The Salon: Writing LGBT Characters

This month on The Salon we welcome three writers who identify as members of the LGBT community. Nicola Griffith, Hal Duncan and Catherynne M. Valente talk to Cheryl Morgan about writing LGBT characters.

If you have difficulty listening this podcast you can also find it here, or via iTunes.

Here are some links to things mentioned during the podcast:

• Lamda Literary
• Cheryl’s Trans Literature article
• Hal’s Water Fountain article
• Nicola’s lesbian SF story (which was a Hugo nominee)
• The Lambda article on m/m fiction
• Lethe Press
• The Outer Alliance

Here are the books recommended during the podcast (and a few that got added later):

• Everything by Samuel R. Delany
• Everything by Joanna Russ
• Vellum and Ink, Hal Duncan
• Set This House in Order, Matt Ruff
• Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente
• Eon, Alison Goodman
• Ash, Malinda Lo
• The Steel Remains, Richard Morgan
• Icarus magazine
• Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories, Sandra McDonald
• The Love We Share Without Knowing, Christopher Barzak

Please feel free to suggest others the comments below.

English novelist living in Seattle. Author of five novels (Ammonite, Slow River, The Blue Place, Stay, Always) and a multi-media memoir (And Now We Are Going to Have a Party: Liner notes to a writer’s early life). Co-editor of the Bending the Landscape series of original queer f/sf/h stories. Essayist. Teacher. Website builder. Blogger. Winner of the Nebula, Tiptree, World Fantasy, and 6 Lambda Literary Awards. (And a BBC poetry prize, some Gaylactic Spectrum awards, the Premio Italia, and others.) Partner of writer Kelley Eskridge (together they run Sterling Editing). Drinks just the right amount of beer and takes enormous delight in everything.

Hal Duncan is a writer of SF, fantasy and strange fiction in general, a member of the Glasgow SF Writer’s Circle, and a monthly columnist at BSC Review. He has published two novels, Vellum (which won the Spectrum and Tähtivaeltaja awards and was nominated for several others) and Ink, a stand-alone novella, “Escape from Hell!”, various short stories in magazines and anthologies, and a poetry collection, Sonnets For Orpheus. His work also includes the lyrics for Aereogramme’s “If You Love Me, You’d Destroy Me,” on the Ballads of the Book album, and the musical, Nowhere Town, which recently premiered in Chicago.

Catherynne M. Valente lives on a small island off the coast of Maine with her partner, two dogs and one recalcitrant cat. She has produced many poems, short stories and novels, and has recently won the James Tiptree Jr. Award (The Orphan’s Tales: In The Night Garden), the Mythopoeic Award (The Orphan’s Tales), Andre Norton Award (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland) and a Lambda Literary Award (Palimpsest). She has also been nominated for a World Fantasy Award (The Orphan’s Tales: Cities of Coin and Spice), and this year was a finalist for the Best Novel Hugo Award (Palimpsest). Her latest novel, The Habitation of the Blessed, a tale of Prester John, is due out in November.

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The theme music for The Salon is by Dmitiry Lukyanov and is licensed from Loopsound.com.