"The sky was brass. The earth was ashes."

Whenever I'm feeling glum about the way things are going, I turn to a certain form of therapy that's pretty damned effective: nonfiction accounts of trying times or tragic events in history. It's a surefire way of ending a personal pity party.

Here's what I learned during my most recent adjustment of perspective.

On the night of October 8, 1871, Chicago burned and some 250 people perished. But . . . as spectacular as the Great Chicago Fire was, it paled beside the inferno taking place, simultaneously, just over 200 miles to the north -- a large slice of hell that became the most destructive fire in U.S. history and the nation's third worst natural-disaster of any kind.

Bad enough the two arms of this conflagration devoured well over a million acres of white-pine and hardwood forests, as well as the farms and settlements that had been carved from those forests, and left behind a colorless wasteland. But in the vicinity of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, the fire became a fire storm -- its own superheated weather system, complete with tornadoes -- that made the earth resemble the surface of the sun.

The blaze was so intense it cracked boulders, melted metal, and spun sand into glass. It lifted at least one house off its foundation and caused it to explode in midair. Firebrands shot from the trees. Fireballs fell from the sky. Sheets and waves of fire canopied the land. Buildings and bodies went up like torches, instantly engulfed in flames.  

On both sides of the bay, people were suffocated or charred beyond recognition. Countless victims were incinerated down to small piles of ash. (One father could only identify his son's remains through a pocket knife sticking up from a mound of white powder.) Whole families were wiped out. The town of Peshtigo was annihilated. An entire ecosystem went up in smoke.

In other words, the fires that roared up both sides of Green Bay were nothing short of apocalyptic.

Estimates of fatalities range from 1,200 to 2,500. The Peshtigo River likely kept the death toll from exceeding 3,000. Clogged as it was with people, livestock, and burning logs, the river nevertheless provided the only refuge for the town's inhabitants. They endured it, if they could, for five eternal hours.

Help did not come quickly to stricken areas. Simply getting the word out was difficult. Telegraph lines had been destroyed and roads had been rendered impassable by fallen timber. Wagons had been consumed by flames and draft animals killed or crippled.

The suffering of the survivors was incalculable. Most were burned, or impaired by smoke inhalation. When the worst of the fire had passed, autumn's chill immediately returned. There was no food, no shelter, no adequate clothing to be had. And there was certainly no medical aid. In outlying areas, even water was impossible to find. Therefore, many people who'd made it through the fires subsequently died from their injuries or from starvation or renal failure. Months later, bodies were still being discovered in the scorched woods.

Slowly, Peshtigo rebuilt itself. So did the rest of the devastated region. In fact, when I was a girl, I spent part of each summer in the fire zone. There's a town just north of the city of Green Bay called Little Suamico (you can see its dot on the map above). My aunt and uncle had a primitive cottage up there, and it was my parents' vacation destination for many, many years. Little did I know as I gallivanted around those 40 acres that the most horrific fire in American history had raged over that very same patch of ground.

Right now, I'm not too inclined to complain about much of anything. ;-)

Meet Carny Indigo Jessup.

Okay, so he doesn't have ear buttons (and never will), and doesn't have tats yet (although they're in his near future), but this is pretty much what Carny Jessup looks like. He's the young hero of Carny's Magic, coming May 29 from Loose Id.

Here's his very condensed version of his story:

I'll get right to the point. The best part of my life began when my aunt’s homophobic squeeze smashed his fist into my face. That is no shit.

I already knew a wizard named Jackson Spey lived on my side of town, so I figured I’d turn things around by becoming his apprentice. Problem was, Spey didn’t want an apprentice. He was going through some kind of midlife crisis. All he wanted was to build beautiful furniture and have sex with his beautiful husband, Adin. 

He still took me in, though. Guess he felt sorry for me. And the red paths I’d been seeing in the air really intrigued him.

Hey, I’m only 19, so how could I have foreseen the rest? That I’d fall for a breathtaking boy named Peter, who was at the center of some strange magic tied to Jackson’s past. And I’d have to deal with a sorcerer named Bezod, an evil pig who plagued all four of us and threatened to destroy our relationships.

But . . . sometimes you just have to fight for what’s right. Like love. I might’ve been new to the boyfriend gig and Jackson might’ve been a reluctant wizard, but when the time came, we were ready to kick some supernatural ass.    

