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(Kergan Edwards-Stout blogs regularly at KerganEdwards-Stout.com.)

It was in this era of the so-called "Moral Majority", a largely white, conservative, Christian view of America, that author Michael Nava crafted one of the most unlikely of literary heroes: Henry Rios, a gay, Latino criminal attorney with a passion for justice. Himself an outsider, Rios acted on behalf of those without a voice, often wrongly accused of crimes. While introduced in The Little Death, Rios would go on to solve mysteries in a series of seven books, culminating with Rag and Bone in 2001.

The Rios series would win five Lambda Literary Awards, and Nava was honored by The Publishing Triangle with the Bill Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award for Gay and Lesbian literature.

As the revolutionary Henry Rios series finally comes to e-book, Michael Nava took time to share more with me about the development of the character, his thoughts on bringing an end to the Rios series, and his forthcoming novel, The City of Palaces.

Michael Nava: I started writing the first novel almost as a lark in my last year at law school. I was working from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. at the Palo Alto jail, where I interviewed men who had been arrested to determine if they were eligible for immediate release on their own recognizance or would have to post bail the next day. Palo Alto didn't have that much crime so I spent many nights just waiting around or trying to study. At some point, I started writing what became The Little Death; indeed the very first scene has Rios walking into a jail which was the Palo Alto jail.

Edwards-Stout: Your lead character, a gay Latino criminal attorney involved in solving mysteries, broke many barriers. Were you conscious of how groundbreaking he might be?

Nava: At that point I wasn't thinking about being published, much less writing a series, but it never occurred to me that he would not be gay and Latino. I wanted to write a book I would have wanted to read, and what I wanted to read about was the experience of being gay. This was in 1980 when there were very few books by openly gay writers and most of those involved the New York sexual demi-mode or were coming out stories. I was already out and I was less interested in gay sex than in gay identity. Fortunately, I found inspiration in the marvelous mystery novels of Joseph Hansen...

Edwards-Stout: His books were terrific.

Nava: His matter-of-fact depiction of a gay PI, Dave Brandstetter, who was competent at his job and unapologetic in his sexual orientation, was my immediate inspiration for Rios.

Edwards-Stout: I recently revisited Golden Boy, the second in your series. I remember, when I first read the books, I was focused more on how you married the mystery angle with a gay Latino lead. What struck me about the book, reading it this time, was how Rios navigates through the class system. He interacts with everyone from the uppermost elite to folks on the street. Were you conscious of that element, while writing him?

Nava: Perhaps not so much in that second book, but by the third book, How Town, I was increasingly conscious of his status which I call the outsider/insider. This person - male in my novels but, in life, just as often or more often a woman - is someone who belongs to a dispossessed minority group but who nonetheless achieves some degree of status and authority within the dominant culture.

Edwards-Stout: Can you expand on that?

Nava: Henry Rios, for example, is a gay Latino (and also a recovering alcoholic and a child of the poor) who is also a first-rate lawyer with a law degree from Stanford University. The Rios novels are as much about how Rios experienced his double reality (despised spic faggot on the one hand, learned counsel for the defense on the other) as they are about whodunit and why. That's what gives the novels their continuing moral and cultural relevance. As America's complexion darkens, there are many young men and women from "minority" communities, particularly Latino and Asian kids who are confronted with the doubleness of identity. Like Rios, they are the first in their families to attend college and to gain a foothold in the professional world. And if these kids are LGBT as well, then Rios really speaks to their experience and, to gather from what tell me, provides them with some hope and inspiration.

Edwards-Stout: In the series, you also included various characters battling with HIV. How has the AIDS crisis impacted you personally?

Nava: The first book was started in 1980, completed in 1984, and published in 1986--and readers will notice that AIDS is not mentioned. By the second book, Goldenboy, written in 1987 and published in 1988, AIDS was sweeping the gay male community, overwhelming every other concern. I could not write about that community without also becoming an AIDS writer. Like many other gay men of my generation - I'm 58 now - HIV/AIDS was the air I breathed for a decade: watching friends sicken and die, visiting hospital rooms, attending memorials, marching in demonstrations, raging at Ronald Reagan and his ilk, and bearing witness to the unbelievable acts of compassion and heroism by gay men AND by lesbian women. Gay male literature was like urgent dispatches from the front lines of a battleground and it was my privilege to be part of that generation of writers. Like my brother writers, I tried to write about the plague as honestly and accurately as I could. I remember receiving a letter from a man who included in the envelope the program of his lover's memorial. He told me that when he read some of the conversations between Rios and his HIV-positive lover, Josh Mandel, it was as if I had recorded his conversations with his partner. He thanked me. I wept.

Edwards-Stout: How do you feel the LGBT community has dealt with AIDS in the years since the height of the epidemic?

Nava: Well, it was very odd that when antiretroviral therapies became widely available and gay men stopped dying in the numbers that they had, people stopped talking about AIDS. I felt like a soldier who had returned from the trenches of the Great War to find the Roaring 20s in progress, all jazz and flappers and bathtub gin and no one wanting to hear about the horror anymore. It was a deeply alienating experience and for some time I withdrew from the LGBT community. In retrospect, I suppose it was understandable that people just wanted a break from the trauma of the plague. But the plague years set in motion much of LGBT civil rights initiatives that are bearing fruit now; it empowered us as only a life-and-death crisis can. I think we need to look back at that time and I see signs that we are at last prepared to do that. Like many other men of my generation, I do find disturbing the increase of seroconversion among younger gay men. HIV may be a more manageable disease but it's better not to contract it in the first place.

Edwards-Stout: You brought the Henry Rios series to a close with Rag and Bone in 2001. The character, at that time, was battling a host of issues, around mortality, identity, and family. When the book was released, you noted that not only would it bring an end to his tales, but that it was also the end of your journey as a writer of mysteries. Why was closing his tale so important to you, and how does that coincide with your decision to no longer work in that genre?

Nava: There were a number of things going on. I'd written or co-written eight books in 15 years while also writing essays, journalism and other pieces, while simultaneously practicing law full time and attempting to have a personal life. The well was dry. I also felt I had gone as far as I could as a writer with the mystery genre and that I was in danger of becoming formulaic. Moreover, I didn't have much else to say about the experience of being a gay man and I found myself increasingly more interested in exploring the Latino part of my personal identity. I had already begun the research for the series of historical novels that I am currently writing, and that was where I wanted to go as a writer. I didn't realize it would take me another decade to write the first novel in that series.

Edwards-Stout: Do you have any regrets about ending it?

Nava: None at all.

Edwards-Stout: With the series now being released in e-book, how does it feel to revisit them?

Nava: What I see most clearly now is that Henry Rios is a unique character in American literature in both his specificity -- gay, Mexican-American, professional man -- and in his sensibility. He is neither a victim nor a stereotype. He is someone who rejected society's classification of homosexuals as sick, sinful or criminal and chose instead to trust his own experience of himself as a decent and compassionate human being. That doesn't sound like a radical consciousness today, but you must remember when Rios was a boy in the 1950s and 1960s, there was still a sodomy law in California, and no open homosexual would have been licensed to practice law; homosexuals were defendants, not lawyers. His faith in his own good character was without precedent. He paid a price. In the novels he struggles with alcoholism, with a tendency toward what I suppose is codependence, with his unexpressed rage, but his demons never overwhelm him. He is a wounded but sympathetic character. I think that's why so many readers took him to heart.

Edwards-Stout: When you add in your other various elements, not only of being a writer of everything from novels to poetry, but an attorney, a gay man, of being of Mexican descent, and I'm sure a whole host of other things, it's no wonder that identity is a recurring theme in your work. Where are you now in terms of all of these aspects existing within you?

Nava: My baseline is not being gay or Latino or a writer. My baseline is curiosity. I live to learn and I love being around people who can teach me something new. I am so fortunate to lead a life that gives me the time and opportunity to indulge my curiosity. I feel more hopeful, more interested, and more engaged in life at 58 than at any time before.

Edwards-Stout: Whether writing mysteries, or in your book Created Equal, or in your legal work, the concept of right and wrong, of justice being served, rings through clearly. Where did such strong convictions come from?

Nava: They come from having been trod underfoot. I am queer, Latino, and a child of the poor. No one is more fiercely committed to the idea of justice than those who have been treated unjustly, or more passionate about equality than those who have been denied it.

Edwards-Stout: You've received a host of awards for your writing, including the Publishing Triangle's Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2001. At that point, you hadn't yet turned 50. What affect did receiving such an award so young have on you?

Nava: That award came as a complete surprise. In my acceptance speech I wondered if the judges knew something about my health I didn't. It was a tremendous honor. I accepted it not only as recognition for my past work, but also as encouragement for the books I had yet to write. I just didn't know it would take so damn long to write the next one!

Edwards-Stout: I'm curious about your life since Rag and Bone was published. You dove more fully into the legal arena, and even ran for judge in 2010, which ultimately went to the incumbent.

Nava: I moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 1996, in part because so many friends and acquaintances had died in the plague that LA seemed at times like a vast cemetery to me. I was writing The Burning Plain at that point and its bleakness reflects my own mental state. Rag and Bone was more hopeful, but I was still quite exhausted and depressed. It was helpful to me to shift my focus from literature to the law. I became interested in the issue of diversity in the legal profession - or, rather, the lack of diversity. Even now, in California where Latinos make up more than 30% of the population, the legal profession is 75% white, and overwhelming straight and male. This lack of diversity is a serious issue because the credibility of the justice system depends entirely upon a perception that it delivers fair results. It's hard for people of color to trust a system where no one in authority looks like them. Moreover, it offended my own sense of equality. So, I threw myself into the cause. I served on a state bar committee investigating the issue, wrote op/ed pieces and a law review article on the subject, sat on panels and gave a lot of speeches. I mentored law students of color. Ultimately, I put my money where my mouth was and ran for judge to highlight the lack of diversity on the San Francisco court (where out of almost 60 judges, only two were Latino/a and there had never been a gay or lesbian judge of color.) After my narrow loss in the 2010 election, I needed to step back from that activism. Running for office was a real stretch for an introvert like me. I took a year to think about where I wanted to put my energies as I entered the last third of my life and I came back to writing.

Edwards-Stout: I've also heard rumors that you have other works up your sleeve... A whole new series, called The Children of Eve.

Nava: Yes. These books represent the culmination of the various themes of identity I have been exploring in the years since I published the last Rios novel. Set in Mexico, Arizona and Hollywood between 1895 and 1929, they are based very loosely on the life of the silent film star, Ramon Novarro - a gay, Mexican immigrant who achieved international fame in the 1925 version of Ben Hur - and my grandfather who was a Yaqui Indian; a tribe whose ancient homeland is in the modern-day Mexican state of Sonora. A central theme of the novels is how America's very image of itself is in large part the creation of immigrants of color whom America exploited and oppressed. They are, in the language of the gospel of St. Mark, the stone the builders rejected that has become the cornerstone. Nothing more dramatically illustrates that point than Novarro's career. Driven with his family out of Mexico during the Mexican revolution, he barely spoke English and yet he became one of the first generation of internationally known movie stars. My grandfather's life, in a much quieter way, is also illustrative of what generations of immigrants endured. He too was a refugee from Mexico, cast into America at the age of 15 to sink or swim. To the world, he was just another dark-skinned cannery worker. To me, he was an intelligent, tortured, complex man--a survivor of a little genocide that occurred at the end of the nineteenth century when the Mexican government attempted to exterminate the Yaqui Indians to take their homeland. These are the American stories that haven't been told but must be.

Edwards-Stout: The first book is called The City of Palaces, right? I see you have the first three chapters on your website.

Nava: The first novel tells the story of Mexico in the years just before and at the beginning of the Mexican Revolution as seen through the eyes of an upper-class Mexico City family. I think of it as Doctor Zhivago meets One Hundred Years of Solitude. While my agent looks for a publisher for it, I am working on the second novel, which includes silent films, Buffalo soldiers, the Mexican Revolution, and the tragic history of the Yaquis among its themes.

Edwards-Stout: What are your thoughts on the current state of gay literature?

Nava: The mainstream publishing world has essentially turned its back on LGBT literature, particularly our fiction. Fortunately, mainstream publishers are no longer the cultural gatekeepers they were when I started publishing. Small publishers, university presses and, above all, online self-publishing provides so many more platforms for LGBT writers to get their work out. The democratizing of publishing is a boon to gay literature. There is a lot of work out there and some of it, like your own book, Kergan, is quite splendid.

Edwards-Stout: That is high praise indeed, coming from someone I've long admired... Thank you! Let me ask you, with gay marriage increasingly becoming possible, and HIV considered by many to be "manageable," what do you see as our community's next battles? Or have we truly entered the so-called "Post Gay" era?

Nava: The battle for fundamental equality is far from over. There are any number of states that still don't have basic anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBT people in their jobs and houses, not to mention all those states, including California, that wrote marriage discrimination into their state constitutions. It's great to be gay if you live in New York but not so much if you live in Kentucky or Wyoming. That being said, the wind is at our backs and the advances that we have made in my lifetime are stunning. I remember having a conversation with the novelist David B. Feinberg in the early 90s and wondering what it would feel like to wake up in the morning not already consumed with rage over the treatment of people with AIDS and LGBT people generally. Now I know. It feels great.

Edwards-Stout: Moving forward, with all of your varied passions and interests, where would you like to see yourself in 10 years?

Nava: For me, life's most indelible lesson is that I only really have today. I look for the joy in the moment. The future will take care of itself.

Michael Nava can be found on his website and on Facebook.

(Cross-posted on Kergan Edwards-Stout, LGBTQ Nation and Huffington Post.)

I felt uncomfortable standing beneath it, as it labeled not just the shelves, but my own burgeoning identity, and committing to this unfamiliar label so publicly felt entirely premature. While the "Gay" part I understood, it was only years later that I realized the second part of the sign was equally true, as I was studying the world I would soon fully inhabit.

Coming out has changed greatly in the years since then, but what I found through the books on that shelf provided for me the same reassurance as those emerging today seek; through those stories, I learned I was not alone. Novels by such authors as Larry Kramer, Armistead Maupin, Andrew Holleran, and Felice Picano filled me in on this mysterious world, where other men openly searched for love, but one book from that time stands out to me as unique, and it resonated with me deeply.

Patricia Nell Warren's groundbreaking novel The Front Runner follows coach Harlan Brown and his protégé Billy Sive as they discover love against the backdrop of the Olympics and a changing world. As a young man myself, I had yet to find a book which spoke to my generation, and identified both with Brown, as he emerged from his rigid, conservative environment, as well as Sive, who embodied the new, free spirited era, exploding on the horizon in front of me.

While the debut of The Front Runner introduced Warren to a new legion of fans, she was surprised to find that the book rankled some in the literary establishment, who were uncomfortable that such a seminal gay male romance had been written by a woman. It didn't seem to matter to them that she had come out in 1974 as a lesbian. In the years following, however, Warren solidified her reputation in both the gay and literary worlds with continuations of The Front Runner saga (Harlan's Race and Billy's Boy), as well as novels The Fancy Dancer, The Wild Man, and The Beauty Queen, and non-fiction (including Lavender Locker Room and My West.)

Whether as an American writing Ukrainian poetry, a runner helping to usher women into the sport, a woman writing gay male fiction, or as a writer taking control over her own work, as publisher with Wildcat Press, Warren has long been a game changer, moving into uncharted waters and navigating them for others.

