Warren is a professor of English at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. His interest in mythology and archetypal journeys manifests itself in his fiction, which also incorporates LGBTQ themes and explorations of oppression and struggles for civil rights. His first novel, The Wild Boy came out in 2001 through Golden Gryphon Press, and he has since published two more novels. Harvest of Changelings came out in 2007, and its sequel, The Called, came out in 2010. Warren’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in many places including Icarus: the Magazine of Gay Speculative Fiction.

OA: In the alternate universe early 1990s US of your books, people recognize that magic is real and some of the population is part fae, which changes the course of political and social history. How do those realizations affect the history of gay rights in that universe?

WR: That’s a good question.

The realizations that magic is real and that there are folks out there who are part-fae makes things worse–at least for a while–for gay rights. Gay rights and gay people are quickly associated with the fae, in part, because of the tetrads, which form without any particular gender configurations. When those left behind after the Change and the mass exodus of changelings in Harvest and those who manifest their fae-ness after 1991 began to form tetrads and without regard to gender, this draws attention, especially from those already inclined to distrust and fear change (including gay rights). In effect, they become considered equivalent.

As a result, when the fae–or as they are called in this alternate US, changelings–are attacked or persecuted in the years following 1991, so are gay people. As the Ordinary Union (a political movement with its aim a pure and purified humanity) gains power, the accompanying voices in pulpits get louder as well. Changeling children are forced to leave some schools; police look the other way or actively support the persecution, and as it gets closer to 2012, things continue to get worse. There are mundanes (non-magicals) who support magical/gay rights, but theirs is a hard fight. People are scared and are getting more scared.

It’s not pretty.

This is sort of a double whammy of prejudice for the fae and the gay, but I felt it all too plausible as GLBT people are still, for many, the Other, the alien, those people. Nicola Griffith and Steve Pagel write about this in their introductions to their Bending the Landscape anthologies and it had a strong resonance for me. That those opposed to change, such as the revelation of the presence of magicals, would equate gay and fae seemed all too logical.

I also like to think of GLBT people as being somewhat magical, and I like playing the different meanings of the word “fairy.” Here, fairies are fairies–word thus reclaimed and with magical powers.

OA: Harvest of Changelings and The Called take place two decades apart. Do you think you’ll ever write any stories set in that alternate reality in the time between those two books?

WR: Hmm. You know, Julia, I think so, but I’m not sure when. I do have tentative plans for a third novel, as a sequel to The Called, and right now I am working on a novel about a gay werewolf and his lover, who is a descendant of the long-departed old gods. It’s set mostly in and around Richmond (where my partner lives) and in some ways has similar themes, as the 2 young men discover their differences and each other as they fall in love, and, wind up on a quest, fighting evil in various forms.

OA: The fae in your books set up four person marriages called tetrads. How do those marriages work, and what are some of their strengths and weaknesses compared to the current US default of two person marriages?

WR: A complete tetrad has an Air, a Water, a Fire, and an Earth, one of the four kinds of fairies, here or in Faerie. Each has different magical abilities and traits and certain physical traits. Fires tend to be red-haired and green-eyed, and often have more volatile personalities. All fairies can have the power to make fire. But a Fire has far more power in this regard than the other three and can easily do such things (as Russell does) like heat water, recharge cooking stones, make light, and so on. Excessive amounts of water can be draining and he has a bad temper.

Tetrads tend to form in two stages. First, couples, a Fire and a Water, an Air and an Earth, a Water and an Air, or other pairings. They sense a bond; they feel drawn to each other; they bond. Then the two couples find each other–drawn together by their magical energies, their mana. Together they are stronger as four than two.

The bond of the couples is the primary bond; the tetradic bond is secondary. Couples or triads can exist and function–as many did after the Long War in Faerie–but there is a constant feeling of incompleteness. Tetrads can form in any gender configuration. A juvenile tetrad is usually formed first, often in early adolescence. This relationship tends to go dormant at the onset of adulthood. Juvenile tetrads can reform in an adult version, but this doesn’t always happen. In Harvest and The Called, the protagonists are in a tetrad, with one primarily heterosexual couple and one primarily gay couple.

I would say some of the strengths of this four-person marriage, as compared to a traditional two-person marriage would be such things as: a parent or parents are always available to the children; any one member can be as alone or as not alone as he or she wants; support is always there; and they are stronger as four than as two or one.

Some of the weaknesses would be it is not always easy to find one person with whom to bond and it is less easy to find another couple, or another three people. And, in my heroes’ case, when their juvenile bond went dormant and they separated, two going to our universe and two staying in Faerie, their reunion as an adult tetrad was made more difficult when it turned out the Earth-side couple had grown older and the Faerie-side couple had stayed adolescents. Aging in Faerie is at a much different rate than it is here.

OA: You’re currently looking for a home for a novel based on your Spectrum Award nominated short story, “The Golden Boy”. Can you tell us more about that?

WR: There are some similarities between The Golden Boy’s universe and that of Harvest and The Called—mainly in the use of the tetrad as the fae family unit, with an Air, an Earth, a Water, and a Fire. I also had as one beginning premise the notion that fairies would be fairies—gay or bisexual, some heterosexual. Beyond that, The Golden Boy’s universe is a different, albeit with some parallels. There is no US; instead there is the Columbian Empire, founded in a revolution from Britain back in 1776. The Stuarts still rule in Britain; the Columbians have a descendent of Theodore Roosevelt on the throne. Magic is real, but is suppressed in Columbia, with the Rationalist Church, which favors science, the dominant faith. The Fair Folk are sequestered in ghettoes; hybrids, like my hero, Gavin, have to live lives of secrecy. Vampires have been hunted to extinction; unicorns and werewolves are in zoos; centaurs hide deep in the woods. I tried to make the Columbian Empire’s universe echo ours, as sort of a skewed reality.

Gavin is also hiding his sexuality as only heterosexuality is legal in the Empire. Gavin is haunted all his life by recurring dreams of a golden boy, who is meant to be one of his tetrad, Fire to his Earth. The others he meets growing up in North Carolina, but very bad things happen.

