Thursday night, July 26th, I had my book launch party for THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (Adelaide Books — New York/Lisbon; 2018) at the Big Blue Marble Bookstore in the Mt. Airy section of Philadelphia. It was a truly wonderful experience that included a packed house and a very interesting discussion about writing and gender among other things.
Below are some short YouTube videos of me reading and some photos of the event.
We also had unicorn cupcakes in honor of my recently completed novel (which I read a very brief excerpt from) The Unicorn, The Mystery.
Enjoy!
Janet (right) with Emily Pena Murphy — another Adelaide author!
with old friend (from the feminist writing group days) and author extraordinaire Becky Birtha!
and good friend and true unicorn the artist and poet Gloria Rohlfs!
and there’s me again — mingling with guests and my partner Barbara!
My partner Barbara (center) is looking smiling with our yoga and Qi Jong teacher Jane Hulting and her husband Jim Cohen (who along with the multi-talented Jane is a musician)!
Janet Mason will launch her new book THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (Adelaide Books — New York/Lisbon) on Thursday, July 26, at 7 p.m., at the Big Blue Marble Bookstore, 551 Carpenter Lane in West Mt. Airy.
From the Chestnut Hill Local — interview by Len Lear:
“I hope the story lets everyone know that religion/spirituality is open to them,” said Janet, “whether or not they chose it. The story was in part inspired by a young woman who lived on my block and whose child transitioned genders at an early age. A few years ago, this young mother left her church in tears after a rather judgmental remark from another congregant.
“Of course, my neighbor never returned to that church. When I was writing, that story was in my head, and I think consciously it means that I wrote the book to let everyone know, especially that child, that there is room for them. They are valued.”
Note: This piece is airing worldwide this week on This Way Out (TWO), the syndicated LGBT radio show. Click here to listen to the entire show.
(TWO is the first international LGBTQ radio news magazine.)
Despite the fact that I am (still) filled with lesbian rage, I am a nonviolent person – if not by nature, then by principle.
But, at the same time, I have to admit that a woman hero avenging injustice gives me a little thrill. Lately, I’ve developed an intellectual reasoning to this: we need more feminist heroines. We need to keep believing that a woman protecting other women is possible and we need to keep thinking that it’s important.
Reading Chaser (a Jinx Ballou novel) published in 2018 by Pariah Press furthered my thinking on this. The book was written by Dharma Kelleher who is heralded as one of the top authors in transgender crime fiction.
I don’t ordinarily read mysteries. But when I do I am impressed with the suspense and tension inherent in the form, and I always learn something new. As a non-mystery reader, I found that the book was a delightful and suspenseful page turner with heart.
The narrator, Jinx Ballou, is a bounty hunter hired to bring a teenage disabled girl — charged with her mother’s murder — back to face her charges in court. The girl has skipped bail which is why Jinx was hired to find her.
Jinx takes on this case after she is outed by a local newspaper as transgender and is fired by her former agency.
Jinx is astounded to discover that simply by knowing she is transgender can make it now obvious that her employer is small minded. As the author writes:
“I sighed, even as my heart revved in my chest like a race car engine. ‘I’ve always been a girl, Sara Jean. It’s just that through some crazy mix-up of biochemistry or genetics, I was born with a boy’s body. It’s hard to explain.’
“She fixed her gaze on me once again. ‘Ain’t nothing to explain. Boys is boys, and girls is girls. God made you what you are. Ain’t no changing it.’
‘I wish it were that simple, Sara Jean, but it’s not. I’, — ‘
‘Perverts like you’s what’s wrong with this world. Making it dangerous for God-fearing folks to use public restrooms.’
‘A pervert? Seriously, Sara Jean, is that what you think I am?’ I rolled my eyes. ‘Want to know what trans people do in public restrooms? We pee. We poop. And we wash our hands which is more than I can say for some people.”
And so the author proves her point. Discrimination that can be proven with the prohibition of use of public restrooms, is absolutely ridiculous.
Jinx goes on to find new work, gets her girl who she develops great empathy toward. While doing so, she confronts a mobster running a human trafficking operation. I observed that in many ways this novel contained many mysteries including who outed Jinx to the reporter, and why should the fact that she is transgender matter anyway?
And so I learned a lot from Chaser, but perhaps most of all, I learned that yes, given the right circumstances, I can count myself as a fan of crime fiction.
To learn more about my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (just published by Adelaide Books New York/Lisbon), click here.
This morning, I took part in Poetry Sunday, a Unitarian Universalist summer service that is a tradition. In my talk, I reflected on the nature of love and read from my recently completed novel The Unicorn, The Mystery. I also read a poem by Sappho and read my own work that it inspired (“Sapphics for Aphrodite”).
The YouTube video of my talk is below. The complete text of my talk is below that. The service took place at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Restoration on Stenton Ave. in Philadelphia.
There are many types of love. I explore the many types of love in the novel that I just completed The Unicorn, The Mystery which I am going to read from briefly:
“The point I was going to make is that romantic love is far from the most important type of love,” said the Priest with his usual authority. “Christians believe that pure love—the kind of love that is selfless and creates goodness—is the way that God loves us. This is why the saying, ‘love you neighbor’ is so important. There are numerous references to this in the Bible. But the most important is from the Gospel According to Mark in which he says ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than this.
