#World AIDS Day — Surviving a Plague: When Literature Invokes Life

Note: I am re-blogging this in honor of World Awareness Day which was on December 1st.

Every now and then comes that rare book that brings your life rushing back to you. How To Survive A Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France (Knopf 2016) is one such book.

The book chronicles the AIDS epidemic from the early 1980s – when the mysterious “gay cancer” started appearing — to 1995 when hard-won advancements in research and pharmaceuticals made AIDS a virus that people lived with rather than a disease that people died from.

It was an epidemic of massive proportions. As France writes:

“When the calendar turned to 1991, 100,000 Americans were dead from AIDS, twice as many as had perished in Vietnam.”

The book chronicles the scientific developments, the entwined politics, and medical breakthroughs in the AIDS epidemic. AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) is a chronic infectious condition that is caused by the underlying human immunodeficiency virus known as HIV. The book also chronicles the human toll which is staggering.I came out in 1981 and while the devastation France writes about was not my world, it was very close to my experience.

In my book Tea Leaves, a memoir of mothers and daughters (Bella Books, 2012), I write about how volunteering at an AIDS hospice helped me to care for my mother when she became terminally ill:

“The only caregiving I had done at that point was tending to an old cat and reading poetry to the patients at an AIDS hospice, called Betak, that was in our neighborhood. A friend of ours, who was a harpist, had started a volunteer arts program for the patients. She played the harp, [my partner] Barbara came and brought her drum sometimes, and I read poetry. These were poor people—mostly African American men—who were in the advanced stages of AIDS and close to death. The experience let me see how fast the disease could move.”

In those days, the women’s community (what we then called the lesbian and feminist community) was mostly separate from the gay male community. Understandably, gay men and lesbians had our differences. But there was infighting in every group. Rebellion was in the air, and sometimes we took our hostilities out on each other.

Still, gay men and lesbians were also allies and friends (something that is reflected in France’s writing).

I’ll always remember the time my partner and I took a bus to Washington D.C. with the guys from ACT-UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, an international activist group that is still in existence) from Philadelphia to Washington D.C. to protest for reproductive rights. The women then went to protest with ACT-UP at AIDS-related protests. Remember the die-ins in the streets?

One thing that lesbians and gay men had in common was that we lived in a world that was hostile to us. At that time, many gay men and lesbians were in the closet because we were vilified by society and in danger of losing our employment, families, housing and, in more than a few instances, our lives.

AIDS activism necessitated coming out of the closet. Hate crimes against us skyrocketed.

There is much in this book that I did not know, even though I lived through the era. In 1986, in protest of the Bowers v. Hardwick ruling of the US Supreme Court (which upheld a Georgia law criminalizing sodomy – a decision that was overturned in 2003), about 1,000 angry people protested in a small park across from the legendary Stonewall Inn in New York City, where the modern gay rights movement was born after a series of riots that started after a routine police raid of the bar.

At that same time, Ronald Reagan (then president) and the President of France François Mitterrand were celebrating the anniversary of the gift of the Statue of Liberty.

“’Did you hear that Lady Liberty has AIDS?” the comedian [Bob Hope] cracked to the three hundred guests. “Nobody knows if she got it from the mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island Ferry.’”

“There was a scattering of groans. Mitterand and his wife looked appalled. But not the Reagans. The first lady, a year after the death of her friend Rock Hudson, the brunt of this joke, smiled affectionately. The president threw his head back and roared.”

How to Survive A Plague is told in stories, including the author’s own story. This is apt because the gay rights movement was full of stories and — because of the epidemic — most of those stories were cut short.

Almost every June, my partner and I would be part of the New York Pride Parade and every year we would pause for an official moment to honor our dead. The silence was cavernous.

This silence extended to entire communities. A gay male friend, amazed when his test came back negative, told me that most of his address book was crossed out. He would walk around the “gayborhood” in Center City Philadelphia surrounded by the haunting places where his friends used to live.