She graciously agreed to take time out from her busy schedule to talk with me about her body of work, issues facing the LGBT community, and the rewards and challenges of having written a literary classic. As a bonus, she also reveals more about the prospects for the long-awaited The Front Runner movie, as well as the continuation of that tale in a fourth book.

Kergan Edwards-Stout: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. In reviewing your work, I became very curious as to the key, pivotal moments in your life. What most shaped you and your journey?

Patricia Nell Warren: It wasn't so much a moment, but an experience, of being raised on a ranch in the West, at a very particular time. So much of what we think of as LGBT literature is based on an urban worldview, but growing up in a rural setting, as I did, is very much a part of who I am today. Looking back, now that I'm 76, that life gave me a very different viewpoint, as you're living in a situation where, any day, there could be a storm that wipes out the wheat crop. That kind of day-to-day existence is challenging, and in many ways, at heart, I'm still a ranch kid. In fact, I'm co-writing a book on that with my brother, called Kids on a Ranch.

Edwards-Stout: Did you find it difficult, making connections with people in that kind of environment?

Warren: Our ranch wasn't that far from town. We were close enough that we could walk, bicycle, or ride our horses into town, so we had lots of friends. It wasn't an isolating kind of life, but it was definitely a different life, with different jobs at home than the town kids, who may not have known one end of a horse from the other!

You had to take a very practical approach on how to handle things, which today has led me to have political impatience. My dad used to say, "When your horse is caught in barbed wire, you don't sit around making speeches. You grab the wire cutters and get to work!"

Edwards-Stout: Look at what has happened recently, with the Sandy Hook shooting--

Warren: With gun violence, the horse is thrashing around, and all we get are speeches. Events like that have happened how many times, with no real action...? In the LGBT community, we have the same experience of sometimes making speeches, instead of creating real change.

Edwards-Stout: Prior to coming out as lesbian, you were married to a man. Fill in the gap for me, from small town life, to married woman, to coming out as lesbian author of a gay novel...

Warren: Like many women of my generation, the pressures on women to be and act a certain way were enormous. Back then, there was no feminist movement, and even the careers which were open to women were very limited. You didn't think of being a brain surgeon, for example. That just wasn't done. While within my own family, my desire to write was supported, it was also clear that while writing might be an interest, there was also an expectation that I would marry. Now, while I didn't know the words "gay" or "lesbian" at that time, I nevertheless knew I was different. I'd had a romance with another girl as a teen, though neither of us knew what to call it; we just knew it was something to hide.

I ultimately married, to a Ukrainian man. I had written quite a bit of poetry, prior to marriage, and through him I was introduced to Ukrainian poetry. I became the only non-Ukrainian among The New York Group of émigré writers and poets, and we had enormous success with our work. It was translated into various languages and even read covertly in the Soviet Union. Later, having committed to writing longer works, I wrote an abortive novel, which would eventually become The Wild Man, and followed it up with The Last Centennial.

Edwards-Stout: Like The Front Runner, The Wild Man also focuses on a gay male romance, but takes place in Spain.

Warren: I began writing it when I lived in Spain, before The Front Runner, but ultimately decided to put it aside.

Edwards-Stout: Why?

Warren: At the time, I was still closeted, but was very intrigued by what was going on in Spain in terms of LGBT lives. General Franco led a deeply homophobic regime. If you were gay during that time, they would quite simply kill you. This was not just social pressure on someone to conform, or going to jail if you were caught; Franco had a vendetta against gay people. And that atmosphere led me to tackle those themes, but as I was not yet in an honest place with myself regarding my own sexuality, the book as I was then writing it didn't work. I put that manuscript into a drawer, and didn't return to it for twenty years.

Edwards-Stout: When you think about the extremes you were living under in Spain, marriage equality there today seems like quite a leap.

Warren: While I lived there, the country'd had over 500 years of state religion, in addition to being run with a very tight fist. After Franco died and the country began to change, the rapidity with which they moved was inspiring. Most Spanish people were so tired of living under that kind of control, they immediately embraced their freedom.

Edwards-Stout: And yet we Americans still don't enjoy those same rights.

Warren: The U.S. religious right wants to establish a Protestant version of the same thing, with some people expecting everyone to follow their brand of Christianity, which would essentially be state religion.

Edwards-Stout: Eventually, you came to a place where you felt you could tackle gay themes. What inspired The Front Runner?

Warren: Well, I've always loved sports. When I was growing up in the 1940s, however, there was no enlightened approach to sports in terms of gender. With basketball, for example, girls weren't allowed to run; you simply threw the ball from one person to the next. We were allowed to play softball, do tumbling, swimming, but there was no girls' track, which I loved. It wasn't until the late '60s, when the long distance running craze hit, that I moved from jogging to long distance, which is when my experience with competitive sports began. It was that experience which led me to write The Front Runner. I originally envisioned the story as being about a female coach and one of her women runners, trying to reach the Olympic Games.

Edwards-Stout: What made you change those characters to men?

Warren: It was a very practical decision, as I realized that no one would believe the story, because in 1972, while women's track was beginning to take off, there simply were no women's track coaches. Women's track was all coached by men. So I made the decision to change the genders.

Edwards-Stout: At the time the novel was published, younger gay characters weren't as prevalent as they are today. Many books focused on men in their thirties, enjoying their sexual liberty. With Billy Sive, you created a character which resonated deeply with readers, giving them someone with whom they could identify.

Warren: Being so involved in the long distance running movement, I encountered many youth who were coming out. That interaction led to the creation of Billy, who is very much a product of the times. He's a kid, coming of age in the 1960s, contrasted with the character of Harlan, born during World War II, and very conservative. I thought the collision between the two would be fascinating.

Edwards-Stout: If you were creating that character today, would he have taken the same journey?

Warren: No, his experience would be different. With Billy's Boy, I was able to take aspects of Billy and continue that character through his son, who experiences coming out in the 1990s. And if I ever get the fourth book written, you'll see that evolution of the coming out experience, moving into today's world.

Edwards-Stout: When The Front Runner was published, did you have any idea you'd face criticism within the gay community?

Warren: I simply wanted to tell a story. I realized that while the book itself could be controversial, it would also mean that I myself was coming out, so the entire endeavor was a bit scary. Still, I was completely shocked when I found myself being criticized from some in the gay community who felt that I had somehow broken the rules, being a woman and writing about men.

Edwards-Stout: What is interesting to me is that while today many female authors writing gay male fiction are using pseudonyms, you used your own name in publishing the book. And having that name on the book jacket was not an impediment. Gay men picked up the book in droves, because the story resonated with them.

Warren: The feedback I've gotten over the years has been very interesting. Some believed that "Patricia Nell Warren" actually was a pseudonym. Some thought I was a man, or a drag queen--I don't know where those stories came from! (laughing) With time, people have gotten used to the idea of a woman writing that book.

Edwards-Stout: With the explosion of women writing m/m romance, what are your observations of that genre?

Warren: We have so politicized literature today, pigeonholing people into gay male fiction, lesbian fiction, transgender fiction, and then other sub-genres within those... There seems to be a feeling like authors should stay in their own box, and not write about anybody else, but the thing is, as a writer, you're constantly writing about things that you yourself haven't personally experienced. We should all be free to write about each other as human beings. Some gay men love reading lesbian novels, some straight women love gay male romance, and that richness of reaching across the boundaries helps us further our understanding of each other.

Edwards-Stout: What have been the blessings and challenges of writing such a seminal work?

Warren: Well, The Front Runner remains by far my biggest selling book, has been translated into countless languages, and continues to sell all over the world. I'm grateful that this book gave me an ongoing life as an author. It brings me into dialogue with people all over the world. I do celebrate all of that, but I also have other stories to tell. More recently, I've been writing editorials about issues facing us, and have tried to help create change through those. Today, our government has so criminalized the right to protest, that people don't take action as they once did. That makes it important for us to use other means, such as online polls and petitions, to help lobby our causes.

Edwards-Stout: It wasn't that long ago I would've dismissed electronic armchair activism, but this election really opened my eyes to the possibilities that even something as simple as "liking" a political photo on Facebook can have... I think some of that online momentum we saw may have helped swing the election for Obama.

Warren: I think that is very true. Online petitions have emerging power to create real change. They put pressure on companies, organizations, and even governments, holding them responsible for their actions. Look at Uganda and their "Kill the Gays" bill. Electronic media helps direct attention to issues which need to be tackled.

Edwards-Stout: I'm curious, given your experience in writing about LGBT youth, as to your thoughts on the rash of suicides. How can we create a better environment for our youth?

Warren: The "It Gets Better" campaign seems to be effective in terms of awareness, but suicides are still continuing. I think we need to think more globally, in terms of the immediacy our lives now have. You can barely take a breath without it being noted on Facebook. We need to think more about how that interconnectivity affects us, as what one person does or says, or what we do or say, can have a tremendous impact on someone else. Our thoughts and actions have ramifications beyond our intent.

Balance that against what I experienced growing up in a small Western town in the 1940s and 50s... I was relentlessly bullied for being smart, a "brain," until I finally reached my limit and began fighting back, physically. Fist fights on the school bus and playground...which I usually won. Now, while that worked for me in the 1940s, today, of course, a bullied kid shouldn't respond by fighting, because he or she will be arrested. We need to find a way to encourage that strength to grow within oneself. Until you can learn to stand on your own, you'll be bullied again, as that weakness is targeted by others. Support networks for kids are essential, as is other children standing up and calling the bullies out. We need more comprehensive support, from teachers and principals, to help our youth find better ways of dealing with it.

Edwards-Stout: You worked directly with LGBT youth through the Los Angeles Unified School District's drop out program...

Warren: This was in 1994. The program was called EAGLES Center. We had about 42 kids, mainly boys, with the majority being African American and Latino. And even these kids bullied one another! Seeing that dynamic at work was fascinating, and much of Billy's Boy came from that experience.

Edwards-Stout: That's a really interesting point. It is easy for us to say "Stop LGBT Bullying," but we do the same kind of bullying ourselves, within our community, with our catty and snide comments. Those attitudes don't go away, just because we age.

Warren: If we are to mature as a community, we need to examine these attitudes and find a way to grow out of them. While we call ourselves a community, I usually put quotes around that, as it doesn't always feel like a "community," with all of the infighting.

Edwards-Stout: One of your defining characteristics seems to be your willingness to be a "front runner" yourself, forging into areas not always familiar or welcoming. Where does that desire come from?

Warren: I think much of that came from my family history. On both sides of my family, people have died in search of freedom. Hearing those stories helped shape the idea that it is part of our responsibility as humans to try to better our situations. We have the ability to shift power, if we band together.

Edwards-Stout: You also moved into publishing, forming your own company, long before the self-publishing boom of today. It was a very inspired and yet unexpected move on your part. What made you become a publisher?

Warren: I began taking control of my own work when I realized that I needed to hire an attorney, just to get the royalties that were due me. You hear about problems with back-end payments in the film industry, but the same thing can happen in the book industry. You are completely reliant on what your publisher is telling you as to how many books were printed, your sales, your royalties--and not all publishers are as honest as one would like. This was why my Wildcat Press was launched in 1994.

Edwards-Stout: I'm a first-time novelist myself. Given the various options available today, what advice would you give authors just starting out?

Warren: It is a very tough time to be a new writer. The book industry follows the economy, and as books are retail, it has been a challenging time for anyone publishing a book. Not too many years ago, authors would first look for a literary agent and/or approach publishers until they found someone willing to publish their book. Things have changed greatly today, with the introduction of e-books, publishers going out of business, independent publishers being bought up by conglomerates, bookstores shuttering, etc., and yet I still believe that a writer can find a publisher and be successful. Authors today need to play an active role in promoting their books, no matter if they have a large publisher or small, as most don't have the promotional budgets they once did. Authors also need to understand both the various options available to them, and the marketplace and how it all works. Do your research and know your rights as an author, especially when signing a contract.

In the LGBT world, we have the additional problem in that gay and lesbian bookstores are closing left and right. The mailing list of gay and gay-friendly bookstores has shrunk from over 450 addresses just 15 years ago, to maybe 45 today, which is a huge loss, especially as many of those bookstores also functioned as community centers.

Edwards-Stout: Speaking of loss, you've also lost a great many friends and contemporaries to HIV/AIDS. How has it impacted you personally?

Warren: I've lost many dear friends, even recently. One fought it for twenty years before it finally took him down... In the 1980s and 90s, our community did a tremendous job in regard to HIV treatment. The thing that has really baffled me is that, in the years since, there is so little talk about the need or desire for a vaccine. Pharmaceutical companies, at the end of the day, are focused on profit, and the HIV drugs they sell make a lot of money.

Edwards-Stout: The drugs were supposed to be a stop-gap measure, to save lives until we found a cure. But there doesn't seem to be an end game to this.

Warren: Exactly. A vaccine, that is taken one time, or with periodic boosters, won't be as profitable as these "maintenance" drugs. So unless we demand it from the pharmaceutical industry, it won't happen.

Edwards-Stout: I came of age during the AIDS crisis, and it has always bothered me that at the height of the crisis, the divide between genders seemed eased. Women stepped into vacant leadership roles and acted as caregivers and, at the time, it seemed that there was a genuine appreciation for the talents women have. Today, though, that gender gap has returned, and we're back to being strangers.

Warren: This goes back to some people wanting to put us all in pigeon holes. Years ago, certain gay-male-owned bookstores wouldn't stock many women's books, and some women's stores wouldn't stock men's books. Putting us in such buckets makes it difficult for us to see into other people's worlds. For a number of years, we felt as if we were making progress, becoming "Post-Gay." Then we woke up to realize that we still don't yet have our rights, and we've forgotten that we are still in a lifeboat. We need to get back into that lifeboat-mentality: we all need to be rowing, and rowing in the same direction. Say what you will, but a crisis wakes people up and makes them realize that their lives are at stake. That happened with AIDS, but we need that same mentality now, particularly around our issues with youth, ageism and elder care.

Edwards-Stout: When I asked people on Facebook what questions they had for you, the number one question was about the status of The Front Runner movie. In the interest of full disclosure, years ago, in my acting days, I auditioned for the movie when producer Jerry Wheeler had the rights, and I was terrible! (laughing) What can you share about the prospects for a movie?

Warren: As most people know, the rights to the movie have bounced around, but were initially optioned by Paul Newman, but for whatever reason he didn't move forward with the project. After Newman, several people owned the rights, but they encountered roadblocks, such as the homophobia in Hollywood and the unwillingness of investors to make the investment necessary in order to tell this story authentically. Many people have tried to convince me that The Front Runner could be done as a low-budget independent film, but the minute you start talking about low budget, you have to ask, what will be left out? The story takes place during a certain era, at the Olympics, with a stadium full of people, all of which dictates a certain amount of money needed to accurately depict it.

Edwards-Stout: It is still relevant, especially given the violence which occurs--

Warren: There are many aspects which make it timely: the fight for equality, the issue of gays in sports, homophobia, religion, violence... Whether the story is made contemporary, or done as a period piece, the issues it delves into still resonate today. I'm hoping in the next year or so we'll have some exciting news to announce.

Edwards-Stout: You have a wonderful legacy, and so many passions, from writing, to sports, to progressive causes. With all you've achieved, what do you next envision for yourself?

Warren: I have many books on the drawing board. Not only the book I mentioned, which I'm writing with my brother, and the next book in the Front Runner series, but also another novel, The Wrong Side of the Tracks, which focuses on growing up as lesbian in a small Montana town, during the closing days of World War II. I also have material for some anthologies, such as Lavender Locker Room II, and I look forward to continuing to put my already-published pieces out via e-book. The Front Runner is already available on Kindle.

