So I hosted the Queer Youth Cabaret at Buddies the other night and going in, I wasn't sure what to expect. I had not had a chance to attend QueerCab before hosting it and I heard from a reliable source (Padu) that the event had been known to occasionally go like this:
Host: Cracks a funny while introducing queer youth.
Audience: Crickets.
Queer Youth: Whatever. My poem's about DEATH.
Turns out that when you go in expecting the queer youth to diss you and then slit their wrists on stage, they end up being really sweet and fun. My favourite thing was that apparently some of the queer youth had taken part in a drag workshop at Buddies a week before and got up to strut their gender-bending biznass Wednesday night. That's right - a DRAG WORKSHOP. For QUEER YOUTH. Jealous?
I have to hand it to the queer youth. I was not that cool when I was their age. In fact, I'm still not that cool. Also, despite the fact that I spent most of my teens nursing my life-threatening crush on "Buliana Bivato" (I know, Chezza, I know - she was so out of my league), I'm not sure that it had occurred to me that I WAS queer at their age. I don't know about you guys, but I was 20 and it took a big butch whose name rhymes with "Bhristine" hitting on me repeatedly (and, eventually, successfully) before I fully embraced the inevitable lesbosity. And embrace it I did. Like a long-lost lover. Who'd brought a pie over. Good times.
Anyway - I picked "Slash Fiction" as the theme for QueerCab (a theme assiduously avoided by all the queer youth) because I've been thinking alot lately about queer stories and the lack thereof and how that's frustrating. Sure, Anne of Green Gables probably turned me gay, but can you imagine how much GAYER I could have been if there had been a queer equivalent in my childhood? Say Rebecca of Beaver Mountain? I recently went through a period of having "nothing to read" because I couldn't bring myself to crack the spine on yet another story about (god bless you all) straight people.
Don't get me wrong. I love straight people. My parents are straight. But Sweet Lavendar Lord, I am in need of some LESBIAN BOOKS. And so I appeal to you, gentle readers. Help me. Help me to find some good, clean lesbonic reading before I am FORCED to write my OWN book called The Three Pussketeers about a trio of swashbuckling dykes who save damsels in undress with the help of their fine fencing skills and many clever cats.
Here's a short list of the books I've read already.
- The oeuvre of Sarah Waters
- Selected works of Emma Donoghue (Just so you know, lesbians, there are no dykes in Slammerkin. I kept waiting for the main character to get it on with her prostitute roommate - then her lady boss - then the maid she shared a bed with. I was foiled.)
- Beyond the Pale (which I thought was well-written, but can never read again because *spoiler alert* AWFUL THINGS HAPPEN IN IT).
- Selected works of Jeannette Winterson
- Occasional Rita Mae Brown
- Some weird western where these two babes open an inn in the Nevada Desert and one of them ends up living as a man and getting all leathery.
So please - leave suggestions in the comments, or send me an e-mail or post your own "favourite lesbo books" list on your own blog. Because (straight) literary detective Thursday Next will only placate me for so long, people.
Speaking of placating, pictures of hat and sock knitting coming soon. Because I know you're all waiting with bated breath.
UPDATE: Thanks for all your suggestions - seriously, I'm all excited. Here's a bonus comment from SassyFemme that for some reason I can't post in the actual comments. Too many links - or does TypePad have it in for lesbian fiction??? History will decide.
From SassyFemme:
Lesbian fiction is one of my very favorite topics! Seriously, I usually go through a couple of books a week, more if we have a lazy weekend.
Okay, do you know about Radclyffe? She's my very favorite author. Other favorites are Frankie J. Jones, Peggy Herring, Karin Kallmaker, Gunn Brooke, and JLee Meyer. You should look at Bold Stroke Books and Bella Books to see authors/books, and to purchase them. BTW, Radclyffee is the owner of Bold Stroke Books. She quit her job as a surgeon to be a full time book publisher!
If you want to read online fiction, including some chapters or online versions of published stories check out Royal Academy of Bards (started as Xena fanfic, branched out to everything) and The Sandbox 101. If you want to see some of the "brainer side" of lesbian writing, then look at Golden Crown Literary Society.
There's more lesbian fiction out there than most of us have time or money to read, so happy reading! Let me know what you end up reading/liking!
