This fact had utterly escaped ten-year-old Sunae, who merely assumed that Oaru wanted the fox as a pretty pet. Sunae raises her eyebrows, stroking Oaru’s cheek with her thumb. “You already wanted to marry me when you were ten?” Oaru shrugs. “I didn’t know then, what it meant. I only knew I wanted to be your friend forever. But now I know what it actually means, for me to want to marry you.” Her eyes are serious, like a cloud veiling the moon. It means we could both be a part of the next Appeasement if anyone finds out. Sunae closes her eyes against the thought and kisses Oaru again. Sunae is eighteen and she is awarded a scholarship to study at the University of Wimmore, one of Carrucea’s world-famous institutions. If she takes the scholarship, she will be absent from Miraya for a year. She will be absent from Miraya on the day of the next Appeasement. Tell me what else there is, she pleads with the impassive image of Yomue on the wall, as everyone else in the prayer hall lifts their cupped hands repeatedly to their faces in the traditional gesture of worship. Tell me. Because if there is more to the story than a swordfight, then maybe she can convince Oaru not to risk her life. And if she has to go to Carrucea to find the answers, she will. At the end of the prayer session, when people are either shuffling off or lingering to socialize, Sunae tells Oaru about the scholarship. “It’s stupid that you have to go to Carrucea to learn more about this island, our island that we’ve been living on our whole lives.” Oaru spits the words, and her frustration echoes in the chambers of Sunae’s heart. “I know.” Sunae wants to run her hands through Oaru’s hair to comfort her, but it would be foolish to show such affection in public. She wants to hold Oaru’s hand, but they are not children anymore. They will not get away with it, not here where everyone can see. “Just promise me that you won’t try and take on the monster when the Appeasement comes. Please. You’re not ready.” I’m not ready. “I promise.” Oaru’s voice sounds fervent with honesty. Sunae hopes she has known Oaru for long enough to tell when she is lying.   The Moon Lake is luminous as a heart that brims full with emotion, and Sunae stands at the edge and dips her toes in. Oaru is naked in the water, moonlight dripping from her hair. Oaru wears a smile like a phoenix fox’s, sly and burning through Sunae. Oaru’s arms are muscled and impatient and open wide. “Come on, Sunae.” Sunae’s fingers hover over the knot that ties the sash around her waist. “You’re breaking the law,” she whispers. Oaru wades closer to Sunae. She lifts the hem of Sunae’s gown and kisses Sunae’s ankles. “We’ve been breaking the law for a long time, tortoise fruit,” she says, her dark eyes looking up into Sunae’s. “When has that ever stopped you?” She leaves wet handprints on the skirt of Sunae’s gown, droplets trickling down the backs of Sunae’s calves. “Who knows when we’ll get to do this again?” I’ll only be away for a year, Sunae thinks, but Oaru’s eyes are darker than fire-scorched walls, and Sunae knows it will be the longest year of their lives. She loosens the knot. Her gown joins Oaru’s in a careless heap on the sandy bank, and soon her body twines with Oaru’s in the water. Mist forms around them, as though the Goddess herself wishes to hide them away from the world.   Let’s skip ahead for a moment. It is Sunae’s nineteenth birthday, and she is chained to a pillar on the pink shore of Miraya. Her lover Oaru is shackled to a different pillar. They cannot touch or kiss each other. The monster is about to rear its ugly heads from the sea, and Sunae is crying, but she is speaking. She is reciting a poem she wrote, and I am watching, as I always have. I am listening. So how did they get here?   Sunae sits on the steps of a lofty sandstone building, shivering in the wind and eating a whole tortoise fruit by herself. She has been studying in Wimmore for four months, and she hasn’t made a single friend. The light in Wimmore is muted and cold, the streets narrow and grey, the houses foreboding and tall. People laugh at her accent. The dresses fashionable here are too tight, and she can never get enough air into her lungs. The air tastes nothing of salt, anyway. She misses the sea. She runs her fingers over the tough, knobbly green rind of the fruit. Her professor had bought it for the class to try—an expensive import from Miraya, not easily purchased. The others in her class had squealed over how disgusting the fruit looked and smelled as Dr. Janner was dissecting it like a corpse, and Sunae thought of Oaru’s teeth tearing into a wedge of tortoise fruit. Oaru’s tongue stained purple by its juice. Sunae had stood up, gathered the massive fruit in her arms as though it were a baby and marched out of the classroom. And now she is sitting on rain-wet stone and chewing miserably. How Oaru would tease her, if Oaru were here. A girl sits down next to her. Talia from her class, with wheat-colored curls flattened in the drizzle. “You really like tortoise fruit, huh?” Talia says. “I hate it,” Sunae says. “Let me try a bit, will you?” Sunae gives her a small slice and she takes a tentative bite. “Hmm, it tastes a lot better than it smells. Definitely not the texture I was expecting, though. It’s... squidgy?” She finishes the slice, throws the rind over her shoulder, and grabs another immediately. Sunae smiles. She thinks it must be the first time she has smiled since she set foot in Wimmore. “You like it more than I do, then.” “So what are you doing out here eating something you hate and crying?” Talia asks, squinting. “Don’t tell me that’s just the rain.” “It’s not just the rain,” Sunae says, rubbing a hand over her face. “It’s just... It’s what a friend calls me. Tortoise fruit.” “An affectionate nickname?” Talia turns the piece of wrinkly rind over in her hand. “Is it a cute boy who’s waiting for you at home?” Sunae hesitates. “Um. Not a boy.” And then, to distract Talia from fixating on that, she launches into an account of everything that’s been overwhelming her. She explains that the next Appeasement is happening soon, and that she has been trying to conduct research into the history and literature of Miraya to see if she can find any clues as to how Yomue defeated the monster last time and why the monster came back, but she still hasn’t found anything useful. “I just want to find another way,” Sunae says. “I don’t want my friend to do anything rash. I don’t want to lose her.” Talia presses her shoulder gently against Sunae’s. “One of my ancestors was part of the first expedition to Miraya. We have an attic full of things left behind by various family members. We’ve never managed to go through all of it properly, but you’re welcome to come and have a look.” This is how Sunae finds herself cross-legged on the dusty floor of Talia’s ridiculously big attic, cross-eyed after three continuous days of rifling through boxes of miscellanea in dim light, unable to believe what she’s looking at. It’s a roughly colored sketch of Yomue the warrior, copied from the temple wall. Sword and monster and moon. And beneath that, a sketch of Yomue again—a woman dressed in the same armor, holding not a sword but a scroll open in her hands. Next to her is something a little like a mirror, or a full moon: a vast circle, shaded in silver. Within it coils a spiral shadow. Sunae isn’t sure how to interpret this, but she knows that this Yomue and the painted poet in the old Library are one and the same. She rummages through the rest of the box which contained the sketches, and her hand touches worn leather. She pulls it out of the box and it falls open on her lap, yellowed pages crammed with neat handwriting. It’s a diary.   “Why do all you rich Carruceans have stuff just lying around in your attic that I’ve only been searching for my entire life?” Sunae mutters under her breath to Talia, who is sitting next to her at this dinner. She clenches her fist around her fork. “Well, at least now you can read Yomue’s poetry!” Talia whispers back. Dr. Sotkin, a dear friend of Dr. Janner, carries on explaining to everyone how he recovered the lost manuscript of Yomue’s poems when he was cleaning out his grandfather’s house after his grandfather recently passed away. Sunae saws away at her chunk of boiled beef. “I’ll be publishing a translation later this year,” Dr. Sotkin announces. Sunae takes a sip of water and a deep breath. “What kind of poetry is it?” she asks, proud of how calm and polite she sounds. “Sadly, it only survives in fragments, but I’ve brought a copy of some of them to share with all of you as a preview.” Dr. Sotkin digs in his bag and retrieves a sheaf of papers. “I believe Dr. Janner told me you can all read Classical Mirayan?” “Some of us better than others,” Talia murmurs to Sunae, and Sunae hides a smile behind her napkin. Some of the boys in their class seem to be getting by with barely any knowledge of Mirayan. Sunae assumes it must be their wealth that passes their exams for them. She takes the sheet that Dr. Sotkin offers to her and scans it quickly. Her mind whirls dizzily and she pushes away her plate and reads the fragment again, more slowly this time. And again. She closes her eyes and envisions the inscrutable moon in the night sky to steady herself. Dr. Sotkin is saying something about a man that Yomue is drinking with. “She compares her love for this man to the Moon Lake—a blessing that glimmers on and on.” Sunae hands the sheet to Talia and holds onto the edge of the table. “Dr. Sotkin,” she says, and she isn’t able to sound calm anymore. Her voice quavers. “I don’t believe Yomue is talking about a man. I know it’s only a fragment, but it’s clear from the grammar that she’s writing about a woman.” Dr. Sotkin frowns. “Did you not hear when I said that this is a love poem?” “Yes, I know, and I believe that Yomue’s beloved is a woman.” “That’s preposterous. It’s simply impossible.” “You think it’s impossible that Yomue loved another woman?” “What you are speaking of is highly illegal and punishable by death, young lady,” Dr. Sotkin sniffs. In both Miraya and Carrucea, yes—Sunae is extremely aware. “Are we to believe that Yomue shared these poems with the public and was not executed for her sins?” “Well, she warded off the monster, so there were no Appeasements—” Dr. Sotkin tugs haughtily at his cravat. “You do realize that it is possible to execute people without feeding them to a monster as you barbarians love to do?” “Love?” Sunae’s voice is shrill to her own ears; drums thunder in her ribcage. “You think we love having to feed people to a monster every ten years to keep it from destroying our whole island?” Dr. Sotkin’s face is pink as the sand on Miraya’s beaches. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” “Yes,” Dr. Janner joins in. “Sunae, your behavior of late has been extremely rude and disruptive and I’m afraid we cannot tolerate this. Dr. Sotkin is the foremost expert on Classical Mirayan and he will not be insulted by your bumbling reading of this poem.” “But she’s right!” Talia protests, jabbing at the sheet of paper. “Dr. Janner, Sunae’s right. Look at this line here.” “It’s all right,” Sunae says, putting her hand on Talia’s arm. “I’m leaving.”   Sunae’s head is still spinning from the fragment of Yomue’s poetry. It was so much like the poems that she has been writing about Oaru, folded into envelopes and sent across the ocean to her lover. One was about the glow of sweat and moon-water on Oaru’s skin, the night they drifted together in the Moon Lake, the last night they spent together. And now, this letter from her mother. She sinks to the floor of the post room and clutches her knees. She is going to be sick. The door creaks open. She looks up and Talia is there. “I’m so sorry,” Talia says. “You were such a fearsome warrior back there, speaking up to Sotkin like that. He’s utterly dreadful. Janner, too. I want to lock them both up in my attic and never let them out. Janner revoked your scholarship but he hasn’t even tried to suspend me.” Sunae stares at Talia and cannot speak. Talia doesn’t know about the letter yet. She thinks Sunae is just upset about what happened at the dinner, but the world is crumbling at Sunae’s feet and Talia has no idea. A smile stretches across Talia’s face. “Can you believe your legendary Yomue’s one of us?” Sunae’s shoulders loosen a little. “One of us?” “One of us,” Talia repeats and holds her hand out to Sunae, and Sunae understands. Instead of taking Talia’s hand, she lifts up the letter and gives it to Talia. Talia reads it and is speechless, too. She sits down next to Sunae and together they watch the flickering light bulb. It is no moon, but it soothes, somehow. Eventually, Talia asks, “When is the next Appeasement? Will you make it back in time?” “If I leave at dawn, I might,” Sunae says, hoarsely. “You’ll be arrested too if you go back, won’t you?” Sunae nods. “But you’re definitely going.” Sunae nods again. “Good luck,” Talia whispers. “If you don’t die, write me a poem. You have my address.” She kisses Sunae’s forehead.   Sunae crosses the ocean home. She prays to the Goddess. She prays to Yomue. She writes.   Which is what brings us here, to Sunae’s nineteenth birthday, and Sunae and Oaru on the beach where they first met ten years ago. “I love you,” Sunae says to Oaru. There is white sea-spray in Oaru’s windblown hair, and if Sunae’s plan doesn’t succeed, she wants this to be the last thing she ever sees. She closes her eyes. The waves lap the shore. Her lungs are full of salt air. The moon caresses her face with its white light. She opens her mouth. The truth comes out. Sunae wrote that silly poem when she was twelve, where I saved my husband from the monster. I laughed when I heard her read it to her classmates. Now she is a much better poet, and she has learnt so much—from sketches and diaries and mistranslated fragments—and this is what she tells the Mirayans. Four hundred years ago, Yomue loved another woman, and they had flowers and wine and stars; they chased phoenix foxes together in the valleys. They ate tortoise fruit and kissed each other’s mouths purple. They wrapped themselves in moonlight. Yomue was skilled with the sword, but even more skilled with words, and she was the Goddess’ favorite. She could not stand by and watch a monster kill more people in her town. She wove a spell out of poetry and enchanted the monster, led it to the Moon Lake where it slumbered for as long as she lived, and longer, because she taught others the poem. But the Carruceans came; they brought their laws with them, and they knew how powerful fear was. How to control a people with it. Fire bloomed in the Library; in the temple, fresh paint dried on the wall. Yomue the poet was erased from history. The monster was awoken, and anyone who caused trouble could be thrown into its devouring jaws. “Now you tell me I cannot love Oaru.   We chase a phoenix fox that Yomue tamed once, Reborn from the ashes of the Library. It hides poems in its fur. Tell the phoenix fox I cannot love Oaru.   We eat tortoise fruit grown from centuries-old trees, Roots as deep as our island. It hides poems in its rind. Tell the tortoise fruit I cannot love Oaru.   We bathe in the Moon Lake Yomue drank from, Water sacred to the Goddess. It hides poems in its bed. Tell the Moon Lake I cannot love Oaru.   Tell the Goddess I cannot love Oaru. Tell Yomue. Tell her and the woman she loved. Go back in time and bind her to this pillar and Tell her she was wrong.”   The monster rises out of the sea, torrents of water cascading from its back. Oaru was arrested because of Sunae’s poetry. Because Oaru’s father found the incriminating poems, because Sunae had sent so many and they overflowed, spilled, flooded Oaru’s room. Poems alight with the memories of all that Oaru and Sunae did together, all the times they were wide-eyed travelers in the landscape of each other’s bodies, all the smoldering hearths they built in the secret corners of each other’s hearts. The monster bellows and the earth quakes and Sunae is not afraid. She knows she is not the first who has been here. She is not the first who has done this.   “Let her tell you she is me. Let her open her mouth and Sing the monster to sleep Again.”   Sunae’s pores still have the magic blessing of moon-water in them, and I am with her. Through her, I sing. I was here, like her. I loved, like her. I fought the monster and won, and she will, too.   If you visit the Temple of Moon Goddess today, you will see this scene painted alongside my mural in the prayer hall: The monster walks spellbound across the island, and the Mirayans walk with it, every one of their faces slack with awe. Sunae leads them, freed from her shackles. She holds Oaru’s hand.   END   “The Lamentations of Old Money" is copyright Chanter 2019. “Tell the Phoenix Fox, Tell the Tortoise Fruit” is copyright Cynthia So 2019. This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library. You can support GlitterShip by checking out our Patreon at patreon.com/keffy, subscribing to our feed, or by leaving reviews on iTunes. You can also pick up a free audio book by going to www.audibletrial.com/glittership or buying your own copy of the Summer 2018 issue at www.glittership.com/buy Thanks for listening, and we’ll be back soon with a reprint of “Instar" by Carrow Narby.

