by itabix | Nov 30, 2019 | War poets, War poets, Wildred Owen, Writing
Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost...
by itabix | Oct 16, 2019 | Anger, Being gay, Channing Smith, Coming to terms with the past, Courage, Earthrise, Freeing yourself of it, gay community, Gay kid, Marriage cases, Queer, Reparations, Sexuality, suicide, Teenage Suicides, Words and their meanings, Writing
I wrote this a week ago: It is a truth that LGBTQ+IA persons do not have a literature that reflects us. We have a literature that reflects some of us, and we have a literature that reflects many of us partially. We don’t have a literature that reflects how varied the...
by itabix | Sep 25, 2018 | AIDS, Anger, Earthrise, eBooks, Gay literature, Gay Pride, Where meaning comes from, Winter Rain, Writing
Winter Rain 1 I set out to write a gay novel about alcoholism, and when I completed it and then couldn’t get it published, I put it in a box on the floor at the back of my closet. It eventually was moved to my first computer, and then moved from computer to computer....
by itabix | Aug 5, 2018 | AIDS, Alcoholism, Ceremonies, Courage, Daniel D'Addario, Fighting Back, Middlebrow Queer, Publishing, Race Point Light, Writing
Race Point Light What kind of person is Fair Shaw? Only partially like me, I should say at the beginning. Taller, darker, more handsome, certainly sexier, that long dolorous list of qualities that show we don’t measure up. I think he is more in control of his emotions...
by itabix | Jul 23, 2018 | AIDS, Ceremonies, Charles Howard, Coming out, Courage, DOMA & DADT, Freedom, inclusive gay community, Nashville, Nashville, Where meaning comes from, Writing
Ceremonies Who were these people? 1 Timothy tells us. He’s sixteen, he’s a male, he’s gay, he’s homeless, he does tricks on “the hill” to get money, he hangs out with an older kid, Bernie, he has sex with Bernie sometimes, he knows Claire who has spiked hair and wears...
by itabix | Jul 7, 2018 | Ceremonies, Earthrise, Gay literature, LGBTQ suicide, Middlebrow Queer, Teenage Suicides, Writing
Ceremonies When my friend Charles Howard was murdered on July 7, 1984, in Bangor, Maine, I had already quit my job teaching and was planning to leave Bangor at the end of the summer, in about two months. After Charlie’s murder, and thinking that someone was going to...
by itabix | Mar 9, 2017 | books, bookstores, Daniel D'Addario, eBooks, Freedom, Gay literature, print on demand, Publishing, Writing
Well, today is a new day, and I am here to tell you about a discovery that is going to make a difference to gay people. I was looking for a book (Henry James, Art of the Novel). I went back to Barnes & Noble and found a print-on-demand version of the book I...
by itabix | Jan 20, 2017 | Adam in the Morning, Anger, Barack Obama, Ceremonies, Coming to terms with the past, Courage, Fighting Back, gay community, Generational Divide, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Michelle Obama, Race Point Light, Stonewall National Monument, The Myth of Sisyphus, Winter Rain, Writing
Many people are quoting Martin Luther King’s “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” And many people believe that means that eventually things are going to get better. But you know that’s bullshit. There is no “moral universe.” And we...
by itabix | Jan 10, 2017 | Adam in the Morning, Alcoholism, Barack Obama, Being gay, Bookstores, bookstores, Ceremonies, Coming to terms with the past, eBooks, Gay literature, Publishing, Race Point Light, The effects of bigotry, Uncategorized, Walking wounded, Winter Rain, Writing
I read an article on Slate today on writing and money, and it compels me to respond. The point of the article is the fact that so few writers actually make any money at their writing. Just about all writers are supported by doing something else, like teaching, and yet...
by itabix | Nov 6, 2016 | A single man, APA, Charles Howard, Coming to terms with the past, Gay literature, Generational Divide, Middlebrow Queer, Publishing, Sexuality, The Gay Revolution, Writing
Even though I didn’t have many extended, free-wheeling conversations with friends about the military’s rules against my serving (I served anyway), still the fact that what I was doing sexually was a crime occupied me deeply. A novel about me during the sixties in...
by itabix | Aug 24, 2016 | AIDS, Anger, Gay literature, Winter Rain, Writing
Winter Rain is a story of kindness, of grief, of a person’s not being able to tell for certain what he or she is or what has happened, and yet it’s a story of a person’s need to go on. This is a book about people who live tough lives. Respect has to be paid. It is a...
by itabix | Aug 14, 2016 | Alcoholism, This website, Winter Rain, Writing
When he came up out of the ground, he hunched his shoulders and ran into the rain (it was all in his face) across the street to a bar. “A double.” He looked at his watch. He sat on the edge of the stool, more standing than sitting, took two quick sips, looked...
by itabix | Jul 17, 2016 | Cemeteries, Coming to terms with the past, Gay literature, Provincetown, Race Point Light, Writing
When we’re in Provincetown, staying with our friend, Ed Stewart, we get into town by walking through the cemetery at Winslow Road and Jerome Smith Road, which holds mainly nineteenth century graves. Ed says it is “cemetery #2” because it is not the oldest one in town....
by itabix | Feb 12, 2016 | Adam in the Morning, Fighting, Fighting Back, Stonewall Riots, Writing
Last week I bought and watched Margin Call, directed by J. C. Chandor and starring Kevin Spacey and Too Big to Fail, from HBO, directed by Curtis Hanson and starring William Hurt. I started watching a Showtime series, Billions, going back to S1:01, starring Paul...
by itabix | Jan 12, 2016 | Adam in the Morning, Barack Obama, Being gay, Ceremonies, Coming to terms with the past, Freedom, Freeing yourself of it, Race Point Light, Sexuality, Words and their meanings, Writing
Fair Shaw and his partner Chris and their friend David, and a younger man, Julio, had been at the Tea Dance at the Boatslip late in the last day of Race Point Light. Then, instead of going to a restaurant, the four of them decide to get food at the grocery store and...
