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Bernard Perlin

Bernard Perlin

Bernard Perlin

Text JF. Pierets     Artwork Bernard Perlin

 

Bernard Perlin (1918-2014) was an extraordinary figure in twentieth century American art and gay cultural history. An acclaimed artist and sexual renegade who reveled in pushing social, political, and artistic boundaries, his work regularly appeared in popular magazines in the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s; was collected by Rockefellers, Whitneys, Astors, and Andy Warhol; and was acquired by major museums, including the Smithsonian, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Tate. In One-Man Show, Michael Schreiber chronicles the storied life, illustrious friends and lovers, and astounding adventures of Bernard Perlin through no-holds-barred interviews with the artist, candid excerpts from Perlin’s unpublished memoirs, never-before-seen photos, and an extensive selection of Bernard Perlin’s incredible public and private art. One-Man Show: The Life and Art of Bernard Perlin has been named a 2017 Stonewall Honor Book by the American Library Association, and is a Lambda Literary Award Finalist.

What triggered you to write this book?
I discovered Bernard and his amazing artwork through my great interest in the illustrious gay social and artistic circle that surrounded the legendary photographer George Platt Lynes in the 1930s through 1950s. Bernard was an intimate member of this great New York gay “cabal,” as he called it, whose members and visitors included such artists and literary such figures as Somerset Maugham, and Christopher Isherwood. Bernard Perlin was the last living member of this remarkable company, then in his early nineties, and so I wrote him. He responded with a friendly phone call that led to another and another and ultimately to an invitation to his home in Connecticut. And so began our close friendship and the unexpected journey towards this book.

Was it important to write this book, aside from your personal connection with Perlin?
First and foremost, I felt a great sense of commitment to getting Bernard Perlin’s extraordinary artwork seen again. But as I began to learn more about his equally extraordinary life, I knew the incredibly compelling story of this unsung gay artist-hero had to be told somehow, and as much as possible in his own colorful, unfiltered way.

As an art connoisseur, what attracts you to his work?
Bernard was a beguiling storyteller – not only in conversation, but also in his art. Every Perlin painting tells a unique story. I’m particularly drawn to his work that can be classified as “magic realism,” in which he interjected unexpected or magical elements into his examination of “real” situations or objects or figures. I always find his perspective an interesting one to consider. In terms of subject matter, I really love Bernard’s “Night Pictures,” a series of paintings depicting the swinging “cocktail culture” of 1950s New York City jazz clubs, street dances, and underground gay bars. The latter were very daring works for him to publicly show when he did, but for Bernard they were just further efforts to depict the full “normal” range of people seeking connection with one another.

He was openly gay in the 1930’s. How did that work out?
While he was very conscious of his sexuality and embraced it from a very young age, it wasn’t really until he went to art school in 1935 in New York that he found a thriving underground gay culture that welcomed him and he easily fit into. He was 16 years old at the time. From that point on, Bernard chose to also live his life “above ground” as a fearlessly openly gay man – doing so during a fearfully closed period in our recent history. It’s remarkable now to consider some of the real risks he faced, sometimes head on. He walked past a sign reading “no Jews allowed” into a department store in Nazi-occupied Danzig in 1938, bought a pair of Hitler Youth shorts, and then boldly walked around in them, as not only a young gay man, but a Jew. Equally remarkable was his attitude about being arrested in a Parisian bathhouse in 1951. In spite of being thrown into a large cage in the middle of a medieval courtroom, and tried in a language he didn’t understand while onlookers jeered, then being jailed without knowing how long he’d be held, Bernard just took it in his stride and thought it all a “great adventure.” He was similarly arrested in Florida and Virginia for “behavior against public decency,” posted bail, then skipped town and carried on undeterred with his cruising and bathhouse escapades. But certainly the most poignant story he shared with me was about his not wanting to fight in World War II, so he had to go to a psychiatrist, be declared a “mental degenerate” as a homosexual, and then present himself as such in front of the draft board. When we talked about this, Bernard confessed that he had long carried a sense of shame over what he perceived to be his cowardice about not going to war, when in fact it was an incredibly brave act to have publicly declared himself a homosexual in 1941. And of course, he then went on to fight the war anyway, but with his paintbrush, producing many now iconic images of World War II as a propaganda artist for the U.S. government and as a war-artist correspondent for Life magazine.

Did you ask him about the most significant changes between being gay in the 1930’s and now?
I did. It was very enlightening for me to learn that he had been able to so freely express his sexuality when he did – although it should also be considered where he did – in 1930s New York, which was somewhat less permissive than it had been during the 1920s, but yet allowed gay bars and gathering places to exist, as long as the police were paid off. Of course outside of New York, such open expression carried tremendous risk. As he explained it: “one was open but with a great sense of consciousness about it.” In the last couple of years of his life, he was delighted by the changes that were then accelerating for gay acceptance. The act of marrying his partner of 60 years was a tremendously important one for him. And they did it solely as a political statement, to add their number to the statistics. Although he had never been conflicted about being gay, Bernard certainly celebrated the fact that society was becoming less conflicted. Or so he hoped.

 


‘Of course historically up to this point there has been limited gay imagery in mainstream art because it has not been a socially accepted expression. But I’m ever hopeful that that is changing.’

