Graeme

G'day, Robbie! I haven't been online a lot myself recently, though I do tend to drop in a bit more frequently than you If John hasn't signed in recently, say hello to him from me, too, please

Er... Conner... are you aware that they stare at goats in an effort to kill them using psychic powers? Though I'll admit that I had to read the reviews before I found out that fact

I'm Australian and my editor is American, so I think I fit into this category The upshot is that I have the final say, but I respect the fact that most of my audience is American and hence I'll let a lot of Australianism get changed into Americanism to save confusion. On the flip side, my editors are also more aware of Australianism and let them go through unless they think they will be confusing for the readers. If the story is set in Australia (or not specified), my preference for Australian spellings is used. If the story is set in the USA, though, USA spellings are used. That's my decision, as the author, and I trust my editor to remove all Aussieisms that inadvertantly slip in (I can't help it -- I'm not American and I don't know all the American slang). If my editor is not sure if something is an Australianism, they ask. Most of the time it's actuallly a typo, though sometimes it's a legitimate Australian phase. I do have the fallback position that in most cases American phrasing is legitimate in Australia because we get some much American TV. However, there are exceptions to that rule where the American version is just not used here. eg. the abbreviation of Mathematics in Australia is Maths, not Math. Ultimately, the author's opinion rules, but an author should always be respectful of their editor's views.

Without evidence, I tend to go for 'innocent until proven guilty'. That doesn't mean I can't be suspicious I remember one situation where someone claiming to be an Australian teenager used a legal concept that I had never heard of here in Australia. I did some research and found that what they said appeared to have no basis in Australian law! Now, it's possible that what they said was for the American audience and hence they used the closest term to what had really happened, but I'll admit that it made me suspicious. Otherwise, I think it's difficult to spot. Humanity is so varied that exceptional cases can appear as fraud, when they really are just exceptional. Having said that, I look at the number of exceptional situations they've claimed. Truth can be stranger than fiction, but in most cases it's not. If the coincidences pile up, I have to wonder. As a final note, I'm not particularly good at spotting frauds unless they make a blatant (to me) mistake.

Crocs are dangerous, and I think they look ugly, too, but I liked the sandals you linked to, or variations that use a similar structure of a strap over the front of the foot, a strap over the top of the foot, and a strap behind the heel. I bought a pair for myself when I was in Queensland in September, and also a pair for my youngest son. They're comfortable, easy to wear, and your feet don't stink at the end of the day. They are, however, definitely for casual wear only, so a pair of running shoes as an alternative would be a good idea (though you also asked for not overly expensive, and I know how much running shoes cost in Australia....) So, speaking as a practical male with almost no fashion sense, I'd suggest you buy him what he asked for PS: And I also agree with your boyfriend on thongs -- I used to wear them all the time when I was a kid, but they really are bad for the feet.

Thanks, Louisiana Writer, for taking the time for a detailed response. I really do appreciate what you've said. As for the 5000 words on my home life, start with: http://themailcrew.com/graeme and then continue with: http://awesomedude.com/graeme/family_snippets.htm and between those two links you'll learn a lot about who I am and why I'm doing what I'm doing I don't know believe it will be possible for my boys to never learn that I'm gay unless I completely suppress my gay nature, and I already know that that is not possible for me. So I write and interact with other gay guys at places like Gay Authors. Since I discuss things with my wife, the boys will hear me talk about things and sooner or later will wonder. I think I owe it to them to tell them before they start wondering.

LOL -- I can understand the confusion. As a starter, here's an essay I wrote many years ago for the guys over at the Mail Crew web site: http://themailcrew.com/graeme It tells you a little bit of my background and how I ended up in a M/F marriage. The key was that while I've known I'm gay since I was a teenager, I didn't finally accept it until I turned forty, and by that stage I was married with kids. I had obligations and I decided to fulfil those obligations. The situation is not ideal, but I wouldn't give up my family for anything (or anyone).

