Outer Alliance Pride Day

As a member of the Outer Alliance, I advocate for queer speculative fiction and those who create, publish and support it, whatever their sexual orientation and gender identity. I make sure this is reflected in my actions and my work.

As part of Outer Alliance Pride Day, members around the world are posting fiction or blog posts commenting on queer speculative fiction.Click on the banner to reach the main pride day page.



Jerry Wheeler covered Bram Stoker Award-winner Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet (Dark Scribe Press) over at Out In Print: Queer Book Reviews, in which he said (among much else):

"Out of 23 stories, you're bound to find one or two that suit you less than others, but Liaguno and Helder's batting average is pretty high. It's hard to beat Jameson Currier's Lovecraftian 'The Bloomsbury Nudes,' the pro-gay teenboy revenge scenario of Joy Marchand's 'Black Annis,' the beyond-the-grave poetry of Elissa Malcohn's 'Memento Mori' or the teen jack-off session gone horribly wrong in C. Michael Cook's 'The Boys of Bald Cave.'"

(emphasis mine)

Outside the genre, my work has appeared in BiWomen (Boston Bisexual Women's Network), The Celibate Woman ("Notes On 'Celibate Bisexuality'"), and The Speaker (SpeakOut Boston).

My volunteer work includes but is not limited to facilitating meetings of PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays); helping to produce a live, call-in cable TV show for SpeakOut Boston; assisting at A Celebration Of Life, the Boston Living Center's Thanksgiving dinner provided to thousands of people living with HIV/AIDS; assisting at Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders events; and producing the newsletter for and riding/fundraising in the first Boston-New York AIDS Ride.

I wrote the following on a GLBT bulletin board discussion of bisexuality over at Open Diary, back in August 2007:

I've been out as bi for 30 [now 32] years. I still identify as bi even though I've been in a monogamous lesbian relationship going on 12 [now going on 14] years and consider myself to be married. Because I have the *potential* to be with someone of any gender (gender is both complex and fluid). I've been intimate with both men and women and I've known people between the two. I look at the individual.

Here's an analogy. My father was straight. My mother was the only woman with whom he was intimate (she was the more experienced one), which was for 25 years until her death, after which he remained unattached for the remaining 20 years of his life. His passions lay elsewhere.

Being straight gave him the potential to be with "any" woman, but he wanted only one. Was he considered any less straight because he didn't "play the field"? No.

Being bi gives me the potential to be with both men and women. Does being devoted to one woman make me any less bi? No.

A dear friend of mine told me he "doesn't believe in bisexuality" because (he argued) why would someone want to subject themselves to unequal treatment when they could enter into a "traditional" relationship?

Because, given the right individual, the risks are worth it. One could apply that to lovers across class, across race, across politics. Sexual orientation has no monopoly on risk.

If, God/dess forbid, my partner died, and someone came along who captured my heart as deeply, that person could just as well be a man as a woman, or in an area between the two. It takes so much more than bodies to maintain a relationship. I've also lived a life of celibacy for years at a time, unattached to a partner, because being partnered wasn't important to me then. To everything there is a season.






Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.)
Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite
Free downloads of both volumes here.

Go to Manybooks.net to access Covenant and Appetite in even more formats!

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