"Freedom"

My story "Freedom" is up today at The Piker Press! Set in the same world as my steampunk city Port Cedryssene, "Freedom" takes place on a Southern plantation where fauns are worked as slaves. A human boy of the plantation family falls in love with an enslaved faun, and with his cousin conspires to win -- or steal -- freedom for the faun boy he loves.

"Freedom" at The Piker Press

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It Gets Better - Dan Savage

In response to the recent suicide of Billy Lucas, a fifteen-year-old Indiana teenager who was taunted for being gay, Dan Savage has launched a new initiative, the It Gets Better Project, to communicate to young gay kids that their lives are not hopeless despite the bigotry and hatred they may encounter in their communities and from their families and so-called friends. As Dan tells it:

"My heart breaks for the pain and torment you went through, Billy Lucas," a reader wrote after I posted about Billy Lucas to my blog. "I wish I could have told you that things get better." I had the same reaction: I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.

But gay adults aren't allowed to talk to these kids. Schools and churches don't bring us in to talk to teenagers who are being bullied. Many of these kids have homophobic parents who believe that they can prevent their gay children from growing up to be gay—or from ever coming out—by depriving them of information, resources, and positive role models.

Why are we waiting for permission to talk to these kids? We have the ability to talk directly to them right now. We don't have to wait for permission to let them know that it gets better. We can reach these kids. So here's what you can do, GBVWS: Make a video. Tell them it gets better. I've launched a channel on YouTube to host these videos. My normally camera-shy husband and I already posted one.

Watch the beautiful, funny, touching, and hope-filled video above, and then go to the YouTube page and see how you can submit your own video message to gay kids. It will be noticed. It is necessary. Dan Savage quotes the man himself: "You gotta give 'em hope," Harvey Milk said.

It Gets Better Project (YouTube)

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"We Used to Wait" by The Arcade Fire

This creative video of the song "We Used to Wait" by The Arcade Fire is awesome, but the song itself is even awesomer! (Is "awesomer" a word? I declare it to be a word.) At the official website of the video, you can apparently (using Google Chrome) interact in some ways with the video -- I haven't tried that yet. Watch the video regardless, and use full screen and as high a resolution as you can -- there are a lot of little things going on here. And if you don't yet have the latest CD called The Suburbs by The Arcade Fire, get it now!

Arcade Fire - We Used To Wait (The Wilderness Downtown full experiment - HD 1080p) (YouTube)

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h/t Joe Jervis

Dmitri Hvorostovsky - Largo al factotum

I found this terrific video of Dmitri Hvorostovsky singing "Largo al factotum" from Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) this past week. I looked it up for my friend Danny, who couldn't recall having heard this before -- but he recognized it when he heard this! Hvorostovsky is great in this performance, and the video has fabulous sound as well. Enjoy!

Dmitri Hvorostovsky - Largo al factotum (Japan 2005) HD (YouTube)

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Writing Update

I used this picture for the visual appearance of Tucker Stone, the narrator of my story "The New Boy's Kiss," which will appear in the November issue of Collective Fallout.

More good writing news! First, the fourth and final part of my adventure tale "Flying Fox" went up this week at The Piker Press! Here's a link to part one of this exciting, fast moving tale of courage and survival. My story "Freedom" will go up at The Piker Press on September 20. (UPDATE: This one has been delayed until September 27.) One of the editors there, Sand Pilarski, really likes my work.

My werewolf murder tale, "The Hot Bolt Kids," set in my steampunk city Port Cedryssene, should go up at Aphelion Webzine any day now -- I'll post another update when it does.

I learned this past week that my contemporary vampire tale, "The New Boy's Kiss," will be published in the November issue of Collective Fallout, a journal of queer-themed short fiction, poetry, and art. This journal publishes both a print and a digital edition. "The New Boy's Kiss" is a tale of a gay kid who discovers that his boyfriend is becoming a vampire. It's the anti-"Twilight" -- bloody, hot, frightening, and queer. This is one story that I can't wait to see in print! UPDATE: An excerpt from "The New Boy's Kiss" is now available online at the Collective Fallout website.

Enjoy the tales, and please let me know what you think about them!

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