Outer Alliance Spotlight #19: Barton Paul Levenson January 31, 2010
Posted by juliarios in : interviews , 3commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #19. Each Friday[1], the Spotlight features an ally who writes, reviews, publishes, or is in some other way involved with LGBTQI speculative fiction. Our guest this week is physicist and author, Barton Paul Levenson.
Barton is bisexual and has been writing queer speculative fiction for 24 years. His latest novel, I Will is due out very soon from Virtual Tales. Two earlier novels, Ella the Vampire and Parole are available through Lyrical Press. Two more novels, Max and Me, and Year of the Human are slated for release later this year through Lyrical Press and Hearts on Fire Books.
As a physicist, Barton writes atmosphere models when he isn’t writing fiction, and spends a lot of time trying to raise awareness about global warming. He is a born-again Christian, a liberal Democrat, and a lover of science. He hails from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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OA: You’ve written female/female, male/male and male/female relationships in your currently available works. What appealed to you about each of those? Do you anticipate writing more of any one type in the future?
BPL: I’m currently working on a novel which I think will involve two teen girls falling in love with each other. But generally I don’t target the sexual relationships involved from the beginning; they just flow out of the characterization.
What is attractive about each? Hard to say. I think the hetero thing feels good because you’re exploring a cuddly, warm body different from your own and designed by evolution to mate with–also because men and women in most societies have slightly different subcultures and ways of looking at things, so it’s a chance to get close to someone with a (somewhat) different psychology. The homo thing feels good, I think, because it’s reassuring to be with a body like your own, one you know, and it’s easier to know in advance what your partner will and won’t like. And if you’re raised in a heterosupremacist culture, it can be awfully liberating to throw away the demanded gender roles and just do what feels good to you, and the hell with what society thinks. That experience will fade with time as GLBT lifestyles become more accepted, God willing.
OA: I Will was released a few days ago. If you could really visit the space adventure universe in the book, would you want to go? Why, or why not?
BPL: Heck, yeah! It’s filled with all the cool SF stuff I craved as a kid–aliens, interstellar travel, strange planets, and a very comfortable, high-tech environment. Plus Earth in this universe (it shows up in the sequel) has incorporated a lot of the policy changes I recommend. When you’re creating the world, you can make it do anything you want!
OA: Your bio on the Lyrical Press site describes you as a born-again Christian and a liberal Democrat, and says that this combination confuses people. Do you think this confusion is unwarranted, or are there times when you find your spirituality and your political beliefs in conflict?
BPL: It hasn’t been a problem so far, aside from occasional frustration with fellow Christians who embrace politics I don’t, and fellow left-liberals who reject my religion or all religions. I can get along with anybody, but I have had a few occasions when I was told I couldn’t be a “real” Christian if I supported [pick an issue--free choice, gay rights, evolution...]. Also that I couldn’t “really” understand or believe science if I believed in God, and that as a Christian I undoubtedly embraced misogyny, homophobia, racism, creationism, and despoiling the environment. Sometimes it was honest ignorance; sometimes it was just prejudice.
OA: You have two more books coming out in the next year: Max and Me, and Year of the Human. Can you tell us anything about them? When can we expect to see them?
BPL: Max and Me is an SF action-adventure novel with a little speculative philosophy thrown in. The protagonist is Gunnar “Gunner” Dahlquist, a bisexual veteran of Beast War III who now pilots a freelance spaceship out of 1 Ceres. He lives with the bioengineered talking cat Max, who is even more cynical and foul-mouthed than he is. Things get strange when, twelve years after Beast War III ended, people suddenly begin pursuing Max, one faction wanting to kidnap him, another to kill him.
Year of the Human is a young-adult SF novel. Alien teen girl Throsu ka-Hohsh is a would-be astronaut and a nationalist; her planet fought a brief, inconclusive war with Earth years earlier. She is thrown for a loop when her parents inform her they will host a human scientist and her daughter for a year–the daughter to live in Throsu’s room! And soon that’s the least of her worries.
OA: As a concerned physicist, what (if anything) do you think the global community can do to successfully end global warming? If it doesn’t work, what do you think the consequences will look like?
