Kestrell

New Yorker article: What Ghost Stories Taught Me About My Queer Self

2022-10-20T14:31:58Z

Kes: Fantastic article with many titles mentioined, for those looking for potential future reading.

On literary ghosts, queer invisibility, and coming of age, then and now.
By Nell Stevens
ll Stevens

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/what-ghost-stories-taught-me-about-my-queer-self

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Thursday: Witches, Sex, and Queer People in Massachusetts: 1644-2021

2021-09-08T13:51:08Z

Witches, Sex, and Queer People in Massachusetts: 1644-2021
by The History Project: Documenting LGBTQ Boston

Event Information
Author Peter Muise on the intersection of sex, queer people, and witchcraft in Massachusetts history and folklore

About this event
Author Peter Muise will explore the intersection of sex, queer people, and witchcraft in Massachusetts history and folklore, and discuss his new book
Witches and Warlocks of Massachusetts
https://bookshop.org/books/witches-and-warlocks-of-massachusetts-legends-victims-and-sinister-spellcasters/9781493060245
(Globe Pequot, 2021).

Peter Muise is an avid folklore fan and New England native who blogs at
New England Folklore.
RSVP on Eventbrite
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/witches-sex-and-queer-people-in-massachusetts-1644-2021-tickets-168263750407
link to the Zoom will be sent out the day of the event. Email info@historyproject.org with any questions. For security purposes, Zoom meetings require an authenticated Zoom account, so please be sure to register with Zoom prior to the event.

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Has anyone else taken the Mass Commission for the Blind survey?

2021-06-14T13:04:29Z

June being Pride month, I found it particularly creepy that the very first question on the survey asked "What is your original gender as stated on your birth certificate?" only it was phrased much more precisely and weirdly than that. Seriously, these people did not invest in a sensitivity reader for this survey.

The second question asked what gender do you identify as, and the third or fourth question went on to ask about your sexual orientation. Later questions asked about your citizen status and your work status. The survey didn't allow you to go back and change any of your answers.

Let me add, these are the people who, twenty years ago when I was persuaded to undergo a period of training by my MCB counselor, and I was very reluctant I might add, I was put under a *lot* of pressure and reprimands to conform to very traditional female appearance including wearing makeup and spending large amounts of time on my hair, despite the fact that I was already wearing business-appropriate attire and had my hair in a very neat French braid.

There is still a lot of pressure in the blind community to be quote normal unquote, and a lot of emphasis is still placed on traditional gender roles and het relationships, and the MCB has always felt it has some sort of paternalistic privilege when it comes to snooping and judging people's lives. This is why many people choose not to receive services at all, because once you let these services in, you don't know where they draw the line regarding what is their job and what is your private life.

As for the questions on this survey, my straightforward summary of that first question doesn't even do justice to the weirdly-worded psycho-babble of the actual question. All I could think was, there is no way that a trans person read that first question and believed that this was a safe space for them.

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Gay-themed songs in folk music: two things that go great together!

2021-04-04T15:12:07Z

An announcement from my musical and poetic friend, April Grant:

NEFFA (New England Folk Festival)
is coming up, on April 23, 24, and 25, and it is free and virtual this year, though they are requesting donations.
Here's info on how to attend: http://cgi.neffa.org/public/festival-registration.html
I recommend checking out the schedule here: https://www.neffa.org/folk-festival/schedule/
On Saturday, April 24, from 4 to 5 p.m. Eastern time, Rebecca Maxfield and I will be presenting "Have A Gay Old Time," celebrating same-sex relationships in folk and folk-adjacent songs.

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"And yet, and still, there are monsters that lurk in our hearts"

2020-06-11T16:26:35Z

You know how much I love Coyote stories, and how much I love the LeVar Burton Reads podcast, so the following made my day:
"Skinwalker, Fast-Talker" by Darcie Little Badger, from the anthology _No Shit, There I Was_
read by LeVar Burton on LeVar Burton Reads
http://www.levarburtonpodcast.com/

The story features a queer female journalist who goes nose-to-nose with Coyote and, while it is a very amusing story, LeVar has some very poignant things to say in his afterword.

