Dusk

My gay e-zine True Tales is currently offering news coverage of Hurricane Gustav, with breaking news of the hurricane's effects on the gay community, as well as the leather/BDSM/bear communities. As with our Katrina coverage, I'll be keeping a special eye on the effects of the hurricane on gay writers and artists.

I don't know whether anyone has posted about this yet, but here are the finalists. Finalists from very small presses (i.e. the type that attract authors on the scale of most of us here): MLR Press has a finalist in the erotica category: William Maltese & Wayne Gunn's "Ardennian Boy." Blind Eye Books has a finalist in the SF/F/H category: Ginn Hale's "Wicked Gentlemen." Interestingly, all the finalists in the Men's Romance category (which is where the very small presses have made their biggest mark) are from larger presses.

JSmith said: "We do have an 'Ask Me' option" Oh, believe me, I noticed that you were in advance of a lot of other sites. But I still prefer the option of not having to choose an option.

I tell people, "I have a sexual orientation that it takes PowerPoint to describe." Seriously. My sexual orientation just doesn't fit into the normal boxes. I usually tick "bisexual," because that's as close as I can get to a standard label, but being forced to choose a label is annoying. I wish that every site on the Web would stop requiring gender and orientation labels, except on a voluntary basis. Now, I think voluntary labels are wonderful. As rknapp and others here have said, there should be a place for labels for people who can easily say what they are and want to share that information with others. But as colinian says, being required to pin a label on oneself is annoying.

eliotmoore asked: "Would women be so quick to write rape into their stories?" Yes. Rape stories are a popular subgenre in the fan fiction community, which is predominantly female. Sometimes those stories are written for titillation, sometimes to explore serious issues of abuse. The stories that are written for titillation aren't necessarily by authors who aren't concerned with real-life abuse. Sometimes rape survivors write such stories. The authors make a strong distinction between fantasy and reality, as I imagine many authors in the gay fiction world do. Personally, I can't easily read stories where rape is presented for titillation, but I do very much enjoy stories that explore abuse issues.

The professional authors (and semi-pros and amateurs) are pouring out their stories. Have fun reading what they've posted.

After the outgoing vice president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America posted an entry at the SWFA blog, slamming professional authors who post their works online (he later toned down his wording), author Jo Walton wrote a post encouraging authors to "give away professional quality work online" on April 23 "to celebrate our technopeasanthood." Over at the SWFA blog, the moderator, Will Shetterly, encouraged people to post links at that blog on April 23 to their online work (in replies to a special entry he'll post on that day), adding, "If you can't come up with something new for the 23rd but already have work that's free on the web, offer the link. Everyone's welcome in the IPST!" I queried, and he clarified that, yes, he meant everyone: pro, semi-pro, and amateur writers. It seems to me that all writers who support the right of pro authors to publish their works in the manner that they wish may be interested in participating in this celebration. If you would like an icon by which to spread the word, here are some nice ones by John Scalzi, Mary Dell, and Leigh Dragoon.

For those of you who are interested: The Slash Skinny is a news and market report I edit on four genres of professionally published literature and art featuring same-sex attraction: original slash, femslash, yaoi, and yuri. Past issues are available free online at The Slash Skinny's Website. The April 2007 issue is available through the link in this sentence for 99

The Erotic Authors Association, which was founded in 2000 and which I now direct, is accepting membership applications through February 18. (The next enrollment period is in April.) There are three categories of membership: Authors, Professionals (editors, illustrators, etc.), and Corporate Membership (forums, e-zines, etc.). The Join Us page lists member benefits. All writers of erotic literature are welcome to apply. Authors must have had their writings published or self-published in print, electronically, on the Internet, in audio or video format, or have had their writings performed. For those of you who'd just like to browse, there are some goodies linked at the site, such as "A History of Erotic Literature," articles by well-known erotic writers, and market reports.

