September Scribbles

Let's start with the small, but important news:

the website is finally live!

Welcome to Bi Awareness Month

September is a special, special time. It's the one month a year when us Bisexuals are actively visible.

Okay, that joke mostly only works in the Bi+ community. See, the harsh truth is that when you are bisexual, it can be hard to "see" us. When we're in differing gender relationships, we can appear "straight" and in same gender relationships, we appear "gay." Now, that is such an over-simplification of queer identity but it's part of what leads to so many stereotypes that the Bi community faces.

What are those stereotypes? Well, that we sneak around, we cheat on our partners, we're slutty (who cares if we are or not!), we are able to just "blend in" with communities, blah blah blah blah. I was an activist in the community for almost twenty years and let me tell you - it all got so damn tiring. Here's what I can tell you: Bi+ people face higher levels of domestic partner violence than the gay and lesbian community, we are less likely to be out at work as bisexual, we face more medical discrimination than the gay and lesbian community (are you sure you don't have an STI?), we have higher rates of suicide and suicidal ideation, and higher rates of poverty than our gay and lesbian cohort. Additionally, we are more likely to be ignored in health surveys, which leads to a lack of understanding of our specific needs. In many metrics, our overall issues walk hand in hand with our Trans family, and despite what social media would tell you, the Bi and Trans communities are far more aligned than people realize. (The Bisexual identity is NOT binary my friends.)

Now, I am happy to report that so much of that has eased up over the years. The kids more and more are identifying in some form of sexually fluid realm. From bi and pan to ace and aero and many identities along that spectrum more and more people are willing to explore. And this is nothing against those who find their truth as gay, lesbian, and even straight. It is just a note that more people are accepting that the road is winding and sometimes, there's a river or two.

Me, a bi activist

Me with my girlfriend, Lu, at one of the many Pride festivals.

My wife, Stephanie, and I at Pride.

Posing with local Trans advocate Joni Weiss and the Bi Icon herself, Robyn Ochs.

Utah's 1 to 5 Club posing for pics before a Pride Parade.

These are just a few of the pictures taken over the years at the endless Bi+ events the 1 to 5 Club hosted.

My sister and I started the 1 to 5 Club in Utah in 2005. I'd just moved to Salt Lake and was seeking a Bi+ community. What happened was an invitation from the Utah Pride Center to create the space we were seeking - so we did. What came next was 15 years of chaos and joy, including being involved in the creation of what is now known as Bi Awareness Month.

As we started to build out our programming, we were facing the usual obstacles of being taken seriously by the local Queer community, not to mention that national organizations didn't take us seriously. Our web presence was small and buried on the Pride Center page, and so no one believed we were actually here. So, as we built out our programming, we wanted to do a week dedicated to the Bi Community. Nothing was showing up in our googling to align with anything nationally, so we chose a day. And suddenly, national organizations wanted to know why we hadn't aligned with the timeline in September. (See again, nothing showed up in our searching!) Anyway, when we did move things to September to align with the national orgs, we decided to make it a full month of programming. Now, September is known as Bi Awareness Month - and I know that our little Utah group had something to do with that.

So what else is happening?

August was wild. I came back from the PNW and dove right into the League of Utah Writers annual Quills conference. I presented three workshops:

The presentations all seemed to be pretty well received. The only downside was that the presentation about building your writing community was right before my headshots were taken, so I was ... what's the word for it? Gross. The photos turned out okay, but I know full well how curly my hair was before the sweat got to me.

I also had a couple of pitch sessions. A pitch session is where you schedule time with an agent or editor or publishing rep and sit down and pitch your book. I made a very scary choice to sit down with one of the publishing reps that had rejected me - not because I wanted them to reconsider, but I wanted to pick her brain and see if she felt my work was marketable. What came of it was an amazing conversation about genre and she actually took my pages to take a second look. The other session I scheduled resulted in being asked to send my full manuscript in, so overall - incredibly successful. Now I wait.

But I did have a conversation that has stuck with me. See, one of the issues I've found is that I worry about marketing happy-ever-afters for queers in Salt Lake is a hard sell. See, for people in SLC, it totally works. But for folks outside of the state, it's a hard read as to why being happy here matters. When you step back and take a look at how Utah is perceived outside of our little bubble - it's either all Mormons or the sensationalism of the reality shows like The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Like, queers here? They light up when I mention the Queer Salt Lake stories. And so, for the record, did the publishing and agent reps. But, I came face to face with what I'm up against at the conference itself. This man was perfectly cordial, but lives in one of the more conservative suburbs in the valley and definitely wasn't ... well ... one of the family. And so he asked me why it was so important to me that my stories be set in Salt Lake, and when I told him it was because I wanted to show my community being happy, he couldn't understand why that mattered. This conversation only made me more resolved. I am still waiting on query responses, but no matter what, I'm going to publish these stories and I have no qualms about going indie.

As a reminder, the best way you can support the journey of these stories is to support me over on Patreon. If the books are picked up for traditional publishing, I will use the funds to support travel to different bookstores, building out my marketing, and to supplement that whole living while writing thing. If I go indie, the money raised with directly support editing and cover art costs.

I am looking at a crowdfunding campaign to cover editing and cover art costs as well, but that is a couple of months away.

Anything Else?

I am very excited to be returning to the Utah Museum of Natural History's Dinos and Dice program! I'll be GMing at least one, maybe two of the sessions this time around, the first one being on September 15th. If you haven't attended a Dinos & Dice session, I can't recommend it enough! You get to play D&D surrounded by DINOSAURS. ​

I am heading back into the work force! (Wait, what?) So, when I left the county, one of my goals was to focus my energy on freelancing and supporting my writing that way. But the truth is, I may not be cut out for that world. I am not a reporter by nature, so pitching ideas is difficult for me. Additionally, most of my energy has been in novel writing and not short stories, so submissions have been hard for me to work through. Because savings are finite and I need to stretch them out, I am going back to work part time. I just accepted and administrative support position with the Salt Lake Film Society on their Tower Theater Campaign. I am very excited! And best yet, I know it will be a help to allow me to keep writing part time and build up the income from publishing.

Lastly, watch this space. I am about to start spending more time talking about things like how to create your writing community and what it means to write pagan characters. Look to the social medias and patreon. They will guide you.

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All right, Scribblers. Thank you for listening to me ramble.

I hope September treats you well!

-Shauna

p.s. It's the Women's Basketball World Cup! Go support team USA! (Or team France. They seem pretty cool!)