It’s that time again, time for Pride of many kinds. Hence, time to renew the Outer Alliance PLEDGE:
As a member of the Outer Alliance, I advocate for queer speculative fiction and those who create, publish and support it, whatever their sexual orientation and gender identity. I make sure this is reflected in my actions and my work.
This isn’t to say that everything I write reflects this principle equally. I have written a real-world het contemporary romance (The Hot Streak) that doesn’t even have any openly gay characters in it (that I remember). I’d already used the tactic of giving the heroine of Mind Games an openly gay male neighbor/friend, so couldn’t again…! I’m going to make up for it, though, my writing a male/male romance in the same setting (a Major League Baseball team in Boston).
Otherwise, though, pretty much everything I do reflects this principle somehow, because the vast majority of what floats my boat is speculative fiction, and I simply can’t help but queer things, sometimes. I make the assumption all my characters are bisexual unless proven otherwise. When I get to make up a society or a world, I start from a place where bisexuality is the norm.
In the Magic University books, I start out with things about as heteronormative as I can stand: our main character appears to be a straight male, and quickly picks up a girlfriend, but he’s surrounded by friends and other students who are of a wide-range of sexualities. By the time his sophomore year rolls around, Kyle decides to major in sex magic, for which proof of one’s ability to perform erotic rituals with practitioners of any gender is necessary… And things continue from there.
If you’re a writer, editor, or creator of genre/speculative fiction, please consider joining the ranks of the Outer Alliance and take the pledge, too.
