Interview w/ Ginn Hale
Ginn Hale is the author of Wicked Gentlemen, which I reviewed here. And, with that, I’ll leave you with the interview: First, thanks for doing this interview with me. Could you tell us a little about yourself? Where do you hail from, what got you into writing, and why “Wicked Gentlemen”? I currently live in the Pacific Northwest in the small city of Bellingham, which curls between a lovely green bay and the foot of a lively volcano. When I was young, my family didn’t have anything like television or radio or even access to many books, but both my parents were great storytellers. My father loved to create humorous versions of history and he encouraged my brother and me to re-enact the scenes as he narrated. We assassinated President Taft (played and narrated by my father) an absurd number of times. My mother would read aloud from a tattered book of Shakespeare, taking on the voices of each character and when she came across a missing page—as happens with old books—she filled in the story from memory. I wrote Wicked Gentlemen for much the same reason that my parents told stories. I wanted to entertain two friends. At the time that I wrote it I had no intention of publishing. I simply enjoyed building a story for my friends. Who would you say are some of your influences? What about favorite writers past and present? Obviously Shakespeare was a big influence, since his were the first stories I knew. As a child I also loved Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries and J.R.R.Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Once I had access to libraries and bookstores I pretty much devoured books. I was, and still am, strongly interested in science and poetry. I found Richard Siken’s book, Crush, astounding; the way he uses the fluidity of language to alter meaning and reverse assumptions amazes me. I also loved science fiction and fantasy. My teenage memories are filled with evenings spent pouring over books by Anne McCaffery, Larry Niven, and Isaac Asimov. But I think if I had to pick one book that had the most profound influence upon me as a writer, I guess I’d have to say it was The Watchtower, by Elizabeth Lynn. Hers was the first story I read with gay characters— though by today’s standards you’d hardly notice–and after that I became aware of how profoundly absent we gays and lesbians were from the kinds of exciting, adventurous stories that I wanted to read. So I started to write my own little stories and that’s pretty much how I became a writer. What are you currently reading, what have you just finished, and what do you plan to read? Any good book suggestions? Wow I could go on forever with lists of books— I’ll try to control myself. Currently, I’m reading, and very much enjoying, two books: one for research, The London Hanged by Peter Linebaugh, and the other for pleasure, Turnskin by Nicole Kimberling. I just finished reading Barth Anderson’s The Magician and the Fool. Reading it was like watching a talented stage magician perform. I knew that I was being deceived and misdirected but the illusion was so engaging that it still thrilled me. Other recent reads include a charming book called Vintage, by Steve Berman, a beautiful mystery from Josh Lanyon called Snowball In Hell, (I am addicted to his Adrien English mystery series). As far as book suggestions go, there are a few that I love and have read over and over among them are, Dream Boy by Jim Grimsly, The Charioteer by Mary Renault, and James Thurber’s, The thirteen Clocks. And oh, all the books that I’m planning to read… Anything from Kelly Link –she’s just so clever and cool. Astrid Amara’s, The Archer’s Heart, The Night Watch by Sarah Waters, Tales of Judge Dee by Zhu Xiao Di and Crave by Catherine Lundoff. Obviously there’s a certain amount of homosexual content in the novel, since it was nominated, and won, the Gaylactic Spectrum Award. How has that aspect of your work been received? Do you get more negative comments or positive comments, or do people not really care? The vast majority of responses have been wonderful and positive and they’ve cared but in the best possible way. It’s particularly encouraging that most reviewers haven’t singled out the homosexual content for comment as if it were something aberrant or strange. Instead, they’ve responded to the sexuality of the characters as part and parcel of the book, just as they would treat heterosexual content in another novel. The very few bits of hate mail I’ve received have all come from people who haven’t actually read the book. So I’m guessing that these people are simply opposed to gays and lesbians as human beings, never mind literary characters. Additionally, do you receive negative or positive comments regarding your representation of the Church (the Inquisition in “Wicked Gentlemen”)? In writing Wicked Gentlemen I wasn’t setting out to depict any group or institution as purely good or evil, the church included. I tried to balance the brutality of the Inquisition’s treatment of Belimai with depictions of Harper in his role as an Inquisitor protecting and defending people. And so far, I haven’t received any negative comments on my representation of the Inquisition. This might be because the church in the world of Wicked Gentlemen is obviously fictional, or it could be due to the fact that the real Inquisition committed far greater atrocities than I attribute to them in my novel. Speaking of the aspects of religion and sexuality in your book, can you talk about the complicated relationship between Sykes and Harper, particularly the nature of discrimination present due to Sykes being a descendant of demons and Harper being a member of the Inquisition? Well that’s a lot in one question, but let’s see… To Belimai Sykes, Harper appears to be the embodiment of a social ideal. He is what Sykes could never
What Happened to America?