You write about Perlin as a gay artist and you launched the book at a gay publishing company. Why is it important to accentuate this?
The actual artwork should be left to the interpretation of the viewer, of course. We all see the world uniquely through the lens of our own experience and identity. For that reason, Bernard didn’t like having his work linked to a particular style, nor did he subscribe to any particular school of art. He wanted viewers to interpret his work in their own way, free of any pre-established definitions, but yet at the end, he did want them to know it was the work of a gay artist. That the great variety of human experience that he had depicted in his work – that a great variety of people had emotionally and intellectually responded to over seven decades – had all been recorded by a fellow human being who just happened to be gay. By a “variant” himself. It was an identity that he felt very proud of and committed to championing – to “normalizing” in a way, although there truly is no such thing as “normal.” He just hoped his viewers would allow and consider it, in the hopes it might expand their perception not only of his art, but also of our shared humanity.

Does this have something to do with awareness? Showing that artists, movie stars, etc. can also be gay?
Sure, as you bring the gay experience into the fold of the bigger human experience, it does “normalize” it. Just as I feel it’s important to consider whatever particular identity an artist embraces – whether that relates to their gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc. – in the hope it will challenge and expand a viewer’s perspective on their art, but will also influence how that viewer then sees the real world and lives happening around them. Ultimately, we are all human at the end of the day. Isn’t it wonderful that we can see things so differently? In fact, it’s important that we do. Considering that informs all of us about the wonderful variety of the human experience. And toward that end, Bernard found it very important to raise his hand and be amongst the counted as gay artists.

Why do you think there is so little gay imagery in art history?
That’s an interesting topic that Bernard and I actually spoke a lot about. A picture of two men or two women kissing isn’t actually a classical theme in art – “yet,” as Bernard would point out. Of course historically up to this point there has been limited gay imagery in mainstream art because it has not been a socially accepted expression. But I’m ever hopeful that that is changing. Bernard was in the vanguard of artists who were boldly depicting gay themes in their work several generations ago, and happily that mantle has been taken up in recent decades by more and more younger artists. It’s just a matter now of getting more of their work on the walls of mainstream museums to make that “yet” a reality.

Is that also something you aim for with your book?
Absolutely. It’s empowering to have known this man who was at the vanguard of promoting that acceptance just by living his life openly and fully and refusing to compromise. I was so blessed to have learned from a fellow human being who had the ability and the courage to embrace and to dominate his life – a man who was fully occupied with living, loving, and leaving nothing unexplored that interested him. He found both in his life and his art what is at the heart of the fulfilled human experience:  and that is, to live one’s life fully in one’s own way – authentically, and without apology. And so that is what is at the heart of this book, and why I felt Bernard’s story was an important one to share – not to provide an exact blueprint of how one should live one’s life, but to open a door to possibilities, and permission.

 

www.bernardperlin.com
www.discover.brunogmuender.com/one-man-show-bernard-perlin

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Annelies Verbeke

Annelies Verbeke

Annelies Verbeke

Text & photos JF. Pierets

 

The press called your latest book, Thirty Days, socially relevant. Is it?
That’s a tough one because I don’t like to be put into a box. For me, Thirty Days is just a continuation of everything I’ve written before. I’m working on an oeuvre, which I started in 2003, and hopefully will be able to build up till the end of my days. So for me it’s a clear evolution with its own variations and perspectives, yet they all existed deep inside of me. It did bother me a bit that the book got a very defined market. “What type of book is it?”, “how should we label it?”, are fundamental questions in the literary world nowadays. They say Thirty Days is about the refugee problem, yet that doesn’t quite cover its content. For me it’s about being a good person in a world that doesn’t promote goodness. That’s the essential theme. I always write about what comes my way and the topic of racism and refugees came into view. That’s why I write about them, not because I necessarily needed to write a social critique.

You once said that as a writer you have to write good books, not criticize.
I used to say that as a writer you don’t have to think in terms of social obligation but my opinion on that has changed a bit over the years. Nowadays it doesn’t bother me anymore to use social media or my column in the paper to promote what’s dear to me. For example, foreign writers that nobody’s heard of. We get so little input about European literature that I’m always on a quest to bring suppressed genres and languages to the surface. Did you know that 80% of the books in our Dutch language area are translated from English – a language that almost everybody can read? And only 3% of the books in the American market are translated from other languages? All languages? Just to give you an idea of its dominance in the field and that we are not always aware of how much we are controlled in the choices that we make.

What makes you sit down and write every time? 
I think I have to call it an urge. From a young age I was very certain that I would become a writer. The first literary prize I ever received was from a Dutch foundation called ‘Roeping’ (Dutch for Vocation. Ref.), a very Christian word yet I think it kind of fits. I do believe that there is something like a calling. I think that certain jobs like being a teacher or a nurse can only be managed if you have that kind of calling, which is the same for writers. Luckily I got the confirmation that it was the right thing to do.

Did you need that confirmation in order to keep going? 
I think that I needed some kind of permission, yes. And of course you have to be a megalomaniac in order to be a writer because let’s be honest, who needs another one?

How do you feel after you’ve finished a book?
After every book there’s the need for time until something else comes bubbling up. I’m always empty when I’ve finished another novel, which is pretty freaky because you never know if it will come back.

Currently you’re writing short stories again.
Yes. And I love it. Each of my short story collections have only one theme, which makes me feel free and happy, and able to look at that one theme from 15 different angles. Whereas in a novel I have to follow the path that I have chosen, be more consequent in a certain train of thought for about a year and a half or two years. A novel asks for a larger consistency whereas a short story is much more playful and offers me another approach. Let’s say it makes me happier.

