Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Where can I learn more about you?
A: There's a biography here.
There is also an irregularly updated blog over here.
Q: Are you married?
A: I live with my life
partner. We have been together for 12 years now. We own a
house
and a car together, and have raised three cats and a dog. We
fight,
we disagree, we share colds and flus, we clean up after one another, we
nurse one another through dental work and bouts of the blues, we bicker
about whose turn it is to take out the garbage. Yet we still
delight in one another's company and laugh at each other's jokes and
can't imagine what we would do without one another. I figure
that's about as married as anyone gets.
Q: Are you lesbian? Bisexual?
A: No. I describe my sexual orientation as "sovereign," meaning that I
am the sole arbiter of what my sexuality encompasses at any given point
in time. In a pinch I will self-identify as simply "queer."
Q: Why do you write about sex?
A:
Sexuality is one of the more complicated, meaningful, and often fraught
aspects of human existence and human culture. I learn a lot about
human beings and about human history by doing the work that I do.
It means a lot to me to try to share some of what I learn with
others, and it is my hope that my doing so will help educate people,
broaden minds, and make the world a better place to live in for more
people, more of the time.
Q: What other topics interest you?
A:
Food, cooking, and other aspects of the domestic are high on my list of
interests these days. I tend to be very interested in the life of
the body, and how the life of the body helps form culture. I'm
also incredibly curious about video games as art, technology, and
culture... even though I don't really play them.
Q: If I write to you, will you write me
back?
A: Maybe. Please bear in mind that if I do happen to jot you a quick
note back to say thanks for a letter you send my way, I may very well
not have time/inclination to develop that into a protracted
correspondence. It's nothing personal; I'm simply a very busy person.
Q: Will you send me/my charitable organization/my library/my aunt Gertie/my pet wombat a copy of one of your
books?
A: No. Writers make their living by selling books.
I invite you to buy as many as you like.
Q: If I send you some writing, will you
consider publishing it?
A: Not unless you are doing so in response to, and carefully following,
a specific set of submissions guidelines for a specific project I am
editing.
Q: I'm looking for an agent. Can you
introduce me to yours?
A: No.
Q: I really want to be a writer. What
should I do?
A: Write. I know it sounds flippant, but if you have written nothing,
you aren't going to get anywhere anyway. Join a writers' group. Look
for calls for submissions and begin submitting your work. Most of all,
keep writing.
Photos by Hanne. Site by Jhames