Rebecca Roanhorse also writes about Coyote and Native American legend in her book _Trail of Lightning_
https://medium.com/anomalyblog/native-women-personify-ass-kicking-in-trail-of-lightning-and-deer-woman-an-anthology-59326cfbb87a
and I recently heard her read her story from _Deer Woman: An Anthology_
http://www.levarburtonpodcast.com/
Here is a list of fiction and nonfiction, including her new book
https://rebeccaroanhorse.com/fiction-non-fiction/#jp-carousel-1042
Lastly, because I just love the theme for this Kickstarter anthology, is
_Trans-Galactic Bike Ride_, a Queer Feminist SFF collection of transgender and nonbinary led science fiction and fantasy stories about bicycling.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/microcosmpublishing/trans-galactic-bike-ride-queer-feminist-sff-anthology?ref=13zdah

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Tor's _In Our Own Worlds_ 4 novellas featuring LGBTQ+ characters available on Bookshare

2020-06-06T13:03:21Z

The deadline for Tor's free download of
_In Our Own Worlds_
https://www.tor.com/2020/06/02/in-our-own-worlds-download-4-free-lgbtq-sci-fi-fantasy-novellas-before-june-6/
may have passed, but this book is also available on Bookshare.org.

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Today's erotic Elizabethan poem of the day is

2018-12-12T17:21:29Z

by Katherine Philips, who was a sort of lesbian bluestocking (lesbian bluestocking erotica--the world needs more of that subgenre)

Friendship's Mystery: To My Dearest Lucasia
https://enl3501g1.wordpress.com/friendships-mystery-to-my-dearest-lucasia-annotated/

I note that , as in the case of
Piers Gaveston by Michael Drayton
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/pwh/drayton1.asp

those Elizabethans did seem fond of references to playing prince and subject, with lots of references to bondage thrown in.
But this poem also reminds me of
John Donne's "Air and Angels"
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44091/air-and-angels-56d2230aa341c

fnot only in its reference to angels, but in that Philips seems to intentionally countering Donne's statement that men's love is always of a higher plane that that of *lip curl* women.
See, Johnny: you aren't the only one who can come up with sexy angel poetry, so there!

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And the homoerotic Elizabethan poem of the day is...

2018-12-11T15:55:06Z

Yesterday I posted a link on Facebook to a sonnet by Richard Barnfield, an Elizabethan poet who explicitly addressed his love poetry to a man. Today's link is to Michael Drayton's "Piers Gaveston," which I also note because we, the readers, are obviously supposed to despise him for the vile seducer he is, buthis description of his relationship with Edward is just so hot, you find yourself hoping that perhaps they staged their deaths and ran away together to Capri
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/pwh/drayton1.asp

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Photographs of gender-bending women in the early 20th c.

2012-09-24T17:44:33Z

I'm trying to find some books about early women photographers, including descriptions of the cameras and techniques they used, but ran across
this page with photos
http://www.outhistory.org/wiki/Photographs:Gender_Bending_Women,_early-20th_c.
and thought some of my friends might enjoy it.
I think the 1913 photo of a party of women in male attire sounds like a great inspiration for a 21st c. party.

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Boston LGBT Film Festival to host "Science Fiction Night"

2012-04-27T18:08:12Z

The Boston LGBT Film Festival will be May 3rd - 13th. Check out this year's Highlights and Events. We hope to see you there.

