Alan Michael Williams

Year of the Water Dragon

2012-01-24T13:28:00.000-08:00

...which I'll remember as the Year I Grew Out My Hair.

There's a stage between hair being short and becoming longer that it just looks like one desperately needs a haircut. Thankfully, I've moved out of that stage (mostly). All my life I've had short hair, so I'm welcoming the change. I doubt I'll grow it to ponytail length, but as the year goes on, I'll keep a lookout for a style.

I have the following goals this year of the water dragon:

Continue working on my fantasy novel, preferably at a faster rate than last year (which was slooooow...),
Get admitted into a PhD program (this feels like a semi-long shot, since I only applied to one),
Consistently go to martial arts class (topped with the less frequent gym workout and yoga class),
Strengthen my relationship with Michael (who also happens to be growing out his hair),
Oh, and continue to make ends meet.

I feel like I'm part of a generation where my job doesn't define me, which probably has something to do with the economy. When someone asks what I "do," sometimes I say I'm a "writer," other times I say I'm a "social worker." I've worked with vulnerable populations (supportive housing, shelters, detox, homecare) since I was eighteen, which means I've been doing this type of work for a decade now. But I haven't really had the drive to climb the social work ladder and become inundated with paperwork, which tells me it's time to move on. That's my hope with entering a PhD program: to get some teaching skills and to build upon my writing. Although, of course if I'd been smart, I'd have applied to more than one program. I wanted stay local, however...Seattle's a good city.

Ockham's Razor - for $2.99!

2011-11-26T15:54:00.000-08:00

I've lowered the Kindle/e-book price for Ockham's Razor from $7.99 to $2.99.
I've also released a PDF version, also for $2.99.
The print edition will still be $12.99. (Reviews are here.)

(More thoughts on this decision below...)

When I published the novel in 2009, my thoughts were that the print edition would come with the glorious front and back covers designed by the amazingly talented Anne Cain, and the e-book wouldn't. I had also put a lot of work into designing the interior PDF on Adobe inDesign (and chose a nice-looking perpetua typeface); Kindle scraps a lot of that work in the interest of its own file format and fonts. The target audience for Ockham's Razor is relatively small, and I knew that going in. All these factors lead me to price the e-book closer to the print edition to encourage people to buy the book in print.

2+ years later, I've decided to lower the price for the e-book to what has become an industry standard for indie authors. (Actually, the standard for many is 99¢, but that just seems sad given how much blood, sweat and tears goes into writing a novel.)

Yaoi-Con 2011 - Pics

2011-10-26T11:36:00.000-07:00

So, Yaoi-Con was fun~

Michael and I aren't big spenders, which is hard to do at the Con with all the great art, stories and merchandise overflowing the booths. We just followed a few threads. For him, he bought a Naruto & Sasuke poster (with them kissing, of course). We both invested in the first couple chapters of Teahouse, one the best American yaoi comics going on right now. I got a novel called Kaminishi after attending the author's panel and we picked up Blind Eye Books' newest release Smoketown, both of which are pretty good so far.

The cool thing about the yaoi community is there's a lot of free content -- it has what's called a gift economy.* For example, at the Teahouse link above, you can practically read the whole comic for free. At the completion of every chapter, lots of people still buy the comic to get the extra content, but the free content outweighs the extra (although, I would say that the extra tends to be more deliciously naughty than the free, so if you look at it that way... plus the fact that you have an actual book in your hands and you are supporting the artists whose stuff you love -- it equals out). The Con reflects the gift economy concept, too. During an auction where boys literally took off their costumes garment by garment for the audience, individuals and groups bidding against each other could ultimately join forces, reducing the cost per person, and share their "prize."

For me the Con was inspiring, since my next novel will be geared toward this market. It was great to see all these people interconnected, with no shame, living their passions, thriving. Although there's an obvious element of escapism to much of the stories and art, that element falls away slightly if you're a producer in this rough economy. So, it was good to feel that I don't have to fall back on safe monotony and should push forward with my aspirations.

Some pics (I'm Avan Hardins from Valkyria Chronicles II, and Michael is Noba from Bleach):

Created a cosplay.com account (a couple more pics there).
And, it wouldn't be Yaoi-Con without a pic like this.