Edwards-Stout: So much of what we've discussed today has been about identity and community. What are your hopes for the LGBT community?

Warren: We must first obtain the civil rights to which we are entitled. The next step is in becoming part of society, while still maintaining our unique identity. When I visit places were the LGBT community has been woven deeply into the fabric of the community, identity intact, and simply accepted, it is wonderful. It shows that assimilation is possible, and I'd like us to be part of the larger fabric of our country, contributing in a positive way. But, as a community, we still have much work to do. We need to work toward healing the divisions we have around gender, race, the transgendered, bisexuals, elderly, disabled, our youth, intersexed people, etc. While we have much work to do ourselves, in the end, we have much more to teach the world.

Patricia Nell Warren can be found on her website and on Facebook. Photo by John R. Selig.

Cross-posted on Kergan Edwards-Stout, Huffington Post, and LGBTQ Nation.

Such themes and more are explored in Gold's debut album, Drown Before You Swim. Tellingly, in its CD format, the album is broken into two discs, "Drown" and "Swim," balancing his darker and lighter elements within. Gold recently took time to share more about his life, art, and the passions that fuel him.

Kergan Edwards-Stout: Thank you so much for taking the time to chat, Matt. To begin, as your songwriting is so tied to your piano, how did you first come to play it?

Matt Gold: Originally, I wanted to play the saxophone, but my mother was concerned that it could affect my mouth, especially as I needed braces. So instruments in your mouth were out! I tried the bass drum, bells, xylophone, and finally settled on the piano - but only took a month's worth of lessons before I quit.

What made you quit?

I was really frustrated at my inability to learn it as quickly as I wanted, but, more importantly, I realized that improvisation was really my style. I love taking music out of the expected and making it my own. I played piano in church for a long time, and those are very structured, by nature. But with hymns and ballads, particularly, you can do so much more than what is written on the page.

Was religion important to you, or was playing in church just what was expected?

It was part of that life, growing up in a small town. It was mandatory and, like most kids, I did what I was told, to get along.

When did music become more than just an interest?

My short-lived piano teacher told my parents that voice lessons might be good for me, and I began to sing in choirs. But around 15 or 16, interest turned into passion when I realized that I could pair my voice with piano and create my own compositions. It allowed me to delve into how I felt.

Where did those early songs come from?

At that age, it was very much about "finding myself:" rebelling against my parents, authority, the church.... A lot of it was about dealing with my sexuality, and, as a child, not getting the love I needed.

Yes, especially when I was younger. Loss, despair, and feeling alone are all part of my experience. Being adopted, you automatically feel different and unconnected, not knowing where you come from. And my mother, in essence, later abandoned me due to my sexuality. That kind of experience can't help but shape you. And while I know my parents loved me, those questions hovered: Who do I look like? Do I have any siblings? Where did I get this talent?

What happened when you came out to your parents?

My father, now dead, never knew. My grandparents were the most accepting, and although I knew they didn't like it, they continued to treat me the same. My mother, however, had a really hard time. Even now, she continues to take it out on herself, feeling that she's done something wrong. It is hard for her to get beyond that and simply see me as a human being.

Where did her views come from?

Well, the church, being Baptist. In her eyes, being gay isn't God's plan for me.

And how do you feel?

I know that I'm a good person - I'm too nice to go to hell! (laughing) This is just who I am.... But hearing those messages can make you very lonely. Since I don't have a supportive family, I rely on my circle of friends. But honestly, Kergan, if I could trade my talent for a supportive family, I would.

Was moving from Ohio to Bloomington, Indiana, part of finding that support?

Bloomington is a very arts-oriented community, with a college, and seemed a good choice. I moved here to pursue my passions. Here, I'm doing what I've always wanted to do. Everyone has a mission in life, to fulfill certain needs, and mine comes in performing for people, and making them feel and think. In a way, I'm giving back, just as the music I listened to in my youth gave to me. Without that, I'm not sure I would've found the proper outlet for all I was feeling.

Musically, who are some of your favorites?

The Cure, Tori Amos, Radiohead, P.J. Harvey, Billie Holiday, Vince Guaraldi, Nina Simone... I gravitate toward music which is happy in tone, but lyrically is more layered. If you listen to Billie Holiday, for example, she sounds so upbeat, but you realize that there is a space within that is aching to be filled. So much of what she sings about is lost love, and I completely understand that.

Which leads me to the obvious next question... Are you dating?

While I'd like to fall in love, at some point, my focus right now is my music. When I'm in a relationship, I tend to get sidetracked, and the music gets put to the side. Right now, I'm touring in support of the album, and trying to get on a label, and need to make the most of this moment.

Having created this album on your own, why do you feel like you need a label?

The album was important, both to be able to share with my fans, and for labels to listen to. A label can help take you to that next level, in terms of visibility. Happily, there are artists out there on labels who are able to maintain their authenticity and remain true to themselves. That's one of the reasons I respect Adele so much. She's out there, doing her own thing in her own style, and it's all about her voice, and people like it. When I see someone like Adele succeed, it gives me hope that my songs might be received in the same way.

How would you characterize the journey of making this album, Drown Before You Swim?

It's been fascinating. Two of the songs on the album, the title song and "Recovering," were not originally part of my song list; they were written during the recording process. After I wrote the cut "Drown Before You Swim," it seemed the most appropriate title for the album as well. It took so much of me to create the album, both in emotion and time. At one point, I felt like I'd hit bottom, that it would never be finished, but now I find myself slowly rising to the top, stronger than before.

Your first single off the album, "Ordinary," has a great pop sound, yet other songs on the album range from stripped-down singer-songwriter, to more of an alternative sound...

"Ordinary" doesn't define my sound, but it definitely shows my versatility as an artist.

Which are your personal favorites?

I think "Void" is my favorite song on the album. It is about my last relationship, so it really resonates with me. The version as it is on the album is very different from how it started. The lyrics changed, the music changed, and how I sing it changed, going from kind of neediness to more of a place of anger, which aligns with my growth as a person.

"Void" deals with your last breakup, yet even 10 years ago, the idea of a gay male artist acknowledging their sexuality was fairly laughable. Was being open something you ever hesitated about?

So much of who I am as an artist is about truth-telling. Most of my songs are fairly neutral, to appeal to both sides of the spectrum, and I try to speak to the emotional connectivity we all share. It isn't so much gay or straight, it's just human. Hopefully, everyone relates to what I'm singing...

"Mr. Cannonball" is quite specific... You sing, It's been a hard day and I need some hard boys.

It's probably my most direct song, as it is about boys and is very "gay." Other than my mother, though, everyone loves it! (laughing) But I think my audience is more concerned with my authenticity than in any labels.

The album in CD form is split into two discs, "Drown" and "Swim." Between the two, where do you yourself fall?

Most people likely view me as being more on the upbeat "Swim"-side of things, but inside, I relate more to the more contemplative songs on "Drown." I am very emotionally-driven, and would get bored very quickly if I had to do pop dance songs all the time. It's more interesting and challenging as an artist to write something that moves people. It's a cliché, but true: tortured souls make great art.

Is it difficult, going to these darker places as an artist, and balancing that with your daily life?

When I step on that stage, it's as if a switch is flipped inside of me, and something happens. All of my worries and insecurities are gone, and I'm able to just connect with an audience, and they get the authentic me. At that point, it's just me and the piano...

Drown Before You Swim, Matt Gold's debut album, is available on iTunes and Amazon. Matt Gold can be found on his website, on Facebook and on Twitter.

Cross-posted on Kergan Edwards-Stout, Huffington Post and LGBTQ Nation.

I recently caught up with Wooten, fresh off having two of his titles land on the acclaimed Band of Thebes' Best LGBT Books of 2012 list, and we chatted about his body of work, the accolades he's received, and his new "fictional memoir," Dizzy.

Arthur, thanks so much for taking the time to meet!

It's always a pleasure, Kergan.

Given that your new book is a "fictional memoir," the obvious first question is, what do you and your lead character have in common?

Angie Styles, my lead character in Dizzy, and I have so much in common. We both have bilateral vestibular disease with oscillopsia. That means that we have no sense of balance and that our brain's ability to detect where we are in space is compromised. Unless my brain can lock my eyes onto something, it has no idea where I am. In darkness, I don't know if I'm upright or upside down. And every step I take is like bouncing on a trampoline--It never goes away.

And it really messes up your vision, too! Another thing I have in common with the character is that for fifteen years I was in show business: acting, singing and dancing. We both live on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, have been forced to reinvent ourselves, and we've had to retrain our brains, literally, in order to keep functioning in the world.

Prior to this, you'd written several novels focusing on gay men, so I'm assuming there are elements of yourself in those characters as well.

There's a bit of me in all my books. When I wrote On Picking Fruit and its sequel, Fruit Cocktail, I myself was on a quest to find the love of my life. Birthday Pie was a love letter to my family--although I'm not sure that they all saw it in that light--and I clearly related to the character of Lex, the New York City writer. Leftovers is an homage to the 1950s and Tupperware, and so much of what that lead character of Vivian goes through is similar to my life. She had to reinvent herself and find the courage to move on and grow.

What about in your children's book, Wise Bear William?

All of those characters are aspects of me. I even look like Bean Bag Bunny, as beautifully illustrated by Bud Santora! That is a story of love and friendship, but more importantly hope. Hope when all else seems to be lost. So, in short, all of these stories are elements of my story.

Why not write a traditional memoir? What prompted this unique approach?

I thought of telling Dizzy as my autobiography, but my life isn't that exciting. Creating Angie, who is a huge Broadway star-a triple threat who can sing, dance, and act-and having her develop this devastating disease made the stakes that much higher. As a writer, even with this disease, I can continue my work. Granted, writing makes my symptoms much worse, but I can take breaks and rest. But when an actor who sings and dances loses all sense of balance, their career is over. And in Angie's case, it was over in a matter of weeks. Actually, the symptoms, diagnoses, treatments, and timeline of Angie's events are mine as well. It's all true and accurate.

If you were casting the role of Angie Styles, which actress would be the most ideal fit?

That's a tough question. Angie is a rare breed nowadays. She's more like the huge Broadway icons such as Chita Rivera, Gwen Verdon and Liza Minnelli, who could do it all--which doesn't mean that we don't have fabulously talented actresses on Broadway today. If this were 1980, I'd cast Donna McKechnie. Sutton Foster would be great, but Angie is forty, so she's a bit young unless we brought her age down. On the screen, Sarah Jessica Parker would be an interesting choice, as would Anne Hathaway.

While I've just started reading Dizzy, I'm really curious about some of these backstage tales. Out of all of the celebrities you've met, are there any who really surprised you, for better or worse?

Of the stars I've worked with, Farley Granger was by far the most childish. I could write a book about that! Sally Ann Howes was the most stoic and distant. Phylicia Rash?d is the most irreverent, with a wicked sense of humor, and Debbie Allen is the sweetest. All of these really surprised me.

Battling illness is not usually something authors share, but you've been upfront about both your HIV status and this new revelation. Why do you feel compelled to incorporate such elements into your work?

The simple answer is that the most relatable writing is truthful writing; that which you know about and what you've experienced. Granted, I could write about a murderer and not be one, but I'm driven to share stories about what moves me, what I'm passionate about, and what I understand. With Dizzy I wanted to come out of the vestibular closet and reach out to others suffering from the same disease, to let them know they're not alone and that are terrific support groups out there for us. One of them is the Vestibular Disorders Association. I'm actually so grateful that they have endorsed Dizzy and also offered a quote for the book. That meant a lot to me.

You've been compared to such serio-comic authors as David Sedaris and Armistead Maupin, which are heavy shoes to fill. Do you ever feel any pressure, having to "measure up"?

I'm honored to be in their literary presence, but no. My goal and focus is to write honestly with heart, humor, and humanity. The 4-H Club!

This has been an amazing year for you, career-wise, given these nods on the Band of Thebes' Best LGBT Books list. What are some of the best books you've read in 2012?

I loved Clay Littlewood's Goodbye To Soho, Drake Braxton's Missing, and I discovered a book written back in 1950 by Paul Gallico, Abandoned. It's brilliant, moving, heartbreaking, and about cats! I'd love to see that made into a film.

For some writers, it's about awards and mentions, both of which you've had, and others are just happy to share a story. What does success as a writer look like to you? How will you know when you've reached that goal?

When I reach a million books sold? Just kidding--kind of. (laughing) Dizzy is my seventh book and the most personal. Writing it was cathartic, to say the least, and it took me seven years to get up enough courage to do it... That alone makes me feel successful.

For more favorite LGBT reads of 2012, check out Band of Thebes' annual authors survey and book review site Out in Print's Top 15 LGBT books for 2012.

Arthur Wooten can be found on his website, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

Cross-Posted on Kergan Edwards-Stout and LGBTQ Nation.

If you plan to vote for Mitt Romney, you are putting a nail into my civil rights coffin, and I'd rather not have friends who think I deserve anything less than equal treatment under the law. Romney supports DOMA (which directly and negatively impacts me, restricting my partner Russ, our kids, and my federal protections and tax benefits under the law), and has noted his support for an anti-marriage equality amendment as well.

While you may see your vote for him as one about the economy (and we can debate who'd be better for that until the cows come home), what you INTEND by your vote really doesn't matter. Your vote means that you are supporting someone who not only thinks I'm not equal to you, but who works vigorously to ensure my "less-than" legal status. Your vote for him means that you are totally fine with me being treated with disrespect.

Now, you may see this as an indication that I am being too "single minded", and I'll admit that when you're denied even the simplest of human considerations, it makes it difficult to look beyond that. But this is about much more than my treatment under the law. Who I am and what I believe passionately in are also things which Romney discounts.

I believe in full and fair treatment of ALL people, but Romney believes that women should not receive equal pay for equal work. I believe we need to take care of our earth, even if it means tightening our belts, but Romney favors further deregulation over environmental concerns. I think it is our duty to support things like art and culture (I view them as essential), but Romney disparages the role these play in enriching our lives; he sees them as extraneous and will cut public funding. I believe, just as education is a right, healthcare is as well, but Romney wants to abolish the Affordable Care Act. I care about those less fortunate and the elderly, and think it is our collective responsibility to ensure their well-being, but in Romney's eyes, these people are victims and moochers.

In short, who I am isn't just who I love, it is the things I feel passionately about. And Romney stands against almost all of them.

BOTTOM LINE: I don't care who you are - whether you are my relation by blood or a longtime acquaintance, I don't want "friends" who don't think I'm as good as they are. I want friends who value me, who see my worth as a human being, and who fully support my equal protections under the law. So, if you're voting for Romney, whether you follow me on twitter or facebook, please de-friend me. You won't hurt my feelings. I won't cause a big stink. In fact, you'll be creating space in my life for others to come in who do feel that my being here on the planet matters.

I'M NOT INTERESTED IN DEBATING THIS. PLEASE RESPECT MY WISHES.

- Kergan

Cross-posted on Kergan Edwards-Stout and Huffington Post. Photography by Sara + Ryan.

Little did I know that girl, Elizabeth Emken, would years later run for public office, in an attempt to unseat California Senator Dianne Feinstein. Today, she campaigns on an anti-gay platform, forcing me to wonder if my cutting remarks played any role in influencing the person she would become, and how she could come to take such a stance, given the many gay friends she once had.