Katrina Strauss, you got some splainin' to do!

Hey. HEY. What's up with this?

And this?

(I'd know those nipples anywhere!)

Girl, if I didn't like your books so much, 

I'd rat you out to Chris at Stumbling Over Chaos!

Best Blurb Ever for a Book in Our Genre!

A bible doesn't have to be banged . . .

I've pretty much been ear-deep in edits lately (for Carny's Magic, my May 29 Loose Id release), so between that, my domestic obligations, and shopping for nonfiction books -- I've recently developed a craving for them -- I haven't paid much attention to anything else. I realized, sort of at the last minute, that I had a release on Wednesday. But since I was on a tight edit-deadline, I didn't pay that much mind, either. (Besides, what can you do aside from letting readers know your title is available? When a book's out, it's out. Pimp-hammering the hell out of people doesn't accomplish much.)

Anyway, my search for new books resulted in the usual link-following. I'll admit I'm easily distracted. :)  A study of the 1856 Mormon handcart-pioneer tragedy eventually led me to Marie Sexton's Between Sinners and Saints, which I've wanted to read since it came out. Like Marie's other excellent books, this one is highly regarded. But plenty of readers still took issue, however delicately, with the story's religious content.

I'd had a little knot in my stomach before A Hole in God's Pocket was released. The knot returned. 'Cause I ain't Marie Sexton.

Often, any m/m romance that centers on the subject of questioning one's faith invites a certain reaction complete with certain words. I've encountered this before, and I'm sure other writers have too. Whether a character is criticizing or defending his (or his love interest's) beliefs, or simply trying to explain the nature of his spiritual conundrum, the author is setting him/herself up for charges of being "preachy" or "heavy-handed"; of "lecturing" or "sermonizing."

This bothers me. A lot.

How can an individual or a couple work through such a profound dilemma without pondering or discussing it? Communication is part and parcel of relationship-building. It leads to understanding, to closeness. Character conversations that center on faith, or doubt, don't mean the author is trying to make converts. They don't constitute either evangelical sermons or atheistic diatribes. They're simply a means to the end that readers of m/m romance are always looking for: character self-acceptance, and intimacy grounded in mutual respect.

Here's an extract from an earlier post about A Hole in God's Pocket. I hope it offers some insights that will allay readers' fears. (And if it doesn't, I'm sorry to disappoint you.)          

What drove me to write the book (in addition to my lifelong fascination with human belief systems) was something I'd read online a while back, an opinion piece by a queer guy who lamented how the issue of spirituality was usually overlooked in queer fiction. He was right.

Authors don't hesitate to cast fundamentalist homophobes as villains, which is perfectly understandable and justified, but not many in the m/m romance genre want to tackle the importance of faith in the lives of gay men and the painful struggle that often results when orientation clashes with theology. None of the so-called Abrahamic religions -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in nearly all their various sectarian manifestations -- takes a kind view of [deviations from strict] heterosexuality.

So I considered the difference between Christian manifestos disguised as fiction (the Left Behind series, for example) and religious faith as a theme in fiction. Although I still haven't breathed a sigh of relief, the difference quickly became apparent. The aim of evangelical writers is, essentially, to proselytize. Spreading the Word is part and parcel of their raison d'etre. But the rest of us, whether it's Marie Sexton or Andrew Grey or Shelter Somerset or authors of "literary" GLBTQ stories, aren't ideologues. We're simply trying to examine a significant and often troubling issue that shouldn't be ignored.

It's here.

At this location, and soon at others.

The Trans Man Who Loved Me

Most of the stories I write are made up. This one isn't. This one's true.

A long time ago -- in the early '80s, to be more exact -- I lived in a resort area and worked at a country inn that had a casual but quite excellent restaurant. (See, this is the kind of job you end up with when you have a couple of useless degrees and decide the corporate world isn't for you.) One of the cooks was from a nearby city. He was a gay man, the one I mentioned in my post, "Don't Want No Corvette Cocks," at the Chicks and Dicks blog. I think I called him Billy. Two or three of Billy's gay friends would often visit him on weekends. One was, technically, bi. I'll call him Carl. He was rather effeminate and had a decided preference for men, but once in a blue moon he would crush on a woman. I became a member of that exclusive club. And, believe me, it was pretty damned exclusive. Carl figured he'd had about 500 male lovers and maybe 10 or 12 who were female. (HIV-AIDS hadn't yet, by the way, made a significant incursion into that part of the country.)