I might use the costume again for Sakura-Con (here in Seattle) in April 2012. I'll have longer hair by then. xD

*See Donovan, Hope, "Gift Versus Capitalist Economies: Exchanging Anime and Manga in the U.S." in Boys’ Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre, eds. Antonia Levi, Mark McHarry and Dru Pagliassotti, 11-22. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010.

Yaoi-Con 2011 - Cosplay

2011-08-28T17:45:00.000-07:00

For Yaoi-Con this year, I will cosplay as Avan Hardins from Valkyria Chronicles II.

I've looked online and I can't find a costume for him. So even though I've never done this before (that is, I've never cosplayed before) and there's less than two months until the Con...

I am totally gonna create his costume myself!

I will update this post as I go along...

{1} Cheap, used beige blazer.

{2} Removed beige dye in hot water with a color remover, which revealed a tan base.

{3} Applied a "fiber reactive" blue dye in cold water.

Note the blazer is not 100% cotton -- 30% of it is polyester, so only 70% of the blazer accepted the dye.

This was the result. It's not quite as blue as I would've liked, but it'll work.

I also dyed a 100% cotton blazer before this, which turned out exactly the color of Avan's -- but unfortunately the fit of that blazer was not great. When I dyed this cotton/poly blend the same color it turned out a terrible light grey. Hence I dyed it a darker blue, which turned out as you see here.

I tried using a "disperse dye" for the polyester-ness, but instead of boiling the garment in the dye for an hour since I don't have a big enough pot, I thought I might be able to get away with running it through the hot cycle in the washer. Alas, the dye was only taken by the inner lining, which turned out purple! >_<

Moral of the story: only dye 100% cotton if you can. You'll have a lot more control over the color. Dying blended fabric is a crapshoot.

{4} Sewed on red cotton fabric to the lining and cuffs. Slightly tedious, since I'm not exactly a master seamster.

{5} Sewed black "bias tape" to the cuffs.

{6} Used a white acrylic paint marker on big, black square buttons to make them checkered. Sewed these on.

(Midway note: Ack. Avan has so much hair! I better get to growin' mine! Grow hair, grow!)

{7} Sewed on a Lanseal Military Academy patch. The patch was created at a custom t-shirt place (a screenprint onto cotton). I'd considered getting an embroidery, but that was a bit outside my budget.

{8} Attached a shoulder cord and knots. If ever you need such things, I'd suggest this company. They asked a lot of questions to make sure I got what I wanted; they even took pics to give me a preview before purchase. The product was $30, which included shipping from Philadelphia to Seattle -- making it the least expensive on the market that I found (considering it's customized).

Okay, blazer is done. Could use an iron, though...

{9} White button-down, black dress pants, brown shoes, short tie. I'm gonna forgo putting a red stripe down the pants since I didn't have a pair of nicely-fitting dress pants when I bought these; I want them around for other occasions.

{10} Yellow belt.

{11} Last step: colored my hair copper. Well, it's not technically the last step, but I'll leave the, uh, miscellaneous grooming to your imagination.

End Goal:

Did I succeed?

On Mormon Patriarchy and Homophobia

2011-08-02T14:16:00.000-07:00

A short essay for your reading pleasure:

On Mormon Patriarchy and Homophobia

By Alan Michael Williams

There are over two million mixed-orientation marriages in this country,* and I don't doubt plenty of these marriages are happy -- particularly if one of the orientations is bisexual. The question of same-sex marriage has never been about people’s ability or inability to make a mixed-orientation marriage work, but rather why a mixed-orientation marriage, fraught with potential dysfunction, should be a person's only option when he or she wants to marry.

Although it might be difficult for Mormons to grasp how same-sex marriage might fit into their theology, I should point out that faith communities who insist marriage is only between a man and a woman are always headed by heterosexual men. So while it might be true that man/woman marriage is “traditional,” patriarchy and homophobia are longstanding, too.

