Reading from THEY at the Penn Book Center — a warm and inviting space — #amreading #YouTube

I was very excited this week to give a reading from my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (Adelaide Books — New York/Lisbon) at the Penn Book Center.  I read with Anjali Mitter Duva who read from her novel faint promise of rain (She Writes Press).

It was very cold outside, but inside the bookstore it was warm and cozy. It was warm in many ways with many of my favorite books lining the shelves — and a few new ones that I did not know about.  There was a packed house and the reading was complete with snacks before the question and answer period.

Many thanks to the Penn Book Center (an independent bookstore on the edge of the University of Pennsylvania  campus — 34th and Sansom) and to the Working Writers Group that hosts the All But True reading series.

You can watch the reading on YouTube or read my selection from THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders below the video.

From Chapter Ten of THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders

 

Maybe the passerby was just lost. There was no point in taking chances. Tamar brought a few clay pots outside with her. She started to rinse them out with a bucket of water from the well. They were just dusty so they didn’t need to be scrubbed. She rinsed the pots and kept her eyes on the horizon. The figure was close enough that she could make out that the rider was wearing a black and white striped robe. First, Tamar saw the brown veil draped across the rider’s face. Then she saw something bouncing up and down with the camel’s steps. The rider had breasts – and over them, silver necklaces, glinting in the sun, rose and fell.
Tamar held a clay pot on its side and washed out the inside even though it was already clean. She placed it in the sun to dry.
The visitor came closer and stopped. The camel knelt down and the visitor disembarked and stood in front of Tamar.
“Tamar,” said a husky, familiar voice. “It is me.”
Tamar was silent.
The rider took off her veil and revealed herself.
“Are you glad to see me?”
“I thought I’d never see you again,” said Tamar. She held her wet rag to the inside of a clay pot, swirled it around and set the pot in the sun.
“I needed some time to myself,” said Judith. “And in that time I realized that things were
different. I am different.” She reached down and put her hands on her stomach. There was a slight bulge. “For one thing, I am with child.”
“Are you sure?”
“It has been more than three moons since I last bled,” said Judith. “Plus I feel different. For one thing, I don’t have the sickness that I suffered the last six times. A child is stirring in me, and I am sure it is a girl. And there has been no one else but you.”
Tamar stared at Judith. Rubbish, she must of laid with someone — probably Bram, she thought.
She didn’t believe her. But happiness bubbled up in her and spilled over. Tamar was happy for Judith. She had helped Judith create a daughter — even if she had just paved the way by teaching Judith to silence the old voices in her mind and how to value herself as a woman.
“I see you are again wearing the silver necklaces that Bram gave you,” said Tamar.
Judith nodded. “I figured that it didn’t matter anymore — since I am with child. I am certain that it must be a daughter. And since I always liked the necklaces…”
While Judith was busy making excuses, Tamar remembered the words of one of the old woman from the province of Arzawa who told her that in the ancient days women gave birth to daughters without the intervention of men. The old women told her that many of the goddesses were born this way. Suddenly, Tamar felt as proud as a father announcing the birth of a son.
So, it is true, thought Tamar. But outwardly, she bristled. She was proud but, at the same time, she could not believe it.
“Are you sure you did not lay with Bram?” she asked.
“I am sure,” replied Judith. “I would’ve sent word, but if Bram finds out that I am with child, he will be angry. You know how men are. He will assume that I was unfaithful and lay with another man. And you know what happens to wives who commit adultery.”
Tamar nodded gravely.
“I have decided that I love you and want to live with you. I brought some of my belongings, enough for a few nights, in these baskets behind me. I can send for the rest. Bram is off on a journey to settle new lands. He probably won’t even notice that I am gone when he comes back.”
Tamar looked at the baskets. They were wide and deep. They looked full. Judith needed this much stuff for a few nights? How many more baskets would she send for? Tamar considered the fact that Bram was a powerful man. He would come for his wife, or send someone. He would find out that she was with child. He would have them both burned at the stake.”Wait a minute,” said Tamar, holding up her hand. “You belong with Bram. You created six sons together.”
“But I want to be with you. Your people are my people. I will lodge with you, and be with you always.”
Tamar was silent.

—-

THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders is available through bookstores and online where books are sold.  It’s also available through your local library.  If the library doesn’t already have it, just ask your librarian to order it.

For more information on THEY, click here.

 

 

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THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders reviewed on This Way Out — #amreading #LGBTQ #LGBTRadio

This week on the LGBTQ radio syndicate, This Way Out (TWO), lesbian author and playwright Vanda, reviews my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (Adelaide Books — New York/Lisbon).  The producer added the hymn “The Waters of Babylon” to the review.  Click here to listen to the entire show.

(TWO is the first international LGBTQ radio news magazine.)

“What I liked most about the book was that I was a part of the discovery.  I would be reading about Tamar and her family and friends and then suddenly one of them would mention a relative or acquaintance who lived in another land; gradually I would come to realize this person was a famous Biblical character, for instance Naomi and Ruth from “I go whither you goest,” fame.

