David McLeod

Oh Wow! I hope it's also on Blockbuster!

This fall was my first anthology submission, so I was understandably nervous. I do appreciate all the support from the team...made it much more comfortable. Thanks, folks!

The American South: home of understanding. Are you really surprised? David: Resident of small town not that far from Atlanta.

I had overlooked that. Thanks.

Would someone please, for this ignorant white southern cracker, explain the "black pig" reference?

You were right. Simplistic, but not boring. Thanks for the suggestions. I'll check the state library system to see if perchance some bold librarian has purchased a copy of either. Right now, I'm back to USA-America, and reading Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" and a history of the Great Depression and Roosevelt's recovery programs. In preparation for the next ten years or so, don't you know.

Back to the original question. With very limited data (reared in a small, southern Bible-belt town; two Lesbian couples in my family and two others, all attending the same Presbyterian church without any reaction other than an occasional whisper; no gay couples) I suggest, first, that "special friendships" between girls (i.e., pre-teen and teen) and women are more accepted and less threatening than similar relationship between boys (pre-teen, teen) and men. Why they are less threatening, I don't know, but (continuing to speculate) men are more dangerous, physically, than women. Perhaps it's the testosterone. I'm offering my understanding of long-standing stereotypes, here, and offer these thoughts only to stimulate discussion. Now, none of the women engaged in any PDA, and I don't know if the tolerance/acceptance would have continued if they had.

Idioms. Wow, you've really opened a can of worms. It would take a lot of time just to get to first base with this topic, and we'd never capture the whole nine yards. On the other hand, creating a collection of idioms could be more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Let's run it up the flagpole, and see if anyone salutes. I'm waiting with bated breath.

Thanks, everyone, for your posts, and especially for the additions to the list some folks proposed. Yeah, this is only one of several lists of "banned" or "challenged" books. I believe "challenged" means that schools and libraries have been formally asked (in school board meetings, city council meetings, etc.) to remove the books from the shelves or to restrict access. I, too, was surprised not to find "Huckleberry Finn" on the list, since it so often appears. "The Story of O," as well. I suspect they're on other lists, though. Keep the comments (and suggestions) coming. Oh, I counted 25 on this list that I'd read. Twenty six if watching the movie, "To Kill a Mockingbird" counts. (Just kidding.) My next step is to log on to the local library and cross check the list against their collection.

Hello back at you, Rory. Your little man may have just solved the global energy crisis. What's his carbon footprint, anyway? Welcome! Your profile says you like both to read and to write. Both readers and writers are always needed. Looking forward to hearing more from you.

This list of "frequently challenged" books is only one of many, but it's pretty accurate, I think. How many of them have you read? (Please do not quote this message when replying! Thanks.) 1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger 3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck 4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker 6. Ulysses by James Joyce 7. Beloved by Toni Morrison 8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding 9. 1984 by George Orwell 10. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner 11. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov 12. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck 13. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White 14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce 15. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller 16. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 17. Animal Farm by George Orwell 18. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway 19. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner 20. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway 21. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad 22. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne 23. Their Eyes are Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston 24. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison 25. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison 26. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell 27. Native Son by Richard Wright 28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey 29. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut 30. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway 31. On the Road by Jack Kerouac 32. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway 33. The Call of the Wild by Jack London 34. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf 35. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James 36. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin 37. The World According to Garp by John Irving 38. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren 39. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster 40. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien 41. Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally 42. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton 43. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand 44. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce 45. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair 46. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf 47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum 48. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence 49. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess 50. The Awakening by Kate Chopin 51. My Antonia by Willa Cather 52. Howards End by E. M. Forster 53. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote 54. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger 55. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie 56. Jazz by Toni Morrison 57. Sophie's Choice by William Styron 58. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner 59. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster 60. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton 61. A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor 62. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald 63. Orlando by Virginia Woolf 64. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence 65. Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe 66. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut 67. A Separate Peace by John Knowles 68. Light in August by William Faulkner 69. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James 70. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe 71. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier 72. A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams 73. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs 74. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh 75. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence 76. Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe 77. In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway 78. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein 79. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett 80. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer 81. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys 82. White Noise by Don DeLillo 83. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather 84. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller 85. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells 86. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad 87. The Bostonians by Henry James 88. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser 89. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather 90. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame 91. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald 92. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand 93. The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles 94. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis 95. Kim by Rudyard Kipling 96. The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald 97. Rabbit, Run by John Updike 98. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster 99. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis 100. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

The co-author's comment was the best part of this story. I used to think "Huckleberry Finn" was banned because of its language and treatment of persons of color. Now I know better. It was because Huck once dressed as a girl. The American Library Association has some great information on "frequently challenged" books (we no longer say "banned," I guess). Go to www.ala.org and put "banned" in the search box. Hmm. I think I see a new topic. If I can figure out how, I'm going to put up a poll, "How many have you read." Please look for it.

The news reader's reaction suggested both that she knew she had said a "naughty" word and that she was bright enough to have caught the malapropism. It's not high humor, but it is humor. Thanks for a chuckle to start the day.

James, you have my sympathy. David

Welcome: always room for an avid reader. Hope you'll join the discussion forums, as well.

Congratulations! I remember vividly your story, and enjoyed it very much. Looking forward to more.

What's that in real money? Seriously, I've been in the audience for many of such shows...they're a lot of fun. Hope you enjoy.

This is a rehash of the argument that a person of color may use the n-word freely, but that a person not of color may not. That is no more right than is the Garrison rule. I do not find it amusing when, for example, a comedian makes slurs and uses inappropriate words, and then claims that because he or she is gay/lesbian/black/hispanic/- white/redneck/Jewish/Catholic/other that he or she is therefore free to insult those who may fall into his or her "category." I don't like it, and I am not thin-skinned. (Pun intended.) Further, we have so many different characteristics and fall on so many points on so many spectra (sexuality, libido, skin color, ethnicity, religious beliefs, physical dimensions, education, e.g.) that to characterize someone by any extreme on any of these spectra is pointless and the sign of a very small mind. (Which, by the way, is another point on another spectrum: the bigotry spectrum. We are all more or less bigoted.)

Hi, Paya. Always room for another decent guy.

Welcome! I'm looking forward to reading your story. Please be sure to post an announcement in the eFiction story announcement forums, so we'll know. Oh, and if you need help with the site, posting, etc., check the Administrative Communications forum...there are links to the moderators, etc., who can help.

Aha! Now we know what will draw you out of retirement. I'd say any of your images would be inspirational.

Hope you are keeping a journal (or, at least, posting a lot of your experiences, here): what you are feeling can become the grist for your writing! What a great opportunity. Good luck.

Chrissy, Welcome to the site. And thank you for giving me a chance to say, once again, that there's only one rule that applies equally to all writers: if you want to be a writer, write something! After that, you can begin to polish your craft. You will find many people here who are willing to help both through forums and one-on-one. There are also pointers to writing tools and techniques. There aren't many writers who were great, even good, when they first started. I know I'm still struggling and learning. Besides, it's the journey that's the real reward. What you write doesn't have to have a gay theme: take a look, for example, at the last anthology where Jovian posted a story about a war orphan. There are many other examples. Again, welcome; write something; good luck!

Welcome! Like your logo/name. I'm sure you'll find many good stories to read, here.

I am a critic; I don't have to provide an alternative. I just criticize things.