Faiths that okay gay marriage ordain women. Faiths that ordain women take into consideration women’s desires when formulating policy, to include lesbian desire. In the Church, lesbian desire hasn’t warranted a footnote in official discourse, which is to be expected when, at the top, only heterosexual men are speaking. Church leaders have taken into account straight women’s desire when it comes to recognizing how a straight woman might suffer when she marries a closeted gay man. But this concern appears rooted in making sure Mormonism’s heteropatriarchy (that is, a system in which heterosexual men are heard the loudest) stays strong. The reason I say this is because all LDS policy about gayness seems oriented toward how to continue to have men take wives, regardless of their orientations.

For decades, church leaders have told the general membership that gayness can be overcome if the battle is well-organized and pursued vigorously. The idea here is that nothing actually has to be "cured" if a person refuses to entertain evil thoughts. This homophobic wishful thinking keeps many in the closet to themselves and others, including their spouses.

More recently, as it has become clear that some are riddled with this particular kind of “temptation,” the hope is these people can learn to better compartmentalize themselves before marriage. If everyone helps in this regard, as opposed to expecting those affected to do it alone in silence, then what is thought of as a “reduction in homophobia” is thought to keep the overall culture intact. The belief that homosexuality is a worldly aberration, cured in Heaven, is kept intact.

This too is homophobic wishful thinking. If “families are forever,” as the Mormon mantra goes, then homosexuality can’t be a worldly aberration -- unless you want to disqualify many families from being families.

The Church is obviously interested in being a moral leader in the 21^st century. This means it will likely need to both ordain women and recognize same-sex marriages. I understand neither seems theologically possible at the moment, but there really is nothing special about sustaining patriarchy and homophobia.

*This estimation comes from Buxton, A. P. (2001), “Writing our own script: How bisexual men and their heterosexual wives maintain their marriages after disclosure,” Journal of Bisexuality, 1, 157.

Refocusing on Fiction

2011-08-01T16:57:00.000-07:00

I received an email yesterday from a reader of Ockham's Razor. He thanked me for "the sweetest love story" he's "read in ages" and to "implore" me to "write a sequel." Such a comment made my day, but I told him that I will leave a sequel to readers' imaginations as I have no plans to write one. I'm currently working on a fantasy novel, and if the romance is what hooked this particular reader, I informed him there will be plenty.

I took a break from writing fiction while I was in school. This new novel has been in its early stages for a while; I haven't been focusing on it as much as I'd like. I probably need to focus away from Mormon blogs and forums...

I'm also going to start learning Wing Chun (kung fu) today. I learned and practiced martial arts in my early twenties and now that I'm in my late twenties, it's time to pick up where I left off. I'm fairly certain the structure and balance I received from martial arts is what got me through writing my first novel (funny how that works).

"Mormon and Queer at the Crossroads" released!

2011-03-05T22:23:00.000-08:00

The Spring 2011 issue of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought was released this week, and as promised, here's a copy of my 32-page article "Mormon and Queer at the Crossroads."

(Yay!)

Teaching Yaoi to Undergrads

2011-02-11T23:52:00.000-08:00

Today I lectured undergrads about yaoi. My friend's course is a comparative literature course on Japanese manga, and this week was "boys' love" week. I had read all the students' response papers to a 2002 BL manga titled Only the Ring Finger Knows; it was fascinating to read all the different perspectives from students with different views about homosexuality. I framed my words around theirs.

Most of the students were okay with the "unusual" gender roles throughout the text. Many of them had astutely observed in their papers how the homo relationship of the text disrupts (or in some ways also reifies) rigid gender roles of many real-life hetero relationships (given that this was one of the main reasons yaoi came about: Japanese women's frustrations with rigid gender roles of their society). I explained to them that even if a particular yaoi story reifies roles by merely changing the gender of one of the characters, the fact is that yaoi producers/consumers imagine both roles, which is a definite disruption.

Near the end of the story there's a scene where the two main characters kiss in front of a young child, a niece (shown above) This made some of the students wonder about the political limits. So, I pulled up a YouTube video of that guy from Iowa with lesbian parents who I'm sure saw his parents kiss in front of him as he was growing up. I talked about how in the manga the characters move from running away from their feelings (because of homophobia) toward becoming publicly affectionate. I talked about the public/private divide and how there has been a movement from all affection being private, to hetero affection being public, to nowadays a very uneven ground in which gay affection is often said to need to remain private for the "sake of children" -- and how this is a double standard.

