"White Fire" is here!

It's here! My story "White Fire" is now available for your consideration at Gypsy Shadow Publishing. "White Fire" is an adventure tale about a young faun who arrives in the glittering metropolis of Port Cedryssene just minutes before enraged gryphons attack the city. The faun escapes the slaughter in Port Cedryssene's train station knowing that one of the gryphons is after him, and in his quest for safety the faun finds another boy his age and falls in love. Please feel free to comment here with your opinions of the story!

^..^

Coming Soon: White Fire

Click on picture to enlarge.

Good news! My short story "White Fire" should be going up in the next couple of weeks at Gypsy Shadow Publishing! Here's a preview of the cover for the story. "White Fire" is an adventure tale about a young faun who arrives in the glittering metropolis of Port Cedryssene just minutes before enraged gryphons attack the city. The faun escapes the slaughter in Port Cedryssene's train station knowing that one of the gryphons is after him, and in his quest for safety the faun finds another boy his age and falls in love. I'll let everyone know when the story goes up at Gypsy Shadow.

^..^

"How Caravaggio saw in the dark"

A fascinating look at the recent growth in popularity of my favorite artist, Caravaggio:

But there is a more profound reason still for the fascination Caravaggio exerts over the 21st century: he carried out one of the most startling revolutions in the history of art, and one that still seems strangely modern. The visceral violence and eroticism of his work are only an aspect of the extraordinary realism he achieved. His painting was utterly different from that of his predecessors and contemporaries. It looks, to put it in modern terms, like a film noir. As David Hockney has put it: “He invented a black world that had not existed before, certainly not in Florence or Rome. Caravaggio invented Hollywood lighting.” And that resemblance may be no accident.

Much more vivid detail in the article itself, including discussion of a technique possibly used by Caravaggio to project images of his models onto the canvas that fell afoul of the anti-science Inquisition, with the Church banning books and burning heretics as a result.

Caravaggio lived quite a life – scandal! Murder! Gay sex! Someday Hollywood is going to tackle this one with (I hope) a director who can do it justice. Meanwhile, I should go see if Derek Jarman’s intelligent and fascinating film about Caravaggio is on DVD – it’s been years since I saw it.

“How Caravaggio saw in the dark” (The Telegraph)

^..^

Coming Soon!

My story "Flying Fox" will go up at The Piker Press on August 9!






The Arcade Fire has a new CD coming out on August 3, entitled The Suburbs.

Don't let any opera singers cover these tunes, okay?

^..^

Answers About Gay Youth in New York from Kai Wright

Author Kai Wright is an advocate for LGBT youth. He recently answered some questions on that topic in a three-part article in the New York Times. Lots of interesting and hope-inspiring comments. Like me, Wright believes strongly in reaching out to the next generation of gay youth:

Personally, I think out gay educators offer students wonderful opportunities to learn not just about diversity but also the critical thinking it fosters. There are obvious political challenges, which stretch past sexual orientation. Teachers from all walks of life are too often discouraged from bringing their full selves to the classroom, to my mind. But I won’t wade too deeply into education policy, lest I show how little I know.

More broadly, I’ll say that adults working with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth consistently report their greatest challenge is people power: There just aren’t enough adults willing to enter into what are by any measure challenging relationships. The cross-generational communication challenges are enormous and filled with assumptions and misunderstandings on both sides. There’s just not a lot of trust between gay youth and adults, in part because there is so little contact between them.

In addition, the significant baggage many gay adults have with their own youth (who wants to go back there?) can make it difficult for some to step up to the challenge.

I particularly liked one of the questions, which was about the advantages of being a gay youth.

It’s not so much that being gay offers an advantage, but it opens doors to meet other remarkable, dynamic gay young people who are building healthy, exciting lives that never make it into the headlines or broadcasts.

I do believe there is something positive that, while not unique to gay youth, is at least a quintessential part of the gay experience: having to step forward and make an active choice about building the life you want rather than the one you’ve been told you should lead. The debate over whether sexual orientation is a choice makes this a delicate point, but it’s an important one nonetheless. You do, in fact, have a choice as a gay person, of any age. It’s the choice between living honestly versus trying to suppress or conceal your sexuality. In my opinion, society pushes hard against making the former choice, particularly if you’re a young person who is still materially (and emotionally) dependent on family. Even before getting to the external barriers, there are many internal ones: the fear of being singled out, of being alone, of taking a step with no idea about what comes next. Someone who nonetheless chooses to build the life that feels true to them has been through a remarkable rite of passage.

