Three Authors at the GLBT History Museum

Come one, come all. You are invited to the event: Three Authors at the GLBT History Museum.

Date: June 18, 2012 07:00PM
Venue: GLBT History Museum
Location: 4127 18th St., San Francisco, CA, The United States

Description:
GuyWriters Presents Three San Francisco Queer Novelists Monday, June 18, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. 

Three San Francisco queer novelists will read from their recent work: 

Jim Provenzano, author of Every Time I Think of You and other novels; 

Lewis DeSimone, author of The Heart's History and other works; and 

Michael Alenyikov, author of Ivan and Misha: Stories. 

Following the readings, writer James Siegel will briefly interview each of the authors. The event is presented by GuyWriters, a Bay Area community network that celebrates and supports gay men's literary creativity. For more information about the group, visit www.guywritersonline.org

Lazy Readers

I started reading a new book last night, a fantasy story. The tale is set in a mythical place and all of the characters and towns and countries have strange names like Zork and Drude and Zerkdom.

I seldom read fantasy, and ten pages into this story I realized why. With all these strange names, it takes work to keep track of who is who, and where towns are in relationship to each other. Basically, I grasped that I’m a lazy reader. I like to concentrate on the prose and the skill of the storyteller, but not work overly hard to keep the characters and places set in my head.

The other issue I have with this read is that each time a new off-the-wall name is presented, it pulls me out of the story when I think to myself: Where the hell did he come up with that one?, which happens about three times per page. I’m hoping that as the story develops, fewer new names will be thrown at me and I’ll become accustomed to the ones already there.

There have been a few fantasy books that I have relished. Lord Of The Rings springs to mind, but there have been several others. Still, fantasies are never my first pick. I suppose what’s important to me in a story is interesting characters (flawed), the story’s premise, the plot’s structure, and quality of the prose. Placing the story in a mythical land, in my viewpoint, only heaps more frosting onto the cake, and I don’t have a sweet tooth.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not trying to sway readers away from fantasy novels, or suggest that those novels don’t have interesting characters and plot development.  And I know many readers love these stories because they can be a delightful escape from the norm.

My only point is that I have a defect. I’m a lazy reader, someone who enjoys a complicated story as long as I don’t have to work too hard to muddle through it. 

Writing Tip #8 Plotting

There is a story of a man in a rooming house who took off his shoes every night and dropped them on the floor one at a time, with a pause in between. The lodger below had complained about this many times. One night, after dropping the first shoe, the man suddenly remembered the complaints and put the second shoe down gently. Twenty minutes later, a cry came up from the floor below: "For God's sake, drop the other shoe!"

Every plot sets up a series of expectations that makes the read wait for the other shoe to drop. We wait for the resolution of a conflict, or the solution to a puzzle, or the explanation of a mystery, or just the completion of a pattern, and it is this anticipation, as much as anything else, that makes us read on.

A plot, then, is the structuring of events to create anticipation, either in the form of anxiety (in a story of conflict or mystery), or of curiosity (in a puzzle story).

In a well-structured story, the ending may be a resolution, a revelation, a decision, an explanation, or a solution.

Resolution is the end of a conflict by the victory of one side or the other.

Revelation is the exposure of something previously hidden.

A Decision story ends when the protagonist makes up his/her mind about something important and difficult.

Explanation, obviously, resolves a mystery.

Solution provides the ending for a puzzle.

A successful plots rests on five pillars.

1. a believable and sympathetic protagonist;
2. his/her difficult problem;
3. his/her repeated attempts to resolve the problem, which continually fail and make his/her situation more desperate;
4. a crisis point, his last desperate chance to win;
5. a resolution, brought about by means of the protagonist’s own courage, love or ingenuity.

The reverse of this plot is the story in which the central character is the villain; the story ends with his/her defeat rather than with a victory.