And we were all so young then.

When I turned the last page of How To Survive A Plague, I concluded that this is a very well-done book about a history that is important in its own right. The plague years also represent an important part of the American experience. And an understanding of this history is imperative to the future of the LGBT movement.

This piece of commentary was previously aired on This Way Out, the LGBTQ news and culture syndicate headquartered in Los Angeles and published in The Huffington Post.

For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:

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The lesbian origins of Emily Dickinson– #amreading #bannedbooks #LGBTQ

I was reminded this week when the international radio syndicate This Way Out rebroadcast a piece on Emily Dickinson that I did some time ago as an example of the author of a banned book, about the important lesbian origins of Emily Dickinson. When I told my partner that the work of Audre Lorde was also being banned, she looked angry and said, “they are afraid of her.” You can click here and here for my recent writings on Audre Lorde.

It was previously published on Technodyke.com and aired on This Way Out, the Los Angeles-based lesbian and gay radio syndicate that airs across the U.S. and in 22 countries abroad.

Emily Dickinson and I did not hit it off on the first date. That is to say that on introduction to her work, I saw her–or rather was taught to see her–as a lady like poet writing of hearts and flowers, tendrils and vines, the stuff of which had absolutely nothing to do with my life. In junior high when I came across Dickinson’s work, I was already a hell on wheels hard drinking adolescent, a product of my 1970s working class environment that put me on a collision course headed toward disaster.

It was my love of language that got me through. I’ve often heard it said that poetry serves no purpose. Perhaps that is true if one takes a completely materialistic and emotionally bankrupt view of life. But the fact is that two lines of poetry saved my life: Shakespeare’s “Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow/ creeps through this petty pace from day to day.” I didn’t know it at the time, but that I could recite this part of Hamlet at will, even if I was on my way to being blasted or hung over from the night before, embedded in my mind that I would have a tomorrow. A tomorrow was not a petty thing to have: a few of my friends didn’t make it.

I wonder if things could have been different, for myself and for the close-knit gang of teenage girls I hung out with. I wonder if a Lesbian reading of Emily Dickinson could have halted our self-destruction and consequently saved a few young lives. It took a few more years for me to grow up, stop drinking and come out as a Lesbian. And when I did I found myself falling head over heels in love with poetry. Emily Dickinson was someone I returned to again and again. There was something clever, yet profound, in her verses that I memorized. The lines were deeply personal, as if they had been written just for me. I found her public personae intriguing. She was portrayed as a spinster, a recluse dressed in white, the eternal virgin who had nothing to do with men.

A few more years passed and I went to visit the Dickinson homestead in Amherst Massachusetts. I was there with a group of friends, some of whom lived in the area and were just visiting her home for the first time. It was ironic really– there we were a room full of Lesbian poets listening to the tour guide’s official wrap about the cloistered and asexual Emily Dickinson, trapped in her father’s house. There was something sinister about the house, foreboding. But behind the house, in the flower garden, was a beautiful wash of colors. And as I sat in the garden, on a white wrought iron bench, I peered through a shady grove to the neighboring house. I remember it being painted in the glowing hues of peach, at once golden and pink. There was something mysterious about this house, set back as it was from the road, directly approachable from the Dickinson homestead. If I were Emily I could not have resisted its magic lure.

I found out later that this house is where Susan Huntington Dickinson lived. She was Emily’s sister-in-law, married to Emily’s brother, Austin, and she was the love of Emily Dickinson’s life. She was Muse to Emily, her intended reader, thoughtful critic and, by more than a few accounts, she was Emily’s lover. In correspondence to Susan, Emily wrote that Susan was “imagination” itself. The two women were close friends for 40 years, and they lived next door to each other for 30 of those years.

In “Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson’s Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson” (from Paris Press), the editors, Ellen Louise Hart and Martha Nell Smith, point out that over the course of their lifelong friendship and love affair, Emily sent countless numbers of letters, poems and a form of writing that Emily came to call the letter poem. And on many of these letters, placed for Susan to see when she unfolded them, Emily had written her careful instructions: “Open me carefully.”

