Winner of the 2014 Lush Triumphant Literary Awards for Creative Non-Fiction. Published in subTerrain Magazine.
Illustrations by feature artist Maryanna Hardy.

Berton House Writers’ Retreat
Dawson City, Yukon

Interview with Holley Rubinsky, Kootenay Co-op Radio.

Authors Aloud , the voices of Canadian literature.
Thanks to Trevor Cole and to Holley Rubinsky.

ManBug week at the LitBlog Co-op
Matt Cheney explains why he nominated ManBug.
Matt Cheney's blog at The Mumpsimus.
Podcast with Carolyn Kennedy at Pinky's Paperhaus in Pittsburgh (of all places).

Fictitious Reading Series
This Ain't the Rosedale Library
with Susan Kernohan, and hosted by Stuart Ross and Kate Sutherland.

Robson Reading Series
UBC Robson Square Bookstore
with Lydia Kwa, Debra Anderson, and Sean Horlor

The Literary Life: Blessing or Curse?
Readers and Writers Exchange at the Vancouver Public Library
with Betsy Warland and David Helwig

In the latest development on the international scene, "brokeback" is new slang in Hong Kong ("dun bui") to mean not just a gay thing but any sort of horribly awkward or doomed relationship.

David Chariandy, of Simon Fraser University, confused the crowd by not making any Brokeback Mountain jokes, and yet offered a generously effusive introduction which speaks to a future in fiction:

George also did not mention Brokeback Mountain, but had prepared other spontaneous comments:

People say to me, George, how could you ever write a book about someone who is socially awkward? People say to me, George! How could YOU ever write about someone who is earnest and oblivious, a little bit geeky, and immune to sarcasm? And I say, well, I did my research. Didn’t talk to that many people, but I did read a lot of library books.

[ManBug] counts yucky bug lore foremost among its eccentricities. You may never again think of lipstick or your nose or chocolate-covered raisins in quite the same way.

All is quiet, and ManBug is taking shape. First called "The Programming of Mortals," then briefly even had a Japanese title at one point (in english, Only One Butterfly, but rendered phonetically in Katakana, the Japanese alphabet used to transliterate foreign words, and then into roman-ji, as: On-rii wan ba-ta-fu-rai). This story line was intended to be somehow concerned with the double-edged sword of cultural contact resulting from the America Occupation of Japan (1945 to 1952). After ManBug was published and I was cleaning off my desk I realized that I could still write "On-rii wan ba-ta-fu-rai" because none of this material is in ManBug.

There used to be a photo on the Fed website, of me and one ridiculous moustache. I immediately shaved.

Wilde About Sappho, the longest running public program at the National Library of Canada, is a fundraiser for the Lambda Foundation, who award scholarships in conjunction with a number of participating Canadian universities. I stayed at this beautiful old bed and breakfast (the Inn on Somerset) and having spent too long in Vancouver was thrilled at the novelty of the Canadian winter experience. The one free afternoon was gloriously sunny and not-too-cold, perfect for skating on the Rideau Canal, stopping only for hot chocolate and beaver tails.

With Felice Picano, Suki Lee, Karen X. Tulchinsky, and Will Aitken, we travelled to Montreal for a reading at Dawson College, then drove back to Ottawa through a blizzard for presentations at Carleton University, and Canterbury High School, followed by a gala event at the National Library. The next day, on to Toronto for a public reading at the Metro Reference Library. Four days, three cities, five events. A blur of wine and cheese and crackers. This, obviously, is the life of a writer. Fun for a week, but equally obvious that if this was my life I would never write another word. Oh, the inescapable irony.

This sold-out event was an opportunity to showcase my spontaneous opening comments, which I always take great pains to rehearse.
     At this time, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy was new and topical (I had even overheard two older women on the bus to Victoria discussing who was their favourite: they seemed to agree on Carson, although they liked them all). This hit show was a revolutionary concept: these queer eyes were everywhere and people found them delightful.
     Well, some people. I confessed that it was my nightmare to have those Queer Eye guys show up at my home. At least straight guys have an excuse, I said. I mean, they’re straight. No one expects much. No one expects straight guys to be able to dress themselves, or know where to put the coffee table. Or, heaven forbid, what to put on the coffee table.
     But me, I have no excuse, I’m just a bad fag.
     My big question is: Who has time to be gay?
     So that is what I need: queer eye for the bad fag. I need to learn how to be totally gay in half the time!

Random Acts of Hatred was launched in Vancouver on October 1, 2003. It was my first book, and I always thought my first book was going to be a novel.

Book launches are stressful. Everything private and quiet about being a writer suddenly is out in the open and making a lot of noise. In space, as they say, no one can hear you scream. In the shower, no one can see you cry. I had my shower moment, just before the launch of my first book. What was going on? I was feeling so happy and scared at the same time, a mushy welter of stuff that felt mostly like an almost unendurable anti-climax.

After the launch: I returned home to find that the mask on my bedroom wall, a crimson and gold leaf, fanged and goggle-eyed Indonesian style mask I’d picked up in Tokyo, had fallen to the floor. When are things metaphors and when are they just stupid little things that happen? In any event, when my first book was launched, my mask fell off the wall.

But even before the launch of my first book, I was sitting in the Moss Cafe in Broma (the Broadway and Main neighbourhood of Vancouver, where I live), having a Saturday morning coffee, and reading the book section of The Globe & Mail. Yasser Arafat was on the cover, rendered in impressionist splashes of green and red and grey, appearing somewhat like a west coast Tlinglit mask.

And inside I stumbled upon the first review of my first book. Just like that, there it was, reviewed in the national press. The saving grace of Random Acts of Hatred, according to Jim Bartley, the Globe’s first fiction reviewer, was "its authoritative evocation of the hell that can unfold for gay kids who lack sensitive and supportive nurturers." (Gay hell begins at home, The Globe & Mail, September 20, 2003)