Tough Times for Teens

When I was a teenager, I was looking for something.

The rule in my family was that at 13 years of age, you were allowed to choose whether or not you continued going to church. We were never super-churchy people. In fact, my parents only started bringing me to church when I asked them what God was and they didn't have the answer. I think I was 3 or 4 at the time.

So, after 10-ish years of churchness I decided it wasn't my thing. Luckily, the church we went to was super-progressive and is a hugely we-love-gay, we-love-trans kind of place, so I didn't leave there with any queer guilt. Who needs that?

In my early teens, I remember going to the library and browsing all the books in the spirituality, psychology, and religion sections. I devoured those books. I don't even know how many times I read the Ramayana when I was in high school.

Somewhere in there, the very first Chicken Soup for the Soul book hit the market, and it impacted me tremendously. There was a lot of life shit I was trying to reconcile, particularly around being raised in a family plagued by addiction, but also just around knowing I was... different.

You know me, right? I'm queer. So when I read that Chicken Soup for the Soul had a call for submissions out for a book called Tough Times for Teens, I gravitated back to that part of my life when QUEER was still a 4-letter word. I thought about things that impacted me, things that helped me, and I just kept coming back to the 93-year-old trans woman I met when I was 16 and worked at a discount department store.

My story "Gotta Be This Or That" was selected for inclusion in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Tough Times for Teens. If you buy the book, you'll find it in the "Sticks and Stones" section. At its essence, my story is about not fitting in anywhere--a feeling a lot of teens can relate to, I think. It's a story of shameless queerness, particularly genderqueerness, and a reminder of how much we can learn from our LGBTQ elders.

I'm really kind of honoured to be a part of the Chicken Soup family. Those books helped me when I needed them, and all I can hope is that Tough Times for Teens gives the younger generation a whole lot of hope.




Hugs,
Giselle
--
Giselle Renarde Canada just got hotter!

Visit me online
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7 Days of You Away: The Seventh Day

Yes, this is the final letter...

Start from the beginning by following the "7 Days" tag.

--
Giselle Renarde

Canada just got hotter!

Visit me online
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http://www.wix.com/gisellerenarde/erotica
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7 Days of You Away: The Sixth Day

Getting close to the end...

Follow the "7 Days" tag for all 7 letters.

--

Giselle Renarde

Canada just got hotter!

Visit me online
http://donutsdesires.blogspot.com
http://www.wix.com/gisellerenarde/erotica
http://twitter.com/GiselleRenarde

7 Days of You Away: The Fifth Day

A cute one today.

What's in store for tomorrow?

Follow the "7 Days" tag for all 7 letters.

--
Giselle Renarde

Canada just got hotter!

Visit me online
http://donutsdesires.blogspot.com
http://www.wix.com/gisellerenarde/erotica
http://twitter.com/GiselleRenarde

7 Days of You Away: The Fourth Day

Keep coming back for more...

Follow the "7 Days" label tag for all 7 letters.

--
Giselle Renarde

Canada just got hotter!

Visit me online
http://donutsdesires.blogspot.com
http://www.wix.com/gisellerenarde/erotica
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7 Days of You Away: The Third Day

The graphic short continues...

-Like those tiny pink flowers in the background?

Giselle Renarde

Canada just got hotter!

Visit me online
http://donutsdesires.blogspot.com
http://www.wix.com/gisellerenarde/erotica
http://twitter.com/GiselleRenarde

7 Days of You Away: The Second Day

Click Here for yesterday's entry:

http://donutsdesires.blogspot.com/2012/01/7-days-of-you-away-visual-treat.html

Hugs,

Giselle

--
Giselle Renarde

Canada just got hotter!

Visit me online
http://donutsdesires.blogspot.com
http://www.wix.com/gisellerenarde/erotica
http://twitter.com/GiselleRenarde

7 Days of You Away: A Visual Treat

I've been sorting through the mountains of papers around my desk, and came across a... well, I don't know what to call it except a "graphic short story" (like a graphic novel, but short?) I created YEARS ago. I wish I'd dated it because I don't remember exactly when I made this thing, or even why. Maybe I just felt like drawing naked people. hehe

By way of explanation, this short story is basically a letter a day from a girlfriend to her boyfriend, who seems to have gone on vacation without her. That spells trouble, of course.

You'll notice that, because these are "letters," I actually drew them on the kind of stationary you might recognize from your childhood (primarily because it's left over from MY childhood LOL).

Okay, so there's one letter per day for the next 7 days. Some are very NSFW. Here we go:

Come back tomorrow for Day Two!

Hugs,

Giselle

--
Giselle Renarde

Canada just got hotter!

Visit me online
http://donutsdesires.blogspot.com
http://www.wix.com/gisellerenarde/erotica
http://twitter.com/GiselleRenarde

Writing Made Me A Better Person

Sometimes I look back on the person I was before I became a writer and I shake me head. If I met that person today, I wouldn't want to hang out with her. I would think she was mean and bitchy and tremendously callous. I wouldn't want to be her friend.

