As most of you know, I'm (re)writing a YA novel set in San Francisco's Castro district in 1978. I'm thinking of adding a brief prologue to the novel in which I show the two main protagonists of the book fifteen years before the current start of the book. One protagonist is a 14-year-old girl. The other is a gay man. The girl I'll have some cred on, having been a girl. As for the gay man, I'm perfectly capable of imagining what my character would have felt like as a 15+/- year-old kid, but it's likely that anything I write from the point of view of a gay man will be more heavily scrutinized and questioned. So it would be really helpful to me if any of you lovely men who feel like it would write (in the comments or privately to my email which is linked in my blogger profile) a little bit about what it was like for you as a (closeted?) gay teen. My character is now fully out, after all he lives on Castro Street, but his family has rejected him because their religion condemns homosexuality - which is why he moved (far) away to San Francisco.
Any memories, thoughts, comments, analysis of what it was like for you in your teen years would be so helpful. And anything I take from you would be fully credited (if this @#$% thing ever gets published!) as well as fully transmuted into the character of a fifteen-year-old orthodox jew living in Atlanta (!). Of course, I have tons of experience being a male orthodox jew, so I don't need any help with that part.......
9 comments:
Well thank god you don't remember the brise!
E-mail to follow.
Oh I cant wait till I can read your book. I am not a gay man...so next time you write a book...have a lesbian in it..I know a little about that.
I'll have 2 of my best buds come by and see what they can do..
sounds like a great book..
Elizabeth, I would love to send you some notes on my experiences growing up gay in a religious household(just hold me back - you know how I like to share!!). Will get to work as soon as I find a minute. What a great idea!
xx
Sounds liek a wonderful story.
Haha!
I would help, Elizabeth, but Scotland - specifically Glasgow - in 1979, when I was 15, was emphatically NOT Castro!
I can't wait to read you. Preferably between the covers of a personally signed copy.
If you ever need insight into a teenage girl growing up in a podunk midwest farm town, sucked into religious zealotry and conservatism whilst milking goats and toting wood, who went far left later in life ... let me know.
Guess I'll have to attempt to be helpful with the next novel...
I'm on it. Watch for my fascinating email.
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