The discussion was somewhat lopsided, as I discovered it's difficult to get undergrads to talk -- although they were actively listening (other than the usual undergrad nodding off). When they did talk, I wanted to hear a lot more from them! (I need to learn me some pedagogical skillz...) Anyhow, the experience definitely made me nostalgic for school, not just for my own sake, but because of the very important sharing that goes on in the classroom space.

(pic from Only the Ring Finger Knows by Hotaru Odagiri [Digital Manga, Inc])

Racialized Domestic Servitude and the Perfect Mormon Housewife

2011-01-21T13:44:00.000-08:00

Click for my post at Main Street Plaza.

2010 LGBT issues in the Church: optimism or pessimism?

2011-01-05T15:32:00.000-08:00

I’m taking this topic from Joanna Brooks and John-Charles Duffy at Religion Dispatches who are optimistic and pessimistic respectively about what 2010 said about LGBT issues in the Church.

To summarize briefly, Duffy says that the Church’s movement toward accepting “sexual orientation” (a phrase it was not averse to using in 2010) due to scientific discourse and national dialogue means little if Mormons still think that God says “acting on your homosexual attractions” is wrong.

Brooks says that the wrangling of the grizzly bear known as Boyd Packer in October was a sign that the Church is moving away from its Prop 8 days and toward pluralist surrender that “sexual orientation” is here to stay — implying that the Church might be more open in the future to what others say about “sexual orientation.”

What I think is missing from this discussion, however, is the fact that the attraction/behavior distinction that the Church currently operates under intrinsically fails when people don’t accept sexual orientation, because without it, they’re liable to think of “attractions” (or same-sex thoughts) as “actions” that are sinful. Thus, the Church could be moving toward “sexual orientation” as normative as an internal anti-bullying mechanism, aside from scientific discourse and national dialogue.

The question for the coming years would be whether making a same-sex orientation normative would eventually render obvious the double-standard of no same-sex intimacy. I think the answer to this question is yes — regardless of all those gay Mormons (and their spouses) willingly entering mixed-orientation marriages. But as I’ve said elsewhere, there will be more fine-tuning of the funnel before the funnel is discarded as broken. Personally, I think of the funnel as the “sexual orientation classification system,” but you can call it “heterosexuality only” if you want. Anyway, there’s the grizzly issue of “eternal gender” in the mix, too...

(x-posted here).

Mormonism, disability, same-gender attraction

2010-12-21T13:21:00.000-08:00

Click for my post at Main Street Plaza.

Queer Mormon essay to be published!

2010-10-23T12:21:00.000-07:00

My essay "Mormon and Queer at the Crossroads" has officially been accepted into Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought! The editor, Kristine Haglund, has informed me that it will most likely show up in the Spring 2011 issue. I'll have one more chance to make perfectionist edits after the copy editor goes through it...and well, I already see a few tweaks here and there, but I also want the thing to be done.

The topic is so contentious. I feel like I should be awarded an honorary PhD in rhetoric just for having tackled the subject. I look forward to the discussion it generates...I cover a lot of important points. (I even have slightly grandiose ideas about changing the world.) At about 8500 words with 92 footnotes (might still change), it's my first major scholarly publication.

My hope is that the essay can land me [at some unspecified point down the road] in a PhD program of some sort. This is one of those interdisciplinary pieces: queer studies, feminist studies, cultural studies, psychology, sociology of religion, even a little bit of law.

Book Review: Lord of the White Hell by Ginn Hale

2010-09-11T15:14:00.000-07:00

Lord of the White Hell - Book 1 (of 2) by Ginn Hale
Blind Eye Books
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

My boyfriend and I were both excited when this book arrived and we read it aloud to each other a chapter at a time. We had high expectations because we've read a couple other titles from Blind Eye Books (Hale's debut Wicked Gentleman and Astrid Amara's The Archer's Heart) that we both liked...

