When I credited Hanne Blank with stirring the pot of media interest in chic lit? Well, I had a chance to attend her reading at Wesleyan University (where progressive thinking reigns) and it was wonderful. What a fine author she is and her work is so compelling that it’s re-energized my own writing — at least in terms of my as-yet incomplete Connecticut cycle of leather/transgendered fiction. Hanne’s fiction is rich nourishment, let me tell you.
Word to the wise: when Hanne tours next year with her new book, Virgin: A History of our Most Controversial Universal, you must make every opportunity to see her if she comes to your neck of the woods.
And if meeting Hanne wasn’t grand enough, I had the added pleasure of meeting S. Bear Bergman, a performer and activist I’d discovered not so long ago. In the course of mutual admiration schmoozing, I learned we’ll meet up again at next week’s in Massachusetts. Yummy!
But more important than us writers energizing each other…
Every day, in some far-flung college somewhere in the U.S., there’s a small GLBTQ group that needs validation (not to mention God knows how many isolated individuals lurk on the periphery) and Bear’s work provides that kind of sustenance and strength. “Often,” he wrote recently, “the colleges and universities that don’t allocate money for GLBTQ programming are those that need it the most. When queer and trans education or programs aren’t a priority of the institution, it is a good indicator of a less-than-safe environment for queer and trans students.”
Bear is more than willing to donate his time, doing this quality outreach, but basic travel expenses remain a problem. Even the recent success of winning a grant isn’t enough to help him travel to those distant places and last year, he had to turn down seventeen opportunities to bring connection to young queers in America. Seventeen. The need is there, Bear is willing, but it requires our help. See the “Support this artist’s work” button? Click it. Donate what you can, please.
It’s moments like these — when I ask you to help queer youths or Scarleteen or NCSF, etc., etc. — that I’m reminded why I’ve never put a tip cup out. I don’t want to be paid for this weblog — not even to offset its costs — and if my weblog generated good will within when you read it, then please, give to those people and causes who I think are far more worthy and in need than me. That would please me more than anything. Thanks.