Despite our rocky start, once we arrived at Los Alamitos High School, Elizabeth and I would go on to become friends, and she introduced me to what I called the "choir gang." This rag-tag band would never be the popular folks, but instead was united by both talent and outsider status. As Cheryl Bhence, now a married mother of two, notes, "We were all misfits, so we all kind of fit together like a puzzle."

While all members of the group were equals, Emken, in many ways, was the wheel's center spoke.

"I remember that Elizabeth was kind and had the capacity to be vulnerable, a quality I still admire in people," says Neil Fischer, who now lives in the Bay Area. "There was also something steely and resourceful about her. She laughed easily and seemed utterly accepting of who I was, at the time."

While Fischer wasn't yet out to himself, in the years following high school, almost all of the male members of this group would come out as gay, myself included. This long list included Emken's best friend, David Alexander Diaz, making Emken's current anti-marriage equality views more than a bit puzzling. David and Elizabeth attended proms and winter formals together, and were so close that Elizabeth even named her son Alex, in his honor.

Diaz first met Elizabeth as a freshman, when he auditioned for the school play, on which she was the student director. "We very quickly connected and bonded, becoming best friends," Diaz recalls. At that time, Diaz had not yet come out as gay. "While I was aware that I had feelings towards men, I couldn't imagine that being gay was even an option for me."

When Emken introduced Diaz to this group of choir folks, he felt immediately welcomed. He wasn't yet aware that most of the men in the group were gay, but "I knew they were like me on some level. These were guys who loved theater and music, and didn't much care for sports. We were aware of our commonalities, but our sexuality was never acknowledged."

"I remember all their smiles," notes Fisher. "All those guys had such easy, generous smiles."

There were times when the group's outsider status led to name-calling. Cheryl Bhence recalls that the men in the group were often teased about being gay. "At the time, none of them had yet come out, so I remember spending effort to defend their sexuality, which I had assumed was hetero. Knowing they were gay wouldn't have changed my perspective of any of them; I just wouldn't have had to stand up for them to the hecklers."

For most of the men, sexuality was not yet on their radar. "I was not entirely aware of what it meant to have a gay identity, nor that such an identity was developing in me," says Fischer. "At the time, I had no idea how to explore whatever gay stirrings I allowed to come to the surface of my consciousness. In high school, I had crushes on other boys that did not involve sexual fantasies, because I wouldn't let my mind go there."

"I was still pretty innocent back then," Diaz recalls. "Most of the guys were dating the girls, escorting them to prom and other functions, and I guess I pretty much took things at face value. They were dating girls, so must have been straight, right?"

High School Was Wholesome

Part of what allowed such assumptions to continue was that, by and large, the group was both close-knit and wholesome. "I have so many wonderful memories," says Bhence. "I remember the volleyball-a-thon: we played for 24 hours straight to raise money to pay for our choir tour up the California coast. But probably the weekend nights were the best, when we would hang out at one of our houses, eat M&Ms and chips with onion dip, and play silly kid games like Hide & Seek and Red Rover."

This was not a party or gossip crowd, where the absence of actual sexual activity might have been noticed, which made it a safe place for the gay men still finding their way. "While other kids might have been out on weekends, getting drunk, we were all at someone's house, playing Risk all night," Diaz remembers. "All of our activities were silly, fun-filled, and wholesome."

"We shared the ability to have fun without substances, like alcohol or drugs," Bhence notes, going on to elaborate that she "had a terrible crush on [one of the boys], but I never told him in high school, as he always seemed interested in other girls; he took various girls to each of the formal dances."

This focus on friendship and innocent fun helped give cover to the men, struggling to understand their sexuality, while their attendance with the women at events allowed the women to believe that the men were indeed straight.

"I hoped and wanted to be straight, and just assumed that, at some point, it would happen," Diaz relates. "I had an ideal woman in my mind, and just felt that I'd meet her and everything would fall into place."

While that may have been his goal, Diaz found himself confused when Emken expressed her love for him, thinking that the two should be a couple. He elaborates that when he told Emken that he didn't feel the same, they found their friendship challenged. "Elizabeth is an aggressive and assertive woman, and she was then as well. She couldn't understand how we could have such a strong bond, and yet me not feel the same desires she did."

Even with this new challenge, Emken and Diaz didn't sever ties. Caught between friendship and the question of something deeper, the two pushed through an intense season of figuring out who they were - talking constantly, writing letters, and sharing hopes and dreams.

"I cared deeply for her and would have liked to be what she saw me as," Diaz said. "But there was a part of me that I compartmentalized, which was the experience of attraction to men."

Prior to her friendship with Diaz, Emken had a similarly intense friendship with Tim Radi, a fellow member of the group, not realizing that he too would later come out as gay. "It was the same pattern as with me," Diaz states. "She had intense feelings for him, but he didn't want to date her. It was as if history were repeating itself."

From Tupperware to Politician

While some of their issues were about the degrees of friendship each desired, other obstacles for Emken and Diaz' friendship included her mother. "Elizabeth's parents were divorced," he notes, "and her mother was very difficult. To be perfectly blunt, she was prejudiced, and the fact that I am of Cuban heritage was looked down on in her family. That was the first time in my life I was discriminated against for being Hispanic."

At the time, Emken was furious with her mother's treatment of Diaz, and he notes the irony that today Emken herself views him, politically, as a second-class citizen. "She's become a lot more like her mother than even she'd admit."

Not only were Emken's two high school sweethearts unable to return her love, but one of them later died, with Radi's death from AIDS being the first such death many in the group had experienced. "A bunch of us had a personal memorial for him at his graveside," Bhence remembers. "At the time, his family didn't seem ready to accept his diagnosis, so we didn't pressure them to explain things to us."

Still, Emken was always supportive of Diaz's sexual journey. After high school, Diaz began to "act out" sexually through anonymous encounters, leaving Diaz frightened, ashamed and confused, and he sought Emken's advice. She seemed to believe, as many do, that being gay was something Diaz could control. "She wasn't judgmental," Diaz said. "She just saw my actions as something I could simply stop, if I really tried."

The next year, Diaz came out to Emken, acknowledging his orientation in full. "She was very loving and accepting, which makes her stance today hurt all the more," Diaz said.

Years later, when he became HIV-positive at age 30, Diaz again confided in Emken. Her support never wavered, but their friendship began to wane.

"During that brief window in the Prop 8 battle when gay marriages in California were legal, my partner and I got married. Elizabeth was entirely supportive, treating us as equals."

Prior to her political debut, Emken was mainly a stay-at-home mom, who both worked with an autism agency, because her son Alex is autistic, and sold Tupperware. "The drive you see in Elizabeth today has always been there. In typical Elizabeth-fashion, she became one of the state's best Tupperware salespeople. And we ended up having a big gay Tupperware party at our house, including Elizabeth's college roommate, who is lesbian, and her wife, with Elizabeth presiding over the entire event."

A Punch in the Stomach

Given their close relationship and the many life moments they experienced together, it came as a shock to Diaz when he learned of Emken's candidacy platform. "I got a very timid email from Elizabeth, where she shared, almost apologetically, that she was running for public office. While I normally would have been thrilled, I was thoroughly confused when I went to her website and saw where she stood on the issues. Among her many policy points, she noted that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. I felt like I'd been kicked in the stomach."

While Diaz had long known of her conservative roots, Emken's public stance confused him. "I'd always known that she was a Republican," he acknowledges. "I knew of her mother's more staunch views, and that Elizabeth was fiscally conservative, but somehow I'd allowed myself to believe that Elizabeth would be a different kind of Republican."

"I kept thinking, 'but we're friends, Elizabeth,'" Diaz recalls. "I couldn't rationalize how she could have taken that position."

Diaz reached out, via email, in an attempt to understand her actual belief, only to be met with silence. "I told her I was thrilled for her, seeking a political office, as I'd always known she was meant for great things. Still, I also told her how hurt I was, as part of her platform was designed to deny me my basic rights, and asked her to explain how she'd come to this anti-gay stance. Realizing that she may not want to put such thoughts in writing, I asked her to call me, so we could talk it over, but that phone call never came."

Given her friendship with those in the group, Diaz was not the only one upset by her viewpoint. "It's sad to me that she has decided to side with those who want to deny gays the right to legally marry," says Fischer. "There is the usual cynical assumption: she has taken this position for political expediency; she believes she cannot represent the Republican base of her party without touting one of its most visible platforms; she cannot win the November election unless she shows herself to be as contrary to Feinstein as possible."

"The list of people she betrayed with this stance is a long one. It includes me, her best friend, as well as every guy in our high school group, and her college roommate. It makes no sense," Diaz notes. "Still, there was a part of me that held out hope; that I'd misunderstood her, and that there was a more subtle, nuanced approach to her belief that hadn't been properly expressed."

"I lost such sleep over this," he confides. "I cried, late at night, feeling so betrayed."

It would be over a year until Diaz received a response. "I got an email, with a link to an article titled something like 'Republicans Finally Coming Around to Gay Marriage,' with a very short note that said 'Look--there is progress being made!'"

While Diaz appreciated her support, he wasn't interested in how other Republicans viewed same-gender marriage; it was her view which mattered, and he again reached out for clarification.

It was only then that Diaz got a more lengthy response. Emken sent an email, saying that she couldn't understand how her policy points had become an issue between them. "'No matter what your political beliefs,' she said, 'I will always be your friend,'" Diaz remembers. "But as I replied to her, 'Imagine, for a moment, if I were a black person, and you were running on a racist platform. Can you see how that might be an issue?' No matter what our relationship had been, there are certain things in life that are deal-breakers. As I wrote to her, 'If you are using a wedge issue like this simply to gain power, I can't support that. I have more self-esteem than that.' And that was the end of our communication."

The Absurdity Is Appalling

When asked to describe Emken, as she was when they first met, Diaz uses words such as driven and ambitious. "Her running for office today is not a surprise to me." In fact, Diaz recounts the moment he first introduced Emken to his mother. "I distinctly recall my mom saying, 'That girl could be President, if she wants to be.'"

Despite similar upbringings and experiences the "choir gang" has grown into adulthood with varying worldviews and splintered friendships. As one of the women noted, who wishes to remain anonymous, "I think it has a whole lot less to do with being middle class and one's religious affiliation, as it has to do with early influences, models, experiences and inclinations. In my case, I was raised in a Catholic home by parents who were passionate and active in issues having to do with social justice, and had an embracing attitude towards learning about and welcoming all walks of life. It's carried me throughout my life."

Despite the contrary teachings of her faith, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Bhence says she supports marriage equality. "I'm a member of a church that does not support marriage equality, and yet I still love my church. I think about myself being divorced and remarried, and I'm allowed to do that, but my friend, Bill, who has been with his partner since we graduated high school, isn't. His relationship is a better tribute to marriage than I am."

Following the passage of California's anti-marriage equality measure, Prop 8, Bhence shares, "I remember being in church the Sunday after it passed. I was so discouraged, but I was trying to understand. In my church, we sing a hymn prior to partaking of the Sacrament that represents Christ's body and blood. On this particular Sunday, the hymn's scripture was Hebrews 13:4. It says 'Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.' The message I got from this is that now may not be the time, but take courage, continue the fight, it will happen."

"A lesbian couple living together devotedly for 40 years cannot legally marry, though two drunken straight people can meet in Vegas and hours later walk off with a legitimate marriage license," Fischer notes. "This kind of absurdity appalls me still."

In Diaz' view, Emken should understand the importance marriage holds, given the battle Emken herself fought with her mother when it came time for her own nuptials. "When Elizabeth got married, she actually wanted me to be her 'best man,' rather than have a maid of honor, as I was her best friend. But her mother refused, saying it would be ridiculous for a man to be part of the bride's wedding party," he recalls. "She had to fight her family to get me into her wedding party, where, as a compromise, I ended up on the groom's side. Instead of me as her 'best man,' Elizabeth had a cousin she wasn't as close to stand in as maid of honor."

A Very Different Woman

The girl I first met in junior high is very different from the woman that now stands on California's political stage. Then she was the victim to my thoughtless taunts because of her weight. She was victim to abandonment from her father and to romantic rejection from gay men. She was resilient and a loving friend, supportive of her gay friend's journey through life and sexuality. But now, she stands publicly against his right to a legitimate marriage with the man he loves.

While Emken won't comment on how she became the woman she is today, her friends, although angry and confused, still hold kind thoughts of her.

"I don't demonize her. Mostly, I feel sad for her," Fischer said. "I'd like to know what happened to that competent, compassionate thinker that I knew. She must still hold within her that high school self, the one that befriended so many gay men."

Group photo and photo of David Diaz and Elizabeth Emken (1981 Senior Prom) provided by David Diaz. Group photo, top row: Elizabeth Emken, Maria Simeone, David Diaz, Cheryl Bhence, Diana Gregory, Scott Maher. Bottom row: Felicia Weisbrot Berschauer, Bill Boyson, Craig Swartz (now Emken's husband), Kathy Pierce.

Senate candidacy photo from Elizabeth Emken's website.

(Cross-posted at Kergan Edwards-Stout and Huffington Post.)

With tales as disparate as Benedetto Casanova (a fictionalized memoir set in Italy), The Almost Unbelievably Curious Case of Jeremiah Hudgejaw: America's First Gay Wedding (set at the beginning of the last century), Shayno (a tale of mid-life crisis set in Silicon Valley), as well as your new title, Bodensee (sci-fi), it seems you're intent on covering every place and genre under the sun! What guides your decision of what to write next?

I think most genres in modern literature have become very stale and narrow. Every new best-selling thriller out there seems follows the same formula. Writers spend too much time copying television shows and learning from bad teachers in overpriced writing courses. I want to bring a new approach to each genre. I'd like to show that it can be done differently, outside the established boundaries. Not every crime novel has to read like CSI in book form. Luckily, I don't have the pressures of a publisher's money-making machine behind me, so I can write what and how I want, and experiment.

Most of my writing starts with specific aspects of relationships between men, but I then put them in whatever setting I want. Bodensee may be science fiction, but it's also an attempt to merge sci-fi into the context of a 19th century literary tradition.

What's more, I'm not very comfortable with the idea of genres at all. These categories were invented by book-sellers so they knew which shelf to put a book on. Authors shouldn't care about them. You'll find that most of my books cross boundaries. I'm working on a crime novel now which will have neither murderers nor police inspectors as major characters, nor a traditional investigation. So most publishers would say that doesn't quality as a 'whodunnit.'

You've lived all over the world, which I would imagine has helped inform the varied locations and times of your novels.

Traveling is an enormous inspiration for me. I soak up new ideas and inspiration like a big brain-sponge. Everywhere I go I observe people: on planes, trains, and beaches, as well as in bars, restaurants and, of course, hotel beds. People are so different from place to place--and yet the motivations, joys and sorrows are all the same worldwide. It's fun to discover how people from various cultures deal with essentially the same problems in different ways.

What made you decide to delve into sci-fi with Bodensee?

It was very much an organic process. Bodensee was originally a short story with a rather different plot. The premise was this: if one day technology solves most of our problems, and computer games merge with virtual reality, what will we do then? Spend most of our time hooked up to the Matrix and fight each other in a fantasy world? Many young people are already doing just that! Once VR is widely available, I imagine some people will choose to live through the best moments of their lives over and over again. The original short story was about a man so bored with life he hooks himself up to a virtual reality device which lets him re-live his first sexual encounter at university ad infinitum.

And how did that original concept transform into the novel itself?

