Ensnared, the Paperback is now on Amazon.com HERE
Ebooks for all types of players available on Smashwords HERE
Ensnared Kindle Ebook Available HERE
Check out full chapter excerpts under Hot Links in the Menu on the right side of this page!
Cook Like A Uke -- Octopi Wieners and Apple Usagi is LIVE!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stLObv0cfhg&feature=g-u
Bent-con,
like
Yaoicon, was an event I really wanted to attend last year but
could not because of chemotherapy. I've been posting my nerdier blogs
on Doorq.com for a few years, and the founder of that site, Jody
Wheeler, has been a buddy online all that time. There is something
very exciting about young conventions [this was Bent-con's second
year]. Connections with fans and with dealers and even with guest
speakers can happen when the attendance is smaller than the huge
conventions where there are throngs of people all divided up into
their own cliques of interest. There were a couple of thousand
people spread over the convention area at the
Westin Bonaventure,
the iconic Downtown LA hotel. In that regard, I was not disappointed.
I talked to many of the dealers and signed up for a few mailing lists
and one fan club. I discovered during one of the smallest panels I've
ever spoken on that I have fans that still await my fanfiction and
met another fan that was so thrilled to meet me that I was humbled
beyond words – a rare feat for this big mouth.
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| Just a little Fan Girly! |
But it was the lengthy encounters with
three of the guest for which I will be grateful that Bent-con invited
me to be a panel moderator. Everyone who reads my blogs knows how
much I adore Jane Espenson's work. She blazed a trail on Buffy the
Vampire Slayer that dragged me from being only mildly interested in
the series to a rabid fan. And I'm still not sure how she did it, but
she brought a new depth, sexiness and humor to Battlestar Galactica
without taking away from the hard space opera edge. I loved her blogs
on the trails and the foods she encountered while writing a TV
series. And I now follow her witty observations on Twitter. I've also
benefited from her Twitter writing sprints where she encourages
followers to take some time and work creatively for 30 minutes to an
hour.
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| Brady(left) and Cheeks (right) |
|
Jane was there to talk about the
incredibly funny and touching web series,
Husbands. It's premise is that on the day after gay marriage becomes legal in
the US, a famous actor (Cheeks) and a Major League Baseball player
(Brady) wake up from a drunken celebration to find themselves
married. Unwilling to undermine the cause by divorcing, they decide
to stick it out for the cause and each other. Comedy and drama ensue.
It is amazing how much complexity is packed into those brief
episodes. It has one of the best lines about the nature of marriage I
have ever heard. It was fascinating for an independent filmmaker who
has worn many hats (most often that of a plumber on set) to hear
about such similar struggles to mine in producing Husbands. Somehow,
I thought that if you've had studio resources for the day job, they
would be available for a producer when they did something
independent. I'm a silly billy. I could certainly relate to the
fatigue I saw in some of the behind the scenes photos. It all looked
very familiar. As expected, Jane was a fascinating speaker. It was a
thrill to have that kind of insight into the nuts and bolts of the
business from her. And luckily, none of what went on in her personal
panel or the Husbands panel would be repeated territory in my panel.
Please, click on the
Husbands LINK and watch the episodes. They are
brilliant!
The second of the three people I really
wanted to meet that day was Cheeks. He is not just a character. He's
also a person who acts, writes and sings. I discovered his youtube
videos via a tweet from Jane. They were about his life, the news and
pop culture. I saw the first one when I was between major surgeries
and had a zipper of staples up my abdomen. It hurt to laugh, but
laugh I did until endorphins kicked in my brain. It was an uplifting
experience that I repeated every time he posted. Those videos have
been pulled in favor of Husbands. I hope he puts some of them up
again for all to enjoy. He was an important part of my recovery from
the first surgery and I was pleased to tell him that – and give him
cookies.
The third person I wanted very much to
meet was
Wendy Pini. She was already a legend in fandom for
Elfquest
which she created with her husband, Richard. I had long admired their
work. But it was for her
Wendy Pini's Masque of the Red Death that I wanted very much to speak with her.
Masque had everything that
pushes my buttons – beautiful but flawed and potentially tragic
male characters who are drawn toward each other and inevitably bound.
Death threatens their love and their lives at almost every turn of
the page. I love writing about those kinds of characters. I will
digress here – because it's my blog – to expound just a bit. In
A Soldier's Choice and A Soldier's Fate there are only two options
for Rik and Vincent – love or death as they literally cannot live
without each other. But it's
Ensnared that shares a worship of
hedonism with
Masque. The relationship between Darius and Andreas
threatens to upend the social order and endangers them both. [experts
for all titles mentioned can be found on the left under Hot
Links]. There is tragedy in
Ensnared, and I punish Andreas for
his beauty and his flaws, but I could not dare what Wendy dared in
Masque. And there in lies her brilliance to me.
I am not a fan of tragedy. I know it is
said that to read tragedy is cathartic and therapeutic for the reader
or the viewer. This gal is not one of those people. I found Wendy's
artwork compelling, so I thought I could skim Masque and enjoy that
without getting involved too deeply. That was impossible after the
first pages. I was hooked. Despite knowing where the Poe story led
and where this was clearly leading early on, I was so enthralled by
Anton and Steffan that I had to take that ride to the end. I wanted
to tell Wendy that she was brilliant in how she wrote Masque, but it
came out as a highly exasperated question about the proposed libretto
for Broadway based on the webcomic. Thankfully, my reaction was the
very one she had hope to evoke in her readers. Masque is just the
kind of well written, accessible story that could introduce yaoi
themed content to a wider audience. I'm hoping there is a way to make
that happen. That intimate panel was a wonderful opportunity to
connect with another talented writer I admired.
Sunday's panel on Women Make Queer
Genre was a lot like a literary salon of old. The panel included
Jane, Wendy and Shelley Doty, the writer/filmmaker/musician behind the intriguing
Strange Frame, sci-fi, Lesbian anime. The discussion covered why each panelists
was drawn to Queer genre, the reaction of long time fans both gay and
straight to their works and where they saw Queer Genre developing in
the future. The panel managed to be both highly fannish and
scholarly. I could see a paper being written about it. It was an
amazing experience enjoyed by the audience and panelists alike. A
big shout out to Mars Homeworld. You are welcome in any panel I
moderate!
I am certain that Bent-con will become
a large convention someday. It absolutely deserves to be. I hope to
continue to be a part of it as it grows. But the fangirl in me will
always cherish the unique opportunity I enjoyed while the convention
was young.