Ahmed Danny Ramadan is is a Syrian-Canadian author, public speaker, storyteller and an LGBTQ-refugee activist. Since his arrival to Vancouver in 2014, Danny's community contributions as a storyteller and activist are a testament to the strength of diversity in our community. As an activist, he has been involved in coordinating online and on the ground efforts to support Queer and Trans identifying refugees from Syria to immigrate to Canada. Danny runs the annual fundraiser "An Evening in Damascus" to support those efforts. Since May 2015, he has raised over $100,000 to support a total of eight other LGBTQ-identifying Syrian refugees. He has also participated in efforts to ensure safe passage to 24 Syrian Queer and Trans refugees to Canada. He was appointed Grand Marshal for the Vancouver Pride Parade 2016. Additionally, he was awarded the StandOut Award for his social activism, the RBC's Top Immigrant in Canada award, and the Bonham Centre Award for Excellency. His critically acclaimed English debut novel, The Clothesline Swing, was named amongst the Best Books of 2017 by the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star. It was also a finalist for a Lambda Award.

Ahmed Danny Ramadan is is a Syrian-Canadian author, public speaker, storyteller and an LGBTQ-refugee activist. Since his arrival to Vancouver in 2014, Danny's community contributions as a storyteller and activist are a testament to the strength of diversity in our community. As an activist, he has been involved in coordinating online and on the ground efforts to support Queer and Trans identifying refugees from Syria to immigrate to Canada. Danny runs the annual fundraiser "An Evening in Damascus" to support those efforts. Since May 2015, he has raised over $100,000 to support a total of eight other LGBTQ-identifying Syrian refugees. He has also participated in efforts to ensure safe passage to 24 Syrian Queer and Trans refugees to Canada. He was appointed Grand Marshal for the Vancouver Pride Parade 2016. Additionally, he was awarded the StandOut Award for his social activism, the RBC’s Top Immigrant in Canada award, and the Bonham Centre Award for Excellency. His critically acclaimed English debut novel, The Clothesline Swing, was named amongst the Best Books of 2017 by the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star. It was also a finalist for a Lambda Award.

Our third Eichler Session welcomes Garth Greenwell and Mary Rakow. Garth Greenwell is the author of Mitko, which won the 2010 Miami University Press Novella Prize and was a finalist for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction and a Lambda Award. What Belongs to You is his first novel. This Is Why I Came by Mary Rakow has been described as a “Blakean tour de force,” receiving strong reviews in The Atlantic, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Ploughshares and selected by O Magazine as one of “16 Books to Start 2016 off Right.” Eichler Sessions are a series of conversations with creative pioneers hosted in historic Eichler homes. During the early 1950s, award-winning homebuilder Joseph Eichler influenced the face of American architecture by developing distinctive residential subdivisions of Mid-Century modern style tract housing. The City of Orange is the site of 350 of the 600 Southern California Eichlers. Produced in conjunction with Jeffrey Crussell Fine Properties and Creative Noodle. Click here to view photos from the program. For information on upcoming Eichler Sessions click here. Producer: Jon-Barrett Ingels and Kevin Staniec Manager: Sarah Becker Host: Samantha Dunn Guest: Garth Greenwell and Mary Rakow

