As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Columnists

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

by

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

Sources of Inspiration: Company

by

There’s nothing quite like company that encourages me, sees something special in my writing. Sometimes an appreciative reader spots something I’m completely unaware of, or helps me develop ideas by their own response to a character. Sometimes my companions give me space, time to write, gifts I cannot appreciate enough. Sometimes they’re artists themselves, offering up ideas, a spark of insight, which becomes a story, a poem, or a line of dialogue. Our best moments are when we inspire each other, bouncing ideas off each other, trying to catch them and transform them into something which grows and grows beyond … Read more

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

by

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

Sources of Inspiration: Grief

by

This is one of those subjects so hard to write about directly, a Writer’s Block as thick as a tumor feels like it lodges its way between me and my writing tools, clogging the words to express such feelings inside me, choking me.  Once I can get myself going, it’s like vomiting. I’m sick with grief, until I start to puke out the words with such force, I cannot stop. The words pour out in a deluge of pain.  I struggle to articulate this. Grief isn’t always articulate, but it is recognizable.  Why write about something, which is so sad, … Read more

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

by

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

Sources of Inspiration: Impressions of Time

by

As time slips away, leaving me increasingly unable to recall certain events, I become more fascinated by it. What was happening during a particular year? What was I doing, or not doing? Whom or what were the major influences in my life? Whom or what was I obsessed with? Certain events remain painfully, exquisitely dear. The summer of 1989; where I discovered Anne Rice, Caravaggio, Sheridan Le Fanu, and many other things in a group of like-minded young people interested in many a fascinating topic. This was the same year I visited Tokyo, Singapore, and Bangkok.  2005, the year immediately … Read more

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

by

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

Sources of Inspiration: Noise

by

I’ve always been sensitive to noise. Surround me with too much noise and I cannot hear you. Blare your phone and you physically torture me, especially if your phone makes a high-pitched, whining sound…something about the electrical tone is agonizing. More than one meal out has been ruined by other customers, not bothering with ear buds or anything else which keeps the noise private.  On the flip side, I can really enjoy music and songs on a visceral level. Certain pieces uplift me to an almost orgasmic ecstacy, hearing the pulse of their beat within my ear drums.  Pleasurable sounds … Read more

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

by

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

Sources of Inspiration: Pain and Pleasure

by

Go where the pain is. Transform your pain into prose, into poetry. Do something creative with your suffering. Make a work of art of your pain.  How often have I heard that advice in one form or another. There’s just one problem; I don’t want to go there. I don’t like dwelling upon my pain, the human monsters of this world whom take the forms of politicians, enforces, or part of corporation; all intent upon dehumanizing people to spread hate and satisfy their greed.  Thinking of such monsters sends me into a spiral of despair, which feels as if I’m … Read more