As a young teenager I was in search of answers, so I read the Bible from cover to cover twice. l   don’t know that I found any answers, but I enjoyed the stories. I was able to connect to those ancient people. The stories in They are told in simple, everyday language; they do not sound Biblical. They sound human.”

–reviewed by Vanda, author of The Juliana Series

To hear the entire review, click here

THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders is available through bookstores and online where books are sold.  It’s also available through your local library.  If the library doesn’t already have it, just ask your librarian to order it.

For more information on THEY, click here.

 

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Local author reclaims the Bible for LGBTQ in her latest novel — #amreading #LGBTQ — THEY in the Philadelphia Gay News!

Many thanks to the Philadelphia Gay News for the article they ran this week before my reading at the Penn Book Center (with Anjali Mitter Duva) at the fiction series at the Penn Book Center, 130 S. 34th St., on the University of Pennsylvania campus, Jan. 30 at 6:30 p.m.

Mt. Airy author Janet Mason is well known on the Philadelphia literary circuit and within the local LGBTQ community for her provocative writing that includes poetry, memoir and fiction. Her last book, “Tea Leaves,” won the Golden Crown Literary Award for lesbian memoir.

Mason’s new novel is set primarily in biblical times. “THEY: A Biblical Tale of Secret Genders” (Adelaide Books, $22) is quite different from Mason’s other work. The novel details the story of Tamar of the Hebrew Bible and a twin sister Tabitha, Tabitha’s intersex twins and the dawning of the concept of defining male gender as preferential, along with the concept of gender as finite — two genders with no variants.

Mason, who will be reading (with Anjali Mitter Duva) at a fiction series at the Penn Book Center on Jan. 30, delves deeply into the variants with her lesbian protagonist and the character’s family.

It’s a complicated story that evolved over the past couple of years as Mason experienced her own awakening with regard to religion, the Bible and gender.

“I was raised secular,” Mason said. Her mother, the subject of “Tea Leaves,” was “a Bible-burning atheist.”

About five years ago, Mason joined the Unitarian Universalist Church where she became a lay minister.

“I started reading the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, which I’ve always been curious about,” Mason said. “There is some great stuff in both books of the Bible, but there’s also a fair amount of misogyny and violence. I remember that in my high-spirited 20s, I announced at some opportune time that someone needed to rewrite the Bible.”

Mason says while reading the Bible for the first time, “I came across the story of Tamar in Genesis, the muse descended, and I was off and running. I was also influenced by taking yoga and developing a daily practice that included Buddhist meditation.”

Other influences included “knowing a young family on my block whose child transitioned at age 5 to become a happy little girl. I was also reviewing several books on trans issues,” Mason explained. “Later, when I was finished writing the novel, I found out that Biblical scholars — including a rabbi who published a piece in The New York Times — had found that the Hebrew Bible, in particular, did have original words such as ‘they’ to connote both and all genders.”

 At a time when the political climate has turned anti-LGBTQ and evangelicals seem to have taken ownership of the Bible, Mason said she wanted to “send the message that we are all valued. The evangelicals definitely don’t ‘own’ religion, even if they think they do. Many of their children are staying in the religion and changing it to be more liberal. And there are plenty of liberal religions — and they are changing, too.” Religion, she says, “is becoming more inclusive of LGBTQ people.”

For Mason, “Working on ‘THEY’ was my way of entering the stories and myths of the Bible made real to me by my imagination. My hope is that ‘THEY’ might be an opening for some to enter the stories and find that there’s room for them, too.”

Though Mason is currently promoting her new book with readings and book signings, she is also working on new projects, which include revising another novel titled “The Unicorn, The Mystery,” of which several sections were recently short-listed for the Adelaide Literary Prize.

“It’s a novel that is set in an abbey in medieval times where several nuns who happen to be in love with each other live. A monk and a talking unicorn narrate
the story.”

Mason will be reading (with Anjali Mitter Duva) at the fiction series at the Penn Book Center, 130 S. 34th St., on the University of Pennsylvania campus, Jan. 30 at 6:30 p.m.

(interview by Victoria Brownworth for PGN)

 

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Reading From THEY at the Penn Book Center — #amreading #phillyevents

I wanted to let you know about my upcoming reading at the Penn Book Center this January 30th (Wednesday) at 6:30 pm.  I’m reading with novelist Anjali Mitter Duva.

The address of the Penn Book Center (in University City, Philadelphia) is 34th and Sansom Streets.

The series is hosted by the All But True Working Writers Group. 

 

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Ruth and Naomi loving each other in THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders — #amreading #YouTube #BookTube #LGBTQ

Note: I recently co-lead a workshop on exploring myth in words and visual art at the Art Room in Philadelphia where I read the following excerpt of my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders. The YouTube video is below and under that the text of my reading — which features the biblical version of Ruth and Naomi. There is a lesbian tradition of linking Ruth and Naomi together as lovers. (Ruth and Naomi are frequently pictured embracing.) And the writer and Biblical historian Gore Vidal agreed that it looked to him like Ruth and Naomi were lovers. I know it certainly informed my vision of traditional religion — and I’m honored to pass this tradition along.