This resort area in general and the inn owners in particular were rather laid back and liberal. So Billy and his circle of friends had no real problem finding acceptance. Except for one buddy, Sal, who was a talented silversmith. He had a great sense of humor and was every bit as much fun as Billy's other friends. Problem was, Sal was perceived as a "bull dyke" instead of a man. Because he was born female.

Testosterone injections and sex reassignment surgeries were as expensive then as they are now, and a whole lot harder to come by. There was no way a humble artisan could afford either one. Public understanding was even more elusive. Not much press had been given to transgender persons.

When Sal became infatuated with me, I didn't know what to make of it. When Sal became jealous and resentful of my relationship with Carl (because Sal considered himself far more masculine -- and, in many ways, was), I became even more confused. In an attempt to understand, I visited Sal at his jewelry shop. We had a long and enlightening visit. It was the first time I'd heard anyone talk about being born into the wrong body, about feeling a severe and disturbing disconnect between his physical person and the one who was trapped inside him. I got it, though. His sincerity was impossible not to get.

Sal kept telling me, "Try it; you'll like it" (his exact words). He meant having an intimate relationship with him. The appeal left me dumbstruck. I was 75% straight woman and 25% gay man. That mix didn't allow for attraction to Sal. In fact, I wouldn't have been attracted to Sal, except as a friend, had he been born a heterosexual male. I didn't want to say that, though, because I didn't want to hurt his feelings. All I could say was, "I don't think it would work," and apologize.

It was an intensely uncomfortable situation all around. I had a mostly gay lover (and dealt with over-the-bar snark and scorn from one of my former straight-dude hookups because of it). I had a transgender "admirer" who was hung up on me and stared daggers at Carl whenever we were together. Poor innocent Billy didn't know what to do, since we were all his friends. I was guilt-ridden as hell and had no idea how to make any of it better. So I just rode it out.

Six or seven years later, I wrote a novel called Every Long Season in which there's a main character modeled after Sal. It was pretty good but pretty grim, and I never submitted it anywhere, because back then, nobody would have wanted it. In a way, the story was my apology to Sal for feeling his pain and not being able to do a damned thing about it except try to comprehend it. I couldn't change who I was any more than he could change who he was.

So what's my point? I guess it's this. Regardless of our open-mindedness and good intentions, we can't be everything to everybody. Guilt is pointless. We can (and should) be understanding and sympathetic and supportive, we can (and should) try to fight the good fight or help others fight it, but at some level we're immutable. We can't alter the essentials of who and what we are. From our prenatal lives onward, a host of forces shape us. Tastes and opinions can and often do change, but we can't simply morph from one mindset into another or replace an aversion with a preference because we or other people would like us to. And that isn't bad, unless it's . . . BAD. Like mean-spirited and destructive. Like abusive-partner and serial-rapist and mass-murderer and child-molester bad; like con-man and Somali-pirate and Westboro Baptist Church bad. However, if someone is simply trying to do the best he can with the hand he's been dealt, he's doing okay, as far as I'm concerned. It's all about the Golden Rule.

I couldn't help being reminded of this chapter in my life when Jessewave got thrown into the centrifuge. We writers and readers of m/m romance aren't narrow-minded numbskulls. Hell, we wouldn't have anything to do with this genre if we were. But we can't be everything to everybody -- no matter how warmly we embrace the rainbow in our hearts and, whenever we can, in our daily lives. That doesn't make us "stupid" or "juvenile" or "despicable." It sure as shit doesn't make us any kind of "phobic." And we aren't "oppressors." Lordie, people, think about the meanings of words before you start flinging them around like toxic confetti!

I wish there weren't so many blame-throwers around, so many self-appointed arbiters of righteousness. What the hell is with that? Do they think they can read our souls? I wish people who routinely got on their high-horses would fucking dismount once and for all. Can't all these sniffy, judgmental individuals see that most of us aren't shit-for-brains ignoramuses or evildoers? Can't they see we're not trying to hurt or disrespect anybody before they go into full-tilt, finger-pointing boogie mode?

Guess not. But it would benefit the human population a whole lot more if they targeted the true and frightening enemies of GLBTQ people. There are a Million Moms out there, for starters, to fuel their disgust.