It is not an easy road being gay, and it certainly hasn't been easy for me as over the years I've wrestled with accepting that part of my being. But now that I've completely accepted myself as gay and am confident about being gay, as I was when I first became aware that I'm gay as a teenager, I often feel that I wouldn't want to be any other way. When you're gay you see the world differently, and I love knowing I can be honest and caring about guys without the fear and competition that straight men go through with each other. Anyway, check out all three parts of Kai Wright's Q&A; it's very good.

Answers About Gay Youth in New York (The New York Times):
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

^..^

Remembering and Teaching Gay History

Harvey Milk walking from the Castro to San Francisco City Hall on the day of his inauguration to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, January 8, 1978. (Photo by Danny Nicoletta)

Remembering our history via a blog post by Dan Zak. I’ve been recently reminded that the younger generation, the next group of gay youth to grow into their lives with more confidence than us older gays did, may not know the history of how we – and they – got here; how we arrived a point where past gay warriors have wrought for these inspiring young people a world that, though not yet perfect, is far better than it was three-four-five decades ago.

For a demographic that was once so twined with mortality, the gays have gotten good (or have they always been good?) at focusing on the now, the young, the ephemeral. Today’s gays — the gays of my generation, the millennials, the 20-somethings — are post-gay, or New Gay, loosed from the closet, free of the diving bell of AIDS-as-executioner, left to skirmish over (or ignore) petty legislative battles on a state-by-state or school-by-school basis. The “end of gay culture” has been journaled for nearly a generation now. What about gay history? Is that ending too? From Sappho to Prop 8, and then what? Now what? Yearly parades celebrating outrageousness, tempered by the tired yammerings of marriage defenders?

I want to remind these youth and teach them about the gay men and women who should be their heroes; I want these young gay people to know about and remember the struggles that came in the past, to learn about Harvey Milk and Harry Hay and the many others like them who faced down bigotry so entrenched in society that it took great leaps of imagination – and great courage – to take those first steps toward equality. The schools don’t yet teach this; it is up to us to make sure our history is passed along.

"On pride" (Dan Zak)

^..^

(h/t Andrew Sullivan)

What They Always Tell Us, by Martin Wilson

So, based on this comment by Brent, LGBT teen blogger extraordinaire…

Destinie and I spent our days in Borders and on Amazon.com looking for gay characters. The only ones we could find were the ones in the adult section (not that we were complaining! Have you read those steamy, passionate sex scenes? *Sigh*). I found one that seemed like what we were looking for. What They Always Tell Us by Martin Wilson. I read it. Then Destinie read it. We talked about. And cried about it. People really write about this stuff? I thought. It felt . . . great. Imagine that you are an alien on your own planet. And imagine you find out that there are more aliens, just like you, on your planet. And imagine what it would be like–to know that someone knows what it’s like. What you’re going through.

…I decided to start my exploration of this new LGBT YA world with the book he mentions by Martin Wilson.

I’m about 80 or so pages into it.

Damn it.

Goddamn it.

I simply love this book. Wilson captures everything about finding that first love perfectly. And I’ve started to tear up several times already from the sheer and utter sweetness of following Alex and his growing friendship with Nathen.

This book is utterly amazing. Read it. Yes, that means you.

^..^

UPDATE: I’m now about 170 pages into What They Always Tell Us. For one thing, I’ve read plenty of “grown-up” novels that don’t have characters quite as vivid and real as Martin Wilson has created here. Second, the events of the story itself, what Alex goes through especially in his relationship with Nathen, so deeply affect me that I sometimes have to stop reading. I’m almost afraid to continue, as if I’m thinking, “This novel cannot keep up the same level of quality, can it?” It does. And finally, why wasn’t this book around when I was sixteen? This one is special, and utterly priceless.

Gay Teen Blogger Blasts School, Public Librarians

An outstanding interview with Brent, the awesome author of the post on LGBT YA lit that I highlighted a couple of weeks ago. I love this bit:

How did it make you feel when your middle school librarian told you LGBT novels were inappropriate?
Can I cuss in this interview? I felt disgusted. And pissed at her.

Here's your chance to get it off your chest. Say something to her.
Get over it. Get over your prejudice. It doesn't matter. It's not your place to judge what kids should read based on your prejudices.

Read the whole thing; it’s well worth it.

"Gay Teen Blogger Blasts School, Public Librarians" (School Library Journal)

^..^

"If a guy saves my ass, he sure as hell can look at it."

Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic offers a fascinating look at the current level of acceptance of gays in the military. You may be quite surprised at straight soldiers' attitudes, especially as one of Ambinder’s examples involves Special Forces. Plus, did we gays just lose an important end-DADT ally with McChrystal’s removal from command?*

Maybe McChrystal is unique in the special forces (SOF) community, but I tend to think not. In fact, having spent quite a bit of time recently with current and former special forces soldiers, I find that McChrystal's views on gays seem to be the rule rather than the exception. Given the traditional outline of the gays-in-the-military debate, one might think that the special forces soldiers, guys from traditional military families who spend unusual amounts of time in close quarters, would be the most opposed to having gays serve openly. My admittedly limited experience suggests that this is not the case. As one former member of a special missions unit put it to me recently, "It's really about competence. If you're competent, it doesn't matter who you are." And then, switching instantly from an analytical posture to a machismo mode, he said, "If a guy saves my ass, he sure as hell can look at it."

Read the rest; it actually offers hope.

*For the record, Obama really had no choice but to relieve McChrystal of his command. But one wonders what influence McChrystal may have had on the ongoing debate about DADT if he'd been able to stick around.

"McChrystal's Social Liberalism and the Integration of Gays in the Military" (The Atlantic)

^..^

Books with gay themes for young readers take off

Okay, so recently I started writing short stories featuring young gay people, thinking that the tales would be too quirky to get published but, what the hey. Well, so far one of these stories has been published and another one is on the way. A third very nearly got published, and I have high hopes for the gay teen vampire story the same editor is considering right now. Then last week we saw the excellent post from Brent about LGBT YA books. And I realized -- wait a minute. There are people actually doing this already. And the LGBT kids love it! (I had some positive feedback from a couple of them regarding my story "Wolf Dreams.") Anyway, here's a good overview of the entire phenomenon, kicking off from -- you guessed it -- Brent's excellent blog post from last week. Check it out -- I have to get back to writing more of these stories!

"Books with gay themes for young readers take off" (MercuryNews.com)

^..^

Watching The Defectives, from Joe.My.God.

Joe Jervis reposts this essay every June at his excellent blog, Joe.My.God. There is not a thing I can add to this; you just need to go over there and read it. Joe talks about gay culture and the assimilationists who want gays to drop what the assimilationists see as the excesses of pride parades. Joe's response: fuck that. This is a marvelously heartfelt piece. I hope Joe posts this every damned year – it’s outstanding.

Watching The Defectives (Joe.My.God.)

^..^

The Fear Factor

Here’s a look at the cowards who are too scared to go on the record as being against gay marriage. They’re scared? How do they think gays feel when we get bashed for walking down the street, for simply living our lives; when we’re murdered because some timid hetero is afraid of catching gay cooties from our close proximity; when gay kids get beaten and shot by their classmates? Violence and intimidation are no ways to respond to your political opponents, and any gay marriage proponents who engage in such behavior should stop, now. But let’s get one thing clear: this is a democracy, and the only thing secret about it is the ballot. Everything else requires the clear light of day so this country can find its way out of the morass of bigotry and prejudice saddled upon us since our founding. The anti-gay cowards can get back to us when THEY STOP MAKING GAYS AFRAID EVERY FUCKING DAY in some parts of this country.

“The Fear Factor: What happens to democracy when everyone's too scared to show up?” (Slate)

^..^

Hopeless

The Arcade Fire -- the real deal. Accept no substitutes.

Oh my FSM. This classical music blogger sums it up perfectly. A marvelous analysis of everything that is wrong with Renée Fleming’s new CD, Dark Hope.

The same mistakes are repeated all over the record – Band of Horses’ sparse ballad “No One’s Gonna Love You” is transformed into a half-hearted syrupy mess. Willy Mason’s naïve “Oxygen” becomes overworked with the addition of synthesized strings.

What do you think would happen if you tried to put these strings on one of Renée’s classical albums? How is it ok here? Is there a good reason to accept lower standards because it’s a rock record?

No, there is no good reason, and that’s what forms the glaring fault at the heart of this project. Compliments for Renée’s voice, but what the hell were they thinking with these arrangements? They’re timid and totally without character. As with any other cover of a song, the artist has to have a point in doing it in the first place – what are you trying to say that wasn’t said in the original? Somebody grabbed some indie tunes for Renée to sing and did nothing to make her versions count. Coming on the heels of what I consider one of Renée Fleming’s finest CDs (Verismo), Dark Hope is just embarrassing. The bright hope is that they won’t try this again.