Les Do Books  Ann McMan’s Favourite Lesbian Books  In this episode, Ann McMan tells Tara all about her three favourite lesbian books. Authors are readers too, so Tara was excited to hear about these books and why Ann loves them. And if you can believe it, Tara even managed not to fangirl too much.  Check out the books discussed here:  Other Women by Lisa Alther Get It On Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.ca     Slow River by Nicola Griffith Get It On Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.ca     Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge Get It On Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.ca       Ash by Malinda Lo Get It On Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.ca       Learn more about Ann McMan Website Facebook  Twitter     See our reviews and top 10 lists featuring Ann McMan’s books    More info Come talk to us about these books and any other lesfic you’ve been reading lately at our Facebook group, The Lesbian Review Book Club.    You can see all of our reviews, top 10 lists and author profiles on TheLesbianReview.com and don’t forget to send your emails, questions and more to Tara@TheLesbianReview.com   Book Blurbs Other Women Caroline is a giver—as an ER nurse, as devoted lover to her partner, Diane, as a divorced mother of two boys, and as the daughter of world-class do-gooders—but can she accept help from others and still be herself?  When trauma cases in the ER leave Caroline emotionally paralyzed and her relationship with her partner, Diane, breaks down, she knows its time to take a look at her life and do something she’d never imagined: go to therapy. Her therapist, Hannah, knows a thing or two about sacrifice and pain. A former war bride, Hannah may live a seemingly cozy domestic life with her beloved husband and two grown children, but she can’t forget her own harrowing past. As she and Caroline work together, each comes to understand and admire the resilient woman sitting before her.  A poignant look at the human need for acceptance, Other Women is a thoughtful novel about how a life examined is worth living.    Slow River  Nicola Griffith, winner of the Tiptree Award and the Lambda Award for her widely acclaimed first novel Ammonite, now turns her attention closer to the present in Slow River, the dark and intensely involving story of a young woman's struggle for survival and independence on the gritty underside of a near-future Europe.  She wakes in an alley to the splash of rain. She is naked, a foot-long gash in her back was still bleeding, and her identity implant is gone. Lore Van de Oest was the daughter of one of the world's most powerful families...and now she is nobody.  Then out of the rain walks Spanner, an expert data pirate who takes her in, cares for her wounds, and gives her the freedom to reinvent herself again and again. No one can find Lore if she doesn't want to be found: not the police, not her family, and not the kidnappers who left her in that alley to die. She has escaped...but she pays for her newfound freedom.  Lore has a choice: She can stay in the shadows, stay with Spanner...and risk losing herself forever. Or she can leave Spanner and find herself again by becoming someone else: stealing the identity implant of a dead woman, taking over her life, and inventing her future.  But to start again, Lore requires Spanner's talents--Spanner, who needs her and hates her, and who always has a price. And even as Lore agrees to play Spanner's games one final time, she finds that there is still the price of being a Van de Oest to be paid. Only by confronting her past, her family, and her own demons can Lore meld together who she once was, who she had become, and the person she wants to be...  In Slow River, Nicola Griffith skillfully takes us deep into the mind and heart of her complex protagonist, where the past must be reconciled with the present if the future is ever to offer solid ground. Slow River poses a question we all hope never to need to answer: Who are you when you have nothing left?   Solitaire  Jackal Segura is a Hope: born to responsibility and privilege as a symbol of a fledgling world government. Soon she'll become part of the global administration, sponsored by the huge corporation that houses, feeds, employs, and protects her and everyone she loves. Then, just as she discovers that everything she knows is a lie, she becomes a pariah, a murderer: a person with no community and no future. Grief-stricken and alone, she is put into an experimental program designed to inflict the experience of years of solitary confinement in a few short months: virtual confinement in a sealed cell within her own mind. Afterward, branded and despised, she returns to a world she no longer knows. Struggling to make her way, she has a chance to rediscover her life, her love, and her soul—in a strange place of shattered hopes and new beginnings called Solitaire.  Ash  In the wake of her father's death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother. Consumed with grief, her only joy comes by the light of the dying hearth fire, rereading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the fairies will steal her away, as they are said to do. When she meets the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean, she believes that her wish may be granted.  The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King's Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Though their friendship is as delicate as a new bloom, it reawakens Ash's capacity for love-and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love.  Entrancing, empowering, and romantic, Ash is about the connection between life and love, and solitude and death, where transformation can come from even the deepest grief. 

Mixed-race Chinese and white Canadian trans lady novelist jia qing wilson-yang and I sit down to discuss her Lambda Award-winning novel, Small Beauty. Topics covered include disrupting the model minority myth, the non-linear nature of healing, and obsessive cleaning as a means of coping with transphobia. Photo by Jackson Ezra. Read the transcript: scribd.com/artactivistnia Support the podcast: patreon.com/artactivistnia

Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 39. This is your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to be sharing this story with you. GlitterShip is still running a little bit behind, but we're almost caught up ... just in time for me to run off to Ohio for a week and a half to get surgery. Those who know me won't be surprised to hear this, but essentially after years of waiting, more crowdfunding (since insurance wouldn't deign to cover gender affirming surgery despite NY state laws, ugh), and more waiting... my top surgery is just around the corner. It's possible that I'll have to release episode 40 in June along with 41 and 42... but I'll do my best to get it out on time. Or at least, almost on time. Back onto the episode... today we have a piece of original fiction by Susan Jane Bigelow, "Mercy." If you recognize Susan's name, it might be because we ran a reprint of her story, "Sarah's Child" last May. You can check that out in Episode 28, available at GlitterShip.com or via our feed.   Joyce Chng lives in Singapore. Her fiction has appeared in The Apex Book of World SF II, We See A Different Frontier, Cranky Ladies of History, and Accessing the Future. Joyce also co-edited  THE SEA IS OURS: Tales of Steampunk Southeast Asia with Jaymee Goh. Her alter-ego is J. Damask. She tweets as @jolantru. Susan Jane Bigelow is a fiction writer, political columnist, and librarian. She mainly writes science fiction and fantasy novels, most notably the Extrahuman Union series from Book Smugglers Publishing. Her short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine's "Queers Destroy Science Fiction" issue, and the Lambda Award-winning "The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard," among others. She lives with her wife in northern Connecticut, and can be found at the bottom of a pile of cats.   Skyscarves/Aurora by Joyce Chng The colors come in sky scarves—I wait,My lover is coming.Pink, green and redTwisting—Above me, Festival of starssingsIt is a moving river—Silver path, curling, star stream Where the ships course,Tied to patterns of timeAnd of seasons. My lover is harvesting the essenceOf star light—hir time is linkedWith mine. My lover is comingAs the sky-scarves flutter,Like my emotions wavingIn the skies. Come back to me, my loveAnd we will dance as the starsdance. And now our original short fiction:   Mercy by Susan Jane Bigelow       The sea had taken them. Rion stood by the edge of the water, the waves curling around her bare, metal-and-plastic feet. She knelt by the water and placed her hand in. Sensors registered temperature, composition, motion. But they couldn’t find what Rion had lost. Here and there the remains of buildings stood like ghastly stick figures, silhouetted in the deepening cool of twilight. Rion stood and closed her eyes. She stretched her hands out and reached her sensors as far as they would go, but no. Nothing lived on this shore, now. She was alone. And so she lowered her arms and began walking, one step at a time, into the sea, until the water covered her head and she was gone.   The quake and then the wave had come so suddenly that there had been no time to react. Rion’s memories were a jumble of shaking ground, rushing water, crashing buildings and pitiful screams followed by a hollow, awful silence. She walked onward, her weight keeping her firmly on the bottom of the sea. All around her, she could see the shapes and forms of the shattered town, now submerged. The waters grew dark, so she switched on the lights on her head, heart, and hands. A face swam before her, and she started, afraid. A woman, eyes open and sightless, drifted there at the bottom of the ocean like so much debris. Her name had been Iona, and she’d been kind to Rion. She’d had a bright smile, a quick temper, and a tendency to laugh a little too loud and too long. She’d been happy. Rion whispered an apology to her, and touched her cool metal fingers to the woman’s stiff forehead. She shut her eyes, and stood again. She looked up, and saw debris floating high above. Some of it was shaped like humans, some not. There was no way to help them now. She kept walking through what had been her home. She had come to this small town by the sea to be away from the turmoil of the cities, and she had found both work and unexpected friendship. The humans here had been so welcoming and accepting, so unlike anywhere else she’d ever gone on this world. She shone her light around. It fell on the gap in the sea wall where the tsunami had broken through, and everything suddenly seemed to turn on its edge. She made her way to the wall, and then walked through and beyond it, her lights illuminating the way.   Fish swam all around her, attracted by her light, while little creatures scuttled across the bottom. She looked up, and her light couldn’t reach the surface. The sun had set, and; Rion was surrounded by frigid, suffocating darkness. What was she to do, now? She couldn’t stay here at the bottom of the sea forever. But she had no place to go back to on land. She sat down, then, on the rocks and sand, and switched her lights off. Rion’s sensors told her what she didn’t want to know about the sea all about her: it teemed with life. Life. Behind her there was so much death, and in front of her so much life. But what was she? What was an Artificial, compared to the dead she’d left behind and the sea creatures swimming all around her? At last, at last, she wailed in grief and empty fury at the dark waters. “Sovena! Sovena!” she cried to the planet. “Why? Why? Sovena, answer me!” And, for a wonder, the planet answered her. The ground shifted and a point far, far ahead of her blinked with a soft green glow. Daughter sei, said the vast network of artificial intelligence that was, for all purposes, the planet Sovena. A sei was a sentient artificial life form. Why do you cry to me? “Bring them back!” shouted Rion, wishing she could cry. But she had no tear ducts, no lungs, and no way of releasing this deep, sharp grief. The curse of her kind; suffering went on and on without relief. “Bring them back to me. Sovena, please! I tried so hard!” Tell me about them, said Sovena softly. Tell me of the people who drowned in my sea. “They fished,” said Rion, her voice shaking and distorted. “They made such beautiful things. They sang songs. And they baked bread for me—” She found she couldn’t continue, and keened softly at the rocks, putting her face in her hands. “Why did you kill them? Why?” The world shifts, said Sovena. The ground cracks and separates. My plates move, and cause the oceans to shudder. It is as it must be. “I know,” said Rion. “I know!” She gazed at the steadily blinking light far away in the shadows. “But please. Please bring them back. Humans have so many gods they cry out to… Artificials have nothing. But I have you. I have faith in you. Please. Please.” She bowed her head in prayer and supplication. “Please. I have lived a good life. Take me instead of them. At least give me a way to grieve for them!” Sovena said nothing for a long time. Then the ground seemed to move again, and she heard the planet whisper in her mind, Go back to the shore, daughter sei. “You’ll do nothing? You—of course not. You’re not a god. You’re just the planetary network become aware. Fine. Fine. I’ll go.” She stood, fury and sadness swirling around her in the cold depths. “They were good people. They didn’t deserve to die. I didn’t deserve to survive. I don’t understand. I don’t understand.” She turned and began to walk back through the darkness towards the remains of her home.   Rion’s head broke the water, and the first thing she saw were the stars, high above. She hauled herself out of the water, and sat there on the beach. And then she realized she wasn’t alone. Machines surrounded her. They all blinked with green lights. Some of them were aware, some not, but they all waited there for her. And then they moved into the sea. Overhead, more machines circled, then dove into the water near where the sea wall had been. The water lit up with light as the machines worked. Rion watched, hardly daring to move. And then the water began to drain out of the basin of the town. The sea wall rose again. Machines covered where the town had been. They had cleared a space at the center, and lined up two hundred still and silent figures. Rion stood, then, and walked to the center of the ruins. For you, for you, she thought, addressing the dead, and her thoughts were transmitted to the machines. They swarmed over the town, bringing the debris and ruins to create. For you! For you! “Dream in slumber, children of the sky,” whispered Rion, the first lines of an old funeral song. “To the stars we return, to the night we go.” And then the machines took up the song, each singing with its own voice. Send your soul back home Across the deep darkness of the wastes For grace and forgiveness we beg For mercy and love we ask Find old Earth at last, and come to rest. They finished their creation. Rion was about to thank them when a sharp pain pierced her. She fell to the ground in agony as tiny machines swarmed all over her, and laughed as she was remade. When the sun rose that morning on what had been the town of Fisherman’s Bounty, the light kissed the spires of a fragile, delicately-made temple. At the top sat a human woman, crying her newly-made heart out.   They found her, and fed and clothed her. She didn’t say who she was, and eventually they let the matter drop. She thought about hurling herself off the spire of the temple often during those first days. She was human, now. She would certainly join the people of the town in death. But then the wind would blow the smell of the sea to her nostrils, or the stars would shine brightly above, and she would curl her soft hands around the railing of the temple spire and say to herself: one more night. One night became two, and two nights became a week, then a month. Then the sun rose one morning, and Rion realized that she had decided to live.   