BPL: If we make a massive switch away from fossil fuels to solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, and hydro in the next five to ten years, and stop cutting down forests, we may just make it. Frankly, I don’t think we will. The human pattern is never to prevent a crisis; it’s to wait until the crisis happens and then react. This time that pattern is going to kill us. Global warming causes more droughts in continental interiors and more violent weather along coastlines. 12% of the Earth’s land surface was “severely dry” by the Palmer Drought Severity Index in 1970; by 2002 that figure was 30% and still climbing (Dai et al. 2004). I expect human agriculture to collapse completely some time in the next forty years, and when that goes our civilization will go with it.
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Thanks, Barton! Join us again on Friday for another Spotlight, and in the meantime, check out I Will at Virtual Tales, or other books by Barton Paul Levenson at Lyrical Press.
[1] (Back to post): My apologies for the tardiness of this week’s Spotlight. A series of international travel (mis)adventures left me without internet access on Friday and Saturday.
Outer Alliance Spotlight #9: Lauren McLaughlin November 13, 2009
Posted by juliarios in : interviews , 2commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #9. Each Friday the Spotlight features an ally who writes, reviews, publishes, or is in some other way involved with LGBTQI speculative fiction. Our guest this week is YA author Lauren McLaughlin.
Lauren is a feminist, and strongly pro-choice. She supports equality for women and LGBTQI people, and is especially interested in promoting the acceptance of gender queer teens. As a straight ally, Lauren is personally committed to making the world safe and lovely for people of all orientations, and her work reflects this. Her first novel, Cycler, is about a girl who turns into a boy for four days each month. Lauren uses this premise to explore what gender means, raising at least as many questions as she answers.
Lauren started out in the film industry, working her way up from production assistant to line producer and screenwriter, and eventually to helping Mike Paseornek open a New York production and development office for Cinepix Films (which later became Lions Gate Entertainment). She began writing prose full time in 2000. Cycler came out in 2008, followed by a sequel, (Re)Cycler in August of 2009. A third (unrelated) novel is on the horizon, but doesn’t have a formal release date yet. Though Lauren is not working full time in the film industry anymore, she has written a screenplay for Cycler, which will be produced by Don Murphy.
Cycler has a facebook page, and a YouTube trailer. (Re)Cycler has been nominated as a Rainbow Book for 2009 through the Rainbow Project. Lauren blogs on her personal site, and posts to Twitter under the name LaurenMcWoof.
Linkdump #6 – Gay literature and TV November 10, 2009
Posted by zeborah in : links , add a commentMiscellaneous
Chris/M-Brane SF comments on the Maine/gay marriage situation and on those who opposed the Matt Shepard law.
A recent conference in New Zealand brought together leaders and youth from sexual minority communities across the Pacific; the article touches on Fa’afafine in Samoa and New Zealand.
On gay literature
Michael Stevens writes about the change in how important gay literature has been to him: “Now there are hundreds of books, by many different authors available. And yet I feel little compunction to follow the latest trends in gay fiction or poetry. It just doesn’t seem to matter to me any longer. Yet once it was central to me discovering who I was and how to negotiate the world.” and “By reading I learnt what it was to be a gay man.”
On LiveJournal community 50books_poc are three recent reviews of LGBT-focused writing:
- M+O4EVR by Tonya Cherie Hegamin, along with a general introduction about LGBT fiction, YA lit, race, and the few other books about African-American queer girls;
- Southland by Nina Revoyr
- “Gay Imperialism: Gender and Sexuality Discourse in the ‘War on Terror’” by Jin Haritaworn, with Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem
And GLBT Fantasy Fiction Resources “provides an opportunity for readers to express their thoughts regarding fantasy and sci-fi with gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered protagonists through book reviews, essays, and reading lists in a non-commercial environment”.