Thank you, everyone You've certainly given us some things to think about. A special thank you to Lugh -- I'll look into those books though neither boy particularly like reading (unfortunately).

Okay, I obviously missed a lot I came out to my wife about five years ago and after a lot of angst, we're staying together. She's very supportive of me and reads most of my stories before anyone else. She also provides input to them from time to time (especially for the female characters), so, no, we're not getting divorced. Indeed, I'd like to think our marriage is stronger now than it was before, because I'm no longer keeping secrets from her. She's a remarkable woman but she's NOT up to an open relationship, which is why, even though I'm gay, I'm staying monogamous. We'll have more challenges in the future because we don't expect the boys to be able to keep things a secret, but at the moment we just want to work out how to tell them that they're dad is gay. The reason we want to do this soon, even though I'm a non-practising homosexual, is because we don't think it's fair for them to find out in the future, and wonder why we kept it a secret. Thanks everyone for your comments so far. We've introduced our boys to the concept of gay couples from a young age, but they don't know of any and there are none around here that we know of that we could introduce them to.

My wife and I have just discussed the topic of telling our sons that I'm gay. It's a tough thing to do and we only have one chance to do it right. My wife is going to ring the counsellor that helped her cope with the news that her husband is gay, but I thought I'd ask for advice here. I don't know if anyone has gone through this themselves, but I'd really like advice. For background information, for those that don't know, my sons are currently eight and ten. I have a strong desire to tell them before the oldest boy hits puberty, because I don't want things complicated by the hormones that'll go through his system at that point. Any advice on how we should tell them that their dad is gay? I'd probably have to explain that what means, too, since they'll only have a vague understanding.

My heartfelt condolences to his family and friends

The first thing is that the law is on your side. You don't have to do anything in most Western countries to have copyright of any stories you write. Assuming you find your story on an unauthorised website, contact the administrator of that site. If you can't find an email address, try webmaster@<domain name>. Alternatively, go to the "who is" website and find out who the site is registered to and contact them. From there, it depends on how much effort you want to go to. Since the law is on your side, a letter from a lawyer will usually get the story taken off the unauthorised site.

Ah, but you've left off the New Zealand accent. For most people, it's the same as the Australian accent, but with a few vowels swapped. For example, they pronounce i and e as most Australians would pronounce e and i. This means they when they say "six" it sounds like "sex" It introduces an interesting new possibility for what the number of beast really means Interesting Personally, I don't consider myself to have an accent. Accents are what people from other places have, not people from where I live

On the 5mph limit issue, the Australian Standard for car speedometers only requires that they be accurate to 10%. In other words, if the speedo says you're doing 100kph, you could be going as fast as 110kph, or as slow as 90kph. I suspect the same is true in the USA. Speedometers are not highly accurate. That 5mph limit is largely there to compensate for that fact. But that's a courtesy -- as has been said, they can fine you for doing 1mph over the limit. Of course, the radar guns also have a tolerance, so if they reported you for doing 1mph over the limit challenge it in court -- the radar gun tolerance will be higher than that. That's why Australian speeding fines have something like: Observed speed 68kph. Charged speed 65kph The 3kph difference in observed vs charged is to take into account the tolerance of the radar gun and to prevent anyone challenging them on that basis.

That sounds just like someone at another site I know who has Aspergers. One of the symptoms he mentioned was the inability to summarise. Everything was important -- leaving off details feels wrong to him. It was that reason he asked some of us a few years ago to produce a small business-card sized summary of the condition so that in a stress situation they could show someone the card to explain what's going on. The other thing is that no two Aspies are the same. They all have their unique characteristics, and there's no one attribute that is common to all people with Aspergers. Thanks, James, for the article and link. It was very interesting

There's a difference between thinking something gross and thinking that something is wrong or offensive. The idea of my parents having sex is gross... but it's not wrong or offensive (otherwise I wouldn't be here ) The idea of eating witchetty grubs is gross... but it's not wrong or offensive and can be the difference between living and starving if you're lost in the Australian outback. I might bristle if I was there when it was said, but, given time to think, I don't believe there's anything wrong with finding things to be 'gross'. That's a personal taste issue and everyone has the right to find some things 'gross'.