Jackson and Adin . . . and Carny

Here's another excerpt from Carny's Magic (unedited), 

coming June 12 from Loose Id.

Taking pity on Carny Jessup, the battered 19-year-old who wants to be his apprentice, the wizard offers to temporarily take him in. Carny is the narrator. He sometimes has trouble keeping his foot out of his mouth.

*

“You don’t have a place to go, do you?” Jackson asks.

“I can find one.” Yeah, maybe for a day or two.

I suddenly realize I haven’t thought this through very well. My acquaintances either don’t have the room to accommodate me or wouldn’t welcome the intrusion. Or both. I haven’t made a secret of being gay, so that could be another issue. My last resort would be a sex-for-shelter trade, but that kind of arrangement seriously rubs me the wrong way. As much as I enjoy nookie, I don’t like being expected to put out. Especially for some gnome with a sense of entitlement. Man, I’d feel like a drop-kicked piece of shit.

“So stay here until you find a place,” Adin says. “We have the room. And we obviously don’t have an issue with your being gay.”

I’m kind of flabbergasted. Call me a cynic, or a dreamer, but I’m beginning to wonder if they want to get some kind of ménage thing going. That harness I saw tells me they’re not a totally vanilla couple, and considering their ages (thirtyish to fortyish), maybe one of them has a hankering for a twink, even though I don’t see myself that way.

I’m not sure how I feel about this possibility. I mean, yeah, they’re both hot as hell, but—

“Something wrong?” Jackson asks.

Apparently my forehead’s been collapsing toward my nose. Only now do I feel it. “Uh…you’re not, like, looking for…” Fuck. How do I say this? “Do you kind of want…a third?”

Now Jackson’s forehead is collapsing. He stops chewing and stares at me. “A third what?”

Adin’s trying unsuccessfully to hold in a smile. “I think he means dick.”

Jackson swallows with effort. “Huh?”

Oh, man. Now Adin is snickering and Jackson is looking back and forth between us and I want to grab my faux-twink ass by the back of my pants and pitch myself out the door. “I maybe didn’t say that right,” I mumble. “I mean, I don’t…I’m just trying to figure out why—”

My throat seals when Jackson’s eyebrows hitch up, like he suddenly gets what I meant. “Are you serious?”

Adin rises from his chair to clear the table. He’s sort of bent over because he’s trying to contain his laughter but can’t. I get up too, mostly to pull myself free of Jackson’s color-shifting eyes. But they continue to follow my every move.

“You think we're looking for a playmate?”

He’s so incredulous, I now feel like a drop-kicked piece of shit that’s broken into a hundred little turdlets. So of course I get defensive and lash out again. “How am I supposed to know what you’re after? It wouldn’t be the strangest thing in the world for a couple of middle-aged queers to want—”

Uh-oh.

Jackson shoots up from his chair like a goddamn rocket. Dishes and silverware clink together. Good thing my hands are empty, because he grabs me by the shirtfront and literally yanks me onto my tiptoes. I’m five-eleven, so I’m no midget, but he’s got to be at least six-three. That gives him four inches of lifting room. His iron fist bumps the underside of my chin. Fucker’s got big hands and plenty of muscle to put them to good use. I wouldn’t be surprised if he battled demons by punching out their lights.

“You want me to mentor you?” he says in a low, graveled voice. It’s like a fine spray of grit hitting my eardrums. “Okay, here’s Lesson Number One: learn…some…respect.” He hangs onto me a few seconds longer.

I swallow, feeling my Adam’s apple bob along his knuckles, and eke out a nod. “Sorry,” I whisper. Forming the word feels strange to my mouth. I don’t use it often.

“FYI, we don’t want or need a ‘third’.”

Adin returns from the kitchen and gives me a reassuring pat on the back. “Believe me, Jackson has enough cock for two men.”

The Poop Shelf

The original is HERE, on Tumblr.

Religion in Popular Fiction

Ever eager to acquire fodder for my still-kinda-new Kindle, I recently downloaded a free read titled Scream.  (You all probably know horror is my second fictional love.) The novel sounded promising. I didn't bother searching for reviews because, hell, it was free.