“A hope in the dark: Renée Fleming’s rock album” (Proper Discord)

^..^

"Flying Fox" will be coming your way soon!

Good news arrived today – Sand Pilarski at The Piker Press has accepted my story “Flying Fox,” a tale inspired by the intrepid Daisy Mora of Columbia. Daisy travels to school each day on a zipline a quarter-mile above a river. The links below are my posts on this brave kid, and they include pictures, links, and a video of Daisy making the trip. Incredibly awesome! “Flying Fox” is a fun adventure tale, and it should go up at The Piker Press sometime in late July or early August.

Children take flying fox to school

Braver Than I Thought...

Fasten Your Seat Belts!

^..^

What's Life Like For Gay Kids In Public Schols?

Last week, NPR's Talk of the Nation did a segment on gay kids in public schools -- their experiences, fears, hopes, and what people are doing to help them. Here's a link to a recording of the segment along with a transcript. It's quite good, although some of what you will hear about what these kids have to go through I find terribly angering. If you want to look at the depths of shitty behavior amongst people who think they're far more righteous than the rest of us, look no further than the way gay kids get treated today. Here's an excerpt of what gays, and not just the kids, have to go through:

BRANDON (Caller): Hi. I am a queer teacher in Columbus, and the big thing I've noticed, the big problem that I have had, is I live in a state where it is still legal to fire someone for being gay.

So I cannot fully support my students who are going through the same troubles I went through in high school without risking my job and my livelihood. I cannot come to them without drawing attention to myself, and always worrying what will be the ramifications of that and what will ultimately be the lesson that they get from that - when they see someone helps them and then gets punished for it.

I so often have to support the right of students to say things in my classroom that I find abhorrent, that are insulting and discriminatory against me, but it's under this guise of every voice has a right to be said. But at the same time, I don't have the right to really give the ability for students who need the voice, who are so invisible, to have that safety without putting myself at risk.

Another excerpt focusing on the bigotry gay kids experience (emphasis mine):

While there are protections under the umbrella of Title 9 at the federal level, there are not non-discrimination protections for employment for LGBT people at the federal level. That's why we're trying to pass a law called ENDA. And in fact, in eight states in this country, there are laws that specifically prohibit positive discussions of homosexuality in public schools.

Now, these laws vary in terms of what they actually cover, but what we see in our research is that in laws - such as Arizona, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina and Texas, the effect of that law is that teachers in those states, whether they are LGBT or straight, are less likely to intervene when they witness anti-LGBT harassment and name-calling in their schools. And they also, sadly - in those states you are more likely to have students report that teachers themselves are making derogatory comments.

So the prohibition on positive comments is also seen as a license to say negative things themselves.

Nationwide, we have a problem with teachers not intervening when they witness this behavior. Eighty percent of LGBT students report that teachers who witness this behavior rarely or never intervene. And half of LGBT students report that they don't bother telling anyone when they face name-calling, harassment or assault at school because they don't think anything will be done.

There is hope, though -- the straight classmates of gay kids do learn when it's pointed out to them:

Just the other day, I was working with some students and there were a fair - I would say over half the class would go(ph), well, what's the big deal? It's OK. You know, whatever, kids are gay. And then there were others in the class - and this was so inspiring - they said, you know, I never realized when I said "that's so gay" that I was really hurting somebody. I'm not going to say that again. So I saw hope, and I see change.

Take time to read or listen to the whole thing. And keep in mind, you may well know one of these kids who are suffering from this and cannot tell anyone. What you say and how you act count for so much in their lives.

What's Life Like For Gay Kids In Public Schols? (Talk of the Nation, NPR)

^..^

Renée Fleming's Dark Hope

I finally found a chance to listen to Renée Fleming's new CD, Dark Hope. My opinion is divided. Renée's voice is perfect on this disc, both bluesy and beautiful in all the right ways and far surpassing her run at jazz and soft pop on her CD Haunted Heart, which wasn't bad at all. But she has found a better and more substantial voice for pop/rock music here. The Renée Fleming fan in me is very, very happy.

However, the arrangements of the songs on Dark Hope are a little too MOR for my taste -- the rock fan in me wants more energy and aggression. My keystone song on the CD is "Intervention," originally done by The Arcade Fire on their CD, Neon Bible. This is an angry song with huge operatic themes and emotions (see the video, which is well-accompanied by clips from Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin). Ironically, in the hands of the greatest active operatic soprano, this arrangement of "Intervention" fails to reach those emotional heights.