That year my husband and I went to Europe on vacation and had a very romantic few weeks in the company of a charming friend. I combined the two ideas - virtual worlds and the emotional landscape of a triangle relationship. Because the vacation setting in Switzerland was so unusually beautiful, almost dream-like, I started playing with the idea of not being able to tell what is real and what not. And presto - I had a sci-fi novel on my hands. The story went through some major transformations before becoming the final book, but essentially you can read it as a romantic gay love-triangle, as a sort of "literary VR world", as homage to the great gay writers of the last century, or as a mystery novel.

You've subtitled Bodensee, "a nightmare." Expand on what you mean by that.

As soon as I talk about the plot of the book, I will reveal too much. It's full of strange twists. But I really can't reveal more than we say on the jacket or the description on the website. Be prepared: nothing is what it seems. It starts out like a perfect dream, but it quickly turns ugly.

Tell me about your journey to authorhood. Prior to writing, what kind of life experiences did you have? How did those shape your stories, as well as the writer you would become?

I think that every writer's work is shaped by his experiences. We can only truthfully write about things we know. Even imagination is based on our own capacity for empathy. Without that it's not literature, it's just writing. One of the demands literary books make on the writer is to reveal part of him/herself. It's a form of prostitution. You buy my book, and I'll show you a little of my soul. Or my sex life as it were.

My traveling and my consulting work have shaped my books, absolutely. Working for an international consultancy, I was lucky enough to meet so many people in so many countries. In particular, my two short-story collections Hoppa and A Stranger in Triva both contain stories based on events in my life. Every story in these two books was inspired by someone I met, something I saw, or a conversation I overheard. I wrote Hoppa while I was still working--that's why airplanes, airports and handsome captains feature prominently.

What did you first realized, "Ah, I'm a writer!"?

There were plenty of moments when I thought, I want to be a writer. But ultimately I was always just writing, without thinking too much about what it means to be a writer. Before my first contract, I thought getting published would be a major event and change me, but it didn't. I just kept on writing as before. For a while, I looked at sales numbers and joined promotion events, but I don't want to sell stuff, I want to write stuff.

Writing is my way of dealing with life from day to day, my way of making sense of my and other people's humanity, and that's all it is. I don't write for my readers, or for the fame, or to fill my publisher's pockets; I just write. With my gay subjects, I don't have to worry about striking it rich anyway. I will always be a niche author, but that suits me perfectly. I certainly won't compromise just to sell more books.

How do you know when you're ready to begin a new work? Do you start with a character, a title, a story, a moment...?

I am always working on many ideas simultaneously. The spark is different for every book. Shayno, for example, began with a true event. (That specific event was repeatedly singled out by the critics. They said it made the book "unbelievable". Oddly enough, that freak encounter in a Las Vegas hotel is the only thing autobiographical in the whole book, everything else is fiction.)

Benedetto Casanova, on the other hand, was born out of annoyance. I had started using an e-reader and found that on gutenberg.org I could get old books for free. I found Casanova's Memoirs--the real Casanova--and thought, I'll give it a try. I thought I was in for some erotic prattle and a lot of cool frocks, but the more I read the angrier I got. The historical Casanova was a real prat. The whole image of this handsome adventurer is completely fake. He was stupid, untalented, often mean, selfish, and always manipulative. He took advantage of women wherever he could; he lied and he stole. And he was ugly to boot--he even said of himself that he was stupid and ugly, and only bought expensive clothes to hide his figure! He knew his French was awful and that he had no particular talents other than seducing women. He bought and sold virgin girls as young as nine to other men, and he swindled his way into a fortune. I spent months reading his memoirs, and I honestly say he doesn't have a single redeeming feature. There is nothing remotely moral or in any way positive about his character. How could such a man become a cultural icon, a role model for men? He wasn't the dashing handsome adventurer you know from the movies.

That was the first ingredient. The second was this: At the beginning of his memoirs he mentions that one year his mother was pregnant and that he didn't know what happened to the baby, that it either died or his mother might have given it away. That sort of planted the seed for the idea of a brother in my mind. I started thinking... What if such a brother existed, and were the complete opposite of Giacomo. What if he were terribly handsome, and smart, totally unlike his brother? What if such a brother could speak many languages, and had a talent for music, and loved philosophy? What if instead of just running after every skirt, he had a permanent relationship with a hot guy. The real Casanova was never married or in a relationship for more than months. And so I started writing... and as I fleshed out the character, Benedetto became the exact opposite of his brother.

Mostly though, actual events in my life inspire me. I told you about Bodensee already. I have a book coming out next year which is based on a single fantasy: I was at this finance conference and one of the speakers was amazingly charming. I was in the audience and started flirting with him. Of course, nothing happened, he may not have been gay, and in any case he was too professional to interrupt his presentation to flirt with me. But I thought... what would happen if he really got all distracted and flustered, and we had this gay flirt in front of everyone. I came home from the conference and started writing ... and four months later I had a new book.

How does your sexuality inform what you write?

As I mentioned, literary writers must be honest, they must be whores. They must give away part of their body soul to make their work worthwhile and interesting. Now although I've dated women in the past, I wouldn't be honest if I wrote books about hetero love. But I don't think my books are 'gay writing'. That's another genre I find hard to work with. I try to identify interesting themes, and let my books revolve around ideas or concepts which are universally human. Benedetto may have a few gay sex scenes, but it is essentially a book about how we choose between commitment and excitement, between love and lust. The main characters in Shayno and Gabriel are gay men, but Shayno is about alienation, expat life, and Gabriel about culture shock and racism. Neither should be in the "gay romance" or the "gay erotica" section of a bookstore, but because of the way the industry works, anything queer ends up on the same shelf, so that the shallow and pious don't get offended.

Tell me more about your road to publishing. Did you go the traditional route, with agent and publisher, or did you create your own publishing company?

I was immensely lucky. It's extremely difficult to get published by the big houses these days, and it is actually less and less desirable to get published by them. They are money making machines with no regard for artistic aspirations. They just want stuff that sells, and unfortunately that means simplistic style, repetitive recipes taken from TV shows, clichés heaped on clichés, vampires, wizards and plenty of gore. The age of good prose is definitely in the past, as Gore Vidal said.

I was never willing to compromise. I've been asked by publishers to make the books "easier to read" and by two publishers to "tone down the gay." One suggested that Shayno would work better if the main character were straight. I thought that was rather insulting and daft.

I am not interested in pleasing the CFO of some big publisher. Art demands honesty, and as a writer, you have to be truthful to yourself first. Simplifying my style and de-gaying my storylines... okay, but then it wouldn't be my book anymore, would it? I can't do that.

I was lucky to find two small publishers, one in the US and one in England, who both give me a say in how we market the books. Their editors check for spelling mistakes and inconsistencies only--they don't use computers to calculate the readability index and then tell me to make my sentences shorter, or add a werewolf with hard abs to push up sales.

What's the most difficult element of being an author today?

Dealing with readers, and therein striking a balance between honesty and politeness. This is the age of Facebook. I get lots of messages from readers. Some want to date me, others want someone to talk to... They say everybody watches the same movie, but everybody reads a different book: people read a lot of their own experiences into books. It's difficult to respond to some of the feedback, because I don't know on what experience my readers base their reading of my stories. When Benedetto came out, several people said it was about the search for god. I don't remember putting that into the book, but I have to admit there are some aspects which appeal to searching, open-minded, religious individuals. So I had to re-read my own book to be able to respond to those queries. It takes a lot of time and dedication to engage truthfully with readers.

What advice would you give an author, just starting out, who wants to write gay fiction?

Never attend writing courses, and never listen to publishers! Every artist must find his niche and go her own way. Do what you feel you have to do. Don't attempt to sell, just concentrate on writing. Some people are successful with bland male romance stories, others are good at horror and suspense. Ultimately you will only be good at what you love doing, so stick to that. If you write the way you want to, and about the themes which interest you, there'll be people who'll want to read you.

In addition to your novels, you write on a variety of topics for the Huffington Post. What do you see as the most pressing issues facing the LGBT community?

There are many. But there's an overarching concern which is most obvious in the US, but will hit every other country sooner or later, and that's the conflict between liberal and conservative. Both conservatives and liberals, or in American speak, Republicans and Democrats, respect traditions. But whereas conservatives want the traditions to carry on unchanged, liberals accept that tradition belongs to the past and had better stay there. We can learn from it, examine it, but we need to adapt it for our use, not follow it blindly. If we as LGBT people want respect, we can't afford to be conservative, and we have to stand up against right-wing attitudes. LGBT issues go hand in hand with women's issues (equal pay, control over your own body, etc.) respect for minorities, and acceptance of transgender people. Because religion is inherently conservative (based on doctrine and scripture, thus static), the conflict can be framed as a fight between liberalism and religion. That creates a lot of bad blood and very emotional, uninformed debate.

Several of your Huffington Post pieces focus on sexuality. What's your current take on HIV/AIDS in the community?

HIV seems like yesterday's scare, doesn't it? The generation coming of age seem almost impervious to the threat. Barebacking is in again, and modern drugs have taken 'the edge' off the HIV threat. But that's very much an illusion. The porn industry has a lot to answer for here. Bareback sells, but it also creates the impression that there's nothing wrong with it. That's a terrible trap for impressionable young guys.

I write about sexuality, because I think it is woefully underrepresented in the modern public discourse. The conservative mindset relegates everything smacking of sex to the taboo zone. As human beings, all our actions, the paths we take in life, the decisions we make, are influenced by the way we look and love. If humanity wants to evolve, we have to treat our own sexuality more openly and honestly--not stifling the discussion with religious dogma, and not banning it as pornography. We need to talk openly about everything, from domestic violence to the pleasure of anal sex. It's even more important in an age where children can get access to sexual content anywhere on the net. No family filter will ever keep the porn away from children. But early, informed discussion of sex will help them deal with the realities. Sexuality is a defining property of our human experience. It is neither bad, nor shameful, and it never should be a source of guilt. Yet for too many people it is the cause of grief and desperation, leading to bullying, rape, and suicide. Only a discussion free from dogma and taboo can help us become a better, fairer, more tolerant society.

If your career path were totally under your control, where would you like to see yourself in 10 years?

Doing exactly what I do now. Writing what I want to write.

Lastly, if a reader hasn't yet read your work, which of your books would you recommend they read first?

I've always found this question hard to answer. Most people start with Benedetto, because it's the most popular of my books. But historical adventure is not for everyone. If you want to discover me in chronological order, start with Hoppa, then Shayno, Triva, and then Gabriel and Bodensee. If you like sci-fi and literature, start with Bodensee. If you like contemporary stuff, Shayno and Gabriel are the best bets. Gabriel deals more with women's relationship to gay men, and also with culture shock and racist attitudes amongst expats in China. Well, and if you want to start with comedy, you can try Jeremiah Hudgejaw.

Marten Weber can be found on facebook, twitter, and on his website.

Cross-posted on KerganEdwards-Stout.com and the Huffington Post.

Author David G. Hallman suffered a similar loss when his partner of 30 years was diagnosed with cancer, only to die just two weeks later. He too used writing as a way to explore his emotional state, and that commonality helped us forge a friendship when we were fortunate enough to finally meet at the Rainbow Book Fair in New York. His memoir, August Farewell, details the death of his partner to cancer, and was noted by The Advocate magazine as one of the 21 Biographies or Memoirs You Should Read Now, calling his novel Searching for Gilead "an honest examination of questions about God, injustice, love, and death." It was a pleasure to speak with him recently about his life and journey to author-hood.

Kergan Edwards-Stout: Hi David. Nice to talk to you again.

David G. Hallman: Good to connect with you too, Kergan. The last time was over martinis in New York after the Rainbow Book Fair! I remember getting fortified so I'd be in good shape for the Black Party that night.

KES: Yes, the rest of us were a bit in awe that you were heading out to dance all night after being at the book fair all day!

DGH: Well, I'm not a father of two kids like you and your partner, Russ. That takes an impressive amount of energy. I bow to you in the personal stamina department.

KES: As you mention stamina, you've been through quite an emotionally exhausting journey. While you'd written other books prior, you wrote your memoir, August Farewell, after the dramatic death of your partner, Bill, from cancer. When you began writing, was it as a cathartic outlet or were you intending it to be a book?

DGH: I never intended anyone else to see it. Bill was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer in August 2009 and died two weeks later. After it was over, I started panicking that I would forget the details of those excruciating, intimate, heart-wrenching, spiritual, god-awful sixteen days that were, at times, punctured by Bill's uproarious sense of humor. So I started writing the story of those days and spontaneously began integrating vignettes from our thirty-three years together. I wrote nonstop for six weeks. But I only did it so that I could have that record to go back to and relive our time together in the years to come. Just like how we treasure photo albums.

KES: Why did you decide to publish it?

DGH: I shared it with a few close friends who in turn passed it around to others. It started circulating wider and wider. Photo copied pages in a black three-ring binder. People kept telling me that this was a wonderful love story that should be more widely available and it could be helpful to others who were dealing with grief. But it took a year of cajoling from friends before I agreed to publish it.

KES: So many people want to be in a relationship. What brought you both together, and what kept you together?

DGH: Sex. Sex. And more sex. Actually, no, that's not quite true. I had lusted after him for months but I thought that he was so good-looking he wouldn't ever notice a nerd like me. Unbeknownst to me, he had been trying to cruise me. But I was so dense, I didn't realize it. Anyway, once we finally did connect in 1976--yes, I am that old--we started living together within a week. And stayed together for thirty-three years. It was passion that brought us and kept us together--intellectual, emotional, artistic, spiritual, physical passion.

KES: Following August Farewell, your next book, Searching for Gilead, was a work of fiction. What was your inspiration for your novel?

DGH: Though writing August Farewell was cathartic, I still had--still do have--issues with which I'm struggling in my head and in my heart. So I decided to try and grapple with them through a work of fiction. That's where the title comes from. I made a list of those issues and they spelled out GILEAD - God and religion in general; Injustice in the world; Love and relationships; Environmental crises; the Arts; and Death.

KES: You and I share some commonalities, in that we've both lost partners, mine to AIDS and yours to cancer, and that has lead to common themes in our writing. And yet, while both of your recent books are very personal, they're also very different.

DGH: One of the things that I admire so much about your wonderful novel Songs for the New Depression was your artistic risk-taking in telling the story in reverse chronological order. I think it worked brilliantly. Similarly for me, I wanted to push myself aggressively and with passion--there's that word again--to tackle the issues of love and loss that characterize the memoir August Farewell but this time through the demanding genre of a novel. So while Searching for Gilead is a fictional story, the underlying themes are profoundly autobiographical.

KES: While I've always viewed good writing as the connection between emotional authenticity and craftsmanship, someone recently accused me of using the death of Shane for my own aggrandizement. To me, it was essential that I try to honor him and to tell my story as well, but where is the line in telling other's stories? Do you ever feel that you've shared too much?

DGH: I worry about that all the time. I think sometimes I've skidded into an emotional exhibitionism...

KES: ...what a great phrase, "emotional exhibitionism..."

DGH: Pouring my broken heart out through the memoir and the novel, through my blogs and other recent writing, is so antithetical to the more personally circumspect person that I used to be. And Bill, though a larger-than-life personality, was quite a private person in terms of his personal life. So I do worry about how he would feel about people around the world reading our life story. But the feedback that I get from readers reinforces my gut instinct that these are important issues for us to be dealing with personally and as societies. And I guess I contribute to that social conversation through my writing.