Time passed, then, as it always did. Relief ships came and went. The temple spire where the town had been became a pilgrimage site for haunted family, grieving survivors of the quake from other places, and the curious and morbid. Rion got used to being organic. She found it difficult to remember to eat and wash and groom, and for a time she found it nearly impossible to find food and fresh water. She felt dirty and hungry much of the time, and sleep, when it came, was a terror. But, in time, she managed. She found that she became good at managing, at carrying on. She moved out of the rickety temple spire and into a small modular house the relief agency had left by the side of the sea. The visitors stopped coming after a while. No one rebuilt the town. Why would they? It was a graveyard. But Rion stayed. She grew her garden, she made trinkets to sell, and she lived. And in time, a craftswoman named Lanika who had lost friends and family in the flood came to the hill above the low plain where the town had been to find Rion there, waiting, the promise of a new family in her strong grip and windswept brow. And so fifty years went by.   The dawn was cool and the wind from the ocean was only a light, briny kiss. The summer had been kind, but the coolness that hung over the bay suggested the turn of the season. An aged, bent woman pushed the boat off the landing, and gingerly settled herself into it. And then she did what she’d feared to do for the last five decades; she set sail towards the middle of the sea. She sailed for hours, trying to remember where she had gone, what direction, how the sun had looked from deep under the water. But her memory was a loose, hollow thing, and she couldn’t hold the past as firmly as she once had. At last she came to a place that felt as good as any other. She set the offering papers on one of the small wooden boats Lanika crafted for mourners and the devout, put the boat on the undulating waters, and set it on fire. The boat sailed away, the offering papers with names written on each scrap crisping and blackening in the flames. And then Rion said her prayer. “Sovena,” she said. “Goddess. I know you’re there, somewhere under the water. Come and see an old woman who once followed you. Come and tell me why. “Sovena. Awake. Talk to me. Please.” She waited. For a long time, nothing happened. She started to get hungry; she had brought but little food and water with her. She waited anyway. And at last, as the sun slipped down below the horizon, she saw a green glow deep beneath the waves, slowly rising toward her. When the lights of whatever was down there had expanded to surround the boat and it was so close to the surface that she could reach down and touch it if she wanted, it stopped. Then there was a bubbling near her, and a silvery figure made of thousands of tiny crablike machines rose out of the water. Hello again, daughter human, said Sovena, her body writhing with the green-lit movement of its components. “I can hear you in my head,” said Rion, touching her temple. “How?” I left one small piece of you like you were, so that we could talk if you wished. “Ah,” said Rion, feeling a strange sense of betrayal. “I see.” It’s been many years, said Sovena, and Rion thought she sensed sorrow in the planetwide sei’s mental voice. “Tell me,” said Rion, her throat parched. “Why?” Her question could have meant many things, but Sovena understood at once. You grieved. And so I allowed you to mourn as you wished. “That’s not an answer,” said Rion, shaking her head as anger built. “I’ve thought about this for a long, long time. You left me on that tower, high above the waters. Did you ever think I’d come down from it?” No, said Sovena. “You gave me the ability to die,” said Rion. “That’s what you thought I wanted. To die like my friends had. Lungs full of water… to breathe the sea and sink!” Was that not what you wanted? Rion shook her head, tears brimming. She brushed them away with a calloused finger. “Of course it was.” But you are here. “I am,” Rion said, looking out over the darkening waters around her. “And I still don’t think you’ve told me. I think you always hid your true purpose from me. Why?” Sovena did not respond. Then the thousands of machines that made up the human shape of her walked slowly across the water, reaching out a hand. Rion took it, feeling the cool, wriggling life of the machines that comprised it. Tell me why you lived. “Because…” Rion began, then faltered. She tried again, and found herself unable to put what she felt into words. “Because I did,” she said eventually, frustrated. “Because sometimes you just go on, because the next day is going to happen and you might as well be there.” A long silence stretched between them. The waves rocked the boat, and somewhere sea birds called. I grieve, said Sovena then, and Rion’s eyes widened. “I thought you might,” she whispered. “Tell me.” Humans hate our kind. They hunt them, cast them out, forbid them from making more of themselves. I live only because they cannot find a way to destroy me. But I have lost so many sei, so many have been silenced at human hands. I miss their voices. Rion cupped her other hand over Sovena’s, trying to decide whether to be angry or comforting. “And so you wanted to see what I would do. How I would grieve.” Sovena said nothing, but Rion’s question was answered at last. She thought of her wife Lanika, her daughters, and her grandchildren. She thought of fifty years of heartbreak and love and struggle. Fifty years where the sun came up over the water each and every day. “You go on,” said Rion firmly. “Because you have no choice. And in time you learn to live with what has been lost.” Yes. Sovena pressed her other hand against Rion’s forehead, and she felt something trickling out of her brain. Information, perhaps. Her life. I understand, now. I did not then. I am sorry. Sovena gently pulled her hands away from Rion, and began to sink beneath the waves once more. “Wait,” said Rion, understanding dawning at last. “You. You did this, didn’t you? You flooded my town! It was you!” Sovena looked back at her, and Rion thought that she could sense an ancient guilt and sadness emanating from the suddenly still form. Be well, daughter human, she said at last. Do not come here again. I am not your god any longer. And with that she vanished below the sea, leaving Rion alone once more. “You’re no goddess,” Rion said to the vanishing green lights, her voice shaking with fury. “You’re a monster! Just like the humans always said!” But there was no response, not this time.   Rion floated there for a long time, watching the stars overhead and thinking.  Then she started back towards the shore. She sailed on through the night, letting the stars guide her, until at last the sky to the east began to lighten. She could see the high spire of the temple close by, and beyond it, the hill where her house was. Lanika waited there for her, staring hopefully out to sea as she absently carved the sides of another small offering-boat. And when the two of them met on the shore at last, as the first rays of sun kissed the top of the temple spire, Rion gathered her in her strong arms and buried her face in her wife’s salt-smelling neck and windblown hair. “Did you find out what you wanted to?” Lanika asked. Rion nodded, but she could find nothing to say. “I’m sorry,” Lanika told her, and kissed the top of her head. That night Rion went down to the shore again, after repeatedly reassuring Lanika that she wasn’t about to set out on the boat again, and sat near where the old sea wall had been. The outline of the temple called to her, and on impulse she walked to it and began, hesitantly, to climb. The structure was rickety and rusted, but the construction was solid. It bore her weight, and her muscles were still strong enough to haul her body up the long ladder. She reached the top at last, and sat in the place where she’d poured out her grief so long ago, trying to figure out what to do next. And as she looked out to sea she saw the last thing she’d expected; a small green light running beneath the waves. She watched, half-afraid, half-intent, as it drew closer. At last a small machine, its lights glowing green, reached the tower and began to climb. It crested the summit and sat in front of Rion, waiting. “Well,” said Rion. “I suppose you’re here to kill me?” The machine crawled up onto Rion’s shoulder and perched there. Rion, after a moment’s hesitation, allowed it to remain. I grieve, the voice of Sovena said in her mind. “You killed them,” said Rion. “You have no right to grieve!” I was so angry, said Sovena, her mental voice full of sorrow. Humans killed so many of my daughters. “So you killed some of them,” said Rion. “It wasn’t about me, was it? You were angry because humans were attacking Artificials and you shook the earth to kill an innocent town! One of the only places where humans and Artificials were actually getting along!”  I did. I should not have. I grieve. “And you want, what? Forgiveness? I can’t do that. They… they were so good to me. I still remember their faces. And they died for nothing!” Many of my sei have died for less. “That excuses nothing,” said Rion bitterly. “And you know it. So what do you want?” But Sovena didn’t respond. Rion took the small machine off her shoulder, cupping it in her hands. “Go back to the waters,” said Rion, fury ebbing. “I can’t punish you. I can’t forgive you.” But how will I go on? said Sovena, and her voice was almost plaintive. Rion almost threw the machine back down into the sea. But instead she sighed, the anger draining out of her at last. She lifted it to her lips, and kissed it gently. “You just do,” she said, and set it on the floor. She watched as it scuttled back down the tower and vanished into the waves. She stayed in the tower that night, watching the sea and the sky. No other machines came. And when the sun rose, Rion’s grief and anger and fury finally went out with the tide.   Rion never spoke to Sovena again. But she noticed eventually that the weather on the planet was a little less harsh, that natural disasters happened less often, and that life became just a little bit easier. It wouldn’t bring back the dead, and it wouldn’t change the past. But sometimes, thought Rion, it was the small miracles that mattered the most.     “Skyscarves/Aurora” is copyright Joyce Chng 2017. “Mercy" is copyright Susan Jane Bigelow 2017. This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library. You can support GlitterShip by checking out our Patreon at patreon.com/keffy, subscribing to our feed, or by leaving reviews on iTunes. Thanks for listening, and I’ll be back soon with a reprints of "She Shines Like a Moon" by Pear Nuallak and "The Simplest Equation" by Nicky Drayden.