Emily Dickinson lived at the end of the Victorian-era in New England from 1830 to 1886. After her death, any mention of Susan was carefully removed from her poetry and this essential body of correspondence was neglected. Still, even with this erasure of Susan’s name, which Emily had written at the top of so many of her poems, it is obvious that they are essentially Lesbian love poems. Consider, for example, the piece that begins with the line “Her breast is fit for pearls…”

“Susan, / Her breast is fit for pearls, / But I was not a “Diver”– / Her brow is fit for thrones / But I have not a crest, / Her heart is fit for home– / I–a Sparrow–build there / Sweet of twigs and twine / My perennial nest. / —Emily”

In Victorian New England, Emily Dickinson certainly could not mention her most intimate body parts. But she did a pretty good job of using the birds and bees as metaphor: “These days of heaven bring you nearer and nearer, and every bird that sings, and every bud that blooms, does but remind me more of that garden unseen, awaiting the hand that tills it. Dear Susie, when you come, how many boundless blossoms among the silent beds!”

To separate Emily Dickinson from her Lesbian passions is a cruel and unnecessary act. Not only does it do a disservice to Emily’s poetic genius, but it also deprives her readers of a deeper comprehension of Emily and therefore of a deeper understanding of themselves. That’s what literature, at its best, does. It leads us home.

It really doesn’t matter if Emily Dickinson ever made love with a woman. (Although my guess is that she did and most likely did so rather skillfully.) What matters is that she experienced deep rending passion, that must at times, under the circumstances, have been painful.

A Lesbian reading of Emily Dickinson places her firmly in the center of her own page. When I think back on my visit to her house, I can see her clearly now, sitting down at her desk after her daily chores were done, as she smoothed the white folds of her skirt and picks up her quilled pen. As she writes, her cheeks are ablaze with longing and desire, that essential Lesbian desire.

For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:

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The Influence of Sappho on Loving Artemis — #Sappho #LesFic #amreading

I am delighted to bring you this excerpt from my novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love and marriage (published in 2022 by Thorned Heart Press) that was recently published in the anthology Favorite Scenes From Favorite Authors, from I Heart Sapphic Books. I am particularly enthusiastic about this excerpt because it was inspired by the Lesbian poet Sappho. The excerpt is called “The trees blushing”

“Blurb:

      Artemis found the love of her life when she met Linda, but their passionate relationship fizzles when Artemis lands herself on the other side of the law. Pulling the pieces of her life together, Artemis rekindles her relationship with Linda, and together they raise a daughter.

      Meanwhile, Grace, running from her past, starts a life with Thalia. At a pride parade, Grace spots someone who reminds her of Artemis, who she was briefly involved with in her youth. Old feelings are rekindled. A lifetime of rejection, abandonment, and fleeing rears its head. Now she must come to terms with her past, put her relationship with Artemis to rest–or risk losing everything.

      Artemis and Grace embark on a journey of revolution, love, and marriage and discover that love finds us when we least expect it.

      Tell us about this scene:

      Art (Artemis) and the love of her life Linda take a motorcycle ride to the nearby quarry where they make love for the first time.

      Why did you choose this scene as your favorite?

      This scene is heavily influenced by my reading of the ancient Greek poet Sappho (who lived on the Island of Lesvos).

        * * *

      Excerpt:

     

(from chapter ten)

They got back on the bike. Art turned the key in the ignition and pulled forward slowly. This was where Art had come with her old girlfriend Allison. They had been on foot then, that first time when they hid behind the trees and called out to each other with lines from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Art remembered the light shining through the trees, the way it did now as it danced on the ground around them. It was summer then. Now, red, orange, and brown leaves covered the path. Art felt the bump of tree roots under the tires. She brought the bike to a halt. She sat there for a minute, feeling the warmth of Linda behind her: the inside of Linda’s thighs cupping her ass; Linda’s arms hugging her waist. Art had been thinking that it didn’t get better than this. But now she knew it did — and it would. The difference between the time that she first came here with Allison and now, coming here with Linda, was that Art had been here before. She knew what she was doing. But she wanted it to be Linda’s idea. Linda got off the bike first. She walked to a log next to the path and sat down.