The novel has two story lines: Gavin growing up and a week in 2000, when everything falls apart and hits the fan. Columbia is beset by earthquakes, hurricanes, and volcanoes, and rebellion. For Gavin it becomes both a personal and public quest for self and survival.

OA: This summer you’ll be presenting a paper on using autobiography in fantasy at the International Creative Writing Conference in London. How much of your own work draws on autobiographical events, and how do you use them?

WR: Probably autobiographical themes would be a better way to put it, more than particular events. Perhaps, the most obvious are the settings. All 3 of my novels are primarily set in North Carolina, especially in the Triangle area, where I was born and raised and lived until 1998. (Faerie is another key setting and in a way, I have lived there all my life.) I also used the North Carolina folklore and legends that I grew up hearing and reading, such as the Devil’s Tramping Ground (south of Chapel Hill). Supposedly the Devil walks there on a circular path on which nothing grows. I decided that would be a good place for a gate to Faerie. A couple of other examples of settings from my own life would be: In the book I am working on now is set in and around Richmond, which is where my partner lives; and in my first novel, The Wild Boy, the heroes travel to Cartagena, Colombia, where I lived in 1980-82.

I came out rather late in life; I was around 40 when I started dealing with my sexuality. The message I got growing up when and where I did was that everybody got married when they grew up and had children, period, preferably by the time one was thirty. Homosexuals, if mentioned at all, were more than Other and alien; they were evil. I grew up in a pretty strong closet and when I went to college and fell in love with a guy, I couldn’t even admit then what that meant: we were experimenting and it was a dark, dark secret. After that experiment ended somewhat disastrously, there was lots of internal conflict and self-condemnation, trying to be straight, trying to follow what I thought was being normal. Eventually self and truth won out; it just took a while, along with some therapy.

This internal struggle has fueled some of my characters’ struggles, and has fueled some of the metaphors with which I have constructed the environments in which they find themselves. I did this in my first novel, The Wild Boy, without realizing it. I wrote the original draft of The Wild Boy, back in 1990-91 (my MFA thesis at UNC Greensboro), which was before I came out. When I sat down to revise it (post-PhD, 1997), I was in the process of coming out, and as I reread it, I realized I had been telling myself a story then that I wasn’t able to understand: the two male protagonists, one alien, one human, were lovers. Talk about the Other! When I reread an early draft of Harvest after that I realized: oh, Russell and Jeff are gay. Since then I have been using gay themes and characters, drawing from my own life and from the people I know. The story always comes first, but even so, social commentary has become part of my work as well. And no, not all my gay characters have tortured coming out experiences, or live in hostile societies!

Fathers and sons, parents and children, are other motifs in my work and I have drawn upon my evolving relationship with my own parents. Here I can say I have used personal family history to shape some of these relationships, and particular family events, too. I have drawn liberally from Celtic mythology, which is a personal interest that grew as I explored my own Scotch-Irish heritage. No Cherokee blood, but I grew up learning about the tribe as they are the most prominent one in North Carolina and I visited there often.

I think all writers do this, some more overt and deliberate and obvious than others, as we write out of the context of our lives. Our hero or heroine may be on a spaceship, or even an alien, but still we are creating out of who we are and what we know and feel and have experienced.

OA: Speaking of interesting stories from your own life, you’ve got two cats who usually get along, but you’ve had to consult an animal communicator to sort things out before. What exactly happened with that?

WR: Well, I hope folks won’t think I am too crazy, but here goes. I got Alex and Festus from the local animal shelter here in Fredericksburg, VA, thinking they were littermates. My vet set me straight on that: same mother, different litter. This meant their bond was a bit shakier than the bonds of littermates usually are. About 5 or 6 years ago, for reasons I couldn’t figure out, Festus, the older (and smaller, not that made any difference) started treating Alex as if he were an invader, a complete stranger: hissing, growling, and attacking. It was awful. I tried everything and the vet just told me to separate them, which helped, but didn’t stop the aggressive behavior.

A buddy of mine, Suzanne, mentioned she had consulted an animal communicator to help her sort out the behavior of her dog, who was a rescue. I was more than a little skeptical when she told me how it all worked—it sounded like the stuff I make up. But at that point, I was willing to try anything. Suzanne said it had worked for her and her dog amazingly well. I was just about ready to take Festus to my parents to live. So I emailed Patty Summers, the communicator, and set up an appointment, paid my fee. The appointment was by phone.

She called and we talked and then she “spoke” to Alex and Festus. Yes, it was weird. When she channeled (for lack of a better verb) what they “said” back, at first I was struck by how much it sounded like them, their personalities—Festus, more withdrawn, easier to spook; Alex, in your face, love me now. The story came out: a big cat in the neighborhood had confronted and scared Festus through the patio door. The aggressive response he had toward that cat, since he couldn’t get to him (thank God) had shifted to Alex—(the technical term is “displaced aggression,” by the way, and my vet said the communicator was probably right). Festus was afraid he was going to be sent away. Reassurances of safety, promises to help, to give space (yes, from the cats!) were made and she gave some practical advice about how to handle Festus when he turned into a demon.

It took awhile, but her advice worked. Festus still has spells, but they are very brief and are usually solved with a time out in a dark and calm space. They get along now, most of the time.

There’s more. The really weird part. After communicating with Festus and Alex, the communicator said she sensed another cat, this time one in the spirit world. Yeah, I know you are shaking your head. The animal she described—and she had no way of knowing this—was my first cat, Osito, who had died a year after I moved here. He was still around, looking after me.

There you go. I know it sounds crazy.

Thanks, Warren! Join us next Friday for more queer spec fic goodness, and in the meantime, check out The Called.

Mark is a gay horror writer who enjoys putting incidentally queer characters into stories which aren’t about sexuality and orientation. His novellas, Whisonant, and Creatures of the Light, are collected in one volume by Sideshow Press, and his short story collection, Tales from the Midnight Shift, Vol. I is forthcoming from Sideshow as well. His newest book, Asylum, is the first product of Apex Book Company’s new zombie imprint, The Zombie Feed. Asylum departs form Mark’s usual style to take issues of sexual identity head-on–in the context of a zombie attack on a gay dance club.