Renée Fleming, with that perfect voice, would be better served with more aggressive arrangements of all of these songs -- her delivery of the Letter Scene in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin has more emotional heft to it. So, my feelings about this CD are mixed. A missed opportunity in many ways. Renée delivered, but perhaps the fears of the producers kept the balance of the songs' imprint a bit too tame. Damn, this CD had the potential to be great.



^..^

I’ll miss the Angus Burgers but I won’t miss the bigotry

Well, this certainly is a rotten turn of events. McDonalds COO Don Thompson says, regarding the absolutely charming French McDonalds ad featuring the gay kid that went viral recently, “[T]hat commercial won’t show in the United States." Without irony, moments before he says this, as he preps us for that lovely declaration, he says, "I’ve never shied away from the fact that I’m a Christian. I have my own personal beliefs and I don’t impose those on anybody else."

Well, I have my own personal beliefs about where I spend my money for greasy fast food, and it will no longer be with McDonalds and their Christianist-bigot corporate staff. This article at The Edge Boston (from which the above quotes were taken) goes on to present a more rational look at how marketing and advertising should work in this era:

At Marketwatch.com, Thomas Kostigen wrote in his June 4 Ethics Watch column that the move’s reflection of "inclusive advertising" was as step in the right direction for a host of reasons.

"Companies should advertise to reach the largest number of customers for their products," Kostigen write. "Sexual orientation should just be another demographic in the mix, and just as with all the other groups, advertising should be done well. Yet there is a larger social responsibility when dealing with certain groups and minorities; a bigger, positive message can be had."

Kostigen went on to write that, "it’s important for companies to think beyond the aspect of commercialism and see the larger social benefit in advertising to, and hopefully attracting more customers based on minority status: they are in a subtle, powerful and effective way saying: ’It’s OK who you are. You are welcome here.’ "

I cannot get this quote, which I heard back when this story first broke, out of my head:

Though the ad has yet to air outside of France, the executive director of the Canadian equality group EGALE, Helen Kennedy, praised the spot, saying, "It’s very encouraging for gay youth to see themselves reflected in such mainstream media."

I can’t imagine how much a commercial like this would have meant to me back when I was the age of the boy in the ad. I can imagine how much it might mean to a gay teen in the U.S. today. To all the bigots out there: someday the citizens of this nation will look back on this period of religious-based hatred that you represent, and like your racist predecessors you will be covered with shame and reprobation.

As for Mickey D’s, I’ll miss the Angus Burgers but I won’t miss the bigotry.

"Gay-Positive French McDonald’s Ad Won’t Air in U.S." (The Edge Boston)

^..^

Contested Will is a Great, nay, TREMENDOUS Book!

I recently finished reading James Shaprio’s marvelous book, Contested Will. Michael Feingold writes in his terrific review of it at the Village Voice:

With sardonic aptness, James Shapiro, a Shakespeare scholar at Columbia, chooses Garrick's adoration as the starting point for his new book, Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?, a rueful history of Shakespeare worship's darker side. For it seems that even in a field as narrow as dramatic poetry, once you declare that a god has walked the earth, satanic forces must instantly spring up to deny him. From Garrick's veneration of Shakespeare's unearthly powers, a counter-assumption was born: A lowly actor from a small-town background, like "the man from Stratford," could not possibly have written these extraordinary plays.

With even-handed compassion, Shapiro chronicles the slow but steady growth of this dark belief, from its first scholarly murmurs, circa 1800, to its current Internet burgeoning. Wisely, he declines to ridicule its preachers, instead weighing their various claims fairly, in lucid, uncontentious prose, saving for the final chapter his reasoned rebuttal of their basic assumption. Secure in his knowledge of Shakespeare's world, Shapiro feels no compulsion to pick quarrels with these cipher-hunters and conspiracy theorists, not even when their extravagance invents, for their authorial candidates, incestuous affairs with Queen Elizabeth. He takes no cheap shots at such easy targets.

Instead, cunningly, he makes his opponents' lives, not Shakespeare's, his principal subject, replacing their nitpicky disputes over unprovable biographical what-ifs with a fascinating, well-documented parade of literary eccentrics, displaying the torments that drive frustrated souls into revisionist mythmaking. Shapiro doesn't flinch even when the frustrated souls carry beloved names: Henry James, Mark Twain, Helen Keller, and Sigmund Freud are among those whose disbelief in Shakespeare's authorship he confronts, squarely and honorably.