“I can see the lake from here,” said Linda. The back of her head was toward Art. Her windswept hair fell over her jacket collar.

“Come on over.” Art swung her leg over the bike. She put down the kickstand and stood there for a moment, holding the handlebars until she made sure that the bike was on steady ground. Then she walked the bike to the side of the path — beyond the log where Linda was sitting.

A narrow trail shot off from the path. It looked familiar. Art walked over to the log. “You can see the lake from here,” Art said. “I never realized that before.”

Linda scooted closer to Art. “You know the first time I walked into school with you, the girl sitting next to me in homeroom asked, ‘Who’s that cute guy with the motorcycle?'”

Art looked at her.

“Art is a guy’s name,” Linda explained.

 “It’s short for Artemis,” answered Art. “My mother’s Greek. Artemis is a goddess from Greek mythology.”

“Yeah, the goddess of the hunt. She was always my favorite,” replied Linda, looking at Art perceptively. “I think it’s cool that you’re Greek.”

Art looked into Linda’s green eyes. The woods were shady. Afternoon light filtered through red and orange leaves. Linda’s eyes blazed into Art’s.

“You would make a cute guy,” Linda continued.

Art was drawn into the green vortex of Linda’s eyes. Art’s arms and legs trembled and tiny flames scorched her skin. She opened her mouth slightly to say something, but speech eluded her. Linda leaned in and kissed her. Art kissed her back. Linda’s lips felt as soft as moist rose petals and she smelled like musk oil. Art didn’t know if Linda wore perfume or if the scent came from her own body. A breeze rustled the leaves. Art’s heart trembled. This wasn’t the first time she kissed a girl, but this kiss felt different. A universe opened between them. Their tongues found new language. Soon, Art drew back. Linda looked radiant, as if the moon and stars were glowing inside of her. Still speechless, Art remembered that there was something she wanted to say.

Words formed on her lips: “But I’m not a boy. I’m a girl.”

“A smart girl,” whispered Linda. “I like that.”

This time, Art leaned in and kissed Linda. Their hands were everywhere. They came up for air, stood, and stumbled ahead on the path. They turned down a narrow path and found a large mossy patch that looked inviting. Art thought she had been here before with Allison, but she wasn’t sure if this was the exact place. Now, here with Linda, it was new. They were standing, kneeling, lying on the ground, rolling, touching. It was too cool a day to take off their clothes, but, as it turned out, it didn’t matter. There would be plenty of time for that later.

Art rolled on top of Linda. Excitement sparked in her groin and danced throughout her body. Her fingers tingled. Her tongue entwined with Linda’s. When they were done kissing, Art drew back and looked at Linda. Her hair was the deep red of autumn apples. Her skin was radiant. Shifting her weight, Art thrust her thigh against Linda’s crotch.

Linda groaned. “I’ve wanted to do this ever since I got on your bike with you,” she whispered.

Art had wanted to do this ever since she set eyes on Linda. She wanted the bike more than anything, but she wanted Linda just as much. Maybe Linda was the reason she bought the bike. Yiayia (her Greek grandmother)would have understood. The wind blew harder and the leaves rustled. A distant roaring filled Art’s ears. Linda moaned and writhed under Art, as Art rubbed her crotch in a circular motion on Linda’s thigh. Cries overflowed from her throat. A humming filled her ears. The moss felt like moist velvet under her fingertips. It was chilly, but Art was filled with warmth. She rolled to the side.

As she lay there, her arms circling Linda, she imagined that the red and orange leaves looking down at them were the trees blushing.

