I just want to say a big thank you to Matt Kressel for helping me to get this blog back online. You may recall that my site was hacked a little while back and Matt helped to fix it for me. But then something must have either stuck around or crept back in and so I had to have my provider deal with it. That left me unable to access the blog. After fiddling around with it myself and trying a fresh install of WordPress, I ended up turning to Matt to help me get everything back and he did it. So thank you so much, Matt. Now I can blog again.

I had a sad day this past weekend. I don’t know why. Maybe it was the fact that I just gave up coffee and I was bereft of its mood-enhancing abilities. Or maybe my life has just been so full of happiness lately that I was owed some sadness. It doesn’t matter.

But as I often do at such times, I thought of my mother. And I thought of how she was the one person in my life, the one person in the world, who ever truly loved me unconditionally. Don’t get me wrong  – the rest of my family loves me. I don’t doubt that. But my mother loved in a way that was threaded through with acceptance. With the idea that I love you for everything that you are and everything that you can be and despite all the things inside yourself that you might consider flaws or weaknesses. It was a love that said – you can be yourself, and I will always be there for you.

Only she’s no longer there. And that pretty much sucks.

It’s a tough realization. To know that the safety net is gone. To know that when you’re scared and lonely, when the world turns its face away, that there’s nowhere to go. No safe, warm embrace to take shelter in. It makes the world more cold and lonely.

Then I was reading about the series of suicides lately by LGBT teens (Raymond Chase, Tyler Clementi, Asher Brown, Billy Lucas, and Seth Walsh) who have been facing persecution and intolerance and it just pushed me over the edge. I can’t claim to know what it’s like to grow up gay in an intolerant climate. I can’t really imagine what it feels like to face that kind of hatred and lack of acceptance at every turn. I can only claim to know what it’s like to feel different, to feel alone and misunderstood and like something of a Changeling left behind in a child’s place. And if that is just the tiniest fraction of what these kids are feeling then that crushes my heart into tiny pieces. I want them all to have someone like my mother who will love and accept them for who they are. I want them all to have communities that will stand up against all aspects of homophobia. I’m heartened to see LGBT adults like Dan Savage and Ellen Degeneres reaching out to these kids and trying to explain that things will get better. I hope it reaches people. I hope it helps to bring some light into dark places.

When I was a freshman at university, living on an all-male floor in a dorm, there was this one kid, Jim, who came out during the year. As far as I know he wasn’t tormented, but he was certainly treated differently. And the other guys would talk about him behind his back. I never did. But I will always despise myself for not defending him. For not speaking up. I saw him a few years later at a pride parade in NY and he seemed happy and doing well and we talked for a bit and I was glad. But I will always remember him and how I basically failed in being the kind of person I want to be.

Doing nothing is not enough. Doing nothing right now is leading to kids dying. Doing nothing means leaving people alone to suffer while the world tears at them from all sides. I don’t know what it is that I can do right now, but I want to do something. I need to do something.

So I will. Why don’t you join me?

As we tend to do twice a year (or thereabouts), my writing group, Altered Fluid, will be appearing on the Hour of the Wolf radio show this Saturday morning (so, so early), September 18, to do a live critique on the air. This time on the chopping block will be K. Tempest Bradford. If you haven’t heard these before, Tempest will read her story on the air and the rest of the group (at least those who are able to make it) will give their critiques live. If you’re a vampire (though not the sparkly kind), or an insomniac, or a robot, please consider listening in. For the rest of you, the show is usually streamed afterward.

Hour of the Wolf is on WBAI (99.5 FM)  in the NY area from 5-7 AM* and is hosted by the always entertaining Jim Freund.

*I told you it was early.

GUD issue 6, which contains my story, “Doors”, is now available for purchase from the GUD website. You can buy it in PDF format (available now – also with a gift PDF you can send to someone else) or in print version (which also comes with the PDF). The print issue, as far as I know, is printing now, and will ship to you when available.

You can also buy just my story if you want, but don’t. In addition to my story, the issue contains work from Lou Antonelli, Lavie Tidhar, Aliette de Bodard, and Ian McHugh, among others. I’m looking forward to reading the issue myself because of all the other contributors.

Hope you enjoy it.

Okay, this time I have a good reason for not posting in a while. Aside from being busy, maybe not having much to say, and being easily distracted, I was having troubles with my website such that I was unable to make any blog posts. While trying to diagnose the problem, I upgraded WordPress and voila – it now works again. Wish I had thought to do that a while ago.

My plan, now, though is to blog a bit more and on a more regular basis. I know, I know – everyone says that. And it’s true that my attention is taken more with Twitter (and occasionally Facebook) these days. There’s something about the brevity and the instant feedback that makes it more exciting. But this is my site and having things here somehow feels more permanent. And when posting about story sales or publications I feel it helps to have a more permanent presence. That being said, I hope to post more then just about sales here (like I have mostly been doing lately).

Of course my next post will be about a publication. But the one after that won’t.

So, more to come later…