You’ve been a published author for over 13 years now. Do you still love what you are doing? 
When you’re a writer, there’s a constant repetition of events. You finish a book, it gets published, you have to defend it, talk about it, and then you have to start all over again. For the first time it started to feel like a prison after I finished Thirty Days. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful and there is still nothing more liberating than the feeling I have after a great day of writing. There is nothing in the professional field that can replace that. So obviously I’m not going to quit. Yet all of a sudden I saw a glimpse of the dark side. What kind of fate gives you the highest freedom and equally keeps you in prison? I’ll probably get over it, but you need a lot of energy to keep up with the ever-repeating chain of events and I kind of lacked that amount of verve. I was exhausted when I finished that book, but unfortunately that’s the precise moment when the whole circus is about to begin. When I think of myself being in my 70’s or 80’s, I don’t know if I will still have the energy to go through all that again. Sometimes I would like to find something in which I can disappear. At least for a few years. An obvious question now would be; ‘why don’t you just write and not get published?’ But the duality of it all is that a book is not finished before it’s been read. I keep on traversing between a huge gratitude and oppression. Maybe it’s just because I recently became 40. However great my life is, there are still moments when I think ‘is this it?’

Can you imagine doing something else? 
I do have those romantic and foolish fantasies about being a hairdresser or a masseuse. Sometimes I would love to have a profession where I can touch people – in a non-erotic manner. That fantasy keeps coming back.

That sounds like an eagerness to please.
I don’t know, maybe I should call it ‘relating’ instead of ‘pleasing’. People wouldn’t even have to thank me for a job well done; it’s really about making them happy

What keeps your mind flexible? 
I know it sounds contradictory, but I’ve set out a few rules in order to keep a flexible mind. Every year I want to read 52 novels. There has to be at least one book from every continent – with the exception of Antarctica and Arctica because there’s not much writing going on there – and spread over three centuries at least. It probably sounds more epic than it actually is because it’s quite doable. It allows me to read the writers that you do not stumble upon easily.


‘A female critic once accused me that I was afraid of being a woman. I found that pretty surreal. You might read something neutral in my work, yet that’s who I am. I don’t have to pretend, do I?’

Are there certain things that have determined your growth? 
Notwithstanding certain life events that mess you up, I think that the older you get, the more life experience you gain and the more you read, the more you grow. I’m lucky to be able to pour the sad things from my life into literature. Which is often a salvation. Being able to transform your pain into something creative is a huge victory. And that’s a gift. Imagine being a bookkeeper, or a shop owner, how do they handle that?

What do you like to write about most? 
If I would have to point out a common theme running through my little oeuvre, it’s ‘what is reality?’, which most of the time is based upon assumptions. In the beginning of my career a lot of reviews spoke about my fascination for madness. Yet I’m not necessarily interested in madness, but I am intrigued by what someone with a psychoses experiences as reality. Even better, you don’t have to go as far as having a neurosis to see that every one of us has another reality. It’s both interesting, funny and tragic how hard people are trying to fit into that. The absurd is omnipresent. Just think about war, or placing a gnome figurine in your garden, just because your neighbors are doing it. There are so many delusions wherein people are finding themselves or basing their identity on. It’s very innocent when it’s about gnomes, but it can also escalate into resistance towards refugees. If you agree that a certain branche of our population doesn’t have any human rights, just because your neighbor is thinking the same thing. Absurdity dwells in the constant threat of chaos. On the one hand you have the efforts to keep it all on the right track and on the other there’s pure escalation. That’s where absurdism comes from. And it’s constantly around us.

Is that what you are doing as a writer? Creating a new reality?
That’s exactly how it feels, but it’s more like filling something in instead of creating. Céline once said that the stories that we write are the invisible castles above our heads which we have to reconstruct on paper, stone by stone. I still find that a great image. When I’m writing I can always feel when it’s good and when it’s not. And not only when it comes to style, rhythm or grammar, but also if it’s right for the story. Which is weird, because this possibly implies that the story is already there. That there’s an ideal, which you merely mirror.

Is it self-portraiture? 
I consider myself a parade of people where one takes the lead until the next one takes over. In my novels my narrators were the ones leading in a certain period of time whereas in my short stories, I’m looking at who else is in that parade.

What is literature about? 
It’s about insight and all kinds of thoughts and feelings. You have to confront the things that happen to you. It’s an introspection without you being behind the wheels. For me it’s also very double; part of me is writing freely while the other part is controlling the quality of what I write as a reader. And I can tell you it’s not a reader who is easy to please. But then it gets read and criticized and that’s even worse because it’s always colored by someone’s prejudice. I don’t care about someone saying or writing that they don’t like the book for reasons of taste, but I do care if someone offers criticism coming from resentment, or if someone is holding a grudge or just doesn’t like female writers. That said, fortunately there are many literary critiques in which I’m completely understood, which offers a sense of ease.

Let’s talk about the female writers.  
I have a lot to say about female writers. When I made my first appearance as a 27-year-old writer I had more of the aura of a rabbit in headlights than of someone with an impressive personality. I can give numerous examples of how I’ve been patronized or intellectually underrated. In the beginning of my career people actually asked me what it was like to be a woman while my male colleagues were never asked that question. But I’m not only talking about men, because for me, feminism is not the opposite of men being against women. Some women are also biased and judgmental about women. And what I definitely cannot stand is being treated that way by people whom I find less intelligent than I am.

