A couple of years ago, when I was a regular participant in a “bisexual social discussion group,” I used to have fun with a good friend, a bisexual man married to a woman, debating the difference between a bisexual man and a gay man married to a woman. We weren’t seriously trying to name names or define other people—it was more of an amusing unresolvable question, the middle-aged successor to those college dorm philosophy all-nighters that some people supposedly enjoyed as undergraduates. Read More
From Phyllida's Desk
Pride and Prejudice and Myrmidons
June 29, 2010
My second novel, Pride/Prejudice, as the / in the title indicates, is a kind of "slash" fiction, a version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice with same-sex relationships between the characters. Of course, by describing the story this way, I seem to be implying that the original novel is "heterosexual," and that by "slashing" it I've changed the characters or the story--that I've "homosexualized" it. Even the publishing contract describes the book as one in which Austen's characters are "turned" bisexual. Read More
Harsh Vocabulary
March 22, 2010
By now, you've probably noticed that I “talk back” to reviewers. I imagine that breaks any number of commandments for authors, even the really famous best-selling ones. At least I don't write aggrieved letters to the editor complaining that the reviewer didn't understand my brilliant work. All I do is talk to myself on my blogs, and to whatever readers are kind enough to listen in. It's hard for me to curb my instincts. I'm a “conversational” writer. I see my novels as the opening monologue in what I hope will be an ongoing, multiple back-and-forth discussion among readers, and between readers and me.
My latest conversation piece is a review of three Austen-inspired works, one of them my Pride/Prejudice, in the Washington Post
and in particular this line: “Her vocabulary is harsh, and the numerous sexual encounters too explicit to quote here.”
Guilty as charged, as Mr. Darcy says on page 1 during a not-so-explicit by today's standards sexual encounter. Of course, it is only page one ;) Read More
My latest conversation piece is a review of three Austen-inspired works, one of them my Pride/Prejudice, in the Washington Post
and in particular this line: “Her vocabulary is harsh, and the numerous sexual encounters too explicit to quote here.”
Guilty as charged, as Mr. Darcy says on page 1 during a not-so-explicit by today's standards sexual encounter. Of course, it is only page one ;) Read More