An interesting day
Yesterday was a rather interesting day. I don’t mean that the snow had melted after New Year’s Eve, which it had and which I loved. Some not so nice things had happened lately too – but fortunately not to me or my family or anywhere near here.
A relatively famous popular historian (real, academic historian, but with a big popular following) had written an editorial piece for one of our biggest (conservative) newspapers about how immigration can be an asset, not a drain on our resources. Immediately after the piece had been published, he’d been hit really hard by internet hatred. I happen to know that he has been bullied in the past, and this must have been rather traumatic for him, but he decided to post about it on his History Blog in the same newspaper, and that’s where I read about it. He claims not to be scared and will continue to stand up for what he believes in.
Since I have enjoyed numerous fantastic books by him, a tv show about history, a ‘live’ lecture by him as well as many fascinating blog posts, I decided to email him to show my support. Very soon afterwards I received an email in reply where he said that emails like mine make him realize the world is a lot better than it’s seemed lately, in his inbox. It was very nice of him to reply although I know he tends to do that, since I’ve emailed him twice before and asked for blog posts about different interesting historic topics and he’s always posted about those topics almost right away.
All this was nice enough, but also on the same day, I read a blog post by an author whose first two (fantasy) books I’ve read and enjoyed, where she talked about her writing and book related plans for the year and asked her readers for our plans. I decided to dare to reply and before the end of the evening I got a very nice reply where she thanked me for my well-wishes and in return wished me luck with my writing. I’d never imagined this woman who is sort of famous in Swedish writing circles would be so nice.
It’s not the first time though, that authors I admire have been nice and replied to my comments on their blogs.
A writer of historic romance even found my blog and commented (another blog than the one I’d posted my review on) and added it to her links list.
A science fiction writer and I even had a long conversation about his books in the comment fields on his page on Goodreads.
Another sf writer didn’t reply for nearly a year so I assumed he didn’t check that blog or had decided not to reply to any comments, but then suddenly I received a very polite reply.
A fantasy writer of two books I really loved, also replied politely and told me he had an idea for a sequel but that other projects had come up instead.
I guess that’s it, but it’s unusual for me to have such nice things happening to me. Maybe it’s a good omen for the new year.
Five Free Author Gifts For Christmas. | Jen’s Pen Den
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Cool new book
I just read a fascinating article about a 93-year-old woman in the UK who just debuted as a novelist. Yeah, you read that right. She’s 93. She says she’s been writing ‘forever’ or ‘for a hundred years’ or close enough. I guess it will be that long until I get published…
The book she wrote seems really interesting too. It’s a feminist thriller. That wouldn’t have been my first guess, when I learned that the author is 93…
I can’t wait to read her book.
I guess older people are becoming trendy these days. Young people want to be old. (I read that in the paper the other day). Personally I can’t see why though. I’m always going to stay young. And I’m also going to be a famous, celebrated best selling author. Yeah, right.
Anyway, it isn’t all that long ago that we in Sweden were stunned to realize that we had a 93-year-old rapper. Greta the Rapper, who raps about Jolly Bob from Aberdeen. All in her Gothenburg dialect, naturally. She has a very exciting past. A bit of a freedom fighter. Again, a little like Lorna Page, the author.
If 20 is the new 50, as I read in the paper, maybe 90 is the new 30.
Women Who Love Gay Men
I just read an article about a Swedish book called (in translation) Women who love gay men, by a Swedish woman by the name of Linda Leopold. It was very interesting reading.
The article mentions all kinds of ‘fag hags’. From the ‘traditional’ fag hag who goes to gay clubs, dressed and made up like a drag queen, to young women who love gay porn and even, women who are married to gay men.
One reason women like gay porn seems to be that women are tired of being submissive objects, like in many other aspects of our culture. I believe in that explanation. Of course there can be others too. In any case, I don’t think women who like gay porn need to make up excuses for their preference. Men like lesbian porn. If that’s ok, the equivalent should be ok too.
Slash, including the Japanese yaoi, is also mentioned in the article.
All this seems to be a trend gaining in popularity. I can’t help but think that it’s a slight improvement on our generally negative society.
I recognize quite a bit of all this. Not dressing up and wearing makeup like a drag queen, but much of the rest of it.
Besides, personally, I’m not exclusively a fag hag. I also love, to the same extent, sweet, kind, submissive straight guys. You could say that quite simply I love most guys, except for the pushy, bossy dominant ones.
