To come out, or not to come out. That is the question. I hear from middle school, high school and college students all the time, wanting advice about whether they should come out to their friends and family. It’s such a complicated question without a simple answer, and I try – to the best of… Read more »
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Michelle, ma belle, or, gays writing straights and vice versa
Michelle Miller had blond hair with bangs and she wore wire-framed glasses. She had a sweet smile and I thought she was beautiful. I was 12. I met her in charm school. I am not making this up. My mother sent me to charm school, where we would learn how to ballroom dance and talk… Read more »
Stuck!
The question I hear most frequently as a writer is, “How do you overcome writer’s block?” There are two answers to that question. One is my tried-and-true, ‘do-as-I-say-not-as-do’ answer: “Give yourself permission to write poorly. Stay at the computer and type. Stop judging what’s coming out, and sooner or later, the right words will come… Read more »
Openly Straight
One day a couple years ago, while living in Billings, Montana, and struggling to write a new novel called Openly Straight, I went to play some racquetball. I went to the Billings Athletic Club, the almost-always empty gym where I sometimes attempted to work out. Around lunch time, a group of middle-aged men would get… Read more »
Coming of Age in NYC, 1987
OK. Pretend it’s 1987. George Michael wants to be your father figure. Bill Cosby is America’s favorite dad. And a 6-foot-1, 135 pound, acne-riddled geek named Billy Konigsberg sits alone in a corner of the hallway at Riverdale Country School, scribbling lines in a notebook. He is miserable. He wants to die. Sometimes he sits… Read more »
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