Busting out all over!
I’m not about to start using this site as a soapbox for broadcasting my political and/or social/cultural opinions. But I’m nonetheless pleased, and pleased to acknowledge my pleasure, by the Rhode Island State Senate’s decision today to pass the same-sex marriage bill and take a decisive (if belated) step toward bringing the state where I reside into the twenty-first century along with the rest of New England, Iowa, New York, DC, Washington state, and Maryland. …And the eleven enlightened nations, and the several states within Mexico and Brazil, where committed gay and lesbian couples may expect to have their relationships granted the dignity of legal recognition.
On a much more personal level, I was deeply touched this morning to receive an e-mail from a reader—a citizen of one of those enlightened nations, in fact, though currently expatriate—about one of my stories. One of my very rare politically engaged stories, the politics coincidentally having to do with marriage (not simply same-sex marriage): “The Arab’s Prayer,” originally published in 2011, reprinted last summer in You Will Meet a Stranger Far from Home and (where the reader encountered it) in Wilde Stories 2012: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction. It’s very much not my place to say anything more in public, except to note, Gentle Reader, if you happen see this post first, that I am composing a reply.
On a professional level, I’m startled and gratified by a review of Deprivation posted today at Lambda Literary. (Scroll down: it’s the fourth of four reviews.) I have my own longstanding issues with the Lambda Literary Foundation into which I will not delve, as well as with the bizarre placement of the book in question within the rigidly defined genre of “romance,” but Lambda’s romance columnist/reviewer Dick Smart won me over with his thoughtful—indeed smart—response and analysis. (Even though he got Ben’s father’s name wrong.)
So three cheers.