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U=(N/T)M*G: Rust

A rather alarming, but interesting development has occurred in the realms of environmental science and policy. One of humanity’s greatest fellow travelers has earned its place on the endangered species list. Meet the Bombus Affinis, better know as the rusty patched bumblebee. Despite the fact that bee stings are so fatal to my mom, I love bees. They’re strong, organized, focused and peaceful. Bees are yet another necessary part of existence continuing on this planet. And they are dying. Without bees, the world, humanity not the least of it, would be in dire straights. Our little fellow terrestrials are the … Read more

Asta’s Annotation: MM Fiction and the Female Gaze

Asta's Annotations

We hear a lot about the male gaze in the arts, but what about the female gaze, especially when it comes to MM fiction?

It is no secret that women make up a high percentage of gay romance writers and readers. I, myself, number among them. The question I thought I’d raise today is what influence this prevalence of women has upon the genre. Does it even affect it at all?

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Jeff Baker – Boogieman In Lavender: Queering Old Stories

Jeff Baker

Gaying The Story Up; or “Keep It Light, Keep It Bright, Keep It Gay.”   by Jeff Baker               I’ve done it. At least I’ve tried it. Taking a story I’ve written and making it appealing to an LGBT market by inserting a gay theme or character or making a character gay. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.             There was a riff on the superhero genre I wrote about ten years ago. Couldn’t sell it, and then I saw a market for an LGBT-themed anthology. So, I tweaked the story a little, made one of the characters in the … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: MDMA

Yeah, I wrote those ridiculous letters for this post, knowing full well what they mean. And yes, I also know that knee-jerk reaction I had when I first read those letters in conjunction to anything having to do with medicine. For those that don’t know, MDMA is more commonly known as Ecstasy. I personally know of it’s short, sordid history as a party drug because my sister and a couple of my friends. I especially remember a party out in the desert of my junior year where I babysat a boy not much older than me while he was rolling. … Read more

Words & Dreams: Finding Hope in Star Trek: The 9 Most Hopeful TNG Episodes

There are times when we feel down. When hope is elusive. During those times, it helps to have something to turn to—something that will bolster your morale with its message, along with the knowledge that others cared enough about the same thing to write about it. That’s the very spirit in which most of the Star Trek franchise was written. So, as a soul-booster, I’ve gone through all the episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It’s the most hopeful of the Trek series, in my opinion. The original series provides some real competition, but its run was sadly short. … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Mnemonic

As if the ancient Greeks couldn’t have been more awesome, I stumbled on a little factoid that was the inspiration for this post. They invented the Mind Palace. If you’ve ever read the books or seen the numerous shows and movies, this is the vaunted “mind trick”that the great detective Sherlock Holmes uses, among quite a few others both real and fictional. In reality, the Mind Palace is just one variation of mind trap in a dozen under the heading method of loci, as part of a bunch of kinds of mnemonic devices. And it works, though some types of … Read more

Sources of Inspiration: The Nutcracker and the Mouse King

  One of my favorite sources of inspiration is research on old legends, tales, or classic stories. I’ve always loved ‘The Nutcracker’. As a child, I went to see a version, which a friend’s sister was playing one of the Russian dolls in. This particular ‘Nutcracker’ was half play, half ballet. The play part featured the mouse king. He ran around, biting people, giving them ugly faces, until the Nutcracker stopped him. I’ve seen many versions of ‘The Nutcracker’ since, but that was the only one with that particular storyline. When I did some research for ‘Seven Tricks’, I finally … Read more

Asta’s Annotations: Queer Theory in Modern Culture

In his 1993 essay “There’s something queer here” Alexander Doty stated that queer erotics were “already part of culture’s erotic centre” (Hollows, Hutching & Jancovich, 2000, pg 339) when he discussed queer readings of films. More than twenty years on, and with gay rights movements slowly gaining ground around the world, to what extent does this statement still hold true? I believe that these readings have become more mainstream. No longer merely the purview of cultural critics, they are readily embraced by an audience happy to celebrate diversity. In a previous column I discussed the role of fan fiction in … Read more

Queer Fantasy Roots: Enough About M-Preg, How About Female Impregnation?

Since I gave some time in my first column to medieval literary examples of male pregnancy, how about some equal time for the ladies? Are there any examples in myth or literature of women getting other women pregnant? Pre-modern understandings of how pregnancy works allowed for some interesting possibilities, either in fantastic literature, or pseudo-medical writing. For example, the Greek philosopher Pythagoras (and his followers, well into the 17th century) postulated that sperm contained a tiny fully-formed homunculus that was nourished within a woman’s womb but that derived entirely from the father. This “preformationism” theory of pregnancy had its female … Read more

Jeff Baker—Boogieman In Lavender

                                         Wilde Stories 2016                                                 By Jeff Baker               Science fiction, magical realism, fantasy and plain old horror. All are on display in the 2016 edition of Wilde Stories, editor Steve Berman’s annual “best of the year” collection devoted to gay speculative fiction.             “Imaginary Boys” by Paul Magrs is one of several stories in Wilde Stories with a young adult protagonist. In this case David, raised by a single working mother, dealing with homophobia and with a visitor from Somewhere Else thrown into the mix. The story is both touching and funny with laughs coming from the least-likely … Read more