Here is the link to the free anthology on BookFunnel:

https://dl.bookfunnel.com/ck3pqiiavx

For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:

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The book “I needed” — a worldwide perspective on Loving Artemis: #hope #equality #LGBTQ #amreading

One of the things that is wonderful about being an author is that I hear from people all over the world that the worlds that once lived in head are meaningful. Of course, this is often influenced by events that have actually happened as is the case with Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love and marriage published by Thorned Heart Press.

I was really touched by this review from Kira who is associated with The Sapphic Book Club.

Loving Artemis wasn’t exactly what I expected – but I think it was what I needed. The book is divided into three main sections; one in roughly modern day, one from Art’s perspective about her life growing up, and the last from Grace’s perspective in high school. While it wasn’t until the last section that I really understood how they all tied together, I found that the focus on each character individually created a more balanced narrative about queer youth and the lasting impact of early relationships.

Art, short for Artemis, wants to become a person of her own design, rather than the housewife that her family (and society) believe lies in her future. Grace, on the other hand, begins discovering who she is through a variety of factors- a disastrous trip with a friend, a school project, and a chance encounter with Art. Although these two are only together for a short period of their lives, they both end up living through a particularly eventful period in the American gay liberation movement.

Throughout the book, academia and academic pursuits offer a window into the changing world, even as Art and Grace are caught up in the trials of their own lives. Passing references to Stonewall, Loving v. Virginia and Obergefell v. Hodges, Defense of Marriage Act, and other monumental events are discovered in classes and headlines, providing a contextual backdrop that is just as compelling, if not more so, than the protagonists journeys.

Everything and everyone- Art, Grace, their lives, and the movement for equality- come together at the beginning and end of the book at New York Pride. In the midst of a celebration and memorial of their struggles, resolution abounds. As much as I know that we are not, and likely will never be, finished with the fight for equality, Loving Artemis ends in a way that makes me believe that will be possible, if only for a short while.

To read my post first published by The Sapphic Book Club, click here.

For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:

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A Day for Honoring: #MLKDay2023; #amreading; #intersectionality

I was delighted to learn that my novel Loving Artemis, an Endearing Tale of Revolution, Love, and Marriage (from Thorned Heart Press was one of the winners of Literary Titan’s top books from 2022.

In honor of that and in honor of the important day of service dedicated to Dr. Martin Luther King, I am posting an excerpt from Loving Artemis in which a protagonist in her senior year in high school is at the local public library researching a paper that includes the history of her era. This part of the story takes place in 1977.

Grace nodded. She headed over to the microfilm reader.
After an hour, she found the article in the Metro section about Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm from New York’s 12th Congressional District announcing her bid for the presidency. She read the article, copying notes on her index cards, putting the citation on the top. Then she saw a sidebar on the highlights of the civil rights movement.
She remembered learning about the Emancipation Proclamation when she was in junior high. It was passed in 1862 when President Lincoln was in office. There was a mention of the 1915 Supreme Court ruling (Guinn v. United States) against the grandfather clauses used against black people to deny them the right to vote. She learned about this last year in social studies. She remembered the teacher talking about Rosa Parks starting the Montgomery Bus Boycott by refusing to give up her seat in 1955, but she hadn’t learned that the U.S. Armed Forces weren’t desegregated until 1954. She remembered seeing a film about the integration of Little Rock Central High School after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 1954 ruling that segregated schools were unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. At the time she knew this was important, but she didn’t have the strong feeling that she had now that the rights of all people would open doors for her too.
Grace looked down the column and skimmed the paragraph about the Voting Rights Act of 1965, then she read an item about interracial marriage. She didn’t know that it had ever been illegal, and she didn’t know why it had never occurred to her. In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia against states prohibiting interracial marriage. Grace read that Mildred Loving, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, residents of Virginia, brought the case to the U.S. Supreme Court after they each had been sentenced to a year in prison because they had violated state law by marrying.
Grace sat back in her wooden library chair and stopped making notes. She was astounded that this had just happened ten years ago.
It was true that most of the families who lived in her neighborhood were white. In her section, there were three black families and one East Indian family. The parents were all married to someone of the same race. But when Grace had gone on an overnight class trip to a ski resort several hours away, she had seen the captain of the football team, who was white, and the head cheerleader, who was black, horsing around in the indoor swimming pool. They were practically making out. Everyone knew they were a couple, but no one said anything about it. As captain of the football team and head cheerleader, they were both royalty in the pecking order of high school. Grace leaned forward and went back to taking notes. Then she sat up and scanned the bottom of the column. In 1968, the same year that Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, Shirley Chisholm became the first black woman elected to congress.