Anyhow, I do think people read very judgmentally. People start off with tons of assumptions that they then actually read in the book. I know it’s impossible, but sometimes I wish that things like awards would happen anonymously. A lot of women are still not nominated so I wonder if this would make a difference. A female critic once accused me that I was afraid of being a woman. I found that pretty surreal. You might read something neutral in my work, yet that’s who I am. I don’t have to pretend, do I? The same for men. When a book is from a neutral position, I often find it more interesting – this compared to some Hemingway-ish kind of writing because how many times can one go fishing and hunting? Let’s say there’s still a lot to do on the gender front.

 

www.anneliesverbeke.com

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Greg McGoon

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Text JF. Pierets    Photos Courtesy of Greg McGoon

 

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You studied psychology and political science. How does one become an author of children’s books with this background? 
There’s a theatre program in my hometown and that’s where I fell in love with both theatre and working with children. This background basically evolved into writing for – and learning to connect with – kids through theatre, an art form not only about acting but something that also strengthens your social skills and your engagement. I think dealing with kids, theatre and art, while keeping the psychology I studied in my mind, naturally developed into writing down stories. It just happened as I was trying to process my own growth and understanding of the people around me. I realized that my words would have a broader reach if I found ways to adapt them to reach out to children.

Your imagination immediately takes off running in your first book, Out Of The Box. A story about the limitless places our creativity can take us to. 
I kind of wrote Out Of The Box for myself, when I was developing a project with children on creative arts. Rather than write some angsty melodrama of my own life, I wanted to rediscover the creativity and imagination that I felt I had lost long ago. I wanted to find some solutions to my own struggles and challenges in a more universal, but also playful way. This book is not only about the simplicity of children playing with a cardboard box. It’s about maintaining and owning your imagination in order to make honest connections with others, even though that can prove challenging. It was my response to the concept of imagination and allowing that magic out of the box once again.

It sounds like your personal pursuit became a tool to help others. 
I did. I thought I’d rather live with the possible pain of expressing my feelings, than live with the pain of denial. My personal life story became so dark and I got so tired of living in that darkness, tired of denying things, that I had to take ownership of myself and of my self worth. Writing these children’s books and trying to work past this fear of speaking about your feelings was very important. Because once you’re an adult, it gets a lot harder to start opening up all of a sudden. But when you’re a child you get into that habit of not only talking about your feelings, but also learning how to do so. There are so many ways to express yourself, but some ways are more healthy and effective than others. If children start recognizing that and start being comfortable, it will help society as a whole.

Your second book, The Royal Heart, is a fairytale. The first fairytale ever with a transgender princess. 
Like many kids I had a childhood fascination for Disney and the exploration of the origin stories. What fascinates me in fairytales is not just the lesson they can teach, but how they’ve been shared over time and what has been changed due to the time that they were written. They are evolving and are adapting to society’s influence in a lot of ways.  Children are connecting and relating to that. When I grew up, all I was seeing and reading were all these beautiful men and women falling in love with each other.  I could connect with the essence of the story, I could connect with the love, but the visibility of it was limiting. Fairytales are magical, grand and beautiful, so why should people be excluded from that?

Why use the transgender theme? 
It just so happened that the idea of a transgender character fitted the essence of what I was trying to convey. Transformation is a common theme in fairytales; Ariel’s goes from fins to legs, the frog becomes a prince, a princess becomes a swan, and so on, and most of those transformations are due to an external force. I never intended the book to be about being transgender, because that’s not something I personally experienced, but it’s about the love for everyone around me. The acceptance of that as being a part of life. If somebody comes to me and says “this is who I truly am”, there’s no part in me that would ever ask “why?” That’s not a question that comes into my mind, I’d rather say “thank you for sharing.” A lot of people are still stuck on the “why?” Why are you a woman, why are you a man, why are you gay? However, there is no “why” to begin with. It’s a reality that needs no explanation. It’s just about love.

 

 

The book can be a message for parents to show their children that this character worked up the courage to express their true self. That no matter what that is, their child can feel that way too.’

Did you intentionally use a medieval setting to make it more timeless? 
Yes, I wanted it to look like it’s been around for many years because transgenderism is not new. And history has a way of denying the voice and the human experience when it is not understood. The book is very minimal, yet I was very careful in choosing the words to take it a little bit further then just about gender. For me it’s also about taking on the responsibility of self and becoming a leader. I want people to look at it and wonder if hundreds of years ago there actually was a prince who could never fully realize himself. We’re talking about a whole spectrum of human life that has always been around. It’s not that all of a sudden people are being born who identify in a different way. It’s just that those voices are finally starting to be heard. We get so caught up with this idea of male-female that we lose sight of just living life. And there are so many ways to live life that I don’t think it has to be dictated how that should be. Let’s just try and live together instead of trying to impede on other people’s lifestyles. We don’t have to hold hands and get along, but we do need not to abuse each other. And that’s what The Royal Heart talks about; it’s about celebrating life.

A true idealist? 
I don’t know how I became such an idealist all of a sudden since my mantra through my mid-twenties was “I’m gonna die alone!” I was this melodramatic person until I finally realized I was only going to die alone if I forced that upon myself. I had to believe that there was more to it, and since I can’t be the only one in the world with those feelings I started sharing my stories and my writing. Because why can’t the LGBT community have those unrealistic, magical, love at first sight, fairytale stories, if everybody else does?

