My story Self-Defense -- which I wrote in, what, 1990? as a performance monologue -- is being turned into a graphic story, i.e. comix, by a friend who's working on a comix anthology with the theme (but no longer the title) of "I'm not a feminist, but..." The anthology project (which is still in the proposal stage) has the current title "The Big Feminist But." But I hear that title may change too.
How They Scored is now available on Amazon.com as a paperback book and as a Kindle edition.
How They Scored, the novel I wrote in the last half of 2007 for Cleis Press, and which they subsequently rejected (see the two entries below), is now available in paperback (16.98) and as a PDF download (4.00) from the Lulu print-on-demand service.
My novel of unmitigated pornography, Lesbian Camp Girls, is also available from Lulu.
I just found a review of Frighten the Horses I'd never seen before, published in the Harvard Crimson, 10 February 1994. Read it. The reviewer, one Edith Replogle, wasn't too crazy about it and neither were the Harvard students she showed it to. Oh well. I Googled her and found she later became a history PhD. at Berkeley, by the way.
I have finished another draft of my novel about the American girl who goes to India, the title of which is now Bangalored. This is the last draft, really -- unless either my agent or a publisher feels it's really close. Then I'll make changes.
Otherwise it's going to be on to another project next year. Oh, and what of the novel I signed a contract for, and subsequently wrote, for Cleis Press? They decided they didn't like it enough to publish it. Or rather they asked for changes that were too extensive for me to make without totally rewriting it. Somehow, despite the contract, this means I'm SOL. Of course, I can always try to find another publisher for it. As Scarlett Johansson's character drawled in the movie "Ghost World: "Yeah, that'll definitely happen."
Today I signed a contract with Cleis Press for a new novel to be published next year. The novel will be a crash project, due at the end of this year, and the tentative title is "How They Scored."
I'm just finishing up the novel about the American girl in India, Dear Prudence. You can read the opening of the book (newly posted) and a chapter from the middle of the book. Plus, plus!! I am posting 15 pages of stuff I think is really funny but which I cut from the first 50 pages of the book because otherwise it takes her too long to get to Bangalore. But it's funny. Enjoy.
In my novel, the main character has a blog that she writes in the voice of an alter ego, StarryShine, a New York heiress even more dissolute, addicted and dumb than Paris Hilton. The blog was written by my friend Shannon O'Leary.
I also have a new office in which to write.
I went to Bangalore in April as the guests of some lovely friends of a friend. You can read my blog posts from Bangalore at that link, or see my Flickr set.
Despite the fact that I still haven't made it to India, I have finished the first draft of the novel I've been working on for a couple of years, set in Bangalore, about an American girl who is sent there to open up a customer service call center. Here is an excerpt (8 page PDF file).
My friend Katia interviewed me for her website. (Screenshot of the interview. The blog in which the interview appeared is down, but I managed to grab a cached version.)
I now have a Flickr page.
The URL to purchase my trashy lesbian porn novel, Lesbian Camp Girls changed. I corrected the link below, but if you wanted to buy it, try now. The layout has improved and it no longer looks like a government report.
I still haven't gone to India. That was supposed to happen this month, but it seems to be on hold.
I found a few more pictures from the 1970s and added them to my personal snapshots page.
I recently became one of the writers at San Francisco Metrobloggers.
I'm going to India in July, so I started a separate blog, Bangalore Sweatbox, for stuff about that trip.
A new book by me is available, published under a pseudonym: Lesbian Camp Girls, both an affectionate homage to, and a satire of, the raunchy porn pulp of the 1970s.
At 37,000 words it's either a really short novel or a long novella. In any case, I guarantee your money's worth.
A new feature for this site: What Are You Working On? -- a series of interviews with writers about their works in progress.
I posted photos from my trip to the desert earlier this month, as well as from the visit in August by my friend Hitoshi.
I found and put up a few more personal snapshots.
I spent the previous week at the Squaw Valley Writers conference and posted several blogposts about it between Aug. 6 and Aug. 14; and (update of 21 Aug 05) I also posted snapshots from Squaw.
Two years after finishing my novel Make Nice, I have an agent. Next week she's going to start sending the book to publishers.
There are a few new pictures on my Buzznet photoblog.
I updated the Stephanie tribute page with some reminiscences her friends sent.
A couple months ago I began producing another blog by my friend StarryShine, and recently began posting The Secret Diary of A Prisoner in the Creative Writing Gulag.
I have marked my 49th birthday by uploading a bunch of pictures of me.
As of today, I am working full-time again in the high tech industry.
I finished my novel Make Nice (except for some edits) -- and hey, that's a new excerpt that I just posted -- and I have started a new book about (coincidentally, really!) the software industry. Actually just the first part is set in the software industry.
For Christmas this year, Cris made a special all-animal creche.