For more details, visit: http://www.bostonlgbtfilmfest.org/special-events

May 9th - Wednesday
Sci-fi Night & Reception
Brattle Theatre

7 - 8:30 Outland, Part I

8:30 - 9:30 CasablancaReception

9:30 - 11 Outland, Part II

Join us for Sci-fi Night with a hilarious Australian comedy tv show that revolves around a gay science fiction club. Following Part I, join us at Casablanca for drinks and free apps. Finish the night off back at the Brattle for Part II.
( more special events listed below )

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New book: Gay Life Stories

2012-03-25T12:04:57Z

Kes: This book sounds really gorgeous.
Gay Life Stories
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/25/gay-life-stories-aldrich-review

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Archie gay marriage comic sells out despite conservative protest

2012-03-03T13:47:24Z

Kes: 'Cause you know what a hotbed of radical politics "Archie" is. Also, am I the only one who as a kid thought the comic would be more interesting if Betty and Veronica were the main couple?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/02/archie-gay-marriage-issue-sells-out

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New book: Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Hetrosexuality

2012-02-04T16:09:54Z

from the Harvard Bookstore newsletter

by Hanne Blank
http://www.harvard.com/book/straight_the_surprisingly_short_history_of_hetrosexuality/

Publisher Beacon Press
Publication Date 2012-01-31
Format Hardcover
ISBN 9780807044438

Like the typewriter and the light bulb, the heterosexual was invented in the 1860s and swiftly and permanently transformed Western culture. The idea of
“the heterosexual” was unprecedented. After all, men and women had been having sex, marrying, building families, and sometimes even falling in love for
millennia without having any special name for their emotions or acts. Yet, within half a century, “heterosexual” had become a byword for “normal,” enshrined
in law, medicine, psychiatry, and the media as a new gold standard for human experience.
In this surprising chronicle, historian Hanne Blank digs deep into the past of sexual orientation, while simultaneously exploring its contemporary psyche.
Illuminating the hidden patterns in centuries of events and trends, Blank shows how culture creates and manipulates the ways we think about and experience
desire, love, and relationships between men and women. Ranging from Henry VIII to testicle transplants, from Disneyland to sodomy laws, and from Moby Dick
to artificial insemination, the history of heterosexuality turns out to be anything but straight or narrow.

With an eclectic scope and fascinating detail, Straight tells the eye-opening story of a complex and often contradictory man-made creation that is all
too often assumed to be an irreducible fact of biology.

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Interesting post on encoding of gayness in Hugo's Les Miserables

2011-05-10T11:42:05Z

Kes: I note that the gay character discussed is characterized by his aloneness, his lack, which leads to a comparison with the physically disabled and non-normative, and ultimately the statement that such oddities always desire to be other than what they are, namely, "chaste, healthy, firm, upright, hard...his opposite...".
http://thelectern.blogspot.com/2011/05/fragment-0510_10.html
This is one of the main reasons I often use the word "queer," because ideas about non-normativity in fiction and media images are often layered over and/or next to one another in ways which conflate say, physical non-normativity with sexual non-normativity, and both are held up as "the reverse, the obverse, the wrong side."

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Bellona, Destroyer of Cities: multi-media work based on Delaney's Dhalgren to be performed in May

2011-02-11T18:50:29Z

Kes: I'm trying to find out if there will be any description provided for the visually and hearing impaired, but so far have not found contact info. Still...sex, science fiction, and spontaneous combustion--that sounds like good theatre to me.

Bellona, Destroyer of Cities
A performance work by Jay Scheib

Bellona, Destroyer of Cities, After Samuel R. Delanyʼs Dhalgren, Adapted and Directed by Jay Scheib
http://arts.mit.edu/fast/bellona/

Friday, May 13 and Saturday May 14, 7:30 pm
Sunday, May 15, 2:00 pm
Institute of Contemporary Art, 100 Northern Avenue, Boston (
Tickets: For ticketing information, please visit:
http://www.icaboston.org/programs/performance/bellona/.

MIT Professor Jay Scheib, named one of 25 artists who will shape the next 25 years of theater by American Theater Magazine, returns to the ICA stage with
a new work, based on Samuel R. Delany’s epic science fiction novel, Dhalgren. Bellona is part two of Simulated Cities/Simulated Systems, Scheib’s trilogy
of multimedia performance works.