For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:

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The Sapphic Book Bingo: what goes around comes around –#amreading #LGBTQ #Sapphic #lesfic

One of the many joys that I have experienced in being a published author is that I hear from people all over the world that they have read and related strongly to my work. I guess I like making a difference and I like it that my stories are helping others.

Most recently with my novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage (from Thorned Heart Press), I’ve had the good fortune to connect with the German lesbian author Jae who is including my books in several of her book projects including the 2023 Sapphic Book Bingo which you can find more about below.

I’ve noticed that Jae along with many others is bringing back the term Sapphic. Sapphic comes from the poet Sappho who lived on the Isle of Lesbos in ancient Greece. I’ve been to the Isle of Lesbos and at one point in my life was quite obsessed with Sappho.

I was a poet then and Sappho often appeared in my work. After a reading that I gave decades ago a younger lesbian came up to me and said, “Who’s Sappho?”

I told her, of course, but I was silently appalled. Now that the word has come back into common usage, I am delighted.

So I am delighted to be part of the 2023 Sapphic Book Bingo!

Sapphic Book Bingo 2023

For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:

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A tale of resiliency: Loving Artemis in review–#amreading #bookreview #LGBTHistory

BookView Review: Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love and marriage by Janet Mason

Mason spins a stunning tale of resiliency, compassion, revolution, and courage in her latest novel that takes readers on two women’s journey of love and contentment. The daring and fiercely strong-minded Artemis have always known her preference for girls. When Linda comes into her life, a passionate relationship begins. But Linda soon disappears from Artemis’s life, leaving her heartbroken. The latter starts dealing drugs and has a brief relationship with Grace. Eventually, Artemis and Grace also separate, choosing different paths in life. Now decades later, both women have their new lives. But when Grace spots Artemis in a pride parade, she realizes she still has feelings for Artemis. LGBTQ intrigue and self-discovery create a vivid backdrop to a narrative that carefully details the toll of intolerance and bigotry. Mason’s flair for characterization and attention to detail provide Grace and Artemis’s individual stories authenticity. Mason elegantly weaves together the LGBTQ issues, adolescent and young adult angst, and romance threads, and an intriguing cast—including the fierce Artemis, the sensitive Grace, the vulnerable Linda—will keep readers invested in the story. The story is as much the history of the nation as it’s a tale of love, perseverance, and self-discovery. Wholesome, authentic, and beautiful, this page-turning LGBTQ romance satisfies.

To order my most recently published novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:

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A “vindication of the human spirit” — Loving Artemis “not to be missed” –#amreading #LGBTQ #MarriageEquality

I am delighted to be able to bring you this review by the esteemed author Maria G. Fama on my novel Loving Artemis, An Endearing Tale of Revolution, Love and Marriage (Thorned Heart Press; August 16, 2022):

In her absorbing new novel, Loving Artemis, Janet Mason gives her readers a coming-of-age tale masterfully framed by the story of Thalia and Grace, two professional, middle-aged women in a long-term relationship in 2015. We are then taken back in time to the turbulent late 1970s, when the Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and Women’s Rights Movements were making inroads into the national consciousness. There we meet bright, talented, working-class teenage girls, Artemis, Grace, and Linda, among other interesting characters, both male and female. The girls grapple with their sexuality, family expectations, education, relationships, and life decisions, while finding their way in a world with many pitfalls, including drugs and alcohol. This novel contains an added bonus of providing engrossing facts about history, science, culture, and religion, as Artemis and Grace ponder them.