I’ve said you’re working on a book about a gay prince. Are you looking for a fairytale character you can relate to? 
Well, I still want to write this epic adventure I was looking for when I was a kid. Having stories that represent LGBT characters is adding to the positive visibility that hasn’t been around for children. You can only have so much fun looking at blog posts of genderbending Disney characters. We’ve all seen those, and it’s great, but where are our characters? I’m not trying to be groundbreaking or evolutionary, I just want to have a character that happens to love men.

How would you convince a parent to buy an LGBT themed book for their child? 
Having an LGBT character doesn’t necessarily make a book LGBT themed. The Royal Heart is not LGBT themed, nor is the story of the prince I’m developing. The main theme is love. To establish a healthy relationship between parent and child, you have to be open to each other. The book can be a message for parents to show their children that this character worked up the courage to express their true self. That no matter what that is, their child can feel that way too. They can come to them, no matter what they have to say, and that they are going to be ok with it. So it’s an invitation to children to know that if their parents share this story, that they have their full support of their full existence.

You recently released your third children’s book, Traveling the Twisting Troubling Tanglelows’ Trail. What’s it about? 
It’s a rhyming, poetic story that deals with creatures that live inside your mind and tangle everything up, making you feel that you are worthless. In this book I’m saying that life is full of challenges, and that you’re might feel useless, but you have the ability to start untangling that. With this book I hope to introduce some practical applications to an abstract thought. Children need to understand that feeling unhappy is sometimes part of the beauty of life. And while bad things can happen, good things can happen also. The characters are saying that pain exists, but that joy can be found. You’re going to face obstacles, but you’re only going to be able to overcome them once you start to realize that you have the strength to do so.

 

www.gregmcgoon.com

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Ivan E. Coyote

Ivan E. Coyote

Ivan E. Coyote

Text JF. Pierets    Photos Courtesy of Ivan E. Coyote

 

On the day of this interview, New York passed a civil rights law that requires all single-users restrooms to be gender neutral. A decision of great impact on the daily reality of trans people and a life-changing event for Ivan E. Coyote. The award-winning author, renowned performer and lecturer considers themselves a gender failure; failing the gender binary which has equally failed them. A conversation about language, engaging with an audience, using the pronoun ‘they’, and toxic masculinity.

 

You stated, “I have failed the gender binary and it has failed me”. Can you elaborate? 
The gender binary is one of the most effective power structures ever created and is used to perpetrate horrible things upon each other. The process of indoctrination begins as soon as the parents find out what the gender of their child is. They literally start talking differently, using a different tone of voice, and expecting different things from boys and girls. Meanwhile there is so much more to the reality of gender than just men and women and there always has been some version of people like me in every culture. If we acknowledge that fact and respect it, the whole thing will break down. We would be chipping away at the foundation of one of the biggest systems that we use to oppress people and especially women. Because even in so-called westernized societies, we still socialize young women differently, we still tell them what they can and cannot do. I don’t have all the answers, but what I do know is that more and more people are emboldened to come out of the gender closet and that I am a problem that is not going away. So if we, as a society, say that we have human rights for everyone, then we have to decide what that means and act upon it. It’s going to be good in the long run; it will make the world fairer, more truthful and more authentic.

What changes do we have to make in order to create such an ideal world? 
One of the things we need to do in order to make a better world and in order to completely allow people to express who their real true self is, is unraveling the concept of unexamined toxic masculinity. It’s poisoning our society, and some of the biggest sufferers under that regime are men and boys. They are expected to perform this ideal masculine dance that is both not possible and not healthy, but still we continue to put that unrealistic nonsense in – for example – movies. A man has big muscles, fires guns and gets the girl in the end. Our boys are lost with those kind of role models. If we take that apart, and give women the right to their own bodies and education, a lot of things would change. I’m not interested in a gender revolution just so we can all wear what we want, that would be a nice byproduct, but I’m talking about liberation for women and men and everyone else. I’m not even sure if I can wrap my mind around how fundamental a change that would be. I know I can only affect my little corner of things, and part of that is fighting for my own human right to just be, and to go through the world. Step by step.

Is your personal use of the pronoun ‘they’ a part of those steps? 
‘They’ is the pronoun I feel most comfortable with. Is it perfect for me? No. For years I struggled using the pronoun ‘she’ because that’s what I was raised up with. It’s hard to describe how uncomfortable that feels if you have never experienced it. In my book Gender Failure I try to describe it as somehow being carved away at. Often, the media can only understand trans people if they still “fit”: Trans people are all right as long as they look like Caitlyn Jenner and the only thing they want is to become a woman. I don’t want to be a man but don’t feel like a woman either, and that’s a difficult place to be in, yet that is my authentic self and there is nothing harder than spending an entire lifetime trying to cover up your authentic self. Using ‘they’ was not an easy decision to make and it still isn’t, because after 11 books, multiple awards, 3 films and 6 live shows, some people still reduce me to nothing but a pronoun. They’re falling back on these grammar rules, which are not even actually correct since the use of ‘they’ as a singular pronoun goes back to the 16th century, to Chaucer and Shakespeare, who both employed it. Language changes all the time to incorporate the people who are utilizing it. And that’s what it’s supposed to do. 15 years ago ‘Google’ was not even a verb or a word. Now we’re using it all the time and it’s even in the dictionary. It’s been incorporated because there was a need for it. So I’m sure that when somebody really digs their heels in, it’s not actually grammar that is the problem. They are resisting that change because it makes them uncomfortable, and it has nothing to do with language.