 

 

 

Tamar looked down on herself. Her body lay on her bed.
Tabitha was at Tamar’s side. Her eyes were wet. Tamar knew why her sister was crying. They were almost the same person, from the same womb, from the same egg split into two. They were identical in looks, if not in spirit. They shared the same secret — that of tricking Judah. Zerah and Pharez were still living in Egypt with Judah.
Tamar saw a well-built man, younger but no longer young, dusting sand from his hands. He must have been digging the hole outside. Tamar somehow knew that the hole was where her body would be buried.
Shaggy salt and pepper hair brushed his shoulders. Light circled his head. She remembered that he was the young shepherd who had lain with Tabitha. Tamar had met him several times when he was a boy and his mother had brought him to her tent.
Tamar came back to herself, opened her eyes, and stared at her sister.
Tabitha looked down at her and said, “I am past my bleeding time now, so there won’t be a scandal.”
“Good,” Tamar said. That was her final word.
Tamar took her last breath — or so she thought. But in death, she found that she was breath.
She was the gentle breeze sweeping from her mouth as her lifeless body was put in the ground.
From the sky above their heads, she looked down and saw a small group of mourners. Judith was there. She was wearing her brown and white striped robe. It did not look like she was wearing her silver necklaces. A fat tear slid down her face, leaving a glistening trail. Judith was holding the hand of her youngest. She was now old enough to walk and to understand that the woman she had known as “Auntie” was no longer with them. But Tamar was not sad. She felt like herself — only like more of herself. She was the silence. Then she realized that someone else was with her. Aziz. (Her late pet camel) He had gone before her. He had died in the last growing season. She had made arrangements to leave Azizi (the baby camel she adopted when she was still alive) to Tabitha who had matured and was more of an animal person. When she was still living, Tamar had thought of Aziz every day. Now she felt a soft furry breeze next to her. They were together again. She caressed the face of the mourners. She lingered for a moment on Judith’s tear stained cheek. Then, in a gust, she took off across the desert. She had places to go.
Her first stop was the marketplace. She had told Tabitha not to tell Naomi that she was dying.
She only saw Naomi when she went to her tent to make the camel cheese. But they had struck up a friendship. Naomi’s daughter-in-law Ruth was left on her own when Naomi’s son had died.
Naomi had confided to Tamar that she loved Ruth. The famine was still bad in the land, and Naomi feared that Ruth might starve since she was on her own. Tamar had known that Ruth was fretting, and that was why she forbade Tabitha to tell Naomi that she was dying.
Tamar was a breeze blowing through the marketplace. She wanted to caress Naomi’s rough face, to thank her quietly for bringing her Azizi and for teaching her to make the camel cheese. But most of all, she wanted to thank Naomi for being a friend. A friend was hard to come by in the harsh desert. But Naomi’s stall in the marketplace was empty. So Tamar flew to her tent and found that she could slip inside the flap.
Naomi was still small and stooped. Tamar recognized her black and white striped robe. But it was no longer new. Time had left it in tatters. Ruth had aged too. Tamar had been right about Naomi’s skin. It had become brown and crinkled like the skin of an almond.
Ruth was beseeching Naomi: “Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.”
The two women embraced.
“I will think of a plan,” said Naomi, in her gravelly voice, “so that we can be together.”
The younger woman looked at Naomi with shining eyes. Tamar saw that they loved each other as lovers. The two women began caressing each other so tenderly that they looked like they might create a daughter.

 

 

With They: A Biblical Tale of Secret Genders, author Janet Mason posits that there could have been a hidden tribe of intersex children, kept under the radar by a pair of savvy twin sisters. Matriarchs Tamar and Tabitha can set the record straight on biblical heroes like Joseph and Jesus, along with other miracles of conception and reincarnation they’ve had to keep to themselves. — Windy City Times

available in bookstores and online where books are sold

Amazon link https://amzn.to/2UgefCb

 

 

 

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“Creating Yourself Through Myth” workshop at the Philly Art Room this weekend –#phillyevents #phillyartevents

I wanted to let you know about a workshop I’m co-facilitating in the Germantown section of Philadelphia this Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 to 2:00 pm. The other facilitator Zipora Schulz is an art teacher and the workshop will focus on creating yourself through myth using visual arts and writing.  No “experience” is necessary.

This article contains more information.

With They: A Biblical Tale of Secret Genders, author Janet Mason posits that there could have been a hidden tribe of intersex children, kept under the radar by a pair of savvy twin sisters. Matriarchs Tamar and Tabitha can set the record straight on biblical heroes like Joseph and Jesus, along with other miracles of conception and reincarnation they’ve had to keep to themselves. — Windy City Times

available in bookstores and online where books are sold

Amazon link https://amzn.to/2UgefCb

 

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Even Frosty agrees — #Impeach

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