“This kind of love is called ‘agape,’” continued the priest. “Agape is the highest form of pure, selfless love. It is the kind of love that God has for us—and the kind of love that we strive to have for our fellow man.”
“I recognize the word,” I replied. “It’s Ancient Greek, from the time of Homer.”
The Priest narrowed his eyes.
Of course, many of the great poets have been inspired by romantic love, especially the Greeks. But some may argue–and I do–that love (regardless of the kind of love) is the inspiration for all poetry.
One of the poets from antiquity who greatly inspired me was Sappho, who lived around 600 B.C.E. Of course, she lived before labels but many of Sappho’s love poems were written to women. And she was technically a Lesbian since she lived on the Isle of Lesbos, now called Lesvos. Most of what is left from Sappho is in fragments. One of the complete poems that survived is her “Hymn to Aphrodite” which I’ll read now:
On your dazzling throne. Aphrodite, Sly eternal daughter of Zeus, I beg you: do not crush me With grief
But come to me now – as once You heard my far cry, and yielded, slipping from your father’s house
to yoke the birds to your gold chariot, and came. Handsome sparrows brought you swiftly to the dark earth,
their wings whipping the middle sky Happy, with deathless lips, you smiled: “What is wrong, Sappho, why have You called me?
What does your mad heart desire? Whom shall I make love you, Who is turning her back on you?
Let her run away, soon she’ll chase you; Refuse your gifts, soon she’ll give them. She will love you, though unwillingly.”
Then come to me now and free me From fearful agony. Labor for my mad heart, and be my ally.
Almost twenty years ago, when I took a pilgrimage to Greece, including a stay in Sappho’s birthplace of Skala Eressos, a beach town on the Isle of Lesvos, I wrote the following response to Sappho’s hymn to the goddess of love. The title is “Sapphics for Aphrodite” —
Aphrodite, in your blazing chariot, I do not ask to be loved by anyone against her will, to be fled from or to be pursued.
I do not ask for anything that will sever my breath with anguish; I do not wish to destroy or to be destroyed. I do not wish for
anything other than for the stars to blaze in my pulse until breaking, shattered, and incandescent, I am consumed: the moon’s rays intent upon me.
Aphrodite this is all I ask of you, you who hold the Fates in my hands, and you, of the golden winged chariot, in whose temple I burn.
The priest in my novel has a point. Romantic love can have its limitations. But love is love – regardless of what it is called. And love can lead to goodness.
Janet Mason is holding her book launch for her novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (Adelaide Books New York/Lisbon — 2018) at the Big Blue Marble Bookstore on July 26, a Thursday evening, at 7 p.m. The Big Blue Marble Bookstore is located at 551 Carpenter Lane, Philadelphia 19119.
Mason, who teaches at Temple University Center City and the Mt. Airy Learning Tree, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for a section of the novel.
Mason is also an award-winning creative writer, teacher, radio commentator, and blogger for The Huffington Post. She records commentary for This Way Out, the internationally-aired LGBTQ radio syndicate based in Los Angeles. Her book, Tea Leaves, a memoir of mothers and daughters, published by Bella Books in 2012, was chosen by the American Library Association for its 2013 Over the Rainbow List. Tea Leaves also received a Goldie Award. She is the author of three poetry books. Mason is a lay minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of The Restoration located on Stenton Avenue in East Mt. Airy.
From the back cover of THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders:
Janet Mason has a storyteller’s gift, weaving rich imagery with provocative twists to create a world where gender is as complex and fluid as the emotional bond between twins. With its Biblical, Pagan, fantastical and modernist roots, THEY is not easily categorized – and even harder to put down.
Susan Gore, PhD, Editor, Coming Out in Faith: Voices of LGBTQ Unitarian Universalists
To read an excerpt from THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders,click here.
This morning, I took part in a Unitarian Universalist summer service. In my talk, I reflected on The Egyptian Cat Goddess the Goddess Bastet (a part of my novel The Unicorn, The Mystery) and on the spiritual practice of gardening.
The YouTube video of my talk is below. The complete text of my talk is below that. The service took place at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Restoration on Stenton Ave. in Philadelphia.
In the summer, I garden. This is a common hobby for many, especially writers. It teaches patience, attention, and relentless hope. Not everything that we plant comes back – especially after a long icy winter. Not every seed sprouts and not every sprout makes it. In this way it makes me focus on the positive – on what does come back and on what does sprout.
Being a Unitarian Universalist gives me a spiritual context in which to think about gardening. Many of our flowers attract bees – such as bee balm, lavender and the butterfly bush. And bees, of course, are good for the planet.
Every now and then, a plant from my writing appears in my garden – seemingly out of nowhere but probably from a seed dropped by a bird. Last year it was a tall flowering weed known as a “sow’s ear” which was also in the manuscript I just finished writing, titled The Unicorn, The Mystery which is set in the 1500s in France. I was amazed, of course, at the sow’s ear in my backyard.