You are called a queer author, does that match with how you identify?
I’m situated in an interesting place on the gender spectrum but when I speak to people to whom my work resonates, it’s often about much more than just the queer themes. I also write about working class dynamics, for example, or about big families, or about the Yukon, where I come from. All those things are an important part of who I am. But I do mostly write things that are drawn from personal life, which obviously colors and flavors my non-fiction work. It wouldn’t be accurate to remove myself from those experiences but labels tend to limit both our readership and us.  What makes me want to write is the ability to increase the narrative. To put more stories about queer life out there, about those of us who don’t really align with the gender binary. At the same time I resist being put in a box. I’m a writer. Period. There is a place where those labels cease to be effective but if I’m only writing stories for queer people, it’s not going to increase us being understood by those who are not exactly like us.

 

 

 

‘I know I can only affect my little corner of things, and part of that is fighting for my own human right to just be, and to go through the world. Step by step.’

Is that the reason why your prose is very accessible? 
I don’t know, I think it’s just my style, my nature as a writer. I was an electrician while I was working on my earlier writing career so I don’t consider myself an intellectual. I’m a storyteller. My aim is to have things resonate with people so that they can find some personal truth, some way of relating it back to their own story. Dressing it up and making it complicated, especially when it doesn’t need to be, is not engaging. All that intellectualized stuff would get in the way of the level of engagement that I am looking for in a reader.

Is performing a way to be closer to your readers? 
I started live storytelling before I got published so it was always a part of my art practice. Sometimes when I pick the right story, in the right order, in the right place and I approach it with the right heart, I have these moments of spiritual connection between the audience and myself. You can have this moment of looking inside each other’s hearts – seeing a glimmer of the true humanity of the other person. It doesn’t happen all the time but those moments are pretty magical. I realize that a lot of people are never moved by their every day job so I try to be grateful.

What’s your motivation for speaking in high schools? 
One of my main motivators for speaking in public high schools is because my cousin Christopher, who I was really close to growing up, committed suicide when he was 21. I think he was gay, but we don’t know and we will never know, but he was a misfit and was horrifically bullied all the way through school. I think it’s very important to talk about how we treat each other and how that affects us. I know that’s hard to believe when you’re 15 years old, but all those things don’t disappear when you graduate. It’s a moment in our lives where we’re learning to believe or not believe in ourselves, it’s the moment when we decide if we matter. So I try to have a one on one about school bullying and respect on a Friday afternoon, in a gymnasium of 600 kids with the attention span of a music video. I can tell you; it’s not a job for the faint of heart.

You are a role model for many; did you have one when you were younger?
Not exactly, but there were a lot of woman in my family who challenged the rigid ‘70’s gender box and therefore inspired me as a young human. Yet if I have to name someone, it would be Annie Lennox doing her Elvis drag at the Grammy’s in 1984. It got me on another planet.

What would you say to a young kid who looks up to you?
I have struggled with depression my entire life and one of the things that gets me through the harder days is knowing that these things cycle in and cycle out. And things get better when you actively work to make them better; when you seek out a community or build a community, when you take action. I tell kids at school that art, writing and music got me through school and through life. You need to seek the things that make you feel good. You need to seek them out and you need to do them, and then you need to do them again. Not because you want to be the best but because the act of doing them is life affirming, constructive, therapeutic and joyous. Feeling good comes with a qualification and it involves some work on your part.

Ivan has a new book, Tomboy Survival Guide (based on the stage show) coming out with Arsenal in Fall 2016.

 

www.ivanecoyote.com

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Square Zair Pair

Square Zair Pair

Square Zair Pair

Text JF. Pierets    Illustrations Christine Knopp

 

Square Zair Pair is an LGBT themed children’s book about celebrating the diversity of couples in a community. The story takes place in the magical land of Hanamandoo, a place where square and round Zairs live. Zairs do all things in pairs, one round with one square. But one day when two square Zairs pair for the first time, the village initially rejects them before learning a lesson in kindness and acceptance – ultimately realizing different pairs of Zairs make their village stronger. In conversation with writer and The Advocate journalist, Jase Peeples. 

 

Why write a children’s book? 
Years ago, a friend of mine told me that he and his husband were having trouble finding children’s picture books with positive LGBT themes they could share with their daughter so I wanted to help. Square Zair Pair is about these creatures that come in two shapes, round and square. In this magical land that they live in, they always pair up as one round with one square. The story is about what happens to the village when one day two square Zairs pair up, and they mistreat this brand new couple they have never seen before. Ultimately, it’s a story that accentuates the possible differences between couples.

The Zairs don’t have a gender. Was that important? 
It was very important to me to have the Zairs free from gender, because traditional gender identities bring with them a lot of preconceived notions and assumption.  I wanted to highlight how much we love to focus on sexuality and gender by removing it from the equation. When we replace the concepts of sexuality and gender with two very basic shapes, round and square, the ridiculousness of arguments against same-sex couples becomes even more apparent.

And not writing about sexuality makes it more accessible for children, no doubt. 
Absolutely. Sexuality is indeed never specifically stated in the book. Instead I used an allegory, which is a much easier thing to digest, even for someone who may have reservations about such a story being read to children. I aimed for 6 to 10 years of age but I’ve had the honor of reading it to much younger children and they seem very captivated by it. People are very receptive.