24th Annual Lambda Literary Award Winners

Congratulations to all the winners.

http://www.lambdaliterary.org/features/06/05/24th-annual-lambda-literary-award-winners-announced-in-new-york/

24th Annual Lambda Literary Award Winners:

Lesbian Fiction
Six Metres of Pavement, by Farzana Doctor, Dundrun Press

Gay Fiction 
The Empty Family, by Colm Tóibín, Scribner

Lesbian Debut Fiction
Zipper Mouth, by Laurie Weeks, The Feminist Press

Gay Debut Fiction
Quarantine: Stories, by Rahul Mehta, Harper Perennial

Lesbian Memoir/Biography
When We Were Outlaws: A Memoir of Love & Revolution, Jeanne Córdova, Spinsters Ink

Gay Memoir/Biography
The Jack Bank: A Memoir of a South African Childhood, by Glen Retief, St. Martin's Press

Lesbian Mystery
Dying to Live, by Kim Baldwin & Xenia Alexiou, Bold Strokes Books

Gay Mystery
Red White Black and Blue, by Richard Stevenson, MLR Press

LGBT Anthology
Gay Latino Studies: A Critical Reader, ed. by Michael Hames-García and Ernesto Javier Martínez, Duke University Press

LGBT Children's/Young Adult
Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy, by Bil Wright, Simon & Schuster

LGBT Drama
A Menopausal Gentleman: The Solo Performances of Peggy Shaw, by Peggy Shaw, University of Michigan Press

LGBT Nonfiction
A Queer History of the United States, by Michael Bronski, Beacon Press

LGBT SF/Fantasy/Horror
The German, by Lee Thomas, Lethe Press

LGBT Studies
Sister Arts: The Erotics of Lesbian Landscapes, by Lisa L. Moore, University of Minnesota Press

Bisexual Fiction
The Correspondence Artist, by Barbara Browning, Two Dollar Radio

Bisexual Nonfiction
The Horizontal Poet, by Jan Steckel, Zeitgest Press

Transgender Fiction
Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica, ed. by Tristan Taormino, Cleis Press

Transgender Nonfiction
Tango: My Childhood Backwards and in High Heels, by Justin Vivian Bond, The Feminist Press

Lesbian Erotica
Story of L, by Debra Hyde, Ravenous Romance

Gay Erotica
All Together, by Dirk Vanden, iloveyoudivine Alerotica

Lesbian Poetry
Love Cake, by Leah Lakshmi Piepza-Samarasinha, TSAR Publications

Gay Poetry
A Fast Life: The Collected Poems of Tim Dlugos, ed. by David Trinidad, Nightboat Books

Lesbian Romance
Taken by Surprise, by Kenna White, Bella Books

Gay Romance
Every Time I Think of You, by Jim Provenzano, CreateSpace/Myrmidude Press

Winners by Default

Last week I posted a contest on my review blog http://glfictionreviews.blogspot.com/ announcing I would give away two copies of a recently published book, The Letter Q, Queer Writers’ Notes To Their Younger Selves. The book is part of the It Gets Better campaign.  To enter the drawing, all readers had to was leave a comment with their email address, and I would randomly choose two from the hoards of people wanting this free book.

I posted the contest notice on several sites, including FB and Twitter, and I was happy to see that the blog post hit counts rose to several hundred. However, only two people bothered to leave a comment. ???

I don’t get it. Are people so disinterested in advice from writers like Christopher Rice, David Leavitt, Armistead Maupin, and Terrence McNally? I have a copy on my review stack and I can’t wait to read it. So why such a low interest level when I know hundreds of people read the post?

Perhaps people couldn’t figure out how to leave a comment? That’s hard to believe in this day and age, but I suppose….

Whatever the reason, there are at least two happy readers right now who got a $25 value for simply taking two minutes to leave a comment.

Congratulations Kim and Lesbrary.com. I hope you enjoy your book.  

Book Review: Swan Cloud by Edward C. Patterson

Reviewer: Alan Chin

Publisher: CreateSpace

Pages:  327

A Brilliant Work that will linger in your Heart and Soul

This delightful read is book III of Edward Patterson’s Southern Swallow series. Swan Cloud, like its predecessors (The Academician and The Nan Tu) is told by K'u Ko-ling, the amusing servant to the Grand Tutor, Li K'ai-men, who must forgo his obligated mourning period when his father dies, and sets out on a diplomatic mission for the Emperor Kao - a mission fraught with political intrigue and treachery.

The mission is a plan to reel in the warring generals and forage a peace with the enemies to the north. But while the Grand Tutor labors to help bring about a durable reconciliation, politicians closest to the Emperor are more focused on their own benefit. In an effort to fight for justice, Li K’ai-men finds himself battling the Emperor’s advisors, who now seem hell bent on destroying him.

Set on the broad canvas of Sung Dynasty China (12th Century), Swan Cloud is a tale of separation and sacrifice - injustice and intrigue. It represents a turning point in this saga for the hero and his band of spiritual warriors.

I have adored all three books of the Southern Swallow series, for a number of reasons. I particularly enjoyed the characterizations in this character driven novel. Patterson has created a number of interesting and likeable characters. They are flawed, and struggle to overcome those defects. Even the "bad-guys" developed into memorable foes.

Second, the author skillfully weaves an intriguing plot that holds the reader to the page, needing to find out what happens next. There came a point deep in the novel where I literally couldn’t put it down until I finished the last page.

The author has created a delightful voice. The tale is told both in third person, and also K'u Ko-ling’s first person narratives. Both voices are distinct and captivating. It is a pleasure reading such well-crafted prose.

Edward C. Patterson is scholar in East Asian culture. So not only is the storyline based on true historical events, but the descriptions of the cultural settings and rituals ring true.  Patterson has done his homework, and it shows from first page to last.

My one issue with the entire series so far is that Li K’ai-men, the Emperor’s Grand Tutor, and his band of devoted followers wields tremendous magical powers, but for some reason seldom use these powers to turn events to his or the Emperor’s favor. I kept wondering, why the author gave them these colossal powers if they failed to use them.

For anyone interested in reading Swan Cloud, I would highly recommend reading book I & II first (The Academician and The Nan Tu).  There is simply too much plot and relationship building that occurs in these earlier novels that is needed to fully understand the situations presented in Swan Cloud.

Readers who love historical fiction will no doubt treasure this series. But these books can be enjoyed by anyone who appreciates fully developed characters and finely crafted stories. This book, this series, is a gem that can be appreciated by everyone.

For more information about this book/author go to http://www.dancaster.com/

Writing Tip #7 – Don’t be afraid to get it wrong

My husband, Herman, has taken several screenwriting classes with me and also participates in a weekly writing group of screenwriters. Last summer he outlined an excellent idea for a script, and then spent several weeks working on the first act. When he presented that first act, about twenty pages, to our writer’s group, they were somewhat critical but supportive. They gave Herman a lot to think about, including other options for where to start his story. It was all good feedback. 

The problem was, Herman is a perfectionist who hates criticism. He thanked everyone for the input, even agreed with much of it, and has not written a word on his script since then. He is so afraid to write something that others may feel is not perfect, that he doesn’t write anything. He keeps talking about his story, trying to work out the ideal set of scenes in his mind, but frankly, talking doesn’t get the baby washed. 

I believe it was Hemingway who said: “All first drafts are shit!” And he wasn’t talking about just his first drafts, he was talking about all writer’s first drafts.

Good writing is rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. My first script teacher told me that the average script gets rewritten over twenty times before anyone takes it seriously. I usually make five to six passes through a manuscript before I submit my novel to a publisher.

The idea is to get something down. Make it as good as you can, understanding all the time that you will need to go back and edit, edit, then polish, polish. Sometime you go back and realize that it’s just not right for the story, or drags the pacing down, or that it doesn’t add enough to justify being there. So you cut it. And that’s ok. Much better to cut something than end up with warts sprinkled though your story.

So, bottom line for this week is: when you’re writing a first draft, have the courage to write it down. Even if you know you’re going to throw it way, get your ideas down on paper. You won’t know how good or how bad it is until it’s on paper. The worst thing that will happen is you toss it out and start over. And if you do that, I guarantee the next pass will be better.

Have the courage to write everyday, even if what you’re writing is crap. If you do that, the writing will get better. And frankly, that’s the only way it gets better.