Recently, I planted catnip. Cats love our backyard and often we see one sleeping there – most often in the shade of the young hazel nut tree that my partner’s sister sent us. Inside, my office looks out to the backyard where the garden is. Our old cat Felix has taken to sleeping on the inside back windowsill – no doubt protecting his territory.
I have long been fascinated by the Egyptian Cat Goddess Bastet. In my novel, The Unicorn, The Mystery, my monk character (who in many ways is a Unitarian Universalist at heart) prays to the Goddess Bastet.
I stepped slowly and softly as if the soles of my feet had ears. I took another step. A branch snapped under my foot. I winced. That would never do. If my beloved unicorn heard that she would assume there was a human nearby – big enough to snap a branch under foot – and hide. It seemed like I would never find her. I decided to pray. But I had prayed to the One God before and it hadn’t worked. Who would I pray to? Who would help me?
Immediately, the Goddess Bastet leapt to mind. Bastet was an Egyptian Goddess who was half woman and half cat. I knew about her because when I was a boy, my mother would tell me the stories that her father had told her. He had loved Greek mythology and found out that the Goddess Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, was related to the earlier Goddess Bastet from Egypt who came from the even earlier fierce lioness Goddess Bast, the warrior goddess of the sun.
The followers of Bastet ruled ancient Egypt for a time in the land where cats were sacred. I remember that my mother’s emerald green eyes gleamed as if she were a cat herself when she told me about the Goddess Bastet who kept away disease and was the protector of pregnant women. The stories she told me about the fierce, soft, cat Goddess Bastet were so vivid that she made me want a cat for my very own pet.
My mother cautioned me, however, not to mention cats to anyone but her. People with cats were looked on with suspicion, she warned me. For some reason cats were looked down on by the Church as wily creatures associated with Satan. Again, my mother told me that it was very important never to anger the Church.
Surely, the Goddess Bastet would help me find my beloved unicorn. She of all the gods and goddesses would understand why I had to find my beloved unicorn to save her.
I closed my eyes tightly until I saw a slim woman, standing tall. She had very good posture, with the head of a cat. I knew it was Goddess Bastet, just as my mother had described her.
And so, the Goddess Bastet and other worlds – real, imagined and both – is something for me to mull over as I tend the soil and do the spiritual work of gardening.
Namaste
To learn more about my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (just published by Adelaide Books New York/Lisbon), click here.
I have long been fascinated by the Egyptian Cat Goddess Bastet. In my novel, The Unicorn, The Mystery, my monk character (who in many ways is a Unitarian Universalist at heart) prays to the Goddess Bastet.
Janet Mason, author 
“Chaser” — a trans detective story with a feminist heroine — #amreading #LGBTQ
Posted in LGBTQ Detective Fiction, tagged a Jinx Ballou novel, book reviews, books, Chaser, Chaser by Dharma Kelleher, detective fiction, Dharma Kelleher, Feminism, feminist heroine, Janet Mason, Janet Mason author, LGBTQ books, LGBTQ commentary, Tea Leaves, Tea Leaves a memoir of mothers and daughter, THEY, THEY a biblical tale of secret genders, This Way Out, TWO, wonder women on July 24, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Note: This piece is airing worldwide this week on This Way Out (TWO), the syndicated LGBT radio show. Click here to listen to the entire show.
(TWO is the first international LGBTQ radio news magazine.)
Despite the fact that I am (still) filled with lesbian rage, I am a nonviolent person – if not by nature, then by principle.
But, at the same time, I have to admit that a woman hero avenging injustice gives me a
little thrill. Lately, I’ve developed an intellectual reasoning to this: we need more feminist heroines. We need to keep believing that a woman protecting other women is possible and we need to keep thinking that it’s important.
Reading Chaser (a Jinx Ballou novel) published in 2018 by Pariah Press furthered my thinking on this. The book was written by Dharma Kelleher who is heralded as one of the top authors in transgender crime fiction.
I don’t ordinarily read mysteries. But when I do I am impressed with the suspense and tension inherent in the form, and I always learn something new. As a non-mystery reader, I found that the book was a delightful and suspenseful page turner with heart.
The narrator, Jinx Ballou, is a bounty hunter hired to bring a teenage disabled girl — charged with her mother’s murder — back to face her charges in court. The girl has skipped bail which is why Jinx was hired to find her.
Jinx takes on this case after she is outed by a local newspaper as transgender and is fired by her former agency.
Jinx is astounded to discover that simply by knowing she is transgender can make it now obvious that her employer is small minded. As the author writes:
And so the author proves her point. Discrimination that can be proven with the prohibition of use of public restrooms, is absolutely ridiculous.
Jinx goes on to find new work, gets her girl who she develops great empathy toward. While doing so, she confronts a mobster running a human trafficking operation. I observed that in many ways this novel contained many mysteries including who outed Jinx to the reporter, and why should the fact that she is transgender matter anyway?
And so I learned a lot from Chaser, but perhaps most of all, I learned that yes, given the right circumstances, I can count myself as a fan of crime fiction.
To learn more about my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (just published by Adelaide Books New York/Lisbon), click here.
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