EditorialDirector@
SpinstersInk.com
Congratulations to Rhiannon Argo!
Rhiannon won the Lambda Literary Award for Debut Author for her novel, The Creamsickle.
Feature Title
Apparition Alley by Katherine V. Forrest
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THE SIDE DOOR On her first day of high school, fifteen-year-old Melrose Bird sees Alex Weber's mother on a park bench staring at Drift High School where her teenage son died five years ago. Alex's death has never been discussed in the town or at the school. But Mel and her best friend Frank become obsessed with Alex's grave and consumed by the why of his suicide. When Mel happens upon a pair of Alex's cargo pants, she takes them. And what she finds inside the pockets brings into focus the story of Alex's brief life and his death. Determined to pressure the school and the town into recognizing why Alex died, Mel confronts a world of adult secrecy and deception. Even her own peers are giving her trouble. Mel's assertion of her identity—her buzz cut and the pants she wears—is met with condemnation from her classmates. But anyone who thinks Mel Bird will retreat from disapproval or opposition is badly mistaken. "THE SIDE DOOR is an affecting story about a couple of Superman-loving kids who discover that it's by revealing their secret identities that they come into their true super powers." - Alison Bechdel |
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APPARITION ALLEY Kate Delafield is at war. With LAPD's Department of Internal Affairs which is challenging her conduct during an arrest gone disastrously wrong. With the police psychologist who holds in her hands the power to keep Kate off the job—and is exercising it. With her police partner who has gone AWOL in Kate's hour of need. With the police colleagues who condemn the investigation and defense she's undertaken for a cowboy cop who looks guilty beyond doubt of the bad shooting charges brought against him. With the woman she loves who has been brutally reminded of the dangers in Kate's job. Worst of all, Kate is at war with herself, forced to question the integrity of her own police department, and forced to make a decision that will crucially affect her own LGBT community. Apparition Alley ranks as the most electric and suspenseful of the storied Kate Delafield mystery series. First Published by Berkley Prime Crime 1997. |
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BENEDICTION Grace is a junior at Immaculate Blessing Academy for Girls in Queens, New York. She deeply admires young, devout Sister Mary Alice. Her best friend is Anne, whose central topic of conversation is how far she will go with her boyfriend. Grace is relieved to be dating unaggressive Glen, who is thinking of becoming a priest. Grace looks up to the swaggering, self-assured Linda Amato, star center of the champion basketball team. Then she accidentally discovers an electrifying secret about Linda. When Grace meets rebellious, sensuous Meg, her entire life becomes a cauldron of powerful emotion and chaotic desire. To be close to her, Grace defies her mother. And risks her friendship with Anne. Glen makes new demands and Sister Mary Alice issues a troubling moral challenge. And Meg – what is Grace to make of Meg’s ardent yet contradictory behavior? Can the intimidating, intriguing Linda Amato help to lead Grace out of this morass? And will Grace have the courage to break all conventions and claim the love, and the life, she comes to see is her true nature and destiny? This book was originally published in 1991 by Naiad Press. |
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THE CHILDREN OF MOTHER GLORY Sebastian, reviled in Gulliver as a conscientious objector for obeying the pacifist dictates of the sect, ends up sequestered in a camp where he too is wracked by the fierce war between his faith and his desire for a fellow CO. Danielle, fifteen years old, already wrenching herself from her implacably judgmental family, defying her faith to preserve her lesbian self, begins a journey unpredictable in its twists and turns, and its costs. Jacob, working for the industry that Glory created, uncovers a number of dark secrets about the Potterite sect. The arrival of sales rep Diana, a transgendered woman, further upends his every concept of himself. Like signposts across a century, these four intersecting lives reveal that mysterious inheritance known as human desire and its power to outpace ideology. This powerful, beautifully crafted and inclusive LGBT novel is a story for our times. |
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COMMAND OF SILENCE |
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QUALITIES OF LIGHT |
An Interview with Jan Donley, author of
The Side Door
Jan, The Side Door is one of the most remarkable novels I've ever edited because of its young protagonist, Mel, the beating heart of your book. My hope as a reader as well as an editor is that she's a prototype that will lead writers in a new fictional direction in future portrayals of our new generation, and that Mel will also be the prototype for a new kind of young lesbian who will just as determined and assertive in embracing her identity as Mel is. Tell us, where did wonderful young Mel come from?
About five years ago I wrote a short story called "Jell-O," about an unnamed high school girl who develops a crush on another girl, and the narrator's first person voice really stuck with me. She became such a presence in my life, she soon informed me that her name was Mel, short for Melrose, not Melinda, not Melanie. I had a sense of Mel's voice, its rhythms.
I wrote a series of short stories with her as the narrator. Or perhaps she decided to narrate some stories to me. In any case, she had places to go and people to see, and it was up to me to follow, to help her realize her journey. In one of the stories Mel discovers a side door entrance into her high school, and that led me to the concept of those stories about her as a novel and the novel's title.
Readers always want to know if a novel is autobiographical. So I'll ask you: is it?
I guess I thought of her as a sort of alter-ego. Not me, but a version of me I wish I had been at her age. So, yes and no. I wish I had been more like her: sure of her identity, outspoken, ready to take on a just cause. Yes in that I grew up in the middle of America, and I have a real fondness for prairie states.
I did not know a boy who killed himself, but I could have, back in those days, and I did not have a gay best friend. I wish I had been like Mel. I hope Mel inspires real-life teenaged lesbians and gays to trust their own identities, and I also hope she inspires parents.
I do too. Jan, how did your stories and ideas about Mel develop into this novel?
The novel went through several incarnations, but I knew all along that I wanted it to take place in the middle of America where I spent my childhood. As little kid, I rode my bike through the Wyoming prairie where I collected tadpoles and salamanders. I didn't move east until I was in my 30's. I've always found the world between east and west coasts to be both harsh and comforting. I wanted to set my novel in that paradox.
I did not "plan" the novel's story. The story evolved as I got to know Mel and her world. Frank was there from the beginning, her best friend. It takes me a while to discover the structure of a novel or a play. Some writers outline their stories, but I do not. I just keep writing scenes until an overall world comes through.
What are you working on now?
I'm working on some short fiction. I may have another novel in the works. And because I'm a playwright, I'm thinking about play ideas, too.
A question from one writer to another: What matters to you as a theme?
I am very drawn to stories of identity and moved by stories that illustrate how difficult it is to find and maintain an identity in a world that constantly tries to dictate what we should and should not be.
As a teenager, learning to play guitar, I wrote lyrics and put them to music. I was a huge fan of Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Cat Stevens, and Carole King. I suppose they were my earliest influences. My father was a geologist by profession, but he was also a writer, and so I heard the click clack of his electric typewriter, and that rhythm got inside me.
I took courses in playwriting in college and found that I had a real knack for dialogue.
When I started teaching in the late 1980's, I began a practice of writing letters with my students. I still maintain that practice, and I find it to be some of the most satisfying writing I have ever done. Also, I love to read student letters.
Putting words to paper is my favorite place to be. It calms me. It focuses me. It humbles me. It opens me.
Will we hear from Mel again?
I don't know. She is certainly a force, and her voice is so much a part of me. So, who knows? Maybe.