Gay characters on TV
In the Bay Area Reporter, “Going, going, gone!: the case of the missing LGBT characters” looks at the dearth of gay characters on US television. [Though personally I'm disappointed that they describe Thirteen on House as "previously queer" and "now heterosexual" when the show itself has made it clear that she is and always has been bisexual and just happens to be dating a guy at present. The show does plenty else wrong, but - at least as far as I've seen - it doesn't deny her bisexuality.] An interview with writer/director Alan Ball discusses directions for gay characters (both existing ones and new ones) in season 3 of True Blood.
If you come across any links to share for next week’s linkdump, please post them to the Outer Alliance forum or bookmark them on delicious or diigo with tag “outeralliancelinks“.
Outer Alliance Spotlight #7: K L Richardsson October 30, 2009
Posted by juliarios in : interviews, publications , 2commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #7. Each Friday the Spotlight features an ally who writes, reviews, publishes, or is in some other way involved with LGBTQI speculative fiction. Our guest this week is YA author, K L Richardsson.
K L has been playing around with a fantasy world in her head ever since she was a child. As an adult, this has manifested itself in her Heart quartet, which features gay teens in an adventurous high fantasy setting. Heart Sense, Heart Song, and Heart’s Price are available now through Prizm Books, and she’s currently working on the fourth novel in the series, Heart’s Peace.
As a straight ally, K L makes a point of advocating for LGBTQI acceptance both in speculative fiction, and in real life. In addition to novel writing, K L is in the process of earning a PhD in Medieval Studies. She has a passion for hats, and all things Arthurian.
Outer Alliance Spotlight #6: Hayden Thorne October 23, 2009
Posted by juliarios in : interviews, publications , add a commentWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #6. Each Friday the Spotlight features an ally who writes, reviews, publishes, or is in some other way involved with LGBTQI speculative fiction. Our guest this week is Hayden Thorne, author of The Twilight Gods.
Hayden Thorne is a straight ally, who looks at writing as a form of activism, and features queer teens coming of age in contemporary and historical fantasy stories. Her Masks series follows the journey of a gay teen in a city full of superheroes, while her historical novels, The Twilight Gods, Banshee, and Icarus in Flight, deal with darker and more realistic themes.
When she is not writing, Hayden divides her time between working in the fine art industry, and cycling. In addition to advocating for LGBTQI rights, she supports the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Humane Society of the United States.
All of Hayden’s books to date, including her latest novel, The Twilight Gods, are available now from the LGBTQ YA imprint, Prizm Books. (more…)
Linkdump #2 – Lambda Awards and Banned Books October 5, 2009
Posted by zeborah in : links, membership , add a commentI don’t have as many links as last week, so instead I’ll point to someone else’s linkdump – elf‘s Lambda Literary Awards linkspam, collecting posts about the controversy around Lambda’s new/clarified guidelines for their awards.
The American Library Association (ALA) celebrated Banned Books Week from 26 September – 3 October this year. Their 2009 list of challenged/banned books (PDF, 8.4MB) includes “And Tango Makes Three”, “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding”, “King & King”, “Girl, Interrupted”, “The Joy of Gay Sex” and “The Lesbian Kama Sutra”, among others. (Speculative fiction books included “The Golden Compass” “The Great Tree of Avalon”, “Brave New World”, and more.) For the curious, past lists of challenged/banned books are also available.
If you come across any links to share for next week’s linkdump, please post them to the Outer Alliance forum or bookmark them on delicious or diigo with tag “outeralliancelinks”.
Outer Alliance Spotlight #2: Malinda Lo September 25, 2009
Posted by juliarios in : interviews, publications , add a commentWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #2. Each Friday the Spotlight features an ally who writes, reviews, publishes, or is in some other way involved with LGBTQI speculative fiction. Our guest this week is Malinda Lo, author of the YA novel, Ash.
Malinda is a Chinese American lesbian, who is active in LGBTQI and POC (People of Color) awareness efforts. She was managing editor of the lesbian entertainment news site, AfterEllen.com until September of 2008, when she began writing fiction full time.
In addition to keeping a personal journal, Malinda is a member of the 2009 Debutantes LiveJournal community for new YA authors, and a maintainer for The Enchanted Inkpot YA and Middle Grade fantasy community. She lives in Northern California with her partner.