Yet another issue of the church newsletter I edit
I have some new pictures up. (Thanks to Catherine for taking them with her swell digital camera and then sending me a CD of them.)
I updated my about page with a series of articles defaming the Clear Lake (Tex.) area:
- That woman who killed all her kids? Right there.
- A 2003 mass murder; several months later, they haven't caught anybody; and several weeks after that, they're still looking
- Another 2003 murder
- A 2002 murder, tabloid-ready
- Man attacks brother with chainsaw, and other mayhem
- Just why do I hate the Clear Lake area anyway?
I brought out a new edition of the church newsletter I edit, with this issue including a review of James Wood's The Book Against God.
Still no news on the book agent front. In fact, I've done almost nothing about it the last two months.
A reader wrote me about Stephanie, my ex who died in a car wreck in 1999, and sent me this picture of her and the rest of the on-air staff. That's her standing with her hand on the desk.
He writes:I went to Boston College with Stephanie (and was also a) dj at WZBC. Her shows were so... I hate to say touching, but they were. They were very personal, romantic, geared towards her audience, inspirational, ecclectic for sure. ... She and I were eventually banned from being in the dj booth at the same time because we would get so much shit for "immaturity." Stephanie and I did news together (which no one ever listened to or realized the station had) by just grabbing various shit off of the AP machine. Her delivery, and dead serious alert tone (done completely comically of course) would literally have me on the floor. Stephanie was someone who could make me laugh till it hurt. During the begathon to raise money for the station, her spots were so fucking funny. the recording she did for the sign off of the station nightly, which she made for just me to play was so amazing. She was just so funny and such a crack up.
I finally went to the library and typed out news stories from 1990 about the Larry Lea protests -- Queer Nation actions I had a hand in organizing:
And just for fun, here are stories (I had already posted on my site) about another fabulous chapter in Queer Nation's history, the "Basic Instinct" protests:
- 30 Oct 90, Wall Street Journal: The Devil, You Say? San Francisco Faces Halloween Exorcism
- 30 Oct 90 San Francisco Chronicle: 'Spiritual Warfare' at Civic Auditorium
- 30 Oct 90 San Francisco Examainer: Local gays plan rally against televangelist's 'Prayer Army'
- 1 Nov 90 San Francisco Chronicle: 6,500 Christians attend S.F. 'Exorcism'
- 1 Nov 90 San Francisco Examiner: Prayer Army and 'pagans' tangle
I have finally edited an account of my time up at Holden Village. {long, wait 5 sec. to load even on a fast connection}
A new issue of the church newsletter I edit has been released.
I have new jobs at a large national chain bookstore in nearby Emeryville and, starting 21 July, an Episcopal church in San Francisco.
I'm back from seven weeks away in the Cascades of Washington state at Holden Village, where I completed work on the second draft of my novel Make Nice. After a short trip later this week to New York with Cris, I'll be back at home for the rest of the year.
I posted my essay Thomas Merton's Ambivalent War Novel -- an piece on My Argumentwith the Gestapo, the only novel published by famous 20th century poet, theologian and diarist Thomas Merton. Includes links to Merton's books and Merton sites. If you've been reading my blog regularly, you've already seen this in an early form, but I thought I'd post it on a separate page.
From May 3 to Jun 19 I will be out of town, away from the web, telephones, TV and everything except the US Mail. For six weeks I'll be staying at Holden Village in the Cascades, working in the kitchen and on the second (hopefully final) draft of my novel Make Nice. So there will be no posts in the blog, or updates to the blog or anything else on this site -- unless I can find someone to post things for me.
I found a piece of text that was lost for a long time -- the 28 Dec 98 column in the series of columns I wrote for Marilyn Jaye Lewis's website a few years ago. These columns were a sort of blog before the days when people knew what a blog was.
I wrote an extended review of Spike Lee's film 25th Hour here.
I'm still unemployed, working on my book, enjoying the winter, and not going much to meditate at the zen center.
On New Year's Day, I finished the first draft of my novel Make Nice after four and a half years of on-and-off work. Today I sent copies to a few long-suffering friends whom I expect to read it and tell me what's wrong with it.
I lost my job last week, whee! Now I get to work on my novel, exercise, do errands, and watch lots of TV. In other words, I'm now finally a full-time writer. I'm getting used to it.
I got a great review of my book How I Adore You in the July 2002 issue of DIVA Magazine in the U.K.
I finally added pictures to my Stephanie memorial page
I've been posting dispatches from Tanya Dewhurst, but now she has sent me what turned out to be the first in the series, dated 28 Nov 2001.
My novel is plodding along, but yesterday I got a whole passel of new ideas for it, and I'm kind of excited.
Another communique from Tanya Dewhurst, FTH's erstwhile travel correspondent
I'm back and forth from Massachusetts to San Francisco for the next few weeks.
New: A tribute to my friend Stephanie Kulick, gone now these three years.
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