Mark lives in South Carolina with his partner, Joel. If you’d like to learn more about him, check out his Facebook page or his LiveJournal.

***

OA: Asylum is a zombie attack story set in a gay dance club, which you’ve said was something you thought of on your first visit to a gay club. How would you rate your chances for survival if you found yourself in your own story?

MAG: I’d like to think I’d be all heroic and fierce, but I’d more likely end up like Barbara in the original Night of the Living Dead, huddled in a corner tearing at my hair and babbling about finding Johnny.

OA: Which one of your characters would you want fighting beside you, and why?

MAG: Definitely Gil the bartender. He is a man who has seen a lot, endured a lot, and lived through a lot. He is a man I believe would fight to the bitter end, so I’d be happy to have him by my side. A close second would be Madam Diva. A drag queen, yes, but also someone with a ferocious will. I have no doubt she could kick off her high heels and kick some serious ass.

OA: You use the zombie trope to examine some of the homophobia and discrimination LGBTQI people face, which isn’t usually something you explore in your fiction. What drew you to that this time, and why did you choose zombies instead of some other horror?

MAG: Well, the zombies came first to be honest. I wanted to do this zombie tale utilizing characters not often represented in such stories, but in the beginning that was all it was; I did not set out with the intention of really delving into gay issues and themes. However, once I started the tale, dealing with this primarily gay cast of characters and really getting into their pasts and fears and insecurities, it just seemed natural that I would explore things like homophobia and discrimination. Despite the progress we have made in recent years, these are still things gay people have to face in their daily lives.

OA: You like to include queer characters in stories that aren’t about being queer. Can you tell us about some of them?

MAG: As a gay man, I often feel like my homosexuality is just one facet of who I am, a small part of what makes me me. Therefore in fiction I really enjoy seeing gay characters in stories that don’t center around their sexuality. I tend to write traditional mainstream horror with characters that just happen to be gay. For instance, I have a story entitled “Accidents Happen” which will be in my upcoming short story collection Tales from the Midnight Shift Vol. I that features a man dealing with his lover’s belief that he is being haunted by a child that he accidentally ran over. That story would play out exactly the same if it featured a straight couple as opposed to a gay couple. I have been asked before, “If it doesn’t matter if the characters are gay or not, why make them gay?” I say if it doesn’t matter, why not make them gay?

OA: There’s a great scene in Shaun of the Dead where humans fight zombies while Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” is playing. What’s your ideal zombie killing soundtrack? How about the worst song to play during battle?

MAG: Hmm, for my ideal zombie killing soundtrack I’d have to go with some Rob Zombie. A little “Living Dead Girl” or even his cover of “I’m Your Boogieman.” Worst song to play during battle? I’m going to say “Jesus Take the Wheel” just because it would cause me to stop mid-fight to exclaim, “Damn this song sucks!” and I’d get swarmed by the undead.

***

Thanks, Mark! Join us next Friday for another Spotlight, and in the meantime, check out Asylum

In this episode, Natania Barron talks about her work and how she started the Outer Alliance, Lynn Flewelling talks about writing sex scenes and teaching a writing workshop on a cruise ship, and we have an excerpt of Georgina Bruce’s story from Aether Age: Helios.

You can subscribe to the podcast RSS feed here or use this link to subscribe with iTunes. You can also hit play on the embedded player in this post and listen to the podcast on the web, or visit the individual episode page to download this episode as an MP3 without subscribing.

Notes:

Gender Playful Marketplace is collecting startup funds over here.

Elisa Rolle hosted the 2010 Rainbow Awards, which recognized works by several Outer Alliance members. Congratulations, winners!

Hayden Thorne’s historical fantasy comedy (not a problem novel!) Desmond and Garrick Book One is available now at Prizm books.

Natania Barron’s website has all kinds of info about her fiction and non-fiction. Go there to find out all about stories available now and coming soon.

Lynn Flewelling has links to signups for the cruise workshop and place to buy her work (including the sexy Nightrunner short story collection that flustered prim and proper me in the interview) over on her website.

Aether Age: Helios is out now. You can find out more at Aether-Age.com. Author Georgina Bruce maintains a blog at thebeardedlady.wordpress.com, and you can learn more about narrator T.C. Parmalee at Aural Spice.

Thanks for listening, and please do feel free to leave feedback here, on the google group, or by e-mailing me at julia@juliarios.com. I’d love to hear from you.

Sarah writes science fiction and fantasy stories featuring lesbian protagonists. Her Rymellan stories (about space pilots on a distant planet) are available online at the Rymellan Stories website, and she started Norn Publishing earlier this year in order to also put her books out in print and e-book format. The Salbine Sisters, her fantasy novel about lesbian magic users, came out in October.

In addition to writing, Sarah enjoys reading and playing computer games. She’s also the Web Maven for Broad Universe, an organization which exists to promote and support women who write speculative fiction. Sarah lives in Toronto with her partner and four cats.

***

OA: The Salbine Sisters is your second book published through your company, Norn Publishing. How did you decide to start publishing books for yourself, and what has the experience been like so far?

SE: When I decided to offer the Rymellan series in print, I published the stories myself because they were already available on the web. When it came time to decide what to do with The Salbine Sisters, the upheaval in the publishing world was well underway, so I decided to do it myself again. Like those who are traditionally published, I work with an editor. I’ve also picked up a few new skills, typesetting and eBook formatting among them. Self-publishing is a good fit for my personality and goals, so I’ve been pleased with the experience.

OA: In The Salbine Sisters, the main character struggles with losing her magical gift. Can you tell us a bit about how magic works in that world, and what particular complications the loss of magic brings to this character?

SE: The Salbine Order is a religious order. Salbine Sisters believe that Salbine, the goddess they worship, bestows upon them the gift of magic, which they call “drawing the elements.” When Maddy, the main character, discovers that she’s malflowed (can’t draw the elements), she feels rejected by Salbine and struggles to make sense of her life. She gave up everything to join the Order and has been utterly devoted to Salbine, so she can’t understand why Salbine has turned Her back on her. There have been few malflowed sisters in history, so when Maddy finds out that another monastery’s library has journals left behind by a malflowed sister, she secures the abbess’s permission to go to that monastery and examine them. As often happens, things don’t go according to plan.

