All the Better Part of Me is a coming-out story, a story where a lot of the focus is on sexuality and identity. But it’s probably the only one of that category I’ll ever write.

I have written and will continue writing characters who happen to BE queer (along with straight ones), where the story’s focus is on other things, but it’s true that a focus ( Read more... )

I had a quasi-conservative phase a long time back. It was as you’d expect: I watched Fox, read National Review, listened to friends who were avid conservatives, parroted their points of view online to other people, picked the most extreme liberal articles I could find and held them up as examples of how crazy liberals were and how they had no sense ( Read more... )

Okay, insecurity crisis time ( Read more... )

What I've basically been seeing in online discussions this past week (a condensed parody, if you will):

The left/center: Holy crap, I’m scared and sad for women, the LGBTQ community, Muslims, immigrants, Jews…
The right: Ugh, we’re FINE with women and gays and whatever religion you want, srsly, stop whining
DeplorableJimBob17351: WOMEN AND JEWS SHUT ( Read more... )

I want to pull out my mom voice on the entire internet today:
“Don’t flame people you don’t even know! You were raised better than that!”

Seriously, please, everyone on both sides - on ALL sides - remember the complex human beings at the other end. Today I talked a flame-commenter around to a “You’re right, I’m sorry for saying that” because I ( Read more... )

Preface: Some of you have been around long enough to remember when I used to call myself a conservative (or at least a libertarian), because like a lot of people in their 20s, I had a phase where I read Ayn Rand and listened to charismatic and persuasive conservative friends and didn’t like taxes. But that isn’t me anymore, in case you couldn’t ( Read more... )

It has come to my attention today that I've been included in an AP article being picked up all over the country. It's not about my writing, my books I've spent years creating, NO, OF COURSE NOT. It is, like last time, about a moment of online frivolity, and, once again, is not representing my original post quite accurately.

The article this time is ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

I finally saw The Force Awakens (loved it!), and was reading news stories about the popularity of the Stormpilot pairing (which of course I could totally get behind). I should know better than to read the comments, though. Oy.

I don't want to give these articles extra traffic by linking to them. You can find them easily enough if you want. I'll just ( Read more... )

I dread being controversial or political online, but I want honest and sincere thoughts on this, with as few in the way of flame wars as possible. My question is more or less: if you’re not a member of a certain minority, do you get to write about it? Since I’m a novelist, I’m thinking in terms more of fiction here than nonfiction or journalism ( Read more... )