Those of you who are professional writers - or even just readers - may want to know that a big U.S. distributor of books has filed for bankruptcy, causing headaches for many big presses and trauma for small presses. Among the publishers affected are Cleis Press, which is one of the oldest and largest GLBT publishers, and Green Candy Press, which carries gay titles, among other things. Here's a New York Times article about the impact on big publishers, a blog entry about the impact on small publishers, a list of the affected small presses, an abridged list of the affected big presses, and a post about Cleis's situation by erotica author Violet Blue. She mentions that Cleis is having a "buy three, get one free" sale right now. (Shipping is always free from Cleis.) Perhaps now is a good time to support Cleis if you'd been thinking of doing some GBLT book-shopping.

Razor wrote: "Perhaps I should've included the option of bittersweet." Yup, yup, yup. My liking for bittersweet so outweighs the other options that it would be misleading for me to vote.

It sounds to me as though this gentleman Has Issues. I'll be kind and assume that he's some closeted writer who's scared to death you'll find the children's stories he wrote under his real name and report him to his boss. Regardless, he's not making things any easier for himself by being rude to his fans.

I'm with what jamessavik says. Find something common you can talk about. The weather, bad cafeteria food, which teachers should be fired, etc.

DomLuka wrote: "So I guess I'm asking those ready to fight every time they don

I'm too new to know about all the problems that have occurred, but I ran a discussion board once that attracted flamers like fruit attracts fruit flies. Yes, running a forum is a thankless business. A small but vocal minority make clear that they dislike the administration's way of doing business, and they just don't shut up. (This is as opposed to the folks who politely offer constructive criticism. I always welcomed those posts.) So I can fully understand your weariness, Myr. I hope you don't forget, though, that a lot of the reason that the silent majority don't speak up in such situations is that they don't want to make matters worse by contributing to flame threads. They figure the best way to keep peace in such situations is to keep silent till everything blows over. But all of us need to be poked now and then to remember to send thank-you notes. I posted mine when I first got here, a short while ago, but I'll try to remember to do so periodically from now on.

Sharon wrote: "And just what is up with the influx of so many sci-fi/fantasy stories?" Myk echoed: "I do like the scifi/fantasy stories but sometimes I just need to reach for something more...realistic." What, a historical fantasy story set in a prison isn't realistic enough for you guys? That's it. Next story I announce is going to be set in twenty-first-century America at, um . . . a waltz party! Featuring a leatherman! Is that realistic enough for you?

Boy, am I old-fashioned. I use Netscape 4.75, circa 2000. It gives me a slimmed-down presentation of Web pages that I like. However, certain sites - such as the GA forum - don't show up well in it, at the type size I read. I was using IE6 for a while as my back-up browser, but the pages loaded slowly, and every time I looked at Google Tech News there was a new alert about a virus that attacks IE. So I switched to Firefox this month, and I'm very happy. Unlike Microsoft, Mozilla will give me security updates for my browser, so I'm much less likely to be attacked by a virus. And the pages load lightning-quick in comparison to IE6.

My mother used to try to convince me that I was totally abnormal for not wanting to carry around a bathroom's worth of items. Judging from the above list, she was correct. I used to be sewn to my backpack like a Siamese twin, till the family member I live with got obsessed with taking Teaching Company tapes out of the library. Now he borrows my backpack all the time. So I resort to a college bookbag, and to heck with the fact that it clashes with my oh-so-masculine denim vest. Minimum I carry: Magnifier (I'm partially sighted), money and ID and credit cards and library cards strewn all over the bag because I haven't gotten myself a new wallet, notebook and pens, kleenex. And if I'm not carrying a book or newspaper too, it's a sign I'm seriously ill. Given the number of coins I have floating around, and trouble I have fishing them out of my pocket, I've thought of carrying a change purse, but I don't want to screw up people's minds that much. I'll wait for our society to get a little less gender-rigid. Comb goes in the back pocket of my jeans and keys go on my belt. Left. At least I manage to fit the expected image that way. Dusk (feeling left out because I don't carry a screwdriver)