OA: Your other big project, the Rymellan stories, which you publish quarterly online, has enough material to fill two books now, though only one volume is actually in print so far. How much more do you plan to write in that world?

SE: I hope to bring the series to a satisfactory conclusion at the end of Rymellan 3. As you mentioned, Rymellan 1 is already available in print, and Rymellan 2 will be available in early 2011. I expect to reach the end of Rymellan 3 sometime in 2012, so I’ll stop publishing quarterly at that point. After that, I might publish stories about significant events that take place later in the characters’ lives, but not quarterly.

OA: You’re an avid computer gamer. Has gaming ever helped with your writing? For instance, have games ever inspired world-building, plot, or characterization in your fiction? What are some of your favorite games?

SE: The seed for The Salbine Sisters was planted when I was creating a backstory for a game character. I like role-playing games, and one of my favourites is a series of sandbox games called the Elder Scrolls. The series has a tradition of starting the game character off in prison, which can make it a challenge to come up with a backstory for a law-abiding character. In The Salbine Sisters, Maddy is thrown into prison. My imagination ran with the prison thing and grew the story from there.

Other games I like: most games from BioWare, Guild Wars, Grand Theft Auto (another sandbox series), Divine Divinity, Lord of the Rings Online–basically anything with role-playing elements or a large world to explore. I’ll also play the odd shooter and adventure game.

OA: You’re on the Motherboard for Broad Universe. How did you get involved with that organization, and what kinds of things do you do for them?

SE: I don’t remember how I found out about Broad Universe. Somehow I ended up at its website, and when I saw that it’s an organization for women who write science fiction, fantasy, and/or horror, I immediately joined. When a call went out earlier this year for a new Web Maven, I stepped forward, since I have experience administering websites. So I’m the Web Maven now, which means I receive all the email at the main email address, and I sort out any website problems and work on new features. We’re pretty excited right now because we’re on the verge of unveiling a redesigned website.

OA: If you had 30 seconds to convince someone to join Broad Universe, what would you tell them?

SE: For women who write science fiction, fantasy, and/or horror, it’s a great way to network with other writers and provides opportunities to promote your work. We have an active Yahoo group, where members post submission calls, writing advice, comments about genre-related news, and promotional opportunities. You can participate in our podcast and submit to our online publication The Broadsheet. Our online catalog lists books and stories by our members, and every year we print a new works booklet to distribute at cons. Membership is only $30/year, so it’s worth joining to see if it’s a good fit for you.

***

Thanks, Sarah! Join us next week for more LGBTQI speculative fiction goodness, and in the meantime, check out The Salbine Sisters.

Kathe is a straight ally whose short stories and novels feature a diverse range of characters in a variety of genres including fantasy, horror, historical, and young adult. She began seriously writing after she attended the Clarion workshop, and her first novel, The Cipher won the Bram Stoker and Locus Awards. Following that success, she went on to write several more novels for adults before turning a short story for younger readers into her first YA novel, straydog. Several YA novels followed straydog, including Talk, a story about a closeted teenager, which was named a YALSA Best Book for Young Adults in 2006.

Most recently, Kathe has returned to writing for adults with her new novel, Under the Poppy, which will be released on the 26th through Small Beer Press. This romp through war-torn nineteenth century Europe is a story of love, betrayal, fidelity, and some very naughty puppets. Kathe has also adapted the story into an immersive stage show, which will debut in Detroit in 2011.

Kathe lives in Michigan with her husband, son, and three cats. She keeps her main journal on her website, and also has a Facebook page and a website specifically for news and notes about Under the Poppy. She’ll be appearing in person in Ohio next weekend at the World Fantasy Convention, in Michigan on the 10th and 11th of November at the Common Language Bookstore in Ann Arbor and Five 15 in Royal Oak, and in New York on the 17th of November at KGB Bar.

***

OA: Under the Poppy has a very colorful cast, and some of the most colorful characters are the puppets (or mecs). Do you have a personal favorite mec?

KK: What a rockin’ question to lead off with!  Yes, in fact I do – the antic, slippery, completely untrustworthy Pan Loudermilk, who scares the hell out of one of the poor working girls in the book’s opening scene, and wreaks havoc every time he takes the stage.  I do admire a fellow with flair. Puppets make wonderful fictional characters because they are themselves fictional from the get-go, but unbound from all the constraints a “real” character must obey.

OA: With a well-researched 1870s setting and a queer love story at its heart, it’s understandable that some people compare Under the Poppy to Sarah Waters‘s Victorian lesbian novels. Had you read any of those books before you wrote yours, and what do you think of the comparison?

KK: I’d been aware of but hadn’t read any of the books before I wrote Under the Poppy – I stay away from fiction in general when I’m writing any novel – but since then I’ve read all three and adore them all (though Fingersmith is probably my favorite).  To be compared with Sarah Waters’ work is a pleasure and a compliment.

OA: You’ve written all over the map in terms of length and style, from short stories to novels, in horror, fantasy, mainstream literary, and now historical fiction. Is there anything you haven’t tried that you’d like to write in the future?

KK: I never really know what I’m going to write next – one of the great joys of doing this work is just following the path, seeing where the work leads. Although there have been blind alleys along the way, and a couple of dead ends, it’s tremendous fun and always a challenge to work in a new genre, learning its contours and figuring out where the boundaries are.  I never thought I’d write a historical novel, just like I never thought I’d write YA (and ended up writing seven YA novels, thanks to the vision of my very visionary agent, Christopher Schelling, who encouraged me to try it in the first place).

I recently adapted Under the Poppy for the stage: my first try as a playwright!  Completely different than writing a novel or piece of short fiction: these words are meant to be SAID.  And theatre is a collaborative art, completely unlike sitting here alone at my keyboard. If I get very, very brave I might try to write text for a picture book for very young readers, the most difficult discipline of all, I think, next to haiku.

OA: You may be best known for your young adult novels like straydog, The Blue Mirror, and Talk, all of which are considerably tamer than Under the Poppy, even if they deal with potentially controversial topics. Do you ever worry that young readers will stumble upon your adult work before they’re ready for it?