KES: How do you think the LGBT community, as a whole, has dealt with the AIDS crisis?

DGH: As a community, we've had to deal with a lot of death and have found ways to support each other personally, socially, and politically. Now that HIV is more of a long-term chronic disability and less of an automatic death sentence, I hope we as a community can generalize from our AIDS experience to help each other as we fall ill and die of the same sort of diseases that everyone else does. Like, uh, I dunno, cancer maybe.

KES: What books have most resonated with you as a person, and why?

DGH: Gosh, to have to identify only a few titles that have really thrilled me...well of recent reads, I'd say David Rakoff's Half Empty...such a tragedy that he's just died--of cancer--at such a young age..., Christopher Bram's Eminent Outlaws, Alan Hollinghurst's The Stranger's Child, Esi Edugyan's Half-Blood Blues, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Colm Tóibín's The Empty Family, Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader... The common denominator I suppose is that all of those have taken my breath away, the writing has been so damn good. Sometimes that's intimidating for me as an author, but generally the exhilaration of reading exquisite writing is what sticks with me.

KES: Are you working on anything new?

DGH: I've started work on a collection of inter-related short stories. But I'm taking my time. During the two years that I spent writing August Farewell and Searching for Gilead, I did very little reading. I had no time. I was always writing. Now, I find myself parched and I'm reading, reading, reading. The energy for writing will come back, I hope, but at the moment, I feel the need to slake my thirst for the good writing of others. It's where my energy is. And I'm going with my gut, passionately.

For more on David G. Hallman, please check out his website: http://DavidGHallman.com. He can also be found on Twitter @authordhallman.

Originally posted on Kergan Edwards-Stout and Huffington Post.

I've been a fan of yours since 1984, when I first saw your wonderful film debut in Another Country. At the time, I was a young gay man and had recently come out to my parents. I was attempting to find identifiable versions of myself in the larger LGBT world and was using cinema, literature, and the arts as a starting place.

You, as your character was depicted in that film, represented an ideal gay man to me, which I had yet to see, in either real life or reel life. Your character was everything I aspired to be. You were smart, droll, handsome, and seemingly secure with your sexuality. (Plus you got to snog the ever-adorable Cary Elwes, which scored points in my book.) Call it youthful naiveté, but at that time I assumed that you yourself were much the same as your character, given you continued to live your life off-screen as an out gay man.

But being out doesn't necessarily mean one is secure, does it, Rupert? Being out doesn't necessarily mean that a person feels whole and worthy. As you and I both know, being out isn't the same thing as being enlightened.

Your recent quote on gay parenting was a rude awakening for me, making me realize that, all this time, I'd given you far more credit than warranted. While you may have played the gay father to Madonna's child in The Next Best Thing (likely leading to endless sessions on the couch with your therapist), does that mean you're qualified to speak out about LGBT parenting, or any kind of parenting? Not really, but here I sit, staring at your quote in the Sunday Times, where you say, "I can't think of anything worse than being brought up by two gay dads." Given the lives we've both led, I can't help but think, "Really, Rupert? WTF?"

How about a child being born to a father who is in jail for attempted murder? Whose mother sees fit to pierce the ears of her then 6-month-old son's ears, but cannot find the time to fix his club feet? Who later takes this same son to a crack house, which is then raided by police, leading to a year and a half of foster care?

Are you saying that child would've been better off left in the other household, instead of being adopted by my partner and me? Which life - truly - is worse, Rupert?

When we first met Marcus, he was sullen, uncommunicative, and distant. Upon bringing him into our home, where we showered him with much-needed love, shelter, attention, medical care, and a whole host of other things twenty-four hours a day, he is now a thriving, joyful, and active 10-year-old. He loves playing with Mason (now 12), his non-biological older brother, who we also adopted, but as an infant.

But you seem to think he'd be better off in the home in which he was born?

Rupert, I'm sure that, if we actually were talking face-to-face, you'd say that, when quoted, you were just speaking facetiously. Seriously - to any sane, objective person - given the alternative, our home is infinitely the better choice, right? So, why would you say that? Do you truly believe that, or were you instead hoping for headlines?

Like everyone else, I'd heard ill-considered remarks from you before, such as when you suggested gay actors remain closeted, and your belief that your own career was harmed as a result of coming out. But, quite honestly, I chalked up such nonsense to your being British. After all, it seems that you, Elton John, and George Michael can't skip a day without such pithy nonsense running from your mouths. However, in this particular case, you weren't complaining about Madonna, or your lackluster career, or other things which, in the grand scheme of things, don't really matter. You were talking about me, my partner, our kids, and all the other LGBT families out there, just trying to make it through each day and to create better lives for our children.

I'm a gay dad. I've wanted to have children, as far back as I can remember. I always knew I'd make a great parent, though society kept telling me otherwise. Over the years, I've read books, taken parenting classes, babysat my nephews, and changed a helluva lot of diapers to get me to the point where I knew I was ready to have children, and then passed all of the tests in order to prove it. Despite all of this, and the amazing kids we now have as a result, you couldn't imagine "anything worse."

Rupert, there is a big difference between what happens on the silver screen and what happens in real life. There are worse things, far worse things than even our son endured, than having two dads. One of which is living without love.

I'm wondering, Rupert, exactly how you feel about yourself as a gay man. Yes, I know you've been "out" since an early age, but at what cost? Were you built up to believe that your sexuality was a good thing - a badge of honor - or something with which to struggle and fight against? Long prior to your fame, in your youth, you were a male escort. I have to wonder, what affect did that have on your sense of self? Did it expand your worldview, or contract it? Later, you landed in the arts, but the fame you found seems not to have offered you contentment, but bitterness.

Now, I'm not your shrink, Rupert, so I can't fully analyze you, but the statements you make lead me to believe that, at your core, you're unhappy being gay. While I can't do anything about that, I can tell you that I myself feel incredibly fortunate to be gay. While my sexuality is but one element of my personae, it informs my every move in life and is central to my being. I see it not as a curse, but as a blessing. I'm sure you've likely done some work around these issues, Rupert, but I can tell you that coming to peace with your sexuality might just open up a whole new world.

Until that time, Rupert, why don't you visit my world?

Come visit me and my family. In the article, you mention that your views of LGBT parenting come from your mother. Well, I invite you to come meet Dottie.

My mom, Dottie, was born in southern Georgia, very conservative. While I'm sure she'd prefer that her only son be straight and raising biologically white offspring, Dottie has come to embrace this odd dichotomy. Two of her grandchildren are African American boys, being raised by white gay dads, and she treats them the same as her white grandchildren being raised by my sister. While Dottie may, late at night, wish for something different, she has chosen to seize the reality of the situation, and take these grandchildren as her own. Do you think, even for one moment, Dottie would prefer these kids to be any place other than where they are? No. She knows the reality of the situation, what their lives might be like in their families of origin, and embraces the life in which they now live.

Rupert, our family life is not perfect, by any means, but we are gay dads, doing our best to raise our children in a better manner in which they were born. We're not asking for accolades or awards from you, or anyone else for that matter, but simple respect would be nice. The things you as an actor say matter, not only for us raising kids, but for the kids who come from such families. You are essentially saying that, there being nothing "worse," that kids raised from LGBT homes are at the bottom of the barrel. But I don't accept that. The unfortunate thing is that, as stupid as your comments may be, they will be repeated, again and again, by both the press and those angling to put a stop to LGBT parenting, as a sign that we are "less than."

But here's the thing, Rupert. We're not going away. We're not going to cower to you or anyone else. We know that what we are doing is right, both for ourselves and our kids. We are making a better world, and you will not stand in our way.

Your words have meaning, as ill-considered as they may be, and I hope to talk this over further when you come for a weekend. Bring your mom, and anyone else whom you'd think from benefit seeing LGBT parenting in action.

You can spend the weekend, running with us from Trader Joe's to Target, spend hours on the football field (where kids are judged not by their parents, but on their talent), to church, and a whole host of other activities, all specifically designed to make you see just what terrible parents we make.

Like it or not, Rupert, you are a role model. While I'm sure you were speaking off-the-cuff, in sound-bites, hoping for a bit of press, your words do, ultimately, matter. If you can't be the person I once thought, honorable and secure in their sexuality, then at least do me the favor of shutting the fuck up and let me parent.

Check with my kids, 10 years from now, and let me know which they think was worse: where they were born, or where they're headed.

Yours,

Kergan Edwards-Stout

P.S. I wrote another note to once-Presidential candidate Rick Santorum, given a similar statement he made about gay parents. But here's the difference, Rupert: he was a conniving right wing candidate, pandering to his base. You, on the other hand, should know better.

Cross-Posted on Kergan Edwards-Stout and Huffington Post.

Glenn is a noted director, having helmed the new indie hit I Do, which is receiving accolades and awards at gay film festivals around the world, as well as the gay cult fave Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat. Prior to I Do, Glenn wrote the screenplay and lyrics for the musical film Leave It On the Floor, which also received great acclaim, and is newly out on DVD.

Recently, Glenn took a break from his busy schedule to share with me more about his films, his life, and his views on the gay community.

I Do is an intense romantic drama about a gay English man in New York who, despite wanting to stay to help raise his niece, faces an expired visa. He marries his lesbian best friend, Ali, played by Jamie-Lynn Sigler of The Sopranos fame, but things get complicated fast when he meets and falls for a sexy Spaniard. The film touches upon some very profound issues of our time, the Defense of Marriage Act, and how even though gay people can get married in certain states in this country, immigration is a federal right. So even if a gay person legally marries someone, it doesn't grant citizenship because of DOMA. All told, despite its hot button topicality, this is the very human story about a man who has to decide whose life he's living.

How did you become involved with I Do?

Producer Stephen Israel and I have collaborated on projects in the past, and truth be told, I wouldn't have a career were it not for him. As a former programmer with the Slamdance Film Festival, he went to bat for my very first short, Lost Cause, and got it into that fest. He's like a brother to me, that guy! Over the years, he had told me about this project he was developing with screenwriter/actor David W. Ross, who like most talented people, decided not to wait around for great roles, but wrote one for himself instead. All I knew about this film was that it was about gay marriage, so in my mind, it was one of those dopey comedies where the poster is of two grooms on a wedding cake throwing frosting at each other. Hilarity ensues! I had met David a few times through Stephen and had really liked the acting work he did in the Sundance Award Winner, Quinceanera. Finally, when things seemed to be heating up with the project, I asked to read the script, and I was blown away. Completely devoid of camp, this was a mature, human, funny, terse, moving story.

Very different from other work you've done!

Now, I love my crazy gay comedies as much as the next guy. I did, after all, direct an Eating Out movie! But here was a film with gay and straight characters who looked and acted like people I actually knew. This film was more in line with the types of films I wanted to make, those very James L. Brooks/Cameron Crowe explorations of what I like to call "human quirk".

How did you actually get involved with the film?

Well, one night at one of Stephen's dinner parties, David Ross got down on one knee and proposed to me that I direct I Do. It was hilarious, extremely apropos, and also one of the sweetest moments of my life. The icing on the cake was having the privilege of working with fantastic actors I've been a fan of, such as Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Alicia Witt, Maurice Compte, and Grant Bowler. You never know what you're gonna get when you put a bunch of people together, and we were so lucky to have a cast of such kind and dedicated actors.

Tell me more about the reaction at these festivals.

We've been thrilled by the critical and audience responses to the film. We had a sneak preview of the unfinished film at San Francisco's Frameline fest back in June, and it was there that we knew we had something special on our hands. This was a packed house openly laughing and crying in equal measure. Our world premiere took that to the next level, as we screened at the outdoor Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood as part of Outfest's 30^th Anniversary. We had a sold out audience in a 1500 seat venue, our cast and crew and many loved ones present. In the crowd, I spotted my favorite UCLA Film School Professor, Bob Rosen, who went on to become the Dean. From him, I learned my taste in film, my love for storytelling, and truly found my voice. One of the great honors of my life was being able to publicly acknowledge him from the stage of our premiere. I look forward to being at as many festival screenings as possible as we launch our little baby out into the world. As a filmmaker, you learn so much from listening to audiences from all over.

I understand writer and star David W. Ross won the rising star award at Philadelphia's QFest?

Yes! How cool is that? Luckily, he was able to go to Philadelphia and soak in that honor.

With two features under your belt as director, and another as screenwriter, which do you enjoy more: directing or screenwriting?

I love it all. I've written and directed my own films, directed scripts written by others, and written scripts for directors, and each have been incredibly valuable, fulfilling experiences. As a writer, I spend a lot of time sitting alone in cafes pouring my heart out into my keyboard. When I finish a script, I've been through such a quiet period, that I'm dying to get out on a set with a bunch of passionate people and the chaos, and live in that traveling circus atmosphere for a while. The editing process is a great way to come down from that, since you're sitting in a dark room for a few months with just a couple of people. It's the circle of life, indie film style! It's equally wonderful to write that perfect line as it is to work with amazing actors and crew.

With Leave It On the Floor, you not only had to put yourself in the mindset of a different culture, the drag ball culture depicted in films such as Paris Is Burning, but you also wrote the lyrics.

Looking back at my life, I've always had the ability to dive into various cultures. In high school, which is the ultimate sea of cliques, I had friends from all of them, especially the outcasts. My parents encouraged diversity in our lives, and when I was 12, I was selected to represent the United States in a cultural exchange summer camp in the Philippines. It truly changed my life, as I was able to see firsthand that there was a massive world out there, far different than what I'd seen from my small town Ohio bedroom window.

That's a great perspective to have.

That same sense of openness and wonder is how I approached Leave It On The Floor. I'm not an African American from the Ball Culture, yet I strove to enter this new environment and find the common humanity. Some of my favorite stories come from an outsider perspective. Look at Ang Lee's career. I don't think Sense and Sensibility or Brokeback Mountain would feel as special as they do if they had been made by insiders in those worlds. I think he saw things many people who are too close to the subject matter might overlook.

How did that outsider sensibility help inform the screenplay?

When I started writing Leave It On The Floor, director Sheldon Larry and I sat down and imagined what was in each character's head. What are their aspirations? What do they think of themselves? Musical numbers give us the opportunity to present their inner lives. The first lyrics I wrote were for the opening song, The Loser's List. Our hero, Brad, is kicked out of his house for being gay and is forced to live on the streets. No surprise that he'd be feeling defeated at that particular moment, so I figured he'd be punishing himself inside by checking off all of the reasons he had ended up in this place. Another character has this dream that Justin Timberlake is going to swoop down of out the sky and hire him to choreograph his next music video. Well first off, don't we all want Justin Timberlake to record some more music and dance around in his videos?! This dream is what fueled the musical number, Justin's Gonna Call, which has turned into an audience favorite. I grew up in a very musical household, and I've been writing lyrics since I was very young. To write an entire musical film was a dream come true, and I'm very grateful that Sheldon Larry presented me with this opportunity.

Prior to your burst of artistic endeavors, you were primarily focused on HIV/AIDS education. Back when we worked at AIDS Project Los Angeles, AIDS was still killing people left and right. These days, many view it as a manageable disease - and yet people are still dying.

It's funny. There's another example of how I've been able to dive into other cultures. My work with APLA brought me into many underserved, underrepresented communities who all shared this one little virus in common. I learned so much from seeing firsthand how marginalization can affect access to healthcare and how it can affect longevity. White people with insurance tended to do better living with HIV than others. I'm proud that I was on the front lines helping people on skid row, in jails and prisons, in poorer neighborhoods, and even those with more privileged lives. I helped educate people of all ages about transmission, prevention, and treatment for over 14 years, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Although I put my own filmmaking aspirations on hold, I can proudly answer the question, "Where were you when so many people were dying," by responding, "I was right there with them doing everything I could to make life better."

