Sean Patrick#ScribesAndMakers Apr26 #TTMD
Are there any tropes that you think are underappreciated or underrepresented? Alternatively, if you could elevate an uncommon story element to trope status, what would it be?
Walter Thinman@JessMahler #TTMD #ScribesAndMakers
What would you like people to know about your latest book?
Jess Mahler#ScribesAndMakers #TTMD April 26
Which of your books was most challenging to write?
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Oh... that's a hard one.
If we're sticking with stuff I've published, either What You Will or Planting Life in a Dying City.
What You Will is a queer retelling of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. When I first started writing it, I decided i was going to keep as much of Shakespeare's original dialog as possible.
I think I wanted to show how the queerness was inherent in the story, something I was turning up the dial on, but not adding in it's entirety.
But writing in the description and characters and world around that dialog to convey what I wanted to convey... that was a trip.
Planting Life in a Dying City is a queernormative polyamorous found family story. It's an ensemble story with six PoVs. It was my first ensemble story and first with that many PoVs, though it wasn't my last.
Which of your books was most challenging to write?
#ScribesandMakers April 26 #TTMD
How did you get started with your educational activism?
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I joined Quora around 15 years ago now. I don't remember why or what the appeal was at the time. I immediately got sucked into answering questions about polyamory, trying to combat stereotypes and get some accurate information out there.
Overtime the topics I talked about expanded -- LGBTQ, racism, mental health, parenting...
Eventually I started speaking up a bit on social media. Essay-threads on Twitter, that sort of thing. Then essays on my website.
I've slowed down alot the last few years. Partly putting my foot in it a few times and beginning to doubt myself, a lot of health issues and family issues.
But I've never completely stopped, and you can still find my Quora answers ( https://www.quora.com/profile/Jess-Burde-Mahler ) and some of my essays on my website ( https://jessmahler.com/map/ ).
#ScribesAndMakers April 26 #TTMD
More than one question, it seems...
Does your educational activism intersect with your writing in any way? Do you consider your writing a form of education?
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They intersect, certainly. For instance, I've done a fair amount of anti-racism work on Quora, and I try to keep anti-racism in mind when writing my stories.
I don't consider my fiction writing education, as such, but I do hope that readers come away from my stories with a new twist to their world view.
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Nothing to do with writing but since you mentioned arguing halakha, was the plague a lot of regular sized frogs or one really big frog?
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It was, of course, one really big frog that exploded into a lot of regular sized frogs. ;-)
#ScribesAndMakers April 26. #TTMD
What is a common trope you both love and hate (or hate that you love) and why?
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I’ll give you two:
Omegaverse.
I have such mixed feels over this. It started as a werewolf thing, and I was reading all the werewolf romances around the time it became popular, so I found it pretty quick. I’ve seen some really good and interesting things done with the trope, but so, so much of it is ‘we want to have our sexism but make it gay.’
And then people started piling ‘fated mate’ trope on top, and I just… yeah, noped out for a few years. I’ve recently started reading a bit of it again, most in platonic fanfic that emphasized the family/pack aspect without the romance.
The Good King.
I have a whole essay about the problems with this one: https://jessmahler.com/the-good-king-makes-a-good-fantasy/
At the same time, I admit I love the stories where the rightful heir returns or the true king faces down the great evil. I think the appeal is ultimately the same as with superhero stories – the idea of people in power doing something good with it, and the ability to project ourselves as the people with power doing the right thing.
Sophia Jane Hayden, AuthorThe ebook of my book, The Fifth Seduction, is free today and throughout the week. It's available at books2read.com/fifthseduction from the listed online retailers except Amazon, as part of a Book Funnel promotion for International Lesbian Visibility Day. If you care to help me out with just a few clicks to boost my Book Funnel rating, you can also visit the listed website on the Workplace Romance graphic for the promo to see the other books offered for free, then click my book to read the synopsis. Thanks! #ILVD #promo #promotion #sunday #bookstodon #books #book #bookfunnel #lesbian #readers #read #reading #fun #tag #socialweb #writing #writer #writingCommunity #writers #mastoArt #mastodon #participating #forfree #clicks #graphics #loveStory #love #woman #women #words #scribesAndMakers #writersCoffeeClub #writersofMastodon #thanks4sharing #fediverse
#ScribesAndMakers Apr 26 #TTMD
Hey, Fellow Adoptee!
How do you feel being adopted has influenced your writing?
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I've never really thought about it. bare with me as I stream of conscious a bit.
Like for many of us, adoption was my first experience with trauma. It shaped how I interact with people, how I identify myself, how I approach being a parent... of course it must have impacted my writing.
The easy answer is that it shaped my love of found family. Obviously, you don't need to be adopted to love found or chosen or forged family. But I think those of us who were adopted especially have a tendency to see the value in a found family.
I'm sure there are other impacts being adopted had, but that's what I can think of for now.
Rachel A. Rosen#ScribesAndMakers Day 26 #TTMD @JessMahler
More than one question, it seems...
Does your educational activism intersect with your writing in any way? Do you consider your writing a form of education?
Nothing to do with writing but since you mentioned arguing halakha, was the plague a lot of regular sized frogs or one really big frog?