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Boogieman in Lavender

Jeff Baker: Boogieman In Lavender. Lou Rand’s “The Gay Detective.”

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Lou Rand’s “The Gay Detective” by Jeff Baker Bay City…Early Nineteen-Sixties…Fog rolling in across the bay…the famous bridge…you know which city this is supposed to be. Bars that are clandestine rendezvous for furtive meetings between men in back rooms…bodies found in the darkness. Not warm, welcoming bodies but Gay men, murdered. No suspects. Few clues. One looks like murder-suicide. It isn’t Into this foggy mess steps Francis “Frank” Morley, detective for hire. The classic private eye with a dingy office, a loyal secretary and a hulking mass of muscle for an assistant. And Morley is as openly Gay as you … Read more

Night Of the Living Queers – Boogieman in Lavender

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This is the seventh (wow!) installment of our “On Beyond Cisgender” feature, where we look at books for YA readers (whether written for them or not!) It was initially inspired by a Facebook post from A. M. Leibowitz lamenting the lack of LGBT, non-cisgender, non POC books for High School readers several years ago. There aren’t a lot of good original anthologies aimed at LGBT YA audiences out there, and this one is appropriate for the season. —–jeff Just in time for Halloween, Wednesday Books has published “Night Of the Living Queers,” a YA anthology edited by Shelly Page and … Read more

Jeff Baker, Boogieman in Lavender: A Visit to XY Bar, Or My Glimpse of 2023

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A Visit to XY Bar or My Glimpse Of 2023 by Jeff Baker A month ago I did something I haven’t done in a couple of decades. I went to a gay bar at night when the joint was jumping. Let me explain. The last few months I’ve gone out to a few times to places where I can casually socialize. (I’ve missed having somebody around to talk too.) A nice little coffeehouse, the Public Library in the afternoon (which are also good places to write!) and a couple of Gay bars. Also in the afternoon when there aren’t a … Read more

Jeff Baker; Boogieman In Lavender; “Facing the Blank Page.”

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Facing the Blank Page by Jeff Baker Oh Hell! It’s August! I spent most of last month writing “June” on my checks and now it’s August and I have a column due. What to write? What to write? What to write? Damn. Blank page. Damn! Review a book I’m reading? I haven’t read a book lately. Write about what I’ve been doing? Let’s see; sitting around, typing, watching TV, going to the store, drinking beer. Nope. Not enough word count. What time is it now? Damn! Later than when I started. Closer to the thirteenth. I could write about deadlines. … Read more

Queer Poetry Corner: Two Books to Look At. Jeff Baker, Boogieman in Lavender

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Queer Poetry Corner: Two Books to Look At by Jeff Baker And you, whate’er your Fav’rite does approve For Condescension leads the way to love Go with him where he goes, tho’ long the way And the fierce Dog-Star fires the sultry Way —-from “Odes” by Tibullus (60-90 B.C.) The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse Poetry can be a fleeting art. Sometimes the lines and stanzas are brief, sometimes the impact of a poem is less brief than that. But other times a poem can last for a millennia and shine a light on the lives of the poets and … Read more

Spellcheck – Boogieman In Lavender

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If I Ran the World… Well, first I’d get rid of war and poverty and injustice and crime and hatred and all those awful “Children of the Corn” sequel movies that even Stephen King wants nothing to do with. Then I’d get down to the really important stuff. There are words I just can’t spell worth a crap! I’m a writer, I’m supposed to be able to do this. I do use spellcheck but it’s so damn frustrating that after decades there are words I continue to spell the same way, and that way is WRONG! For openers, let’s check … Read more

Jeff Baker, Boogieman in Lavender: “Extra Innings.”

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Extra Innings by Jeff Baker I’m a writer. It’s who I am. It’s who I think I always wanted to be, even during Grade School and Jnr. High when I wasn’t sure “what you want to be when you grow up.” I always liked doing something creative, even if it was just drawing parodies of comic books in a notebook during class. Being a writer permeates my being, even more than my sexual orientation. I didn’t realize I was Bisexual until I was about twenty years old. But that isn’t as important as the writing. I lucked out in 2008 … Read more

Initially Yours, On Beyond Cisgender VI Jeff Baker, Boogieman in Lavender

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Initially Yours: On Beyond Cisgender VI by Jeff Baker NOTE: This occasional series was inspired in 2019 by suggestion from A. M. Leibowitz about a reading list for High School beyond the straight, male paradigm. —jsb I am writing this during March 2023, which is Woman’s History Month. So here (a month or so late!) is a short overview of some (not all!) of the women who wrote sci-fi for the pulps and a little later. I fits in well with this ongoing series “On Beyond Cisgender” which started as recommendations for High School reading but these books are fine … Read more

Two Briggon Snow Podcasts – Boogieman in Lavender

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Look Up & Roommates – Two Briggon Snow Podcasts Radio drama, the “theater of the mind” is alive and well, in podcast form anyway. Back in the days of “The Shadow” or even the later “Radio Mystery Theater,” there would not have even been a mention of any LGBT people or issues. Not so with modern-day podcasts. Two in particular are produced by actor/director Briggon Snow. “Look Up,” a 2020-21 podcast series from Atypical Artists and created by Snow involves Emmet (Evan Bittencourt) and Lincoln (Snow) in a sci-fi drama. They are two teenagers who encounter each other on the … Read more

“We’re Here” For a Best of the Year. New Yearly Anthology Series – Boogieman in Lavender

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What would you have for your last meal? In Ann LeBlanc’s story “Twenty Thousand Last Meals on an Exploding Station,” an engineer on a doomed space station finds herself in a time loop and just has time to eat at a different one of the station’s thousands of restaurants before the end, an end which keeps repeating itself. This imaginative delicacy is just one of the delights in the 2021 edition of the new yearly anthology of Best Queer Speculative Fiction of the Year “We’re Here,” published by Neon Hemlock Press. The series stands as a fine replacement for Lethe … Read more