KK: To me, what is most “adult” about Under the Poppy is not the sexy brothel bits or even the cruelty of the war scenes (both on and off the battlefield), but its inherent theme, which is faithfulness: how do we stay true, to a person, a profession, an art, how do we keep our love and commitment strong even through disappointment and loss, and the painful passing of time?  That’s not a young reader’s theme. So to my YA readers I would say, wait awhile, and this book will mean more to you after a few more years on the road.

OA: straydog (which is about a girl who tries to befriend a feral dog) won the American Humane Society’s KIND book award and the ASPCA’s Henry Bergh award. Have you ever worked in shelters, or rescued strays?

KK: All my cats have been adopted from shelters – there are three with me now, lazy, bossy, gorgeous little guys – and I definitely try to help if I see an animal who needs assistance (a friend and I just rescued a baby squirrel, in fact, so little his eyes weren’t even open!  We got him to a wildlife rehab expert, and he’s doing fine). I also volunteer with the Michigan Humane Society in an administrative capacity: they also serve who help file paperwork.

OA: With a husband who’s into painting and photography, and a son who’s into drawing and animation, you’re surrounded by visual artists. How does that affect your creative process? Do you think about writing projects differently after talking to your family members about them?

KK: Since they’re both visual artists, and I am verbal, I rely on their vision in spots where I have none, and on their very different ways of processing what they see (and read). It’s also given me a strong and thorough grounding IN the visual, since, like many writers, I tend to see everything as story first.

I’ve also been fortunate enough to work with both of them: Rick Lieder, my husband, has done all but one of the book covers for my YA novels, and Aaron Mustamaa, my son, worked on the gorgeous book trailer for Under the Poppy.

OA: While we’re on the topic of different forms of artistic expression, can you tell us more about the stage version of Under the Poppy? What will it be like, and where and when can we see it?

KK: It’s going to be intense and fabulous!  The moment you step inside you’ll be IN the world of the Poppy, there at your cabaret table surrounded by lovely floozies, the piano player playing his heart out, puppets of course, and film to help tell the story of the characters, all of whom are right there beside you … And if you wanted to attend in a top hat and tails, or Victorian punk attire, why, you’ll feel totally at home.

I’m collaborating with film director Diane Cheklich, who directed the trailer, award-winning costume and environment designer Monika Essen, composer Joe Stacey (who’s already written some amazing music for the show), with the shared goal of bringing the story alive in another, different way for the audience. We’ll be staging it at the Chrysler Black Box Theatre, at
the Detroit Opera House, in late 2011.

***

Thanks, Kathe! Join us next week for more queer speculative fiction news. Please share any news you might have here in the comments, on the Outer Alliance google group, or via Twitter (mention either @omgjulia, or @outeralliance).

This week:

Dan Savage’s It Gets Better Project took off on YouTube. The It Gets Better Project is a quest to collect videos from LGBTQI adults who want to let high schoolers know that life does really get better after high school. There are, unfortunately, a lot of queer teen suicides, and this project exists to give teens who might be thinking about that a tangible reason to hope for a better future. Dan and his partner Terry made the first video for the project. They talk about their high school experiences, how they met, and how great their life is now. If you want to participate, there are instructions on the It Gets Better Project YouTube Channel. Please also tell us if you make a video for this, and we’ll link to it in a future Spotlight!

Sandra McDonald‘s novel, The Stars Blue Yonder, came out in paperback this week. To celebrate, Sandra made an amusing video tribute to Australia (where the book is set).

And, Bart Leib announced that the queer issue of Crossed Genres is going away at the end of this month. It’s been up for eleven months now, and expires after twelve. If you haven’t read it, now’s the time!

That’s all for this time. Join us again next week, and please share any news you might have (or links to your It Gets Better videos!) here in the comments, on the Outer Alliance google group, or via Twitter (mention either @omgjulia, or @outeralliance).

At AussieCon 4, you might catch up with Sumana Harihareswara, Cheryl Morgan, and Catherynne M. Valente (and there are several other LGBTQI friendly people there, too!).

Sumana offers the following suggestions of panels which may be of interest to Outer Alliance members:

Academic Panel: Fantastic females: reworking feminism in women’s fantasy — Saturday 1630 Room 203
Delia Sherman (mod), Catherynne M Valente, Gail Carriger, Alaya Johnson, Glenda Larke, Tansy Rayner Roberts
Is fantasy the new vanguard of feminist politics in specfic? Fantasy authors discuss the role of gender issues in their work.

The case for a female doctor — Sunday 1200 Room 204
Tansy Rayner Roberts, Carolina Gomez, Kerrie Dougherty, Catherynne M. Valente, Paul Cornell
He’s transformed from an old man into a young one, so why not from a man into a woman? Doctor Who remains one of the most imaginative and open-ended science fiction programmes ever produced, but can the format extend to include a female Doctor? What other elements of the series are necessary? Does he/she have to have a TARDIS? Does there need to be a companion? Must the series be British? An examination of how far you can stretch the world’s most stretchable science fiction series.

The future of gender and sexuality — Sunday 1600 Room 219
Cristina Lasaitis, David D. Levine, Erika Lacey
What does the future hold for our ideas of gender and sexuality? How will we understand these concepts in 10, 50 or even 500 years? How have science fiction texts already predicted our understanding of gender and sexuality in the future – and how accurate do we find those predictions?

AussieCon 4 also marks the launch of Cheryl’s new magazine, Salon Futura! The first issue has just launched, and you can get it here.

On the other side of the world, in Atlanta, Georgia, there’s a bunch more LGBTQI friendly stuff going on at Dragon*Con. If you’re there, you might catch Outer Alliance founder Natania Barron, who just launched the new Geek Mom blog. Look out for Lee Martindale, C.D, Covington and Racheline Maltese, among others.

C.D. and Racheline will both be reading as part of Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading on Saturday at 11:30.

Lee will be on the Beyond Binaries 101 panel on Saturday, and Racheline will be on the Beyond Binaries 201 panel on Sunday (both exploring alternatives to m/f gender pairings in spec fic).