First off, I want to say that we (my bf and I) really support the vision of Blind Eye Books, a small press based out of Bellingham, WA, that publishes fantasy/sci-fi with gay and lesbian protagonists. Currently, they have 5 novels (including Lord of the White Hell divided into two books) and 2 anthologies. 6 of 7 of their titles feature male protagonists and the ones we've read have a strong romantic subplot, which I take to mean that they are capitalizing on the market of M/M romance popular among females (inc. some lesbians) that also includes some gay male readers. I remember seeing Blind Eye at Yaoi-con last year, although I hadn't read any of their titles yet at that point.

Lord of the White Hell follows Kiram Kir-Zaki, a 17-year-old Haldiim who is really good with machines (insofar as machines exist in a medieval type of world). His parents have enrolled him in an all-male academy where everyone is Cadeleonian. Kiram is dark-skinned and curly light-haired whereas Cadeleonians are light-skinned and dark-haired; in other words, there's some racial politics to the story. Kiram's culture is matriarchal, takes a neutral position on same-sex relationships and has an historic faith that resembles animism. Conversely, the Cadeleonians are monotheistic, patriarchal, structured and strict. In the course of the first book, we actually don't see how the Cadeleonians would respond to a same-sex relationship, but it's made explicit that the answer is not good.

On his first day at the academy, Kiram meets Javier Tornesal. A few years older than Kiram, Javier is a cocky Cadeleonian duke that is plagued with a curse that the Cadeleonians call the "white hell." Whereas Kiram is treated badly for being Haldiim, a lot of students are afraid of Javier because of the curse, which gives Javier power to heal quickly, shoot violent sparks from his hands and a few other powers. He is regularly subdued with poison under the auspices of penance and a fear that the curse will consume him otherwise (although there is question in Kiram's mind whether this is the true reason).

Kiram and Javier share a room as outcasts in a tower of the academy. The two are attracted to one another and share sporadic bouts of passion that only makes their relationship more complicated. Basically, the story is about their budding relationship, Kiram's adjustment to the academy, with a background mystery concerning the curse.

What bogged the story down, and why I ultimately give it a lower-ish rating, were three weaknesses that blend together: (1) the pace, (2) an overuse of nonessential dialogue and (3) repetition. In terms of pace, the story is divided into two books when we think it should only be one. A number of scenes felt like filler, and sometimes within an entire chapter, the plot crawled forward. This changes for the better in scenes with Kiram's uncle and his husband, but the story from Kiram's perspective felt too limited (or something). More and more I wanted to know about what was happening beyond Kiram rather than hear his friend Nestor talk about his drawings for the third or fourth time.

Hale overuses the word "bow": people are bowing left and right, both their heads and their waists. People are also giving people kinds of looks frequently, so much that we stopped caring what kind of smile Javier was giving Kiram. This is just a matter of having different ways to describe characters (filling beats between lines of dialogue), which we felt Hale did a much better job of in Wicked Gentlemen. Oh, and the typos...probably around 30 of them. Too many!

I preordered both books and have begun reading the second one. My boyfriend and I have decided not to read it aloud, but the concluding half has a lot of potential.

Interview about Ockham's Razor posted at Affirmation

2010-08-27T12:37:00.000-07:00

These were great questions that were tough to answer. *wipes brow*

For more info and reviews of my novel, click here.

My experience at Sunstone

2010-08-09T16:59:00.000-07:00

Click for my post at Main Street Plaza.

Click here for a copy of my presentation.

I compared the themes and reception of my novel, Ockham's Razor,
to Jonathan Langford's novel, No Going Back,
both young adult gay Mormon novels published in 2009.

Faithful LDS women and m/m romance consumption

2010-07-24T18:51:00.000-07:00

Click for my post at Main Street Plaza.

Welcome

2010-07-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

In 2009, I self-published a gay Mormon novel titled Ockham's Razor, based on real life (check out my site for reviews/excerpt!)

In 2010, I wrote "Mormon and Queer at the Crossroads" (an article), published in the Spring 2011 issue of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. It was one of the fruits of my master's program.

2011 will be for writing a fantasy novel with gay/lesbian protagonists. I'm a yaoi fan, so expect the genre to influence my storytelling.

Website: amwilliams.com