Did you have books like that, when you were young? 
As the son of a librarian, picture books were a very important part of my experience in how I saw the world as a young child. However, there were never any stories that positively highlighted the ways in which I was different as a gay person. And as I got older I realized there really weren’t many books with a narrative on different types of families. It’s my hope that Square Zair Pair can help both young people who feel they are different, and those who may come from same-sex families. I hope it can become an instrument to help realize their differences should be celebrated, regardless of whom they “pair” with.

How’s the atmosphere in the US when it comes to LGBT themed books?
When it comes to children’s books it’s a growing field. You see them more and more these days, but it’s still an issue that same-sex couples or families with same-sex parents are seen as “different.” So I think there’s a lot more work to be done. I would love for a book like this to be in every school, to be a part of the curriculum, especially for younger kids. I would love for it to be a part of ‘Spirit Day’, which is a day we celebrate to raise awareness against bullying. I think it’s a perfect tool for a curriculum that embraces that day and that message all year round.

Next to being an author, you’re also a journalist for The Advocate, the oldest and largest LGBT publication in the United States. 
I’ve been with The Advocate for about 5 years now. I love being part of that voice and I love highlighting some issues that perhaps other people in journalism wouldn’t think twice about. When I wake up in the morning it’s comforting to go to an office where things that are important to the LGBT community are discussed, and I love the ways in which we are aiming to encompass more than just that group; fighting for rights for women, or for people of color for example. All these things are part of our community as well, no matter where we come from, who we are, whom we love or what we look like.

 

 

Be patient and trust yourself. Look for others who are like you and don’t get caught up so much on those who aren’t.’

What are the significant changes in LGBT rights that happened over those 5 years? 
When I started at The Advocate we did not even have marriage equality in the state of California, but today we have marriage equality on a federal level. I think that’s one of the biggest things. But there is also the changing landscape of entertainment, the increase of our visibility and representation in Hollywood. We are seeing more LGBT characters and story lines on prime time television that are seen in millions of homes across America. I know we can continue to change the world for LGBT people and I’m trying to do what I can to aid that cause as a part of The Advocate team.

You won the “Journalist of the Year” 2013/14 award. That’s quite something.
It was a surprise and a wonderful honor. I thought that was such a marvelous reminder of how much the world is changing and taking LGBT stories seriously.

Will you continue writing children’s books?
I’d love to continue writing children’s books. Square Zair Pair has been in the making for a few years now so I’m very happy it is finally seeing the light of day. I’m looking forward to pushing that a little further for the next year and if the time is right after that for another book, absolutely!

If you could talk to your younger self, what would you say? 
I would say to be patient and trust yourself. Look for others who are like you and don’t get caught up so much on those who aren’t. Believe in yourself and just keep the faith. It’s easy to get absorbed in the things that aren’t working, but if we take a look at how they can work and how they can be better, especially when we’re younger and we have something to look up to and inspire us, then we’re all going to be ok. And that’s exactly why I wrote Square Zair Pair. This book is what I wished I had when I was younger.

Square Zair Pair is written by Jase Peeples with art by Christine Knopp. The book is available in hardcover and in eBook form for Kindle here.

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Et Alors? magazine. A global celebration of diversity.

Ghosting. A novel by Jonathan Kemp

Ghosting. A novel by Jonathan Kemp

Ghosting. A novel by Jonathan Kemp

Text JF. Pierets    Photo Christa Holka

 

When 64-year-old Grace Wellbeck thinks she sees the ghost of her first husband, she fears for her sanity and worries that she’s having another breakdown. Long-buried memories come back thick and fast: from the fairground thrills of 1950s Blackpool to the dark reality of a violent marriage. But the ghost turns out to be very real: a charismatic young man named Luke. And as Grace gets to know him, she is jolted into an emotional awakening that brings her to a momentous decision. We’ve talked to Jonathan Kemp, about his latest novel, Ghosting. 

 

The subject matter of Ghosting is completely different from London Triptych, 26 and The Penetrated Male. What happened? 
I suppose I got bored with writing about cock (laughs). I think I said everything that I had to say about gay male sexuality in the first three books. Having said that, my forthcoming book, Homotopia?, a nonfiction book, is about homosexuality.  It’s basically my Masters thesis, written in 1997, before any of those other three books. But all this considered, I believe as a writer you get seduced by a story or a character, and the origin of Ghosting is rooted in a journey that my mother made in 1967 when I was 8 weeks old. My father was in the Royal Air Force and got stationed in Malaysia. He went ahead because she was pregnant with me and she stayed behind to give birth in Manchester. After that we flew out there. Obviously I don’t remember a thing about it, but in my head it became this magical, mythical journey of a working class young woman who’s never been outside of the UK, traveling with three small children from one world to another. My original conception was to use the journey as a central metaphor, the notion of a journey. But then the character of Grace came to me and things developed from there. 

So it’s not a novel about your mother?
Not in any sense. There are massive differences in terms of Grace’s personality and the things that occur to her; my father didn’t beat my mother nor did he die. I’m not interested in writing an autobiography; I’m interested in expressing different strategies, events, and the truth of an emotion. But again, a lot of writing in general comes from asking yourself the question, “What if?” What if she’s relieved to find her husband dead upon arriving in Malaysia? He was a vile alcoholic and she didn’t want to go back to him anyway. What if she loses her daughter from whom she felt very estranged? I wanted to explore the concept of grief, but I also wanted to challenge some maternal issues in a We need to talk about Kevin, kind of way: in that, you might not necessarily like your child. 