What's your take on the current state of HIV/AIDS within the gay community?

It's sad that, with distance and time, the virus is no longer part of the cultural zeitgeist. There's a tremendous amount of stigmatization within the community. You see it in online postings where people say such things in their profiles as, "I'm HIV- and clean, UB2", which implies that people living with HIV are dirty. So many younger people have never met a person with HIV before, so it's understandable that the unknown would be treated so callously. That's why I'm particularly happy that The Stigma Project exists. I am so grateful that they're out there trying to educate people about HIV and raise awareness about the great divide we're experiencing in our community.

Like me, you are what I'd call a "professional gay," meaning we eat-live-work-sleep gay. What do you perceive as the biggest challenges our community faces?

The LGBT community has been facing an uphill battle for so long that it's been really encouraging to live in a time where our President supports gay marriage, where the majority of the people in this country support it. I'm often disappointed in the short memories we as a country tend to have. All you have to do is look to the gay community in the 80s and 90s to see the true definition of family. We took care of each other, we organized, we fought the FDA in order to speed up their drug approval process. Whoever said that gay people don't make ideal families need only look back at that time to see otherwise.

We've made a lot of progress since then . . . .

Yes, but there have also been obvious setbacks. I don't want to harp on the gay marriage issue, because I think there is a larger issue at hand. If you look at the history of marginalized people, they often turn on each other because they feel so helpless against the status quo. I see it within the gay community, and it looks just like High School all over again.

What do you mean?

There are times I feel we need to treat each other better, or else we're just playing into the hands of those who think we don't deserve equality. It all starts with simple gestures. This applies to straight people too, so listen up! Next time you're out in your community, strike up a conversation with the last person you would normally approach. Keep it friendly and you may make a wonderful friend, or learn something. Not to sound all Burning Man, but we really can make this world better if we stop, listen, and smile more often.

So, what's next for Mr. Glenn Gaylord? Do you have a project in mind?

I'm currently seeking representation and would love the right agent and manager to champion me. I've got this bucket list where I want to write and/or direct a project in every genre. So far I've done comedy, musical, drama, documentary, and sitcom. There are still quite a few more to go! Also, I'm in a really creative place right now, sprucing up not one, not two, but three scripts I've written. I've learned so much from making films over the past few years, that I'm able to take a critical look at my own writing and kick it up a notch. I've also established my own Script Consult business, for those who want real advice from someone who's actually done it. Obviously, I've got lots of irons in the fire!

Again, congratulations on I Do. Where can folks see it?

Our next stop is as the closing night film at the Long Beach Q Film Festival, this Sunday, September 16, at 8:30pm, and other screenings are listed on the film's website. Folks can also follow the film on Twitter @iDoTheMovie or like the movie's page on Facebook.

Thanks, Glenn. I can't wait to see what you do next!

Both Leave It On The Floor and Eating Out 3 are now available on DVD. Director and screenwriter Glenn Gaylord can be found on Twitter, Facebook, and on his own website.

Cross-posted on Kergan Edwards-Stout and Huffington Post.

Bin Laden Lately?

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was at a charming bed & breakfast in Vermont, learning how to be an innkeeper. Odd, I know, as that particular occupation had never been part of some long-held vision for myself, but was, rather, a more recent detour. My then-partner and I had what I'd thought to be the ideal relationship, and had recently adopted a newborn infant son, just the year before. And while we'd always talked of the possibility of moving to New England, suddenly, with reasons of which I was not yet aware, it became a priority to him, and owning an inn didn't seem like such a bad way to do it.

But as I sat shock-still in front of the TV with my fellow classmates, watching in horror as the second plane hit, I had no idea that the towers were not the only structures in my world that were crumbling.

I tried repeatedly to get in touch with my partner and our son on the West coast, but got no answer.

How is it possible, I wondered, that they would not be home so early in the morning? Where could he possibly have taken Mason?

All I knew during those first few frightful hours is that I wanted to be - had to be - home with my family. That was all that mattered. Family came first.

After checking-in to a nondescript Motel 6 and getting situated, I found my way online and finally saw the email. Our friends Ron Gamboa, Dan Brandhorst, and their young son, David, had been returning home, having just vacationed on the Cape, and were on United Airlines Flight 175, the second plane to hit the World Trade Center.

There are times, even now, when I question whether I have the right to call these three my "friends." Sure, we'd socialized together, they had been to our house, and we were all members of the same gay dad's group. Still, did I know them? Was I privy to intimate details of their lives? Did we have a "connection"? How well must you know someone before you can lay claim to friendship?

That we adults were all gay dads gave us a common purpose, as it was rather pioneering at the time. And I enjoyed Ron's sassy sense of humor; Dan was definitely the "straight arrow" of the two. When they were alive, I saw them sporadically, but now, in death, they are never very far from my thoughts. And in many ways I find myself feeling even more connected to them as the years pass.

As I write this, I'm sitting in a hotel room in Boston, a few days after the killing of bin Laden. As I flew into Logan Airport this afternoon, I was fully aware that Dan, David, and Ron had themselves departed from the same airport on their final flight. And it was from Logan that I too had flown home, just a few days after their deaths, back to my then-family. It feels, at times, as if we are destined to keep crossing paths.

Watching the crowds in front of the White House earlier in the week, chanting "USA, USA!" at the news of bin Laden's killing, I found myself wondering if his death is what Ron and Dan would have wanted. It is, of course, impossible to know, but I can't quite see them applauding, as if this were spectator-sport.

That bin Laden committed evil acts is indisputable. But we Americans have been taught to view him purely as the villain. He is hardly the first to have killed in the name of their God.

We have long wanted retribution - I get that. But what is our role in all of this? What of those in the pulpits every Sunday, cloaking their vile in the mantle of Christ? Or those who stoke division on TV, purely for ratings and with no regard for real-world consequences? Or politicians, who can say the worst things, as long as they're wearing their American flag pins? Or our go-it-alone foreign policy which, for many years, put us at odds with much of the world?

Surely, bin Laden's death resonates with many, on multiple levels. Maybe, to some degree, we all desire vengeance, and in movies it's fun to see the bad guys get blown to smithereens. But this isn't a movie, and his death doesn't make me feel safer; if anything, I feel much less so. And as happy as I would be to say that his killing gives me some feeling of closure around the death of my friends - and they were, in fact, my friends - it really doesn't.

So, was justice served? Have we just brought an end to the story, or merely an end to the first chapter?

As I'm about to bring this post to a close, I am struck by another thought. A thought which troubles me:

Just as much as Russ and I love our sons, and just as much as David was loved by Dan and Ron, somewhere out there is Hamida al-Attas, Osama bin Laden's mother, who still lives, and likely grieves the loss of her son.

Family comes first.

And the hardest thing for me, when my family has been threatened or harmed, is to have a generous heart. But I'm trying.

For a great tribute to David and his family, please go here.

Authors, correspondingly, have done the same, using pseudonyms either to conceal identity or in order to write in genres not specifically associated with their own gender. For example, men have long used gender neutral or female pseudonyms when writing romance, whereas women have used gender neutral or male pseudonyms to write "male genres," such as detective or action.

But with the explosion of the male/male romance genre (m/m for short), I'm seeing more and more authors not only using pseudonyms, but actually trying to pass themselves off as gay men in their media interviews and online marketing efforts. Which begs the question, "Does the gender of a novelist matter?" or, better yet, "Does the truth matter when writing fiction?"

When I think of gay literature, classic authors such as Larry Kramer, Armistead Maupin, Michael Cunningham, Stephen McCauley, Felice Picano, Paul Monette, and John Rechy, among others, come to mind. With each, being gay was integral to both their identities and their art, helping to shape the stories they chose to tell and the characters they created.

Directly informed by their personal experiences, their novels delved into the very heart of what it means to be gay: how our familial relationships may change as a result of living authentically, how the disapproval from society can shape self-esteem, how the gay male's search for love and sex may differ from others, and how the AIDS epidemic altered the framework and communities many of us live within.

These gay authors, self-identifying and using literature as their platform, encapsulate what gay fiction has largely been known for, until now.

To note, there have certainly been well-known female gay fiction authors, most prominently Patricia Nell Warren (The Front Runner) and Mary Renault (The Persian Boy). Both women are/were lesbian, and it could be assumed that they wrote gay male fiction as a way to write of same-gender affection in a way which allowed them to still remain disassociated. Neither, however, cloaked their identity by pretending to be gay men.

While a well-told story is just that, and the gender of the author typically shouldn't matter, does it, indeed, make a difference with gay fiction? The bigger question, of course, is, "What is gay fiction?" Is it simply a matter of the lead character's sexual orientation? Is it the sexual orientation of the author? Is it a gay author specifically telling a story with gay characters? Or is there something else, not entirely tangible, which a gay author may bring to a story that a straight author cannot?

Many of the authors mentioned prior wrote in the earlier days of gay liberation. They were simply writing what they knew and what they'd experienced, without necessarily thinking of their stories as a specific genre. But, in the years since, gay fiction has splintered, with genre within sub-genre, blurring the lines, and making the categorization of "gay fiction" difficult, at best.

Like my forbearers, I am a gay male author who writes stories based on my personal experiences. Today, though, the options for exposure for me and other like-minded gay authors have dramatically changed. The loss of indie gay bookstores and the shuttering of many gay media outlets have led us to turn to online websites as a way to both get reviewed and promoted. However, many websites which review gay fiction are now strictly focused on the m/m romance genre, which limits the type of stories they will either review or rate favorably.

In m/m fiction, while the lead characters may be gay men, the emphasis is on the romantic element, first and foremost. The characters can be challenging, but should ultimately be likable. They may have doubts or issues, but nothing insurmountable. In this genre, love wins out, eventually, providing the necessary "Happily Ever After."

However, in this arena, the gritty and authentic elements appearing in much of classic gay literature would be inappropriate and unwelcome. While the m/m readership is wide-ranging, a majority of its audience is straight women. They've turned to m/m for a variety of reasons, and while such exposure to LGBT issues may lead to increased empathy, the books they are reading are not largely representative of actual LGBT lives.

This element of authenticity is, to me, the biggest difference between traditional gay fiction and today's m/m genre fiction. Traditional gay male literature has focused on gay men attempting to find their own truth, charting both struggle and success in living out and open lives. There is no preconceived formula, resulting in stories which often mirror the life experiences of both writer and readers. With genre material, however, form and formula is paramount, leading to stories which fulfill necessary requirements, authenticity be damned.

So if this matter of authenticity is the defining factor between the two genres, what is to be made of authors writing gay fiction under pseudonyms, and marketing themselves as gay men? Is the author simply hoping to connect with a gay male audience? Or are they angling for the larger m/m audience, by crafting a persona which fits that romantic formula?

In the end, does the gender of the author matter, if the story works?

It used to be that a pseudonym was just that - a false name, used on book jackets or marketing materials. But in today's world, we not only want to see the author's name on a book, we want to engage with them. We want a dialogue with the person, and want to know all about them. We Google them, read their bios and interviews, and follow them via Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. And on these sites, we ask authors questions, and read their tweets, and get glimpses into their world. Or at least, the one they've created for us.

All authors who are active in social media lie. It is part of what we do; we tell you the story we want to tell. I won't share with you my bad reviews, or that I did something regrettable in my past. Like the best of politicians, I'll spin for you the tale that I want you to read, highlighting the high, and soft-pedaling my very worst.

Still, I would like to believe that authors, as human beings, need to offer some degree of truth, and am thus continually surprised by the lengths some writers have gone in crafting their online personas. One author, of whom no photos can be found, has told tales of a tragic fire, which burned all known images. Now, if an author can be on Twitter 24/7, surely they know someone who owns a digital camera, right? Personally, I would rather know that the person who wrote the amazing gay book I just read is a straight woman living in Liverpool, rather than be duped and find out the truth later. Is there a point where a pseudonym causes more harm than good?

To me, an obvious parallel in the LGBT world is the women's music scene. In these gatherings, traditionally, the artists themselves are female, singing songs which speak exclusively to the female experience. Imagine though if, mid-song, the audience were to discover that the performer onstage, singing this personal and heartfelt song, was not actually female. While the song itself may have resonated deeply, the fact that the singer had misrepresented themselves would feel an awful lot like betrayal.

Just like the women's music scene is to those within it, for many of us, gay fiction is sacred space. I came of age in an indie bookstore in Long Beach, CA, thanks to their "Gay Studies" section. In it, at age 15, I found that I wasn't alone. There, I discovered books by Larry Kramer, Andrew Holleran, and James Baldwin, among others. Through reading their novels, their personal tales, spun out as fiction, I came to realize that I had finally found my tribe. That experience gave me a footing from which to launch myself out into the world, and given that importance, I don't take lightly to being used solely as a marketing tool.

A good book is a good book, regardless of who wrote it. But in gay fiction, if you're calling yourself a gay man, you really should be a gay man. Gender does matter.

But, then again, I'm just a writer.

What do you think?

Cross-posted on Huffington Post and Huffington Post.

Ken, I appreciate your taking the time to chat! First, how did Seventh Window Publications come to be?

I started out as a writer, and Seventh Window began when I realized that I didn't want to write. That's a strange realization, mostly because even as a child, I had always wanted to be a writer. But once I started to get published, I realized that I had to be out there, front and center, seen and heard. Which is was not what I wanted. But I could not leave the work that I love, so I began Seventh Window, which allows me to pursue my passion in a way which fits me personally.

How do you see Seventh Window fitting into the larger publishing landscape? What role do you see Seventh Window playing?

What kind of work appeals to you?

Myself, I like dark romance. You know, stories about people falling in love that you wouldn't normally think of as typical romance. Because of this I've published authors such as Xavier Axelson, Drake Braxton, and GL Roberts. These authors created stories about people who have been hurt by life and somehow still find a reason to love, which I find inspiring. There's something about an author who is willing to show a character with very few--if any--positive influences in their lives, yet finding the positive, finding love.

Are you yourself a romantic?

No, I am not, so it's kind of odd that I would concentrate on romance. But I like genres. I'm also a huge horror fan, which actually shares a lot with romance: both horror and romance have a ton of bad--and I mean awful--stories, but when you find the one that is done well, you are full of awe. The thing with romance is that it leaves readers feeling good, even if it's not a "Happily Ever After" ending.

Which keeps them coming back for more!

Yep! That's the drug, that brings readers back. They want that great feeling, which not every author can deliver. To write a good romance, you have to know the craft; to write an amazing romance, you have to be an artist.

So Seventh Window offers romance, but in an unusual package.

Exactly.

With so many titles vying for attention, it often seems that the hardest part of publishing is promotion. When you have a new title, do you strategize about how to best promote it?

The short answer is, yes. One of the reasons an author goes with a press instead of self-publishing is for promotion. A press will have its own followers, people who will read and purchase from that press because they've grown to trust it.

Having readers who believe in you is great, but every title needs to bring in new readers. One of the things I do is ensured that the authors published by Seventh Window get reviewed, and supplement that with advertising on Goodreads and Facebook, for example, to get people interested in the titles I publish.

What's the number one thing which sells a book?

A good cover helps. One of the things I do is work closely with the author to make sure we design the best cover for their title. If the author likes the cover, they will work harder to promote their book, which is a win/win for everybody.