We are taken back in time to the turbulent late 1970s, when the Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and Women’s Rights Movements were making inroads into the national consciousness. There we meet bright, talented, working-class teenage girls.

 Loving Artemis offers within its pages, stories of romance, danger, disappointment, love, and the ultimate vindication of the human spirit. This novel is very rich and satisfying and is not to be missed.

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“Zen and the Art of Lesbian Motorcycle Maintenance” –#amreading #writingcommunity #summerromances #LGBT

I was delighted to find this review today by the novelist Louis Greenstein.

Janet Mason is at her best in this well-wrought, seamless coming-of-age novel. But Loving Artemis is more than a coming-of-age novel. It’s the history of the LGBTQ and feminist struggle seen through the lens of adolescent lovers who parted ways in 1977 at age 18 — and who each lived very different lives through the ensuing decades. From navigating high school politics and teenage yearnings to re-defining themselves in a rapidly changing world, Artemis and Grace take us on a sweeping journey through a tumultuous time for culture and politics.

Artemis is arguably the coolest girl in her ginormous high school in the Philadelphia exurbs. Leather-jacketed, motorcycle riding, book smart, and streetwise with an independent streak as long as I-95, her swagger and her glare can stifle a heckler. But is it really a clever cover for her insecurities and her unstable home life? After a heartbreaking loss, Art hooks up briefly with Grace, who’s dazzled by Art, but confused and struggling with her sexuality, her family’s expectations, and her self-understanding.

Years later, Grace thinks she may have spotted Art at a Pride Parade. The moment rekindles her memories and ignites a story at the intersection of political culture, popular culture, drug culture, the rise of feminism, and the long slow crash of the American Dream.

Mason weaves history, humor, and pathos into a compelling, compassionate narrative with strong, memorable characters, deep insights, and motorcycles too!

For more information on Loving Artemis, click here.

For more information on the blog tours and giveaways on Loving Artemis, click here.

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Let’s talk — #govegan #amreading

My partner who is more out in the world than me comes home with fascinating stories.

After a trip to the hardware store, she tells me that she had a conversation she had with a clerk who mentioned that another coworker of hers died of breast cancer. My partner told this woman about the hormones in dairy that contribute to cancer. I was amazed and dismayed to hear that the clerk said she had never heard of this before. There’s been some talk in the plant-based community about putting labels on dairy like labels were put on cigarettes warning consumers that the product is bad for their health. This can’t happen to soon.

My partner also came back from our local food coop and told me that she struck up a conversation with a customer who was buying cheese. “If you knew what was in it and how they treat the dairy cows, you wouldn’t be buying that,” she said.

I asked her what the customer said, and Barbara responded that the woman said nothing but put the cheese in her basket.

When she told me this, I just shook my head. These kinds of responses really are a shame. People have really been brainwashed. I came to veganism after the age of sixty and after a health scare. My impetus to change was to continue being on this planet. (I’ve since learned so much that I can never go back to eating animal products.)

Since I became vegan so late in life, even if I wanted to be judgmental, I couldn’t be.

It isn’t people’s faults that they have been brainwashed.

I have a Buddhist mantra that I do every day, but now I have added a line at the end:

I wish for all beings to wake up and be free.

And I wish for them to do this before it is too late.

This is a new cow friend who we are hoping can go to a sanctuary soon — where she can live out her natural life (instead of being slaughtered and turned into hamburger).

To learn more about my most recently published novel — The Unicorn, The Mystery, click here:

The Unicorn, The Mystery now available from Adelaide Books — #amreading #FaithfullyLGBT

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