China has a long history of tolerance towards homosexuality, beginning from the first references to same-sex relationships in the records of the Shang Dynasty (16th-11th centuries BC) and ending (after a rather shaky period from 1740 onwards) with the persecution of homosexuals during the Cultural Revolution. That’s over three thousand years of a society that occasionally celebrated same-sex love, occasionally denigrated it, but more often than not, just let people get on with it.
In typical elliptic style—because direct talk of sexual matters was considered unbelievably vulgar—Chinese literature referenced homosexual acts by means of phrases such as ‘cut sleeve’, ‘bitten peach’, or by name-dropping gay historical figures. The most famous stories are of Mi Zi Xia and his royal lover, Duke Ling of Wei, who shared a peach (yutao, ‘leftover peach’); and Emperor Ai, who cut off his sleeve to avoid disturbing his sleeping lover Dong Xian, which created a court trend whereby everyone went around cutting their sleeves (duanxiu, ‘breaking the sleeve’).
Qu Yuan, an admired poet of the Warring States period (340-278 BC), wrote poems to his lover, the King of Chu. Historical documents such as Sima Qian’s Memoirs of the Historian and the exhaustive dynastic records of the Han dynasty list scores of male favourites of the ruling monarchs. Throughout the Western Han dynasty (206 BC-23 AD), ten of the thirteen emperors took male lovers in addition to the necessary wives and concubines. Sima Qian wrote that the male favourites were often admired more for their skills in war, administration, or cultural pursuits than for their beauty.
My favourite of the Western Han emperors, Han WuDi (‘the Martial Emperor’)—or Liu Che, to give him his real name—was one of these ‘bisexual’ emperors. Liu Che liked to keep things within family units, too—his male lovers included an uncle and nephew, plus the famous musician Li Yan Nian and Yan Nian’s sister, Lady Li. My novella Fall of a State (available now from Dreamspinner Press) is a somewhat fluffy version of the relationship between Liu Che and his musician. Li Yan Nian is credited with writing the ‘Northern Beauty’ song (a version of which appears in the film House of Flying Daggers when Zhang ZiYi performs for Takeshi Kaneshiro), which—due to the Chinese language having no gender for its nouns and pronouns—means the Beauty could refer equally to a man or a woman. In my story, it does both.
During the period of disunion (265-589), in which six separate dynasties ruled and overlapped, the historians of the Liu Song dynasty record that homosexuality was as common as heterosexuality:
“All the gentlemen and officials esteemed it. All men in the realm followed this fashion to the extent that husbands and wives were estranged. Resentful unmarried women became jealous.”
Efforts were made during the Tang dynasty (618-907) to restore more of a ‘traditional’ moral order. Somewhat ironically, the first Crown Prince of the dynasty, Li Chen Qian, was gay. He was later removed from succession, though not for that reason.
By the time of the Song dynasty (960-1279), an increase in urbanisation and the introduction of paper money caused a growth in prostitution. A law was passed against male prostitution, but it seemed not to have been enforced with any rigour. The merchant classes, suddenly given a voice in the historical and literary records, had money to spend and lusts to fulfil. With their respectable wives raising families at home, the merchants went out partying with pretty young sing-song boys.
[Rest of the post cut because of explicit historical erotic images – NSFW!] (more…)
“I should have been a more famous writer if I had written or rather published more, but sex prevented the latter.”
In case anyone missed this, The Sunday Times had an interesting article on the reason EM Forster didn’t (or rather, couldn’t) write anything after the publication of A Passage To India in 1924 – because he connected his creative output to the repression of his sexuality, and once he’d lost his virginity, at the age of 38, to ‘a wounded soldier on an Egyptian beach’, the creative urge was no longer quite so urgent.
Read the article in full here.
I particularly liked his diary entry that says:
“Now I am 85 how annoyed I am with society for wasting my time by making homosexuality criminal. The subterfuges and the self-consciousnesses that might have been avoided.”
Indeed.
Call for Submissions: Vintage
Pictures and photographs capture our faces and preserve our memories. Generations later, they spark our imaginations, making us wonder: Who is in the picture? What are they doing? How are they feeling?
Vintage is a call for written works inspired by pictures or photographs. We are looking for authors who will tell us the story behind those two men on the beach…or standing next to bench…or staring out a window…or looking oddly shy in each other’s presence. We want high quality, original fiction that will draw the reader into world of the photo or picture, to share and reminisce.
Guidelines
Length: Short novels, 10K to 50K words
Theme: Historical love stories that feature a relationship between male same-sex couples, inspired by a picture or photograph. While the actual taking of the photograph (or painting of the picture) does not need to be included in the narrative, the picture/photo does need to be included in the storyline. If you want examples of what we are thinking of, you might want to read Our One and Only by E.N. Holland or Lover’s Knot by Donald Hardy (see in particular, pp. 259-260 and p. 324).
For the purposes of this collection, “historical” is defined as any time in history in which a photograph or painted picture could be produced, with a cut-off date of 1985. Love stories, to us, are those stories that tell of a relationship in a realistic and meaningful way. We do not have a requirement for a “happy ever after” or a “happy for now” ending although that certainly would be acceptable. We recognize the challenges that same-sex couples have faced in the past (and continue to face, but that’s another story) and that can be portrayed, although we also would like these relationships shown in a loving and positive way, to the extent that is possible, given time and circumstance.
Characters can be any age from 15 on up. For stories that feature characters under the age of 18, the relationship must be consensual and presented in a positive light. Teenagers exploring a first, forbidden love would be fine; an older man raping a younger boy would not. It should go without saying but we’ll say it anyway: no incest or bestiality. No vampires or werewolves, no paranormals, although if a story featured a ghost in the old fashioned, classic definition of a ghost story, that would be considered. Again, Lover’s Knot is a good example of the latter.
As these are love stories, scenes of characters making love can certainly be included but we do not have a requirement for a set number of sex scenes or level of explicitness. Let your own judgment be your guide: if it is important to the story, include it; if not, leave it out. In general, we are looking for books written for an adult audience that will appeal to a wide variety of readers.
Submissions
Query: Send an email to publisher@bcpinepress.com . Include Query: Vintage and the proposed title of your book in the subject line. In the body of the email, include a one paragraph (150-200 word) synopsis of the story. Attach to the email: 1) the photo/picture that inspired you; and 2) the first 5000 words of your story, in a Word doc or PDF. Manuscripts do not need to be complete to be submitted. If an incomplete manuscript is accepted, the completed manuscript will be due two (2) months after the final contract is negotiated and signed. Publication will be two (2) months after a final, completed, edited manuscript is signed off by the author and accepted by the publisher.
Please include your contact information including name, address, email address, and phone number. Queries can be submitted under a pen name, if one is used, although a legal name will be required for a contract, if one is offered.
Queries will be acknowledged upon receipt. A final decision on acceptance/rejection will be made within two (2) weeks. If you do not receive an acknowledgement, please re-send, as messages do get lost in cyberspace.
Photograph/Picture and Cover: All books in the Vintage series will use the template cover, as illustrated here, substituting the author’s name, book title, and photograph/picture. Photographs/pictures must be in the public domain or you must have documented permission for its use.
Production, Sales, and Payment
Production: All books will be edited by BCPP staff. Books will be assigned an ISBN and listed in Books in Print. Covers, as noted above, will use the Vintage template.
Format: eBook only. BCPP produces books in a variety of formats that can be read on multiple devices, including laptops/PCs, smartphones/PDAs, iPhones/iPads, the Nook, the Sony e-reader, and the Amazon Kindle. Books are sold in several outlets including Amazon, All Romance ebooks, and OmniLit. We do not sell in the Sony store, although books are sold in a format that is readable on the Sony e-reader. Plans are in the works to sell in the AppleStore.
Pricing: Books will priced and sold according to length: up to 15K words, $2.99; 15K to 30K words, $3.99; 30K words and above, $5.99.
Royalties and Advances: BCPP is a traditional royalty paying publisher. At the time the book is deployed for sale at the outlets through which we sell, an advance (against royalties) will be paid, based on length: up to 15K words, $25; 15K to 30K words, $50; 30K words and above, $100. After that, royalties are paid quarterly at a rate of 40% of the net proceeds to the publisher.
Marketing: Marketing is a joint effort between the author and the publisher. All Vintage books will be featured on the Bristlecone Pine Press website (www.bcpinepress.com) and included in our catalog. We will submit review copies to popular review sites, including Speak Its Name and Reviews by Jessewave. We hope that the Vintage books become a recognizable and popular series that readers will look forward to and purchase impulsively.
Deadline
This is an ongoing call for submissions. At present there is no deadline. Submissions are welcome at any time. Please feel free to direct questions about this call to the publisher, Leslie H. Nicoll, at publisher@bcpinepress.com.
The Bristlecone Pine Press editorial team looks forward to hearing from you!
Last Monday was our local Romantic Novelists Association lunch. They’re a great bunch, a mix of published (mainstream press) and semi/wannabee published authors, nine of us in all. At the last lunch we’d been chatting and they discovered I was an e-book author so they asked me to be the guest speaker this time – on that very subject.
In preparation, I asked for feedback about the pros and cons of e-book publishing and got some fantastic answers, which I’ll share (verbatim) here:
Pros
Readers
• the convenience of being able to carry a lot of books on my laptop
• easier to store the books as well since they don’t take up as much physical space. Great if travelling or relocating temporarily.
• my favourite thing is being able to search the doc. I’ll have forgotten who a character is when he pops up again. Then I can search for one or more spots that name was used in the book. Paper books requires a very good memory (for some) or a lot of dog-earing.
• Instant Gratification (don’t have to look for a bookstore, can buy anytime)
• “embarrassing” book covers (romance/erotica)
• Privacy – eg adult books are harder for others to know what you are reading – no covers!! discrete
• More genres have a venue (GLBT/Erotica/BDSM to name a few)
• Cost of books is usually cheaper (but eligible for VAT!)
• Better for the planet (ecology)
Publishers
• Publish shorter stories viably
• Fewer on-costs (like POD)
Authors
• Gives more authors a voice
• Enable self publishing
• Sell shorter stories viably
• Royalties – in the region of 40% cover price, often quickly paid
Cons
• For portability need an ereader, cost still high – also accessibility issues (socioeconomic – anyone can read a print book)
• lack of an agreed ereader format
• Publishers versus Retailers causing fluctuating pricing
• Problems with some entering the market (Apple’s Ipad has only one format?)
• Traditional publishers still reluctant to use for all books
• ereader can be dropped and broken and you either have to repair or purchase new one. Lose all the books in the process – less likely to set library on fire!
• I do still like to hold a print book (and the smell is great)
• Can’t mark pages/make notes/etc
• Can’t lend a book to a friend
• Cons-power dependent,
• equipment and/or software failure may lead to loss of the books,
• can’t share them with friends and family unless they live in your household(not legally),
• harder to read in bed/bath
• Publishers see piracy as an issue more with ebooks
The reaction from my audience was definite interest (especially when we looked at the level of royalties and the relative speed of going from mss to sellable form). One of them had already seen some of her books go print to e-book and others saw this as a way of getting into the market. Another author also saw an advantage that I hadn’t picked up – that e-books aren’t stuck on a particular shelf in a shop but can be advertised online across genres.
You’ll be pleased to know that I don’t think I disgraced myself, especially when ‘gay romance’ got mentioned.
The Macaronis 