Feingold follows this with a short summary of Shapiro’s case, and his concluding paragraph is pure gold. Read the review, and then read the book – it is very rewarding.

Note to my commenting Oxfordian fans: Please take issue with Mr. Shapiro, et al., and not me. They’re the ones you have to convince, because it is they who will have to convince me.

Contested Will Looks at the Nuts Who Think Shakespeare Didn't Write Shakespeare (The Village Voice)

^..^

I'm in Ravenclaw House Myself...

Congrats to my best friend for a gajillion years Claudia White, flute-player extraordinaire, who landed an awesome gig tonight playing for a whole host of celebrities and guests as part of an orchestra at the grand opening of the new Harry Potter theme park at Universal Studios in Orlando. I understand author J.K. Rowling will be there along with the stars of the Harry Potter films, and the orchestra Claudia is playing in will be conducted by none other than John Williams! Woo!

The degree of separation between me and John Williams has now been reduced to one. This is exciting! I was a John Williams fan before anyone knew who he was. Seriously, do you know anyone who actually owned (I may still have it somewhere) the original soundtrack recording of The Towering Inferno? On LP?!? I credit Williams’ lush scores with introducing me to the world of great orchestral music, laying the groundwork for my later interest in classical music. A favorite JW score? Too many to mention, and he has had his ups and downs. But who of my generation can forget that day when we first sat down to watch some brand new space adventure flick called Star Wars, and Williams’ iconic theme tore out of the speakers and into our ears for the first time? You knew in two seconds this was going to be the best adventure of you life ‘til then. Currently, I’d have to rank JW’s score to Catch Me If You Can as one of his finest, mostly because the jazzy riffs were totally unexpected. One of my most enduring favorites by him has to be his score to Empire of the Sun, a very underrated classic from Steven Spielberg that introduced us to some kid named Christian Bale – wonder whatever became of him?

And J.K. Rowling herself? Don’t get me started. This is the woman who took fantastic tales that most people regard as children’s stories and made them respectable for everyone to read. Outside of the pleasures of the Harry Potter series itself, would we have Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book or China Miéville’s Un Lun Dun without HP’s success? The best writers have long known that if you want to write inventive stories with memorable characters, you write for young people – or the young-at-heart.

Anyway, congratulations once again to Claudia White, who has put up with more of my insanity than any reasonable person should. I toast thee with Maker's Mark!

Incidentally, there's a live web feed available here tonight and Friday morning.

^..^

Gay Teen Pwns Gay-cist Librarians!

This blog entry by Brent, a fifteen-year-old bibliophile who is also gay, brought tears to my eyes and made me want to jump for joy. With more and more confident gay kids like this, the world is certain to become a better place -- I dare any bigot to look into this young man's face and try to shame him. You can't. You...simply...can't.

When I set out to find more LGBT titles, I turned to my school’s library. Honestly? It was pathetic. There was not one single LGBT novel. But oh, of course the librarian went out of her way to buy books about gangs, drugs, and teen pregnancy. Like, for real, the people who actually do care about gangs, drugs, and teen sex sure as hell don’t read–they’re too busy (note: gangs, drugs, and teen sex. Yeah, they’re going to interrupt all that fabulous action to sit and read a good novel!). When I asked her about it, she replied, “This is a school library. If you are looking to read inappropriate titles, go to a book store.” Uhm, how in the hell is LGBT YA lit “inappropriate”?

I mean, think about it. Let it register: The librarian claimed LGBT novels were inappropriate, yet she approved of books that had heterosexual sex. Yeah, she was being gay-cist! It wasn’t until May of 2009 (my last month of attending that school) that she bought a book that mentioned gays. It was Ellen Hopkins’ Impulse. FINALLY!

.....

The world needs more librarians who serve the purpose of finding the right book to put in the right person’s lap. Not librarians who think that they can decide what’s “inappropriate” and what’s not, based on their personal prejudices. There are tons of gay teens, struggling to find a group to fit in. LGBT YA lit helps us find out that no, we aren’t alone and no, we aren’t worthless or disgusting. It helps us discover that we are part of a group. The LGBT group. Which is the group to be in. Tons of brilliant people, doing brilliant things, fighting for brilliant causes (Straight people with gay tendencies included).

Read the whole thing. Astonishing and wonderful! Check out Brent's own blog here.

"Gay teen blogger/book reviewer takes librarians to task over LGBT lit" (Pinched Nerves)

^..^

h/t Andrew Sullivan