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Boogieman in Lavender

Liking Lanyards; Or Why Pride Month Is Still Important. Jeff Baker, Boogieman In Lavender (June 2025)

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Liking Lanyards Or Why Pride Month Is Still Important by Jeff Baker This is a Pride Month like no other we have seen for over two decades. Stores that were flying Rainbow Flags are not doing that this year. Rainbow decorated products and shirts are absent from a lot of stores. Beer companies are not putting out rainbow striped cans. Buildings are not festooned with rainbow bunting. We feel like some allies have deserted us. The loud, anti-LGBT attitude in the country has been given an imprimatur by an administration that capitalizes on bigotry, intolerance and hatred. But this really … Read more

400!!! (I Can’t Believe It Either!) Jeff Baker, Boogieman In Lavender. May 12, 2025.

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400! (I Can’t Believe It Either!) by Jeff Baker Four-Hundred Stories! I almost can’t believe it! But I’d better explain. Back in May of 2016 I stumbled across a mention of a Facebook page called “Monday Flash Fics.” The idea was simple; they would post a picture prompt Monday and anybody who wanted to had a week to write up a flash fiction (usually less than 500 or 1000 words) story to go with the picture; post it on their blog and link it to the Facebook page. “Sounds interesting,” I told my (late) husband Darryl. I set about and … Read more

Jeff Baker: Boogieman In Lavender “Snacking With Panthers.” Oscar Wilde’s Short-Stories. April 2025

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My Well-Worn Copy Of Wilde’s Short-Stories. Snacking With Panthers; The Short-Stories Of Oscar Wilde by Jeff Baker One of my very favorite short stories is Oscar Wilde’s “The Selfish Giant,” which I read as a children’s book in about third grade. The book included most of the text and the story was definitely there. I have since re-read the original many times and it was a few years later (also in Grade School, during those blissful days when a month stretched on for half a year) that I read Wilde’s famous novella “The Canterville Ghost.” That starts off as a … Read more

C. L. Moore’s “No Woman Born.” On Beyond Cisgender X – Boogieman In Lavender

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NOTE: This occasional series was inspired in 2019 by a suggestion from A. M. Leibowitz about a reading list for High School beyond the straight, white, male paradigm. In this edition, we won’t talk about a book, but rather about one story. We’ve met C. L. (Catherine Lucille) Moore several times in this column and in this feature. Moore (1911-1987)is the science-fiction and fantasy writer for the pulps from the 30s through the 50s in an era where women writing in that field were seemingly rare or concealed; whose use of initials was not meant to hide her femininity but … Read more

“…Until It’s Sold…” – Boogieman In Lavender

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I’ve been getting back into the groove of writing in the New Year after slowing down on doing longer stories. I actually have a list of longer stories I started that are unfinished. (“In progress,” as I say.) I’ve also been submitting stories to various markets online. I can do the last bit because I’ve been writing a lot of stories over the last decade or so and I have a lot that never sold. Some editors dismiss that as “in the trunk” stories but I disagree. Legendary writer Robert A. Heinlein once listed some rules for writers. Among them … Read more

Jeff Baker, Boogieman In Lavender: “All That We Can Do.” January 11, 2025

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All That We Can Do by Jeff Baker There’s a meme floating around the web; a quote to the effect that you should thank the part of you that helped you get through this year before you start listing the improvements you’re going to make this year. That got me thinking. I post a monthly progress report about my writing. Listing how much stuff I finished, what I worked on and any sales and the like. I look through them and I get a little discouraged about my progress and my career. But I shouldn’t. I have published at least … Read more

Jeff Baker; Boogieman in Lavender. Brown Grass.

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Brown Grass By Jeff Baker A lot of things make me nostalgic this time of year, especially since I outlived my immediate family. I have some distant cousins I rarely see and some found family that I talked about in last December’s column. https://www.queerscifi.com/jeff-baker-boogieman-in-lavender-found-family/ All of them have been hugely supportive. But that’s not what I want to talk about. I live in Kansas. Driving from one town to the other involves covering a lot of ground, usually on the highway. Lots of farmland and a lot of grass by the roadside. In spring and summer that grass ought to … Read more

“Now What?” —-Jeff Baker, Boogieman In Lavender.

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Election Night I wrote a very angry, very scared, very depressed version of this column. Apparently a lot of voters voted against their own self-interest and against society’s. Events like confidential documents probably shared with our country’s enemies and the attempted overthrow of an election in January 2021 have sunk down the collective memory hole of the American people. I’m upset, I’m depressed and I’m angry. All at people who should know better. People who voted and will probably be surprised at a tide of vengeance coming from the White House next year. People who voted for a guy who … Read more

“We Mostly Come Out At Night.” On Beyond Cisgender IX. – Boogieman In Lavender

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For this ninth (!!!) installment of the column’s occasional feature “On Beyond Cisgender,” we go into a recent YA anthology perfect for the Halloween Season. This feature is about books recommended for High School readers that go beyond the usual “white, male, cisgender paradigm,” an idea suggested by Amy Liebowitz, (thanks very much!) several years ago. “We Mostly Come Out At Night,” edited by Rob Costello, published by Running Press Teens, Hatchette Book Group in 2024 https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/rob-costello/we-mostly-come-out-at-night/9780762483198/ features “15 Queer Tales of Monsters, Angels and Other Creatures,” to quote the cover blurb. Stories range from variants on a classic fairy … Read more

Looking At A Few Books (Yes, Just Looking!) Jeff Baker, Boogieman In Lavender

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Looking At A Few Books (Yes, Just Looking) by Jeff Baker Not much this month. Just a glance over and recommendation of a few LGBT themed books that have come my way. And full disclosure, I have not actually read all of them, mainly the anthologies I just got in the mail. (I will post links, although I have no affiliation with the books themselves.) First off I just received series editor Charles Payseur’s “We’re Here; the Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2022,” from Neon Hemlock Press. https://www.neonhemlock.com/books This edition edited by Naomi Kanakia and released in 2023. This is the … Read more