Why write about grief? 
In many ways both London Triptych and 26 explore sexual grief, but it’s not really noticed upon. Grief is something that I’m fascinated by. It comes in many forms and I think, like most emotional realities, it’s experienced in radically different ways. Sometimes grief is considered inappropriate, as if it has a certain expiration date after which you have to get on with it. The whole capitalist, utilitarian mindset generally dictates that; they give you a month to grief and then you have to get back to work, be productive. It was that lack of compassion that I wanted to explore, to put Grace in a situation where her second husband didn’t allow her to grief. 

You’re also intrigued by mental illnesses, can you elaborate? 
Mental illness is related to grief in a way that it’s also an inappropriate emotion. What I wanted to do with Ghosting was explore the whole women-madness thing. It has been, and probably still is, a way of controlling female behavior. Asylums are places of containment for people, and quite often women, who are not acting appropriately. I have spent the last 20 years reading texts, novels, and poetry that center on the issue of female madness so I wanted to weave the subject into the book. 

Do you think this book will attract a different audience than for example London Triptych? 
I didn’t aim for any audience with any book really, other than attracting people who might be interested in the subject matter, the stories. I’m very pleased that London Triptych had a wider appeal; my mother and a lot of her friends really loved it and when I won the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, there were much older women congratulating me because they really wanted that book to win, “Because it’s filthy.” Ghosting had some great reviews and maybe that’s because of the way in which it’s so different from my previous work. It didn’t had the impact that London Triptych had, but that probably had to do with its slightly sensational subject matter and the explicit sex scenes. London Triptych is massively important to me because it shone a light on something that was marginalized: the history of male prostitution. It became a kind of stock novel for queer culture and queer history in London, which is great. It’s wonderful when a novel can have such an impact and is not just a flash in the pan. Ghosting is a much quieter book, yet it seems to have appealed to new readers. I’m grateful that they enjoy what I’m doing but I never really think about a specific audience and I certainly didn’t think it wasn’t for my ‘LGBT audience’. Primarily I will always write about LGBT lives, because that’s the life I live, and the world I inhabit, and as a writer you do draw of your own experiences. The way in which sexuality is dealt with, both historically and currently, in society has always been of interest to me so I will continually explore these issues in some shape or form. 

Next to being a writer you also teach creative writing and comparative literature at Birbeck College, University of London. Do you like it?  I do. I love the contact with my students and the whole experience of being in a classroom. The difficult part however is the marking, because you have to sit in judgment about the work of people you really like and in creative writing there is, obviously, a huge subjective element to it. Luckily there are criteria that you have to work with and even if you don’t like what you’re reading, you try to see the merits of it. I never imagined myself as a teacher though. I was always so desperately shy about talking in front of a group of people but I found that I really liked it. I was relieved to be good at something that actually made some money (laughs). 

 

 

‘Primarily I will always write about LGBT lives, because that’s the life I live, and the world I inhabit, and as a writer you do draw of your own experiences.’

I once read an interview with Paul Auster in which he stated that he could tell when a writer had followed a creative writing course. Do you agree? 
The whole industry of creative writing has been going on much longer in America than in the UK, but I’d agree with Auster on that one. Luckily you still get enough books that are maverick, written by somebody who has not allowed it to characterize their writing. 

You think there’s an actual formula for a bestseller?  
I do believe there is a formula, yes. I’m teaching a course at the moment about genres and analyzing the narrative structures of them. I think a formula is actually something that provides a pleasure to readers who would be disappointed otherwise. In a thriller, for example, you expect a certain unease; there’s a body and you have to solve the crime. You cannot, not solve the crime. You find a good metaphor for a reader/writer relationship-gone-wrong in Misery by Stephen King where the reader cripples the author when he does something she doesn’t like. Arthur Conan Doyle got bored with Holmes and killed him off in order to be able to write something else, but his readers became furious and demanded he bring Holmes did; so he did. He almost had no choice. The other things he wrote and published didn’t sell in the same amount so he was kind of coerced into resurrecting his most famous character. As a writer you obviously have some rules of commitment.

Do you have to write? Is it an urge? 
I’ve been writing all my life and my first novel only got published when I was in my early 40’s, so I always had that compulsion to write. I have always had the compulsion to read too, and for me the two go hand in hand. I don’t feel driven in as much as expressing something that ‘has to come out’. I’m driven to explore things that I’m thinking about, or images and characters that appear and who need to be observed. 

How do you write?
I’m not sitting down and tapping away my random thoughts; it’s usually a story that I want to tell, need to tell. I don’t know where the ideas come from; they just pop into my head. I work really slowly and I like to rework a text quite a lot. Ghosting got re-edited, re-drafted, probably over 20 times. The first draft I wrote was in the first person, in Grace’s voice, or an attempt at Grace’s voice, but it didn’t work. While I was figuring out why it wasn’t working, I came up with the idea of changing the point of view. I tried it out on the first couple of chapters and immediately the prose came alive. It wasn’t simply a case of replacing ‘I’ with ‘her’ or ‘she’, but something entirely different had to happen with each sentence once the point of view was shifted. 

You’re quite an activist on the internet, is writing also an attempt to change the world? 
I wouldn’t call that activism. That’s a big claim for any writer to take. Books don’t really change the world but they can change people and people can change the world. When my PhD, The Penetrated Male, came out, I talked about it at an event in a room filled with people from different sexualities and different genders. They were all talking about something because I’ve written a book about it. It was amazing because how often do you really have a serious, large scale conversation about men being penetrated?  

 

www.jonathan-kemp.com
www.myriadeditions.com

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