Maybe I’m just naive. Maybe I grew up not having to worry about things like racism, bigotry, discrimination (with school bullying aside), and other such horrors that so many people apparently deal with on a day to day basis. Maybe the reason I find myself so reactive to discriminatory/bigoted politics is precisely because my mother is homosexual. I don’t know what it is, but the more I see these sorts of opinions in the news and the more that these opinions snatch people in–speaking of the discriminatory/bigoted opinions here–the more I find myself wondering what happened to the country I grew up loving.I’m an American. I will always be an American and I have always loved my country. I’ve been proud of the things this nation has accomplished, and I should be, because without the accomplishments of over 200 years of history, I wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t have the things that make my life so great–like free education and now practically free college and the options to make college possible. But, I find myself losing that pride in my country when I see this country battling with the same racist rhetoric that brought us to the Civil Rights Movement, or, if you want to take things further back, to Lincoln’s brave attempt to remove slavery from our historical present. I see religion being used for hate, being used to denounce others simply because they are different. These same people would have denounced people for their skin color because of religious beliefs some hundreds of years ago and yet they see no issue with doing the same to people of Muslim faith, to homosexuals, to transgenders, to people who aren’t Christian.And this hurts. I grew up in a time when I thought these things didn’t exist. I grew up living a fantasy, and in the last 10 or so years I’ve seen that fantasy become shattered. The truth is a surprisingly horrible beast in this instance. I find myself questioning whether I want to call myself an American anymore if I will be associated with the kinds of people that would tell me that my mother cannot marry the person she wants to, or that she can’t have the same rights as me simply because she is attracted to other women. These people would tell me that my mother is a sinner, and because of that I will go to hell too and burn for an eternity. They hold their signs up and denounce my mother and my family for no reason other than they don’t agree with her lifestyle and because they hate my mother. Why?My mother is not perfect, but that has nothing to do with her sexuality. I know plenty of absolutely terrible parents who are heterosexual and Christian. So why should it matter that my mother is homosexual? Why do these people hate her and those like her?And why has this sort of hatred become so prevalent? It’s like we’ve de-evolved. We’ve gone back to the same hatreds that plagued us long ago, but instead of skin color, it’s sexuality. And not enough people see anything wrong with this. Here in California the religious right is attempting to ban gay marriage because they are under the delusion that marriage is a Christian institution. Nevermind that this is factually inaccurate and that marriage has existed since well before Christianity ever showed up on the scene. People like Bill O’Reilly would have homosexuals hide who they are simply because they don’t comprise a majority; this is, obviously, another logical fallacy. Nothing would ever get done in this country if minorities (racial and political) simply kept to themselves. I’m not saying you have to agree with the homosexual lifestyle, but to suggest that they should just pretend they aren’t homosexual just so you can feel comfortable is nothing short of hatred.Why should my mother pretend to be heterosexual? There is no logical reason. My mother is gay. Deal with it. Stop telling her she is going to go to hell. Stop telling me that I will go to hell if I don’t stop her from being who she is. Stop telling others not to be gay, or that they don’t deserve to be considered human like you just because they don’t share the same values as you. Would you suggest we tell all the Muslims they can’t be Muslim anymore? Maybe we shouldn’t let atheists exist in America either, right? Well, the religious right would say yes to those questions because they believe they are the only ones who should have a voice. And I say bull.This all has made me question what happened to my beloved country. When did we cross the line and begin accepting discriminatory politics again? When did bigotry become acceptable? When did true America die?And can we bring true America back? Or is it too late?I don’t have the answers. All I know is that I will be voting no on Prop. 8, protecting marriage for all, not just for those who happen to fit into the religious ideal. I will always support marriage for all, because we can’t call America a free country if we’re willing to take away rights from ordinary citizens all over now can we? This is a fight to be known as “free for everyone” not “free for everyone but gays and people Christians don’t like”. We’re not a Christian nation. We are a nation of many peoples, from many religions, opinions, ideologies, etc. And we all deserve to be treated as human, not as subhumans. That is all…