There's so much in that post that I agree with Especially the Indian in the UK, though ask the advice of the locals first. There are so many Indian places in the UK that not all of them are good quality. Most are, though, at least amongst the ones I tried. As for the rest, I think the truth is that what we think is 'ethnic' food is not really -- it's westernised versions of those foods. For example, I know that I can go to some Chinese restaurants in Australia where they have two menus -- one in English and one in Chinese. What's on the Chinese menu is not the same as what's on the English menu. The English menu has the English versions of the Chinese dishes. The Chinese menu has the original versions. Pizza is another good example. There are a lot of variations on the concept of pizza, but they are not the original. We just don't get 'original' pizzas in our countries (unless you happen to live in Italy ). Even variations on pizzas within one country (eg. Australia) can be quite dramatic, as it's up to the individual establishment on how they interpret the concept. That's both with respect to the toppings and the dough. As an aside, there's nothing wrong with pizza from Italy (I tried it once), but I didn't think they were particularly adventurous with their toppings. I prefer more toppings than they provided. Just because two foods have the same name, that doesn't mean that they are the same. I made the mistake of ordering cheddar cheese in the USA once... and it wasn't what I expected. I still think of it as a tasteless block of yellow salt

Not at all For me, it would be For the Love of Pete by Dewey and the other stories in the 'series' over at Deweywriter. Those stories, plus the ones by Drake Hunter (sadly no longer available on the Internet) are what allowed me to finally accept my sexuality and come out to my wife. That was only five years ago. I read too much in my younger years to pick a book that made a difference I can identify. Some books affected me more than others, but I can't pick one (or even a handful) that changed my life.

Happy belated birthday, Matt! I hope the weather is fine where you are.

Thanks, but the coordinating job isn't really that difficult, and I love formatting the stories so that's no chore! And I have to thank C James for getting the anthology up because work and family commitments meant that I wasn't going to be online at the times when it was possible to make the anthology live. Thanks to all the authors and their teams! We've received another broad range of stories and I hope everyone will take the time to have a look at them and leave comments. Graeme GA Anthology Coordinator

I've thought of doing a period piece, but the amount of research I would have to do doesn't warrant the investment (it's for a short story) so it'll probably never get written. I don't mind doing the research, but it's not something I want to spend a lot of effort on. As an example, in my novel Falls Creek Lessons, set back in the 80s, I checked snowfall records, music top 100 and sporting results. The rest I left to my memory of what Falls Creek was like around that time (and afterwards realised that I had misremembered a couple of things), but I wasn't going to go into too much effort because the actual time period wasn't that important to the story. The only reason I set it there because I knew that the Nursery Poma (a key part in the early parts of the story) was pulled down by the 90s and I wanted the story to be reasonably factual for all the Australian's who have or will visit Falls Creek. No research is bad because it will alienate anyone who knows better. Too much research can be a chore unless you enjoy the study. I think the key is to do enough to make it reasonable and then just accept that you'll make a few mistakes along the way... but if the story is well written, most readers who spot those mistakes will be forgiving. Just make sure your key items are accurate

The book made the news here in Australia as part of the annual 'banned books' awareness campaign, because it's been challenged in some libraries in the USA. I don't know if it's in any of the libraries here.

*hugs* my friend I lost my father over ten years ago. I was in England at the time and was on the next plane back to Australia. I'm glad you had a chance to reconcile before the end.

Try Alan Dean Foster, and his Spellsinger series, but I can't remember which one it was in

It won't be this year. I don't know at this stage if this idea will happen next year. Sorry. I'd love to be able to say it's going ahead, but I just don't know.