Of course, me being me, I have access to all my memories and experiences. I can psychoanalyze myself and explain away certain tendencies and behaviours. But part of my establishment of Self involved getting a job in business... in downtown Toronto... right out of university. As other Canadians will freely tell you, a lot of people in business in downtown Toronto are not so nice. Maybe we're talking on a Canadian scale here, but nevertheless, working in business plunked me right up against some crazy fucks.

I figure there are only two directions you can go when your clients are assholes. No, I just changed my mind. There are three:

1) You can become meek and submissive, just hoping if you keep your head down low enough and don't stop apologizing, they might not yell at you today. 2) You can have a complete emotional shut-down, so that you just don't care if you're being chewed out every day. 3) You can become an asshole too.

For me, it was a combination of 2 and 3, I think. Maybe I'm being a touch hard on myself, and of course there are always other factors at play, but before I started writing, I just wasn't a very nice person.

Let's skip ahead a few years to the days when I've just started writing and submitting my work to publishers. No, let's skip even further forward to the days when my work has been accepted for publication and I'm started to get those "join our author yahoo group" links.

I came into publishing quite naively, but I distinctly remember thinking, "Everybody's going to be ruthless. Everybody's out to get me. Everybody wants their book to sell and mine to fail."

I don't believe that anymore. Sure, I'm aware of those few and far between authors who will trash competitors' books on Amazon, but from what I've encountered, authors in the romance/erotic fiction genres are the absolute best and most giving people... ever!

When I was a novice, just coming into writing professionally, I had no idea what to expect. What I found, at every turn, were other authors willing to help. No, WANTING to help. Because we all remember what it felt like to know nothing and feel insignificant. I couldn't believe how at home I felt with other writers. I thought they'd be mean, because I was used to people being mean to me. Instead, I found I'd stumbled upon the most giving, loving, generous, and caring people I'd ever encountered.

And other authors' generosity encouraged me to be generous too. As soon as I'd established a blog I opened it up for interviews and granted authors lots of free promo opportunities. So many people in this industry went above and beyond for me. When you're not used to "nice," "nice" can be a thing of inspiration.

My change in attitude has extended out into other aspects of my life too. As an author, you're bound to get some bad reviews along the way, and god knows I've had my fair share. I know how it impacts me when somebody out there in the world, somebody who doesn't know me and maybe doesn't even realize I'm a real person, says something scathing or cruel or just plain... mean.

That hurts. As a result, I'm now very careful how I talk about other people, even if they are celebrities to some degree. Twitter makes it very easy to hear what others are saying about us, and I would never, never want to make another human being feel as down as I have felt at times.

I think about other people now. I really didn't do that before I started writing professionally. I care about people I've never met. I want other authors to succeed. I want other people to feel happy and proud of their accomplishments, not depressed or ashamed.

I care about other people. I'm excited about other authors' projects. I want them to have great sales and great reviews. That's how writing made me a better person.

Hugs,

Giselle

--
Giselle Renarde

Canada just got hotter!

Visit me online
http://donutsdesires.blogspot.com
http://www.wix.com/gisellerenarde/erotica
http://twitter.com/GiselleRenarde

Call for Submissions: Sex: Unknown, A Digital Zine By and For Intersex Folks

Today, a call for subs for those of you who identify as intersex. Get writing!

Call for Submissions! Deadline April 1, 2012

SEX: UNKNOWN
A Digital Zine By and For Intersex Folks

Call for Submissions! Deadline: April 1, 2012
*Please forward widely*

As intersex people, we often feel alienated from queer and trans communities, our identities invisibilized within the discourse of “LGBT.” Because our experiences are portrayed as highly medicalized conditions in most forms of popular media, we want to give voice to our personal experiences and create a more complete picture of our emotional and social lives as intersex folks.

Our purpose is to create a digital zine in which to share our stories and our struggles, build a network of community support and foster transformative healing. We want to show a broad spectrum of our backgrounds with regards to race, ethnicity, class, sex, gender, sexuality, sexual orientation and nationality. This is about who we are and how we feel. We are not alone.

We invite self-identified intersex folks to send us stories, poems, narratives and visual art pieces on the feelings, experiences and struggles of living in our sexes/genders. What does intersex mean to you? How does being intersex affect your relationships with family, friends and partners? What is your experience to coming out? How do you connect to your sex and/or gender?

Send us your poems, stories, memoir/autobiography/non-fiction or other writings (limit 1,500 words, as .DOC attachments) and visual art (as .JPG attachments) to intersex.zine [at] gmail [dot] com. Please submit no more than 5 pieces total. Include your preferred name, location, age and email address. Anonymous submissions are acceptable. Let us know if your pieces have been previously published. We look forward to connecting with you!

DEADLINE: APRIL 1, 2012

The Editors:
This project is put together with love by a group of queer POC writers and activists living in Oakland and Berkeley, California. Chi Mei Tam is an intersex genderqueer Chinese American immigrant who grew up in Oakland. She is a passionate organizer for social and economic justice, specifically for immigrant and queer communities. Dylan Casama is a tomboyish boy Pinoy. He writes intersex love and ghost stories. See him published at http://www.theintersection.org/iwl/2011. Jai Arun Ravine is a trans-identified mixed race Thai American artist and ally to the intersex community. They are excited to support Chi Mei and Dylan in the production and design of this zine.