For an author at Seventh Window, what can he expect in terms of support, and what tasks fall on their shoulders?

I like to share some of the promotional part of the business, but I do expect the author to be pro-active in promoting him or herself. I always make suggestions to new authors on how to promote themselves. You know, start a blog, get a Facebook page, find out if you can do a few guest blogs. If the author needs help with any of these things, I'm willing to talk to authors I know who might be willing to give a new author a hand in promotion. Xavier Axelson, Sylvia Violet, Michele Montgomery and others have been very helpful in this regard. Other than promotions, I do the rest.

With the ease of online publishing and the introduction of print on demand books, many authors are bypassing publishing houses altogether, and instead doing it on their own. Are there certain types of writers who might be better served by going with a publisher? How does a writer know what path might be best for them?

Self publishing is great for an author who understands the business, is willing to hire a freelance editor and is willing to do all the work involved in getting a book to print and beyond.

A self-published author could go through a vanity publisher, but I always think it's best to start your own publishing company and go from there. This means you have to get your own ISBN, find out about copyright, book design and layout, become a DBA, etc... It's a lot of work, but you will have full control over your title. You'll also have a better understanding of the business.

But for those not wanting to do all of that...?

One of the main reasons an author might take the traditional route is to work with a publisher who has experience and the connections it takes to make their title a success. This does not mean the title will sell millions, but it will have a better chance of success. A good publisher will do help a new author through the process, educating and explaining how it all works.

For those going the traditional route, what advice do you have?

It's always a good idea to keep in contact with your editor or publisher. Ask questions. I love when an author asks me about promotion before I talk to them about it. This means they feel comfortable talking to me, which strengthens the bond between author and publisher. This is a relationship you're getting into and to make it work you need effective communication.

Given all of these changes in the marketplace, what advice would you give a writer who has finished a gay-themed manuscript? Does the old "find an agent" route still work?

Unless you're going to publish with Harper Collins or one of the big New York publishers, you don't need an agent. You do need to make sure you have a contract and read it. Read your contract and understand it. Ask questions before you sign. The contract will spell out what is expected of you, how you will be paid and how much.

When an author signs a book contract they aren't selling the book to the publisher, they're selling specific rights to the publisher. Authors need to understand which rights they're allowing the publisher to have. Seventh Window only negotiates print and eBook rights, leaving all other subsidiary rights to the author. If a publisher requests any other rights, like motion picture rights, or rights to characters, etc., they should question the publisher as to why they want such rights.

Having been on the writing side of this business, I understand what authors go through. Publishing has a dark history of taking advantage of authors who don't know what they're selling, or just want to get published and are too willing to sign a contract and trust the publisher. The best way to avoid being used is to read your contract.

I'm sure you get tons of submissions for Seventh Window. What are your pet peeves when it comes to submissions? Any do's and don'ts?

Authors need to look at the titles a publisher has and read some of them. Compare your title to the titles the publisher puts out. This is publishing 101, but so many authors do not do this very simple thing. Sometimes I feel like the authors querying me couldn't tell me a single title I've published if asked. Authors often seem to think that getting published is a crap shoot, so they submit to every publisher out there, which is as a waste of time. Instead, be thoughtful. Do your homework. Know what a publisher likes by reading some of their most recent titles. Or, even better, go to your bookshelf or eReader and find publishing houses that have put out books similar to your own.

I know you have a large stable of authors, but who are some of your favorites? What books or authors are you enjoying?

I would have to say all of them. I began Seventh Window with M.J. Pearson and N.L. Gassert, both of whom haven't had a new title in a while, and I would love to work with them again. N.L. Gassert is one of those authors whose friendship grew out of working on her book. Even if she doesn't write another book, I'll keep in touch with her--but I would love it if she did.

What titles does Seventh Window have coming that you're really excited about?

Aside from Missing by Drake Braxton, which is an innovative and emotional read, I would have to say the new G.L. Roberts novella, Light and Shadow, is going to be a treat, as is the new Ron Raddle, Degrees of Passion. Coming late September is a new author, Jeff Ballam, with When Love Calls Your Name.

I recently read Drake Braxton's Missing, which I really enjoyed. How did you discover him?

Drake's book was suggested to me by authors Arthur Wooten and Gregory G. Allen. I thought it had something going for it, so I took it on, but it wasn't until I started working on it that I realized the depth of it and how intricate it actually is. Missing reminds me of something by Jim Thompson, my favorite crime/noir author. What amazed me was how Drake Braxton keeps the noir setting and story while holding onto a romance feel. The only other author I know of who can do this successfully is Xavier Axelson.

The LGBT community has so many issues to deal with, from civil rights, to gender issues, to discrimination and classism... What role do books play in our community?

Gay romance has introduced LGBT issues to many straight women, and for some it was their introduction to gay culture. So many people read books to explore cultures and issues outside of their own. Books have a way of making people think about issues they may not be a part of and helps them get a better understanding of them. And it doesn't have to be some high end piece of snobbish literature. Romance has been doing it for years, as has popular women's fiction. Look at The Help by Kathryn Stockett.

How can we help push that understanding along?

One of the things we need to do is to get gay fiction out of that classification. Romance has already started doing this, although it still has its separate category distinction. But instead of being separatist, we need to get our romance, mystery, and thrillers on the same shelves as straight fiction. Having gay sections in bookstores gives the impression that our books aren't as good, when they can be as good and sometimes even better. We need to let people know that our stories are worthy of being told, that our stories have a right to be read by all, not just the LGBT community. We are deserving. We are worthy. And we need to let people know that.

For more on Seventh Window, please visit their website.

(Cross-posted on Kergan Edwards-Stoutt and Huffington Post.)

Drake Braxton took the time to engage in an interview via email, sharing more about his inspiration, gay literature, and his debut novel, MISSING.

Thanks for taking the time to "chat", Drake! Tell me about MISSING. How did the story originate?

Most stories have a strange place where they start and this one, as cliché as it sounds, was a real dream. I awoke in a panic, full of fear and sadness, as I'd dreamt that I had attended a reunion with my other half and he disappeared. My goal was to recreate that horrible feeling in the early part of this book.

Your lead character, Blain Harrington, has many issues he is dealing with, which I won't go into, as I don't want to ruin any surprises. But how did he come into being? What was your impetus for his character?

While MISSING isn't strictly a romance, it also isn't strictly a suspense novel, either. It straddles the two genres quite well. Were you aware, when you began the book, that it wasn't quite one or the other?

I love reading books that are not afraid to mix genres--that have sensual moments that propel the story, but also other moments of great romance or suspense. I needed to unravel the past romance of these two men and that led to twists and turns I did not expect. Interestingly enough, a few years ago, an LGBT publisher really wanted to publish the book, but only if I changed it to be a "true mystery." I couldn't do it. And in hindsight, I'm glad I waited and that Seventh Window has took the chance with the book.

Given the genre-bending, who is your reader? To what kind of person would MISSING appeal?

You know, my publisher and I talked a lot about this. He placed it in contemporary fiction on his site, but it's also listed as romance and suspense on others. An early reviewer thought it would cross-over to other audiences that are not necessarily M/M fans. While there are a few sexy scenes in the book, she believed (as I do) those are greatly needed for the plot and characterization and could still be read by people who just want to read a powerful story of love and relationships.

I've seen some of the press referring to the novel as erotica, which I didn't get at all. I mean, yes, there is sex, but unlike most erotica, the sex served the story, not the other way around. What is your take on sex within the novel?

I think that is a trap to which many M/M authors fall victim. If you are writing gay fiction, many feel the need to lump all of that fiction together. I'm not saying there isn't a place for erotica as many readers enjoy reading it. But I agree with you that MISSING isn't an erotic novel and I'd hate for someone to pick it up thinking they are going to have page after page of male vampires going at it. They are going to find some steamy scenes mixed throughout the book, but each of those are there for a specific reason.

What is the creative process like for you?

I've been writing on and off for years, but writing this story was very freeing. The way it flowed out of me was unlike anything I had experienced. Perhaps because I first thought it was one genre, which then decided to branch out. I think I love the creative process of not dictating that 'process' as I start writing.

Who are the authors that inspire you? What are your favorite books?

I love just about everything that Dean Koontz writes. I'm in awe of the playwright Terrence McNally. And I'd be a fool if I didn't mention the brilliance of what Armistead Maupin has given our community and all readers.

How do you see the state of gay lit? And where does Drake Braxton fit in?

While this is my first book out and I'm completely humbled to become a part of the gay lit scene, I've been stalking the internet for a while and watching the new crop of writers. Like yourself (whose book I loved), Arthur Wooten, Eric Arvin - so many out there that cover so many different genres. I think there will always be a need for the gay comedy, the erotic, the literary fiction. But I also think we may very well see the time when gay fiction is not set apart from other fiction: it is just fiction. My wish is to be a new voice that will offer a multi-genre take on sexuality, romance, and whatever genre I may try and tackle that will show gay characters in all sorts of different lights.

What's next for you? I need to know what else you have up your sleeve!

I have a few short pieces I'm attempting to get into anthologies, among other places, and my next novella is a romance that deals with time travel, train wrecks and trapeze artists. A gay romance hidden in a circus... Who doesn't love a circus?

Drake Braxton can be found on the web and on twitter. MISSING is available now at Amazon, BarnesAndNoble.com, and other fine booksellers.

Cross-posted on Huffington Post and Kergan Edwards-Stout.

Now, I have my issues with Obama, but by-and-large, given an obstructionist Republican House, I think he's done the best he can given what he inherited and the political landscape. True, we are not yet out of the woods, but we are getting there.

Republicans, on the other hand, seem content to let the country fail rather than support laws they themselves have previously supported - simply because Obama supports them as well. The Republican Party offers politicians and platforms which are anti-women, anti-gay, anti-poor, anti-earth, anti-people of color, anti-arts, anti-jobs creation (unless it comes from the top down), and that anti list goes on and on.

My biggest issue is that they don't seem to offer any solutions to help make this world better.

They seem to be most concerned with keeping millionaires and billionaires protected, at the expense of the people who actually helped make those folks all that money. Now, I hate paying more than I would like in taxes - believe me, we scrimp and save wherever we can - but I'd gladly pay more to help make this country/world better, to try to help our less fortunate, improve education and healthcare, to help ensure this earth and its climate prospers for our kids.

But the Republican Party ain't the party that my folks have long supported - that party of "Ronald Reagan" - and hasn't been for some time. It is a party of ideologues whose only goal seems to be in protecting their wealth, and obliterating anyone who stands in their way. Where are their ideas for helping to make this world better?

I'd like to hear from some of you - you know who you are - as to why you continue to let these folks speak for you and why you vote for them. I know quite a few Republicans who aren't wealthy, and why they're supporting Republicans is beyond me. It's one thing to vote out of greed and wanting to hang on to your money, but another to vote for folks who don't give a damn about you.

Explain.

How someone deals with such experiences can shape their adulthood, for better or worse. I asked Letters to My Bully editor Azaan Kamau if she would be willing to share her inspiration for the collection, as well as her views on other issues the LGBT community is facing, and am grateful that she took the time to talk.

It was your vision that led to the creation of this anthology, Letters to My Bully. What inspired you to compile people's stories?

Back in October 2010, I wrote and published a book called Got Homophobia. I was so outraged by the staggering numbers of youth who felt they had no choice but to commit suicide, and felt it was time for us to start the healing process. As adults we subconsciously carry our childhood baggage into adulthood, and that baggage shapes us. Letters to My Bully was born of necessity to heal the bullied, addressing the issue head-on instead of sweeping it under the rug. I wanted to send the message that you can survive this--that there are other options beside suicide.

Were you yourself the victim of bullying?

What surprised you about putting together "Letters to My Bully"? Did you learn anything about yourself as a result?

The biggest surprise was the sheer number who have experienced bullying or harassment. All of the authors in the book shared certain common experiences or emotions in one way or another. No matter how different we each may seem to be, or whether LGBT or heterosexual, we all experience the same hurt and fears, and require the same sustenance. We want acceptance, love, and the right to just be.

Tell me about some of the stories within the book. Which ones really resonated with you?

Many of the stories and essays touched me. I absolutely loved your preface, as well as contributions by Rebecca Raymer, Dr. Monica Anderson, Tom Rasterelli, Gary Dixon, Katrina, Shannon Pacaoan, among others. I love the 9 and 10-year-old Henderson sisters, who refused to allow themselves to defined by their disabilities. And Robert LaSardo, who is an award-winning actor, wrote a foreword which I cried while reading .

Who are some of your other contributors?

Well, Jessica Knapp, Kevin McLellan, Aser Peleg, Tammy L.R. Young, Christopher Soden, Amy LaCoe, Jazar F. Kahr, Ona Marae, and many others. I love what these authors shared, and I admire their courage to help change the landscape of bullying for good.

What's your take on the efforts made thus far to try to end bullying, such as the "It Gets Better" campaign and the Trevor Project?

I think both campaigns are exceptional. With the Trevor Project, crisis intervention and prevention is paramount. And the "It Gets Better" campaign has created a massive movement, and that visibility is essential in reaching people who are in crisis.

Do you think there are other things that could be done to help our LGBT youth?

The first thing is, our youth need acceptance, love, and to be shown consistently that they have something to live for. They, like any child, need positive reinforcement. However, I truly feel all of it starts with the parents. From the parents, it should trickle down to educators, administrators, and even the clergy. They all need to be held accountable in keeping youth safe and to address a bully's behavior.

Aside from bullying, what do you see as the biggest issues that the LGBT community faces?

Civil rights. From hospital visitation, to the right to get married, to the right to file our taxes together... In some states we can't adopt children.

How do those vary, compared to issues the People of Color communities face?

Some of the communities of color are quite marginalized and even treated as the "other". Based on my own experiences, I feel that there is massive healthcare inequality, and also socio-economic disparities. I feel the access to resources and information is also an issue.

One of your contributors is transgender. Do you think that bullying issues for transgender people are different than that of lesbians and gays? If so, how so?

I think that the trans communities are quite unique. They face so many issues and prejudice, and have an incredibly high suicide rate. I mean, there is a Transgender Day of Remembrance that honors people who were murdered, simply due to prejudice! It's so disheartening.

Do you think trans youth face other issues which may lead to suicide?

Many trans people have been inaccurately diagnosed with gender dissociative disorder, instead of being allowed to be, dress, and act as they want. While some are flourishing, many of our youth are faced with being disowned, homelessness, depression, STD's, addiction... and many times these can result in suicide attempts.

You come to publishing with an interesting background: you're a poet, photographer, artist; you've been a magazine editor, creative director, and more. Given all of these different facets, how do you view or define yourself?

I think I'm just allowing Spirit to use me as a tool. Spirit is speaking through me, as me. I guess I define myself as a messenger. Yes, I'm just the messenger....! (laughing)

What do you hope people take away from reading "Letters to My Bully"?

I want people of all ages to know that they are not alone in this battle. If you feel you can't cope, reach out to someone. Suicide is not the answer. I hope readers are enriched with an understanding of how deep the wounds can be. Our amazing editor, Ifalade Ta'Shia Asanti, and diverse array of authors have worked hard, hoping to communicate to the world that bullying is not just an LGBT thing. It's about people. We are all human beings, and need to be treated with decency and respect.

"Letters to My Bully" is now available at Amazon. For more information about the book, please go to the book's website.

Cross-posted on Kergan Edwards-Stout and Huffington Post.