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Jeff Baker

“Fantastic” and “Normal.” Jeff Baker, Boogieman In Lavender, (August, 2026)

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The Black Fantastic and Not Not Normal: On Beyond Cisgender XI Jeff Baker This is the latest installment in this column’s occasional feature “On Beyond Cisgender,” suggested by Amy Liebowitz several years ago and spotlighting books recommended for High School readers that go beyond the usual “white, male, cisgender paradigm.” This time around, two books to look at. One deliberately written for kids, one not. First, here’s a look at “The Black Fantastic,” a recent anthology of “Afrofuturist stories” edited by Andre M. Carrington from 2025. The anthology blends newer writers with more familiar names, and benefits immensely from Carrington’s … Read more

Jeff Baker, Boogieman In Lavender: Catweazle: “Everything Works!” (July, 2026)

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Book, Television - Deposit Photos

Catweazle—Everything Works! by Jeff Baker “Nothing works!” Catweazle, in frustration. (Said often.) It was an obscure British children’s TV show from over half-a-century ago. It was intended apparently to be more educational, but like its titular title character, that’s not how it turned out. Given British television’s habit of recording new shows over tapes of the old (there’s a frantic search on for early “Dr. Who” episodes!) the show, like it’s wizardly character, was believed vanished and lost but showed up intact, having been filmed. And one of its actors gives the show a tenuous Gay connection. “Catweazle,” the series … Read more

Books For Pride Month. Jeff Baker, Boogieman In Lavender (June 5, 2026)

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Books For Pride Month By Jeff Baker Just in time for Pride Month (which is why I’m posting this early!) I’m selecting several of my favorite LGBT-themed books to dip into for June. And I acknowlege I’ve probably talked about these in this space before. Most of them should be readily available to read online, to order online or find at your new or used bookstore. And the bulk of them are short-story collections or anthologies. (Full disclosure; I know some of these authors and I’m actually mentioned in a story introduction in one of the books!) In no particular … Read more

Why Jeff Baker, Boogieman In Lavender, Is Writing Two Novellas At Once. (May 12, 2026)

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Why I’m Writing Two Novellas At Once by Jeff Baker I am a terrible procrastinator. (Okay, okay. Actually I’m a very good procrastinator.) I’m a great putter-offer, especially about writing. So, when I tried to start writing regularly years and years ago I told myself that I would only work on one story at a time. That had been my problem for many years; plenty of false starts, including some very good beginnings, but very few were finished. In that, I probably was like a lot of wannabe writers who have a trunk-full (or file-full) of half-finished stories, (if even … Read more

“Four Pages A Day—I Gotta Be Out Of My Mind…” Jeff Baker, Boogieman In Lavender. April 2026

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Photo By Amy Tharp Four Pages A Day or I Gotta Be Out Of My Mind by Jeff Baker I didn’t expect to do one of these columns involving Frederik Pohl again. Pohl (1919-2013) being the very heterosexual sci-fi writer whose story “Day Million” I profiled a few months ago https://www.queerscifi.com/day-million-jeff-baker-boogieman-in-lavender-january-13-2026/ here. But I’m going to and it ties in with the act of writing. Several years ago I picked up a copy of Pohl’s 1984 collection “Pohlstars,” where Pohl collected several of his more recent short-stories and also offered introductions to the stories, entertaining little snippets about how (and … Read more

Jeff Baker; Boogieman In Lavender: Peter Lefcourt’s “The Dreyfus Affair”

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The Dreyfus Affair by Jeff Baker A couple of decades before “Heated Rivalry” heated up bookstores and screens, there was the story of Randy Dreyfus and D. J. Pickett causing a stir among the sports-minded in Peter Lefcourt’s 1992 baseball novel “The Dreyfus Affair.” Set presumably in the early Two-Thousands and loosely patterned after the famous Ninteenth-Century political scandal that gives the book its title, the novel takes a lighter tone and was reportedly sold on a one-sentence pitch: a shortstop falls in love with his second baseman. Said Shortstop, Randy Dreyfus, has started noticing an attraction to Second Baseman … Read more

Reading “Heated Rivalry.” Jeff Baker, Boogieman In Lavender February 2026

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Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid by Jeff Baker NOTE: Of course, this review contains a bunch of spoilers. “You know those guys on rival teams who act like they hate each other when the game is playing but are really good friends when the game is over? Well, this takes it to its logical extreme…” —-Kenny Blasco, explaining the TV show “Heated Rivalry.” It’s almost impossible to scroll through any LGBT social media or websites without seeing references to “Heated Rivalry.” The Canadian Gay Hockey Romance that has taken television audiences by storm. But before there was a TV show, … Read more

“Day Million.” Jeff Baker, Boogieman In Lavender. January 13, 2026

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Day Million by Jeff Baker Gender fluidity. A love story. A man and a woman who are not a man and a woman. And this is not in a modern work of fiction but in the 1966 story “Day Million” by the very cisgender Frederik Pohl. “Day Million” is not a story that would be called “groundbreaking” for LGBT fiction but it fits the 1960s in that it broke taboos and norms with frank explorations of gender and phrases like “he doesn’t need the flesh for pleasure…it is the brain that feels; it is the interpretation of (the) impulses that … Read more

Jeff Baker, Boogieman In Lavender Says “Kids, Get Off My Lawn!!”

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In Which An Old Guy Says Get Off My Lawn by Jeff Baker Another year, another bracketed space of time slips into history. 2025, wow. 2026, again, wow. It doesn’t feel like that long ago that we were awaiting the arrival of the year 2000. Remember the squabbles over exactly what year began the Twenty-First Century? It seems amazing that a nice chunk of the populace have never known anything but years when they would begin writing a date with “20.” People to whom the phrase “The Year Two-Thousand” connotates antiquity, not “the Future” and all its possible wonders. People … Read more

Jeff Baker, Boogieman In Lavender–On Being A Good Kitty Daddy. November 2025

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On Being A Good Kitty Daddy by Jeff Baker File this one under “Things To Be Thankful For.” After my husband died, the house was too empty and quiet. I’ve always loved cats and so when my Brother and his family adopted two pregnant strays I decided to adopt a brother-and-sister pair from one litter. An inquisitive ginger male and a sweet calico female. And I wound up adopting an affectionate and vocal tortoiseshell female from the other litter. (Two mothers, but probably the same father.) My house became lively and warm and felt like a home again. The kitties … Read more