Empathy wrote: "I had been reading stories on the net (mostly porn) since I was 9 or 10." Now there's a generational gap. Growing up in the pre-Internet era, I didn't get access to porn till I was sixteen. I found it disappointing. Didn't get access to good-quality porn till my late thirties, when I stumbled across it on the Internet. Jack Scribe wrote: "I hereby admit being a hopeless romantic" Me too, though friendship stories do as much for me as romance. That was the problem I had with the porn I found as a teenager; it had no emotional content. And I'm afraid that was my initial reaction to online gay erotic stories I encountered - that they were plotless and pointless. (Not that this stopped me from reading them in certain moods, *cough cough*.) It took me some exploring to find the well-written stories. I did read a few published gay novels in college, but they were contemporary fiction, and my interest was mainly in fantasy and historical fiction. It wasn't until a few years ago that I discovered there were writers working in that field. Their blurbs don't reveal this. (Pauses to glare in the direction of SF/F marketing departments.) So, as far as gay stories are concerned, they pretty much stayed in my head till a few years ago. I'd been writing fiction since I was eight and had gay stories going through my head by my teens, but the possibility of writing the gay stories down never crossed my mind because I didn't think anyone was reading gay fantasy stories, except, just maybe, as subplots within fantasy novels about other topics. If I'd wanted to write PG-rated, contemporary-setting, light-events gay stories, I'd probably have made the leap early on. But the stories in my head not only were fantasy - they tended to deal with dark events. So did my non-gay stories, for that matter. However, while I thought it was socially acceptable to write mainstream fantasy stories about imprisonment and slavery - everyone and their uncle was doing that - I didn't think it was possible to add in gay attraction to such stories without being immediately labelled a pervert. And I half suspected I was one, because the few gay stories I read online with this content were literary dreck and more than a little ethically questionable. Then, when I was doing searches for gay art, I stumbled across a site with gay imprisonment/slavery/prostitution stories. Blinked more than a few times when I realized it was a fan fiction site maintained by women. But it was filled with lots of sexually charged, fantasy-setting, dark-events stories. And I discovered that many of these stories dealt with ethical issues. That's when I realized I wasn't the only person in the world who liked such tales, and that's when I had the courage to write mine down. Even so, my hands shook the first time I posted a story online.

Myk said: "If you have any questions or need help just ask and one of the team will come to your rescue" And C. James added: "we will be happy to help!" Oh, that's already been revealed. I hadn't been here five minutes before I started bugging Joe Smith over in tech support. He responded instantly. Matthew wrote: "The fantasy stuff sounds interesting, and I'll have to check it out." Hope you'll like what you see. Thank you for the welcome. Jack Scribe wrote: "GA needs more diversity...and after reviewing the True Tales website, I think your ideas will certainly broaden the scope of gay, erotic-themed writing for anyone who is intersted in knowing more about the BDSM/Leather culture." Thanks! True Tales is definitely leather-friendly but was never intended to be leather-only. Last year the focus was primarily on leathermen; this coming year the focus is primarily on military men, and the year after that, the theme will be businessmen. Plus, in any year, I'm happy to publish stories on other topics related to masculinity and power.

I found this site - oh, ages ago, 2002 it must have been. At the time, the site's design made it a bit difficult for me to access the stories, and for various reasons I decided to give the site a pass. But when I reached the point of frustration this week over not knowing of any active forums for writers of gay fiction, I did a Web search, and lo and behold, things had changed a lot since I was here last. (Pauses to plug in information from my profile, just to save you all the trouble of clicking on my name.) I write mainstream fantasy, homoerotic historical fantasy, and contemporary gay leather fiction. I also edit online resources on genre fiction, gay history and literature, and leather history and literature. I'm editor of True Tales: An Erotic E-zine of Masculinity and Power.