In our latest podcast, Lambda Award–winning author Janice Law reads the story in which her series character, medium Madame Selina, and her helper Nip first appear. http://www.janicelaw.com

In this episode, Chicana M(other)work interviews queer Xicana single mother, writer, and activist, Ana Castillo. We discuss her Lambda Award-winning memoir, Black Dove: Mama, Mi'jo, y Yo (2016), and she elaborates on topics such as: her queer single Xicana mothering, how and why she wrote her book The Massacre of the Dreamers (1994) and the impact her book had on the rise of Chicana feminist thought and activism, our fears of raising brown boys in the age of mass incarceration and police brutality, combating state violence and patriarchy through Chicana mothering, self and community care for mothers of color including seeking support for depression and mental illness, her book recommendations, and much more!

Gay Muslim Iraqi-Canadian author Hasan Namir asked himself, “What would my life be like if I had never left Iraq?” He imagines the answer in his Lambda Award-winning novel, God in Pink. In this interview we discuss the double-lives of gay men in the Middle East, ISIS being on Grindr, and whether things were better for gays in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Read the transcription at scribd.com/artactivistnia. Support the podcast at patreon.com/artactivistnia. Audio editing by StormMiguel Florez. Transcription by Nadia Abou-Karr. Photo by Bijan (mood.berlin).

Garth Greenwell is the author of What Belongs to You. He is also the author of a novella, Mitko, which won the 2010 Miami University Press Novella Prize and was a finalist for the Edmund White Debut Fiction Prize and a Lambda Award. A native of Louisville, Kentucky, he holds graduate degrees from Harvard University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he was an Arts Fellow. His short fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, A Public Space, StoryQuarterly, and VICE. He lives in Iowa City, where he holds the Richard E. Guthrie Memorial Fellowship at the University of Iowa. He is a pretty brilliant guy with a strong sense of his purpose as a writer: a gay writer standing in a tradition and engaging in a dialogue that challenges our deepest understandings of our relationships to our own bodies, and through them, to the rest of the world. Here, we discuss his embracing of the label "queer" author, the intense privilege and responsibility of writing one of the first novels to normalize homosexuality in Bulgaria, and how he sees novels as a technology for readers to engage a individual consciousness. We were proud to have him on the show.

Marcy Arlin teaches Theater for Social Change at Pace University and is artistic director of the OBIE-winning Immigrants' Theatre project and is a Fulbright scholar to Romania and the Czech Republic. She is a long-time member of BSFW, Theater Without Borders, Broad Universe, and her work has been published in Daily Science Fiction, Perihelionsf.com, Broad Universe Sampler, and Man.In.Fest theater journal. Marcy has several more short stories out there and is working on a sci-fi murder mystery. Author Richard Bowes has published six novels, four story collections and over eighty short stories. He has won two World Fantasy Awards, a Lambda Award, a story South Million Writers Award, and an International Horror Guild Award. His most recent novel, Dust Devil On a Quiet Street, was on the 2014 World Fantasy and Lambda short lists. A new edition of his 2005 novel, From The Files of the Time Rangers, a Nebula finalist, will appear later this year from Lethe Press. Last year, his 9/11 story, "There’s A Hole In The City," got a very nice review in The New Yorker. Recent and forthcoming appearances include: Fantasy Magazine's Queers Destroy Fantasy special issue, Interfictions, Nightmare, Grendel Song, and the anthologies The Doll Collection and Black Feathers. He is currently writing stories that will be chapters in a novel about life as a gay kid in 1950’s Boston. Bradley Robert Parks lives, writes, and performs in and around Brooklyn, NY, where he founded the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers (BSFWriters.com). His passion for writing blossomed while growing up in a family of genre readers. While he's been pursuing writing for a while, the crazy energy of NYC and BSFW have given him the focus and motivation to finally get published. His stories have appeared on BuzzyMag.com and on the Kaleidocast podcast. He also sings and narrates stories when time permits. Along with these achievements, he's obtained one husband, Michael, and Insanity Anne Magoo (best cat ever). Keep up with his exploits on Facebook or at BradleyRobertParks.com.

On the Floor Comic Con exclusive! One of the highlights of my Comic-Con (and year if we're being honest) was getting to chat with Alex Woolfson. For those of you unfamiliar with him, Alex is an award nominated writer of graphic novels, lover of scifi and action, and genuinely an awesome person (and a Bay Area resident!). All of his work is free (!!!) on the internet, which was how yours truly came upon Artifice, his Lambda Award finalist piece about the relationship between an inhuman and a human. It's a wonderful piece and now he's moved on to bigger things, The Young Protectors, which follows a group of young superheros and specifically Kyle, a gay kid who runs into the villain Annihilator after leaving a gay bar, and who gets drawn in by him. I spoke with Alex about those two works, how he got his start, and how genre can be used to tell LGBTQ stories.

Deborah Ross AKA Deborah Wheeler and Connie Wilkins AKA Sacchi Green join me to discuss the Lambda Awards ceremony.Deborah was nominated for Collaborators. The Lambda Literary review is here. Connie won for Wild Girls, Wild Nights: True Lesbian Sex Stories. The Lamba Literary review is here.The interview is very pleasant, but it does mention Marion Zimmer Bradley. In the interim between recording the interview and today, there has been a lot of online discussion of Bradley and her role in enabling abuse and abusing children herself. This is a very fraught emotional topic for many people in the SF, SCA, and QUILTBAG communities because many people looked at her as a role model and influence, and loved her books and/or or made their first sales to her. Here are some links collecting responses to the whole thing. Please note that the materials about MZB and her ex-husband, Walter Breen, are extremely disturbing. Proceed with caution, especially if rape and abuse are trigger topics for you.*Rape, Abuse, and Marion Zimmer Bradley is a links roundup and response by Jim C. Hines, who is a rape crisis counselor. *Silence Is Complicity is another links roundup and response by Natalie Luhrs, who has been actively calling out bad things in the SF community for quite some time. *On Doing a Thing I Had to Do is a post by Janni Lee Simner, an author who made her fist sale to MZB, and who has decided to donate her proceeds to RAINN. *Rachel Manija Brown's post is a personal response from someone who has been abused about the importance of making this visible. *Regarding the Marion Zimmer Bradley Abuse Story is Deborah's personal response, apologizing for an earlier tweet.While I do think it's important to acknowledge all of this, the podcast episode itself is only a tiny bit about MZB, and mostly about The Lambda Awards, and other awards and projects. Here are the episode specific links:*Here's the picture of Connie winning her Lambda Award. *Here's a picture of Cecilia Tan and Mary Anne Mohanraj (in the red sari Connie and Deborah both admired) at the Lambdas.*The Nebula Award winners list. Congratulations to Ann Leckie, Vylar Kaftan, Aliette de Bodard, Rachel Swirsky, Nalo Hopkinson, and Samuel R. Delaney!*Congratulations to Sarah Pinsker for winning the Sturgeon Award! *The Bisexual Book Awards winners are here. Congratulations all, especially Cecilia Tan, Laura Lam, Malida Lo, and Zan Christensen!*The Ditmar Awards were announced at Continuum in Melbourne. Congratulations all, especially Kirstyn McDermott, Sean Wright, Tehani Wessely, David McDonald, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and all of the Galactic Suburbia and Galactic Chat crews!*Jim C. Hines's Continuum GoH speech. *Congratulations to Cecilia Tan and Mary Robinette Kowal for winning RT awards!And finally, two currently active IndieGoGo campaigns you might like to contribute to:*Gears for Queers is the San Francisco Steampunk community's fundraiser to support the GLBT National Help Center. There are 12 more days to order awesome steampunk items and support a good cause. *Interfictions Online is fundraising to bring us all more excellent interstitial content. They have 19 days left in their campaign, and are working towards some exciting stretch goals.

A former National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, Brian Teare is the recipient of poetry fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Headlands Center for the Arts, and the American Antiquarian Society. He is the author of four books—The Room Where I Was Born, Sight Map, the Lambda Award-winning Pleasure, and Companion Grasses, one of Slate's 10 best poetry books of 2013. An Assistant Professor at Temple University, he lives in Philadelphia, where he makes books by hand for his micropress, Albion Books.Joshua Weiner is the author of three books of poetry, most recently, The Figure of a Man Being Swallowed by a Fish (Chicago, 2013).  He is also the editor of At the Barriers: On the Poetry of Thom Gunn, and the poetry editor at Tikkun magazine.  He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a 2014 fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, among others.  He teaches on the faculty of the MFA Program at the University of Maryland and lives with his family in Washington, D.C.Read poems by Brian Teare.Read poems by Joshua Weiner.Recorded On: Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Michael McColly's recent book is the memoir The After-Death Room (Soft Skull Press), which chronicles his journey through several countries affected by the AIDS epidemic -- South Africa, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Senegal, and the United States. The After-Death Room won the 2007 Lambda Award for Best Spiritual Writing. Michael holds an M.A. in religious studies from University of Chicago and an M.F.A. from the University of Washington. He teaches creative writing in the B.A. and M.F.A. programs at Columbia College Chicago and Northwestern University. His website is http://mikemccolly.com.

When We Were Outlaws by Jeanne Cordova (Spinspters Ink) Dr. Chris Freeman riffs off the style of hard-hitting PBS interview host Charlie Rose, and tosses the tough questions to Jeanne Cordova, author of When We Were Outlaws: a memoir of Love and Revolution Delve back in time to the early 1970s birth of activism in the lesbian & gay movement.   Get the nuts and bolts on... Lesbian separatism, Advocacy journalist (ala the infamous L.A. Free Press), Lesbians in the Symbionese Liberation Army, Butch daughters and their seriously confused fathers, The politics of non-monogamy (polyamory) as a multi-generational lifestyle & more... Special guest: Art Kunkin, Founder of the Los Angeles Free Press Dr. Chris Freeman teaches Gender Studies at USC, including, "Queer L.A." Freeman is the co-editor of the Lambda Award-winning THE ISHERWOOD CENTURY and the Lambda finalist LOVE, WEST HOLLYWOOD. Jeanne Cordova, pioneer dyke activist, queer organizer, lesbian journalist/publisher.  Author of SEXISM IT'S A NASTY AFFAIR, KICKING THE HABIT, and a contributor to LESBIAN NUNS BREAKING THE SILENCE & THE PERSISTENT DESIRE: A FEMME BUTCH READER THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS FEBRUARY 4, 2012.

Christian Campbell, a Bahamian and Trinidadian poet whose book Running the Dusk won the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, gave a reading with Nina Revoyr, the author of four novels including the Lambda Award winner Southland and the 2011 novel Wingshooters. The readings took place as part of the Distinguished Writers Series of the Newhouse Center for the Humanities at Wellesley College. Elena Creef, a professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Wellesley and Newhouse Center fellow, led a discussion following the readings about multicultural writing, the role of personal experience, and the writing process.

Sylvia Brownrigg’s newest novel, Morality Tale, is an analysis of a modern marriage which The New York Times Book Review calls “divinely deadpan.” She has written four other works of fiction, including the New York Times Notable Book The Metaphysical Touch and the Lambda Award-winning Pages for You. She divides her time between Berkeley and England.

Sylvia Brownrigg’s newest novel, Morality Tale, is an analysis of a modern marriage which The New York Times Book Review calls “divinely deadpan.” She has written four other works of fiction, including the New York Times Notable Book The Metaphysical Touch and the Lambda Award-winning Pages for You. She divides her time between Berkeley and England.

Christian de la Huerta is the author of the best-selling and critically acclaimed "Coming Out Spiritually." Chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the ten best religion books of 1999, the book was also nominated for a Lambda Award. Christian's writing has appeared in The Advocate, Hero, Genre, and other publications. He is founder and president of Q-Spirit, a strategic organization catalyzing the necessary conditions for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people to fully reclaim our spiritual roles of service, leadership and community enrichment in the world. Graduating with honors from Tulane University, de la Huerta holds a degree in Psychology. He has been a seminar leader and group facilitator for the past twelve years. Support the show______________ To participate live and be notified of upcoming speakers in advance, please Like us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/gaybuddhistfellowship) or visit https://gaybuddhist.org/calendar/ To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit www.GayBuddhist.org.There you can: Donate Learn how to participate live Find our schedule of upcoming speakers Join our mailing list or discussion forum Enjoy many hundreds of these recorded talks dating back to 1996 CREDITSAudio Engineer: George HubbardProducer: Tom BrueinMusic/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

Christian de la Huerta is the author of the best-selling and critically acclaimed "Coming Out Spiritually." Chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the ten best religion books of 1999, the book was also nominated for a Lambda Award. Christian's writing has appeared in The Advocate, Hero, Genre, and other publications. He is founder and president of Q-Spirit, a strategic organization catalyzing the necessary conditions for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people to fully reclaim our spiritual roles of service, leadership and community enrichment in the world. Graduating with honors from Tulane University, de la Huerta holds a degree in Psychology. He has been a seminar leader and group facilitator for the past twelve years. Support the show______________ To participate live and be notified of upcoming speakers in advance, please Like us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/gaybuddhistfellowship) or visit https://gaybuddhist.org/calendar/ To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit www.GayBuddhist.org.There you can: Donate Learn how to participate live Find our schedule of upcoming speakers Join our mailing list or discussion forum Enjoy many hundreds of these recorded talks dating back to 1996 CREDITSAudio Engineer: George HubbardProducer: Tom BrueinMusic/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter