The Bard's Fire

From time to time, I get questions from readers and fans about my works, including the anthologies I’ve edited.

Q: The Ladies of Trade Town is a themed anthology about prostitution. Did you catch heat about such a controversial subject?

Lee: First, a small correction. It’s a themed anthology about people who sell services that some consider controversial. And, yes, I did catch some heat, but not nearly as much as I expected. Before any of the stories that would be selected were even in my hands, I got a few letters condemning the anthology as “an abomination” and “immoral” and I’ll leave it to your imagination to what they called me. A few raged at me for being “an exploiter of women” and “misogynstic”. I note every one of the latter group apparently assumed I was male, since they were addressed to Mr. Martindale.

One of the things I do when writing submission guidelines is to give information on the kind of stories I want and don’t want. For Trade Town, I was looking for science fiction, fantasy, and related-genre stories that expanded the concept of what was being bought and sold, who was doing the buying and selling, and how that translated to the time, place, and society of the setting of the story. What I wasn’t looking for was porn or erotica, which – given the theme - apparently threw some writers a bit of a curve. A few wrote me saying that it was impossible to address the theme without one of those elements. Happily, a lot of good writers – those who made the cut and many who didn’t, figured out that it was, indeed, possible.

Q: Where can readers find The Ladies of Trade Town?

Lee: My online bookstore, HarpHaven Merchanter, carries our full catalog, including the trade paperback edition of Trade Town. Readers can order it signed by me, and can have it personalized to themselves or to the recipient if it’s a gift, at no additional charge. Shipping is free.

http://www.harphaven.net/dir

Readers who prefer ebooks can find it at Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=%22The+L...

and Barnes and Noble

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/la...

Amazon.com also has the trade paperback available.

I may have said this before, but one of the things that has kept me relatively sane during nearly two years of mostly-quarantine has been the virtual panels I've participated in. The latest one is now available.

Con-Tinual's Panel Room 99 is about getting it right when writing martial arts, and was great fun to be part of. You can find it on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIsBiNqnrRA or at https://www.facebook.com/james.nettles/videos/652921502380951.

By all accounts, holiday shopping this year is going to be an adventure. Possibly frustrating and, in some cases, disappointing, thanks to the issues with supply chain, ground transport, staffing, and the myriad other components of commerce.

Small press, self-pubbing, crafters, and makers could well be our ace in the hole. No waiting for goods made in other countries or ships to be unloaded. The goods are in-house and ready to ship. Yes, the post office is problematic, but ordering early takes care of that.

And while you're at it, that includes my HarpHaven Merchanter. There's a handy link at the top of the screen on the right.

It’s been an interesting week-and-change here at HarpHaven. Two rounds of freezing rain and sleet with about 5" of snow in the middle, outside temperatures that stayed in the single-digits for days, bottomed out one night at -2F, and didn’t get above freezing until yesterday afternoon. And what can only be defined as an epic failure of the Texas power grid that resulted in millions of Texans battling the cold in the dark. Without water, in many cases, or with water rendered not potable by equipment failures in many others.

We were, and continue to be, incredibly lucky. The longest our power was continuously off was about eight hours. Most of the week, power would come on for between two and three hours, followed by three to four hours without it. During the hours the power was on, we’d run the furnace, drink hot beverages and have a hot meal, hot soup, or a snack, and charge phones, iPads, camp lanterns, and flashlights. During the hours the power was off, multiple layers and extra blankets were our friends, we kept an eye on dripping faucets, and I did more reading-for-fun than I’ve managed for years. Temps in the house went no lower than 55F, except for that one subzero night when the house temp dropped to 45F. It made for a less-than-restful sleep schedule, but it could have been so much worse. The fridge and freezer both held. So, it appears as of this writing, did the pipes.

The only casualty seems to have been the cable TV box. Himself is going out later today to turn it in and pick up the arranged replacement, so my task tonight will be setting up the new box.

As I said, we were, and continue to be, incredibly lucky.

I married my husband for his cooking skills. Okay, I married him for many reasons, but his cooking skills were definitely high on the list. And yesterday’s Socially-Responsible-Quarantined-Thanksgiving-Dinner-For-Two proved, without a doubt, that he’s a keeper.

The turkey breast: moist, tender, perfectly seasoned. He brined it for several hours before slow-roasting. Cornbread dressing, that began with homemade white bread and cornbread and baked in muffin tins for a tasty combination of crunchy outer layers enclosing pillow-soft middles. Green bean casserole, because we like it. Sweet potato mashed with butter. Whole cranberry jelly. I enjoyed mine with a glass of homemade 12-year-old sweet mead. And, of course, there was pumpkin pie several hours later when we finally had room for dessert.

There are leftovers aplenty, which will be enjoyed for several days to come.

We enter the Holiday Season with very happy palettes.

Egg Nog 2000 - 2020

Eggnog, last of the HarpHaven Pride and the Christmas kittens, passed beyond the Veil last night. She left us peacefully, without distress, in her sleep at the age of 20.

When our most senior cat Pixel passed (at the age of 16) during Thanksgiving Weekend 2000, we were concerned that his “little sister” Chiya wouldn’t be long in following. She was mourning, lonely, and suddenly showing her 15 years. So we went to the animal shelter and adopted two female kittens, which the pound said were about four months and littermates. Based on the time of year, we named the tabby Mistletoe for her brilliant green eyes. The one who looked like a Turkish Van, white but for cinnamon ears and tail, we called Eggnog.

Eggnog was Daddy’s Girl from the get-go, although she never slighted me in the love-and-cuddle department. Himself became an instant hit with our vet’s staff from the moment they walked into the exam room to find a big, fuzzy guy waiting with an adorable kitten on each shoulder. And Chiya, once she settled into having two kittens around, perked up and started being her own kittenish self and playing with the youngsters. I am firmly convinced the Christmas Kittens added another five good-quality years to Chiya’s life.

Eggnog, true to her Turkish Van markings, loved water. She’d play in it every chance she got, including joining me in the shower. She loved the water fountain we got several years ago, that ran a steady stream into the water bowl. Her favorite way of getting a drink was to stick her head into the stream and lap at the stream as it ran off her forehead.

When Mistletoe passed at the age of 17, almost exactly three years ago, we wondered how Eggnog would do without her. It turned out she was quite happy as a solo. Her favorite spot became the arm of Himself’s recliner, whether or not he was in it but especially when he was. I think she liked not having to share him, the water fountain, or me in the shower.

I have no doubt that Eggnog’s arrival in the Summerlands was met by Pixel, Chiya, and Mistletoe, and that the HarpHaven Pride is together again. They gave us thirty-five years of continuous laughter and love, and they have earned their sunbeams.

It’s happened quite a few times over the years. I post something in honor of Pride Month, or guest at a LGBTQA+ convention like Gaylaxicon or OutlantaCon, and one or more someones will ask me some variation of the “What’s a nice/old/heterosexual/married girl like you doing...” question. It happened again recently. As luck would have it, I’d just run across the following piece I wrote for Kage Allen’s “The Face of Gay” online column back in 2012 or 2013. I think it answers the question pretty well.

For me, being an ally isn’t just about what’s right, although that’s a big part of it. It’s also about the people – co-workers, colleagues, friends, and family-of-the-heart – who’ve made activism for gay rights personal. There have been many, but when Kage asked me to contribute a piece here, my thoughts immediately went back more than forty-five years, to the two men who began my journey as an ally.

David and Jeff were, literally, the All-American boys next door. They grew up on neighboring farms and were best friends from the first day of grade school. Good-looking, athletic, popular, solid grade point averages, dated the prettiest girls, on the football and basketball teams...you get the picture. And, as they told me later, they spent most of their lives trying to hide being gay from each other. They managed to sort things out during the summer before they started college and, by the time I met them in 1967, they’d been together as partners for a year.

I was a freshman that year, away from a very sheltered home life for the first time. To say I was naive is an industrial-strength understatement. My survival that first year of college can be laid squarely on the two of them, who took me under their collective wing and kept me from getting into the kind of trouble that it would have been so very easy to get into. They were the older brothers I never had and, as corny as it may sound, we were “family”.

Being included in their lives was a constant learning experience. They were my first exposure to two people of my generation in love and, apart from my grandparents, the only such relationship of any generation I’d seen. They were the first to suggest that my mother’s evaluation of my value as a human being was wrong, and the start of my journey toward healthy self-esteem. And, I suspect, David and Jeff are at least partially responsible for the fact I genuinely like men.

They exposed me to facets of society I didn’t even know existed. That, in that time, in that place, at least to my admittedly-inexperienced eyes, being a gay man was tough. There was no support, no networking as we think of it now, no inroads by a gay rights movement that was rising elsewhere, little in the way of “community” beyond the gay bars. For many it meant a life of lies – to themselves, their parents and siblings, the women they married, their children, to the lovers and casual partners they hooked up with on the sly. That the raids and harassment of patrons by police that, in the near future, would fuel the Stonewall Riots were common, as were the gangs of local thugs who hunted the alleys and parking lots near the bars around closing time. That, even in the face of all that, two men who loved each other as much as they did, could form what, in all respects save legality, was a marriage.