There are several other LGBTQI themed panels on the Dragon*Con program, and Outlantacon is hosting a Rainbow Flag party on Saturday night in the Sheraton Ballroom.

Happy Con Weekend to everyone in Melbourne and Atlanta! And for those of you playing the home game, don’t forget to check out Salon Futura #1!

Karen Romanko is a poet and fantasy writer, who loves the sun of Los Angeles and Malibu. She edited the speculative fiction webzine, Raven Electrick for several years, and has edited two previous anthologies, Sporty Spec and Cinema Spec. Her poetry and fiction and have appeared in many places including Strange Horizons and Ideomancer.

CD Covington is a fantasy and science fiction writer who also enjoys tai chi, crochet, and European football (she is particularly interested in the German Bundesliga).  She maintains a twitter feed in addition to her blog. “U* Alexanderplatz (1989)” is her first publication.

Leonard Richardson is a writer and computer programmer. His programming books, RESTful Web Services and The Ruby Cookbook were published by O’Reilly, and his story, “Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs” appeared in Strange Horizons. Together with his wife, Sumana Harihareswara, he edited the anthology Thoughtcrime Experiments in 2009.

***

OA: Retro Spec is your third anthology (the first two being Sporty Spec and Cinema Spec). How did you get into the themed anthology idea in  the first place, and how do you choose the themes?

KR: I published e-zine Raven Electrick for nine years, but started to feel that something was missing. There was a kind of unity there, but not the feeling of having created a WHOLE that I get from editing and publishing anthologies on a theme, where I work hard to achieve cohesion. That feeling is also reinforced by being able to hold the finished products in my hands, something I couldn’t do with the e-zine. (Yes, I’m aware that I moved backwards in terms of current publishing trends.)

As to the themes, I’ve chosen ones of personal interest to me because I think that editorial enthusiasm is important. At the same time, I’d like to sell some books, so I’ve tried to stick to themes that authors will find inspiring and that readers will want to see treated.

With Retro Spec, I called upon my long-ago history major and my continued interest in retro popular culture. The most interesting aspect of submissions was that the most popular decade was the 30s–I’d expected something more recent.

OA:  As an editor, how do you encourage diversity in submissions to your publications? Are there themes or stereotypes you see too much of? What about things you’d like to see more of?

KR: I like to encourage submissions from women, because they’re underrepresented in the sf/f/h field (and in most professions). That’s one of the reasons why I joined Broad Universe.

In general, my submitters tend to be an enlightened group. (I do request in the guidelines that they not submit anything sexist or racist.) My main complaint is that too many horror writers tend to ignore my caveat about “no gore.”

OA: Are there more Spec anthologies in your future? What else can we look forward to from you?

KR: I hope so. I’ve selected the theme for the next one, but I’m keeping that a secret for the time being.

***

OA: Your story is set in East Berlin just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Why did you choose to write about that particular time and place?

CDC: The last decade of the Cold War influenced me as a child, but its end and the collapse of the Soviet Union were really the first politics I was *aware* of. I started studying German in fall 1989, when I was in 8th grade, then before Thanksgiving break, Germany had changed. Every year on November 9, I watch the video for the Scorpions’ “Winds of Change” with footage from 1989 and 1990. (I feel like I shouldn’t admit that in public, but there you go.)

My first trip to Berlin was for three days in 1997. I remember taking the train across town and being able to discern where the Wall had been. The style of building changed a bit, and there was a lot more construction, but the difference was palpable.

I went back for a week at Christmas 2007. The division line wasn’t nearly as noticeable, but construction hadn’t stopped. (In Berlin, there’s always construction.) This time, I went on a guided tour, and the tour guide was a student of Cold War history, so we got onto that topic fairly often. He asked if I’d heard of Geisterbahnhöfe, ghost stations, and I said I hadn’t. He directed me to more information, which I picked up gladly.

Brief explanation: The city of Berlin wasn’t divided strictly on a north-south line. The Soviet sector had a slight bulge into the western sectors. Transit lines that had been built thirty or forty years (or more, in the case of the street-level trains) before that connected the northern boroughs with the southern now went from West to West through the East. The ruling party in East Germany couldn’t allow trains to stop, because people would be able to escape easily. So they barricaded these dozen stations on three lines, and made the Friedrichstraße station a border crossing point.

I’ve always been drawn to abandoned places and ruins. I knew there was a story in there, but it took me a while (and a lot of false starts) to find it. I wrote about a pair of guards stationed in the sealed-off U8 track at Alexanderplatz, one of whom keeps seeing trains and passengers who shouldn’t be there.

Since Karen bought my story, I’ve spent a month in Berlin, for a refresher German course. I worked on a translation of it, and my teacher really liked it. She’s lived in Berlin since the 80s, and she remembers the guards stationed in subway stations.

OA: As an Outer Alliance member, you support and celebrate LGBTQI themes in speculative fiction, but that doesn’t always mean writing queer lit. Part of being a supportive ally is simply reading, enjoying, and recommending good stories. Can you recommend a favorite or two to us?

CDC: I’m a fan of (fellow OA member) Lynn Flewelling‘s work. The lack of queer SF on my shelves is kind of embarrassing.

OA: What’s next for you? Are you working on anything new and exciting?

CDC: I just submitted a short story to an anthology of military sf starring women, and I’m working on revisions to my novel. The main character of the short is one of the POV characters in the novel.

***

OA:  Your story is an alternate history piece about Alan Turing, an important figure in queer history, and in computing history. What led you to write this particular story?

LR: I was vacationing in England in 2009 when the British government issued its apology to Turing. A genuine apology is a kind of alt-history story: there’s this alternate timeline where I didn’t do this, and things are better in that timeline.  There’s also something alt-history-ish that’s stuck with me from The Enigma, Andrew Hodge’s biography of Turing: how arbitrary his death was, how much flowed from one small action. There seems to be a causal chain from Turing reporting a burglary to the police in 1952, to his outing, his chemical castration, and his suicide in 1954. It’s difficult to imagine the British government of 1952 behaving differently than it did, but it’s not difficult to imagine Turing deciding not to report that burglary.

