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Writer’s Digest

There’s an article in this month’s Writer’s Digest about “Alternative Fare” and specifically the LGBT markets in publishing, and I was interviewed for the T section.

Boyd points out that people of variant sexuality have always appeared in literature. “There is a long line of novel characters who are gender variant, from The Well of Loneliness to Orlando to Middlesex. I like to think of my work as having inherited a great deal from writers like Gertrude Stein or [Virginia] Woolf.”

The bit that was clipped was my clarification that people have always written books about being in love with someone who is gender variant, as in Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and Woolf’s Orlando.

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Tim Gunn

Does anyone else want to volunteer to be on Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style? Every time I watch it I think about writing them a letter. But then I think – dresses & skirts are in his required wardrobe. As are heels. & Then I think about what I might have left after they went through my wardrobe. & Then I think… yeah. So I don’t.

I think I need Tim Gunn’s Guide to Dyke Style. But still, I’m watching & learning; my biggest issues is being hung up on size instead of fit, because I’m a woman, & somehow it’s important to me if I can get into a 10 instead of a 12, when really, I should be happy to wear a 14 if the clothes look good / fall right /make me feel confident. Having changed sizes a few times in the last couple of years, both up & down, I can say now that there is nothing that makes me feel less confident than wearing something that’s just a little small. But still, there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to give in to wearing the larger size, as if I’m admitting defeat.

Anyone else?

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Monica Helms: The DNC Is Ready for Us

In this essay posted on Monica Roberts’ TransGriot blog, Monica Helms of the Transgender Americans Veterans Association (TAVA) talks about her experiences working with the DNC which she concludes by writing:

What I personally would like to see is an increase in registered Democrats in the transgender community and to see an increase in transgender people volunteering with the DNC at a local level. I would also hope to live long enough to see an openly transgender person speak from the podium at the democratic National Convention and to see an openly transgender person elected to Congress. This is truly the MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION in our lifetimes. It is time for the Democratic Party to fully recognize us a part of their party, on all levels. They appear to be doing that. Now, it’s time for us to help Democrats on all levels of government to win in 2008.

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Five Questions With… Eli Clare

Eli Clare is the author of Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation (South End Press, 1999) and has been widely published. He has walked across the United States for peace, coordinated a rape prevention program and co-organized the first-ever Queerness and Disability Conference. He works for the University of Vermont ‘s LGBTQA Services. We were lucky enough to meet him at a Translating Identity Conference at UVM, and I was happy to get the chance to talk to him about his new book, The Marrow’s Telling, which was recently published by HomoFactus Press.

(1) Why poetry?

As a writer, my first love is poetry. I think of it as a thug who grabbed me by the collar many years ago and whispered in my ear, “You’re coming with me.” I went willingly, not having any idea where poetry would take me or what it would demand. Twenty-five years later I find myself writing a mix of poetry and creative nonfiction; my first book, Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation, is a collection of essays, and my second book, The Marrow’s Telling: Words in Motion, which ought to be rolling off the press at any moment now, is a mix of poems and short prose pieces, not quite essays but more than prose poems.

Audre Lorde in her essay “Poetry Is Not a Luxury” writes of poetry as a “revelatory distillation of experience.” Poems demand both wildness/revelation–moments where language, sound, and rhythm, rather than thought or idea or analysis, take the lead–and discipline/distillation–the paring down to heart and bone. As a writer, a reader, an activist trying to make sense of the world, I need revelatory distillation.

I also know that in the United States too many of us have been taught to fear or avoid poetry, to feel bored or stupid in its presence. As an activist-poet, I always hope that my poems will be doors held wide open, roller coasters, parachutes opening above you, slow meandering rivers.

Continue reading “Five Questions With… Eli Clare”

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Victoria Arellano

I just happened to be catching up on my Feministing reading when I discovered a post by Jessica Hoffman about the death of trans inmate Victoria Arellano (or Arrelano) who was denied her AIDS medication and then Hoffman followed up her post wondering why this death hasn’t been covered.

It’s interesting time as just recently I’ve been bothered by a recent article in The Boston Globe about a doctor who transitioned with much of her life in tact – ironic since Arellano didn’t wind up with even her life in tact. Big article, no article.

& They say there’s no such thing as privilege.

Mind you, my complaints about the way various media outlets cover trans issues aren’t directed at the trans people who are often featured in these articles: their intentions are for the most part good, & they are trying, in their own way, to raise awareness of trans issues in general, all of which is much needed. It’s not that it was a terrible article in terms of The Big Picture, but I’m tired of journalists/media writing a piece that is pretty much like every other piece about a trans person (choosing someone professional, white, with a traditional narrative including surgery & the like) & presenting it as if it’s a revelation.

It’s not a revelation. I’d like to get the bar set a little higher, & to start pressuring media to cover more types of trans people, in more situations, with more of the kinds of issues that come up. Like what does a person like Betty, or others like her, do about the ID issue? What do people do when their license says one thing but they can’t get their passport changed? What are the issues for young transitioners, who are going to be dealing with discrimination from the outset of their careers? How is the expectation of not getting divorced changing what kinds of legal issues couples face? How does transness come into play with legal issues? What happens if a recent medical student comes out before she has a practice or an income or a family & established community?

I could go on. I won’t. Like I said, this is good for general use, but as someone who is “in the field” & who works with the media on a regular basis, I also feel I have a responsibility to pay attention to the way media coverage ISN’T changing at all, & how the struggle to represent the diversity of trans experience, from within the trans community, is or isn’t being reflected by the media, & maybe keeping an eye toward changing that, somehow.

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Cats, Quilting, & Publishing Mysteries

For the aspiring authors out there, an interview with a book contracts insider. Most interesting to me:

While few of us would turn down a big advance if we were lucky enough to get one, but if you’re aiming to be a writer with a lengthy publishing career, starting out small isn’t such a bad thing.

She talks about the value of having an agent, and what to do if you don’t have one when you’re signing.

This optimistic bit is surely good for plenty of as-yet-unpublished authors to hear:

It occurred to me then that if there’s a market for books on cats that quilt while solving crime, there must be room out in the world for my story.

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Spiders & Rats

Do you know when everything around you seems to be trying to tell you something? I caught Spiderman 2 on TV the other day, never having seen it in the theatres (because I don’t get around to seeing anything in the theatres), and I really really enjoyed it, except for that bit about him giving up being Spiderman & then deciding to be Spiderman again because it made me think about writing.

Then we went to see Ratatouille the other night – in the theatre, even! – and that was kind of about being what you really are, what you’re really good at. you know, “everyone can write.”

I mean cook.

I was talking with another writer the other day about an essay I was having a hard time getting at & explained that you know, when writing is going well it’s horrible, & when it’s not going well it’s torture.

But the thing about writing that’s the hardest on me is the uncertainty; this freelance life just isn’t good for my body. I want the stability back of having a regular job & a regular paycheck, except then I see movies like Ratatouille or Spiderman 2 and I think that I have to write. Not because I’m a genius, but because I know it’s what I’m supposed to be doing.

I think.

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Perseus Reorganizes Avalon

As some of you may remember, Avalon Publishing Group – my publisher – were bought by Perseus Books a few months back, and today they announced the news that my first imprint, Thunder’s Mouth Press, is being disbanded. It’s part of the re-organization, as imprint Carroll & Graf is also going, as are 24 employees of the former Avalon.

My Husband Betty will hopefully stay in print, as the book is now in its sixth printing and continues to make money, but still: it’s kind of sad to see my first home as a writer cease to exist.