Bellona, a once illustrious city, has been decimated by a mysterious cataclysmic event, leaving it all but forgotten. Its people try to understand why
buildings repeatedly burst into flames and city streets appear to rearrange themselves, citing race-related violence and a social experiment gone wrong.
A parable of the dangers facing the modern American city, Bellona, Destroyer of Cities explores the shaping of space to express complex issues of race,
gender, and sexuality. The production combines passages from Delaney’s novel with original material and video and photography by Scheib and artist Carrie
Mae Weems.

Bellona, Destroyer of Cities is presented as part of Emerging America, the second annual theater festival, co-presented with American Repertory Theater
and the Huntington Theatre Company, launching the new American voices of tomorrow.

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Winners of the 22nd Annual Lambda Literary Awards

2010-05-28T12:18:00Z

The complete list is here
http://www.lambdaliterary.org/
but following are a few which I found particularly of interest, first and foremost being

LGBT SF/Fantasy/Horror
Palimpsest, by Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam/Spectra Books)
Kes: is Palimpsest even out yet?

LGBT Nonfiction
The Greeks and Greek Love, by James Davidson (Random House)

Lesbian Memoir/Biography
The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith, by Joan Schenkar (St. Martin's Press)

Transgender
Lynnee Breedlove's One Freak Show, by Lynn Breedlove (Manic D Press)

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Lambda literary Awards submissions and new Webzine

2010-03-01T15:00:18Z

There is a new Lambda Literary Webzine
http://www.lambdaliterary.com/
According to the announcement,

block quote start
The new Lambda Literary webzine will aggregate the best links from LGBTQ and mainstream book news websites and newspapers, feature provocative interviews, under-reported stories, and thoughtful, of-the-moment book reviews and nurture a social community that comments, critiques, links back, twitters, blogs, and interacts both online and in person.
block quote end

It already has a
wonderful article on LGBTQ lit for young adults
http://www.lambdaliterary.com/bisexual/02/26/what-do-lgbtq-teens-want/#more-596

You can also read the list of submissions for the 22nd Annual Lambda Literary Awards at
http://www.lambdaliterary.com/awards/current-submissions/

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Are vampires really gay?

2009-11-11T15:45:38Z

a fabulous essay by Hal Duncan on whether vampires can really be interpreted as gay
http://www.bscreview.com/2009/11/notes-from-new-sodom-on-blood-bad-boys-and-bottoms/
Vampires have pretty much bored me since the '90s, and now I think I have some insight as to why. Also, I found some parts of this roll-on-the-floor funny.

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Premiere issue of Icarus now available

2009-06-19T15:34:09Z

Publisher Steve Berman, of whom I am a big fan, just released the
premiere issue of Icarus, his new gay-themed speculative fiction magazine
http://magcloud.com/browse/Issue/11288
I have already ordered my copy.

Here is more about Icarus:

block quote start
Icarus is the first magazine devoted to gay-themed speculative fiction and writing - from fantasy to horror to science fiction, and all the weird tales
that fall between the cracks. Our first issue features short stories by Jeff Mann, Joel D. Lane, Jameson Currier and Tom Cardamone; interviews with Dan
Stone and graphic artist Peter Grahame; poetry by Lawrence M. Schoen; plus book reviews, an article about the Gaylactic Network, and brief happenings in
gay publishing. Icarus is published by Lethe Press.

Please Note: Icarus comes from MagCloud in a clear plastic mailer. If this is a problem for you, please contact lethepress@aol.com
block quote end

As far as other things which are being added to my to be read pile, I'm going to be grabbing a copy of "The Tiger's Wife" by Téa Obreht in the Summer Fiction issue of the New Yorker (June 8), which is getting a lot of rave reviews from the Interstitial Arts crowd as a brilliant example of magical realism and fairy tale/folklore.
More about the story here
http://msnyder.typepad.com/the_labyrinth/2009/06/ta-obreht-the-tigers-wife.html

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