That’s where I got the jumping-off point. I wanted to explore how the world might have been different if Alan Turing had lived out a normal human lifespan, but also what the effect on him might have been of keeping that secret, keeping it even after it was okay to talk about the wartime secrets, and then wondering when it would be okay to give that last secret up.

OA: As an editor of an anthology yourself, how did you encourage diversity in the submissions you received? Is there anything you learned during the process of reading for Thoughtcrime Experiments that would change the way you solicited submissions if you were to do it again?

LR: I can’t really improve on what Sumana said in your interview of her. For detailed analysis I’d point people to that interview or her blog post on the topic. I’ll second her statement that we didn’t do as much as we could have to recruit nonwhite and queer authors by announcing the anthology in relevant places.

OA: Do you think you will ever put together another anthology? Have you got anything other exciting projects on the horizon?

LR: We don’t have any plans for another anthology, partly because our lives are way too hectic right now. But I think we could do another one, testing some other hypothesis about the market. Like “send in your latest ready-to-submit story” or something.

***

Thanks, Karen, CD, and Leonard! Retro Spec is available now through Barnes & Noble and Amazon. There will be an official Retro Spec launch party at the Flintridge Bookstore and Coffee House in La Canada, California on the 25th of Spetember, and CD Covington will be reading from her Retro Spec story next weekend at Dragon*Con.

Debra Killeen turned to writing only as an adult. In her non-writing life she works in the pharmceutical industry, but her fiction remains firmly in high fantasy territory, not science fiction. The first book in her Myrridian Cycle, An Unlikely Duke, came out in 2007, and was followed by three more volumes: A Prince in Need, Legacy of the Archbishop, and Priestess Awakening. The fifth and final volume is scheduled to come out in 2011.

Debra is a straight ally, who believes that people should take love where they find it. She counts among her friends and relatives people from all across the spectrum of sexual and gender identity, and supports LGBTQI acceptance in her life and in her fiction.

If you are in Raleigh this weekend, you can find Debra at NASFiC, where she will be reading this evening at 8:00 with the Broad Universe group, as well as sitting on a few panels, and signing autographs. If you’re not near Raleigh, you might be able to catch Debra later this year or next at Darkover, OutlantaCon, StellarCon, RavenCon, or ConCarolinas.

Debra lives in North Carolina with her sister, who is also a writer. They share their home with several cats, who are all very helpful with the writing. In addition to her personal site, Debra maintains a Twitter feed.

***
OA: The fourth volume of your Myrridian Cycle books, Priestess Awakening, is out now and has some queer content. Can you tell us more about that? And do readers need to have read the previous 3 books in order to understand what’s going on in this one?

DK: Certainly. The queer content in Priestess Awakening involves a lesbian romance storyline as part of the plot. I didn’t realize when I was writing the first book in the series that one character would develop into a lesbian, but she let me know before I’d begun the manuscript for this volume. I knew the other woman was a lesbian from the outset of this volume.

While I would encourage readers to read the previous books in the series, of course, it’s not absolutely necessary for the enjoyment of this one. The plot of this novel stands alone, but the main characters’ back-stories do develop over the series.

OA: Myrridia seems to be heavily influenced by Christianity, but magic works there, and you dovetailed magic and religion in the books. As a pagan yourself, how did you come to that decision, and how do you feel about magic and religion generally?

DK: When I was first developing the initial book in the series, An Unlikely Duke, I knew religion would be playing a role. However, I’d read so many fantasy series back in my high school and college days where religion and magic were in opposition that I started with the premise that the dominant religion in this world at this time, Christianity, would not just condone magical practice, but control it. This decision was independent of my own paganism – heck, I was raised in the Baptist church, but I knew from my teen years that the Baptist church didn’t have all the answers for me. I’ve joked for many years that I would see “God” in nature. It took a little time to figure out exactly what that meant for me, but once I figured out that whole “divine feminine” concept, it was only natural to realize I was pagan.

I have always believed in something that I think of as magic – whether it came from reading fairy tales in my childhood or other influences – and I still believe that there are many things in our world which can’t be explained by science, at least not yet. I find both magic and religion to be fascinating subjects, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the chance to combine the two in this series of novels.

OA: Together with your sister, you designed some Myrridia inspired tarot cards. Are those available for sale (or even just to admire)?

DK: I wish! As of now, I’ve determined which Myrridian characters seem to personify the individual tarot cards. I think what surprised me the most is how little time it took me to figure out most of them! Apparently I’ve got a quite a few characters who are close to archetypes, and I never knew it while I was developing them! My sister is working on some draft text for the accompanying book, but unfortunately the artist who was going to start working on the designs has too many other obligations at this time. However, if there are any artists out there who might be interested in this project – they can feel free to contact me. My publisher is possibly interested in this project as well.

OA: Your four cats made their way into your fiction as well as your real home. How true to life are the cats that appear in the Myrridian books?

DK: Most of the scenes in which the cats take part have come from observing my cats. I’m sorry to say that a couple of the feline inspirations are no longer with me, but they live on in the books. The scene where two of the cats disrupt the wedding banquet in Priestess is based on typical behavior. While they never interrupted a banquet, they had enough feline fights in their time.

OA: What can we look for next from you? Any exciting projects coming up?

DK: More projects are coming, rest assured! The final volume of the Myrridian Cycle, Kingdom in the Balance, will be released sometime early next year. I’m currently revising a manuscript which I hope will be the first novel of a new series, about a twelve-year-old apprentice witch, Morgan, living near Chapel Hill, NC, who encounters a fairy clan living nearby. The fairies are dying and need Morgan’s help to save them. There’s an environmental message.

There’s another series in the Myrridian universe planned as well, with many of the characters going on crusade, about 10-15 years after the close of this series. The original idea came out of my frustration with the Iraq war, and I keep hoping that by the time I get the series written, the war will be over. Maybe just optimism on my part. But there will be more queer content and lots more religion and magic. And probably magic carpets…

Another series, which may end up a collaboration with my sister, is a spin-off of the Myrridian stories, but will be set in our world – paranormal mysteries. I don’t want to give too much away for folks who haven’t read the Myrridian cycle, but a character from Myrridian comes to our world, and will have to adjust to modern life after being born in the 10th century. I’m probably going with young adult in age, so while there won’t be a lot of gruesome murders caused by things natural or supernatural, we do hope to use create some spooky situations and hopefully have some fun, with some of the causes as explainable, but some not.