But they were a product of their time and, except in the safety of their apartment, intent on keeping their “secret”. It bothered them, but not enough to risk hurting the families they both loved or jeopardizing their future. When their parents showed increasing concern that neither talked about the girls they were dating and brought “someone special” home to meet them, they enlisted my aid. David, being an only child, was feeling more pressure from his folks than Jeff was from his, which is how I became, at least as far as the families were concerned, “David’s girl”.

The Viet Nam War was in full and bloody swing, and every eighteen-year-old man I knew sweated blood every time he went to the mailbox. With the coming of his nineteenth birthday, the pressure was supposed to be off. Why David suddenly got an induction notice no one ever figured out, just as no one ever found out why his student deferment was canceled or his lottery number went from high 3 digits to “you’re up, kid.”

There was only one other way out of it...David telling the draft board he was gay. Jeff was more than willing to back him up and testify to the fact from first-hand knowledge as his lover. As someone who practically lived with them, I was willing to testify, too. In the end, however, it was the effects on the families that made up David’s mind.

You know where this is going. Just before Christmas 1968, David’s parents were informed that he’d been killed on patrol. Jeff didn’t come back to school after the semester break and, after a few short letters from various places around the country, I never heard from him again. But I’ve thought about him, and about David, many times over the course of the last forty-five years, and about how different things might have been for them if the changes happening now had happened then.

Being an ally isn’t just about what’s right. It’s about the people in our lives who make it personal, the people we love. And I’ve been very fortunate in that regard.

On the one hand, I’m happy to begin my 2020 convention schedule and looking forward to the fun that is AnachroCon. On the other hand, I’m sad that this will be the final year for that lovely convention. But it will be going out in style - 1920s style. Flappers and Speakeasies and Mobsters, Oh MY!

When not on a panel, I’ll be spending as much time as possible at my spot in the Dealer Room, selling the limited number of books I can when flying a trip, and enjoying visits and conversations with those who stop by.

Here are my assignments for Programming, and they look like fun. Unless otherwise noted, all panels are 50 minutes in length.

Friday, Feb. 14

5:00pm - How To Write Effective Villains: Villains can be fun to write, do wonders for plot advancement and character development, and turn into fan favorites. Panelists: Taylor S. Hoch, Lee Martindale (M), Matthew Quinn, Bill Ritch

6:00pm - Opening Ceremonies: Let’s get this party officially started!

7:00pm - That Took Me Out Of The Story! How to avoid losing your readers.: You can’t foresee what might disconnect a reader from your story, but there are some common trip points. Panelists: Lee Martindale, Cecilia Dominic (M), Jo Scott

Saturday, Feb. 15

3:00pm - How To Research Effectively. We discuss how to get the details right without wandering in the wastelands or becoming ensnared. Panelists: Lee Martindale (M), Matthew Quinn, Cecilia Dominic

Sunday, Feb. 16

11:00am - "How I Did It" Different Writers Do Different Stuff, Differently. We discuss and compare our methodology.

1:00pm - Give the Princess a sword! Writing Heroes That Aren't Dudes: It starts with writing a believable female first. Panelists: Mandy & GD Burkhead, Dennis Medbury, Lee Martindale (M)

3:00pm - Closing Ceremonies

...when a decision you know is inevitable must be made. When going one way is impossible, and going the other breaks your heart. For me, that day came this week.

If you know me or have been reading here for any time at all, you know how much I love the convention known as Dragon Con. Except for two years when WorldCon, where I had to be while on the SFWA Board of Directors, fell on the same weekend, Dragon Con has been, professionally and personally, the highlight of every convention year since 2008.

But it goes beyond that. Dragon Con has been a family reunion and gathering of the clan. It’s been spending time in the company of people who had my back, made me laugh, facilitated experiences that I would never have dreamed I’d be part of, and been there with what I needed when I needed it to do what I do. Friends who fit the definition of “family of the heart”.

The decision I’d been putting off couldn’t be put off any longer. The upper body strength that, as a wheelchair-using paraplegic, I’ve been relying on has been degrading over the year or so. Strength and stamina have likewise decreased. Solo travel and the physical stresses of a weeklong, 80,000-attendee convention spread out over multiple hotels and venues has become more than my body can handle.

I’m still able to work smaller, shorter conventions, and will be doing so. But not Dragon Con. That day has passed.

For all the wonderful memories, to my DC family, friends, and fans - thank you for everything. It was one hell of a good ride.