After downloading it, I did check its reviews. The book wasn't criticized for its premise or its bad craftsmanship. (From what little I read of Scream, the author's style was workmanlike and inoffensive, and the story's opening provided a solid hook.) Rather, the publisher was criticized -- for not informing readers upfront that this was CHRISTIAN fiction.

Whoopsie. But who would've guessed? It's classified as a horror novel, for crying out loud, and the cover clearly signals that.

When I saw one Goodreads commenter complain that the book "went born-again" halfway through, I decided to delete it from my Kindle. Evangelical testimony, regardless of the guise it's wearing, tends to trigger my gag reflex.

Still, this experience got me thinking.

First, I wondered if publishers should slap some sort of descriptive tag on "inspirational" fiction. (I hate that term, by the way. In my world, all good fiction is inspirational. And dogmatic fiction is rarely good.) Doing so makes sense. Many readers find such content objectionable, just as many readers find erotic or violent content objectionable. Granted, it's usually easy to steer clear of the inspie stuff -- either the blurb or the name of the house or imprint will alert you to it -- but, obviously, readers are sometimes fooled. Free or not, I would've been royally pissed if I'd invested any time in reading this book, only to discover it was a "Jesus Saves" tract.

What do you think? Would an alert be appropriate?

Then I started fretting a little over how my next release will be received. Religious faith is an integral part of A Hole in God's Pocket. What drove me to write the book (in addition to my lifelong fascination with human belief systems) was something I'd read online a while back, an opinion piece by a queer guy who lamented how the issue of spirituality was usually overlooked in queer fiction.

He was right. Authors don't hesitate to cast fundamentalist homophobes as villains, which is perfectly understandable and justified, but not many in the m/m romance genre want to tackle the importance of faith in the lives of gay men and the painful struggle that often results when orientation clashes with theology. None of the so-called Abrahamic religions -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in nearly all their various sectarian manifestations -- takes a kind view of non-heterosexuality.

So I considered the difference between Christian manifestos disguised as fiction (the Left Behind series, for example) and religious faith as a theme in fiction. Although I still haven't breathed a sigh of relief, the difference quickly became apparent. The aim of evangelical writers is, essentially, to proselytize. Spreading the Word is part and parcel of their raison d'etre. But the rest of us, whether it's Marie Sexton or Andrew Grey or Shelter Somerset or authors of "literary" GLBTQ stories, aren't ideologues. We're simply trying to examine a significant and often troubling issue that shouldn't be ignored.

Book Lovers, Beware!

Interior of Collyer brothers' home, 1947

Last night's episode of "Hoarders" on A&E featured a Chicago couple so fond of books, they'd managed to accumulate hundreds of thousands of volumes (by one estimate, possibly more than 500k). Over the course of 40 years, their home had turned into a warren of floor-to-ceiling stacks and shelves, and aisles so narrow, an adult had to ease sideways down each one. Landslides often occurred -- tumbling towers of tomes that could easily bury or at least brain a person.

People (I wanted to scream at the TV), haven't you heard of e-books? And I hugged my Kindle.

This show dovetailed with a nonfiction piece I happen to be reading (thanks again for the tip, Val!) Ghosty Men is about the legendary Collyer brothers, a pair of eccentrics who literally hoarded themselves to death in their once-mansion-like Harlem brownstone. (Homer & Langley by E.L. Doctorow is a fictionalized version of their story.) Sad to say, even e-books wouldn't have saved these guys.


The obsessive-compulsive disorder that is hoarding has always fascinated me. I've known people with this disease and I've seen, firsthand, the results of it. As much as I recoil from clutter-gone-wild, I understand the allure of frenetic collecting. Hardcover books, especially old ones, have always been a Siren song to me. The same is true of vintage Christmas decorations and folk art. If life hadn't staged multiple interventions and regularly forced me to rid myself of possessions, my collecting could easily have gotten out of hand.

So, to reinforce this cautionary tale and to celebrate Read an E-book Week, here are more period photos of the Collyer brothers' residence. (And you know what? As foul as this place was, and as tragic as Homer's and Langley's fate, I still find myself zeroing in on all the antiques and feeling covetous!)

Junk removal begins.

Check out the windows!

Can you make out the body on the sea of garbage? That's Langley, crushed and rat-gnawed. By the time he was "unearthed,"  he'd been dead over a month. Homer, who was blind and totally dependent on his brother, died of starvation shortly thereafter, also in a bunker of trash.