OA: Most writers are avid readers, too. What are some of your favorite books?

DK: So many excellent choices out there! I’m a big fan of Ray Bradbury and Terry Pratchett, to name two greats. I’ve read all the Harry Potter novels, and thought Rowling did a wonderful thing – getting kids to read who might not have picked up a book. Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy, Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers series, John Dickson Carr’s locked-room mysteries, Jeff Smith’s Bone graphic novels, Hellboy, Sandman. (I love graphic novels, too!) I’ve enjoyed the first two installments of Candace Havens’ Carruthers sisters series and I’m about halfway through the Harry Dresden books. Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon, which I hope to reread one of these days, Mary Stewart’s Arthurian series, and Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain series.

OA: You’re going to be at several cons in the coming year, including NASFiC this weekend. Where can people find you in person this weekend and beyond?

DK: Yes, I’ll be at NASFiC this weekend, and joining you and some other fabulous women authors on the Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading Friday evening at 8pm. I’ve got a few other panels over the weekend and two autograph sessions. I’ll be around and about the con and am always glad to stop and chat with folks, or else I’ll be in the dealers room (uncertain at this point). Later this year I’ll be at DarkoverCon near Baltimore on Thanksgiving weekend.

Next year looks to be fairly busy, with StellarCon, RavenCon, OutlantaCon/GaylaxiCon (a first for me, and looking forward to it!), and ConCarolinas so far. DarkoverCon and CapClave are two more possibilities, and I may see if there’s something promising in Florida, to join my publisher there. And maybe Dragon*Con.

***
Thanks, Debra! Join us next week for another Spotlight, and in the meantime, check out the Myrridian Cycle! And if you’re in Raleigh, come see Debra read tonight along with me and fellow OA member, C.D. Covington!

Sandra McDonald has written several short stories and novels, including “The Ghost Girls of Rumney Mill”, which was shortlisted for the Tiptree award in 2003, and the science fiction series, The Outback Stars, The Stars Down Under, and The Stars Blue Yonder. Her latest book, Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories follows the coverging paths of three people including an openly gay character and a genderqueer character.

Sandra has an MFA from the University of Southern Maine, and spent 8 years traveling the world as a Naval Officer. In addition to her personal site, she keeps a LiveJournal where she posts about writing.

***

OA: Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories features some gay and transgendered characters in an alternate Earth. How is their world like ours, and how is it different in the ways its societies treat LGBTQI people?

SM: Geography is a fun aspect of the book, and I like the idea that they’re in an alternate Earth or dimension. Another way of looking at it is to treat their world as our own, with an ongoing game of names. Ed McBain did this in his famed 87th precinct novels by using “Isola” instead of “Manhattan.” In fact, he renamed all five boroughs, and critics have argued over whether he meant to make a truly fictional city or a simple copy of New York City. However we treat the places, the people in Diana Comet are exactly like the people here, with a wide variety of orientations, prejudices, hopes and secret desires.

OA: You’re organizing the writing workshops for next year’s Gaylaxicon in Atlanta. What can writers expect to get out of these workshops if they attend?

SM: We’re aiming for that half-day, Milford style experience you see at other cons, with a small group of writers and lots of respectful, honest critiques. The difference with ours is that we will be encouraging positive portrayals of gay, lesbian, transgender and other characters. We’re all really excited about this. I first attended one of these workshops at Boskone, and our group was run by Theodora Goss and David Alexander Smith. It was a great learning experience for a fledgling writer like myself and I want to pay it forward to new writers now.

OA: When did you get the idea to make a periodic table of awesome female SF writers, and how did you decide who to include?

SM: Web surfing one night (as many writers are known to do), I came across Squidspot’s Periodic Table of Typefaces. It’s a very cool chart if you’re into web or page design. That meshed up with some thoughts I had about one of the footnote characters in Diana Comet, a female science fiction writer in the 1940′s. Soon I started fooling around on Macromedia Fireworks. Six weeks and 300 objects later, I had my own chart! The names were drawn from Hugo, Nebula and other awards lists, and I think represent a solid foundation of fabulous women writers. I wish I’d had room for dozens more. At the same time, the chart and the accompanying video point out some areas where we can improve – gaining Nebula nominations for urban fantasy writers, for instance, or seeing more women in leadership at SFWA.

OA: You were in the military for 8 years, and you’ve lived on at least 3 different islands in your lifetime. How has occupation and habitat influenced your writing?

SM: Being in the Navy was a great experience and definitely exposed me to a lot of different cultures and customs. At the same time, it opened my eyes to the hypocrisy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and how great sailors were being discharged only because of their sexuality. Being on islands helped me appreciate small communities and how people function when they’re not part of the “the norm.” I still love the military- Navy jets fly over my house several times a week – and still love islands, especially Key West.

OA: Writers have cats like planets have moons (they’re not a given, but it’s hardly surprising to find a few hanging around). Will you tell us about yours?

SM: I love that analogy. Right now I have three official cats and one unofficial stray, plus another on extended vacation with grandma. I never intended to be the cat lady of my neighborhood, but all animals deserve good homes and I’m happy to do what I can. The only time I regret having adorable small furry animals around is when one decides to plop down on the keyboard while I’m typing.

OA: Are you working on anything new? What might we hope to see from you in the future?

SM: I’m working on lots of new things, but also very excited about my stories being published this year. Over at Futurismic, I had a great time with “Tupac Shakur and the End of the World”. It’s my tribute to disaster movies. Clarkesworld just published “Beach Blanket Spaceship”, which is an homage to all those Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello movies I used to watch as a kid. And soon Strange Horizons will publish “Seven Sexy Cowboy Robots”, which was inspired by a great video called Brokeback Skaters. Really, check it out. Lots of fun!

***

Thanks, Sandra! Join us next week for another Spotlight, and in the meantime, check out Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories.