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Son of a Preacher Man

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I create a playlist for all of my books, because music appears in all of my stories, mostly as a way to place the story in time, but often to reflect how the characters are feeling. Sometimes the songs are just meant to tell us something about the characters. My October release, “He,” was no exception but in the case of this book, the first song on the playlist was especially freighted as it underscores a key scene, and it tells us something important about one of the main characters and colors his relationship. Here is the first song from the playlist for “He.” Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man,” was an obvious choice for a few reasons, one of which is her status as a gay icon—a gay woman who came out and stood up in the 70s saying, yes, I am. Famously, she was deported from South Africa for performing to an integrated audience, which was prohibited by the South African government at the time; her contract specifically excluded segregated performances, which made her ...
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End of Summer Musings: Uncles's Bootcamp, Writing, Nephews and Awards

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Each year since the pandemic, my husband and I (along with my younger brother) take our nephews, Max and Xavier, aged ten and seven rspectively, for a week each August. We call it “Uncles’s Bootcamp.” It was originally conceived as a Christmas present for my oldest brother and his wife to give them a break from their two kids, both of whom are on the spectrum. We planned the vacation as bootcamp because their parents are “free-range,” and thus have pretty lax rules. During their week with us, the boys have a schedule: there are set bedtimes and mealtimes during which they are expected to sit at the dining table and eat. There is an itinerary of activities, combining outings and free time. We’ve visited the zoo, farms; The Natural History museum; the Please Touch museum; went for pony rides and; we’ve fed bison and giraffes and chickens; and petted goats. We’ve been on merry-go-rounds and rides at Sesame Place and watched them on trampolines and in ball pits at Urban Air. They’ve g...
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Midnight at the Cinema Palace: A Book Review

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I was one of the judges for the 2023 Lambda Literary J. Michael Samuel Prize which Christopher Tradowsky won for his novel in progress, “ Midnight at the Cinema Palace ,” so I was beyond excited when his publicist offered to send me a copy of the now-completed book. I was anxious to see whether the novel lived up to its early promise. Cinema is one of those books—all too rare in my humble opinion—in which the journey—not the destination —is the point. Within its pages, there is no mystery to solve, no star-crossed lovers to root for, no battles to be won or lost. Instead, reading this novel is like taking a meandering train trip across a landscape that is at once known and unknown but undeniably beautiful, in one of those plush 1930s private coaches pulled by a stately gleaming steam engine: you feel relaxed, slightly outside of time. This novel is many things: a love letter to San Francisco and old movies, particularly film noir, and the magnificent palaces they were once shown i...
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Today, my husband and I celebrate twenty-eight years of commitment, and eleven years of legal marriage. During our twenty-eight trips around the sun together, during which we witnessed and weathered The Great Recession and the pandemic and Trump's first reign of terror and incompetence. I look back on our journey with gratitude. I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather walk through life with. It hasn’t been all champagne and roses—though in truth it has probably included way too much champagne, but I find popping a bottle to celebrate things big and small—even opening a bottle to toast being able to have Sunday morning breakfast together—helps balance the heavier side of life. We have helped and supported each other through the loss of his grandparents, my parents and four dogs. Together we have built a life and an art collection; we have bought—and renovated—two houses, seven cars, rescued six dogs, planted a dozen trees and countless shrubs and flowers; welcomed the birth of ...
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A Season of Joy: Songs of Summer 2024

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I feel silly for feeling nostalgic about Summer 2024 and its adventures—feeding the giraffes and a bison at the Elmwood Park Zoo; ziplining for the first (and last) time at Urban Air; watching our crepe myrtles release their blooms the color of cranberry sauce; listening to the songs that would form the summer’s soundtrack. It’s September.   The calendar tells us there are 20-some-odd days of summer left; yet we all know—Summer draws its last breath each year at midnight on Labor Day. School buses are back on the roads, tangling traffic; college campuses are buzzing with activity; people are closing up their shore houses; radio stations are rushing to name the songs of summer 2024. The latter has made me decide to name my own songs of this summer. More on that in a minute. Perhaps it’s a sign of getting older, but time seems to be passing lickety-split. June marked ten years of us being legally married. My brother and his wife will celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary this...
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In Memoriam: For a Sista

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“She is gone,” she said, “She is dead.” “What?” I asked, wondering how this could be. She was only 35. She was the most alive person I’d ever met. She vibrated with life to the tips of her exquisitely painted acrylic nails. When I think of her, many adjectives come to mind: tacky—she loved red and black and leopard prints, unfortunately often in combination, and false eyelashes that perched like tarantulas over her big brown eyes, and lace-front wigs in blonde and Lucille Ball red, and lipstick in bright red and the dark colors of mourning—promiscuous; combative. She was unapologetically herself. She was raucous and raunchy. She had a heart of gold; sterling silver pumped through her veins. She was funny and clever and caring and supportive. When I first started working with her, she cheerfully took me under her wing sharing with me what I needed to know—things that weren’t mentioned in HR’s dry and out-of-date PowerPoints, or in my vague, slightly misleading job description. Of...
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Notes From an Old Man: On Being 27 Years Married

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Today we’ve been married 27 years, using the date of our “commitment” ceremony, which was the only option available to us at the time—and our tenth (legal) wedding anniversary, thanks to the Pennsylvania state legislature who granted us the right to marry a year before SCOTUS declared in the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision which ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. From the time I was 12 years old, I knew I would marry a boy. I didn’t have a plan or a road map but, even then, I had a vision and no doubt that one day I would. June 28, which is the date of both our commitment ceremony and legal marriage, is also the anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion which kicked off the modern-day gay rights movement. We didn’t choose that date originally for its historical significance, rather it was a practical decision; we didn’t want to...
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