Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974

My snippets this week are from a writer whose short-stories I read during the 90s when I was trying to teach myself how to write them myself. Bruce Coville’s story “Am I Blue?” was recently featured on the fine podcast “The Queer Book That Saved My Life.” https://thisqueerbook.com/am-i-blue/ The story is available in a lot of places. Here’s the original. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/708960.Odds_Are_Good

Vincent, our young High-School narrator is having a bad day. A guy punched him out calling him an anti-gay slur. Then he meets Melvin, a Gay guy who can do real magic and says he’s Vincent’s Fairy Godfather. Snippet one has them talking in a cafe.

“Do you know the three great Gay fantasies?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said nervously.

He looked at me. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Skip the first two. You’re too young”

Melvin explains that Gay Fantasy #3 would be every Gay person in America turning blue for a day, so all the straights would have to stop imagining they don’t know any Gays and that there are Gay cops, firemen, kids, parents. Melvin offers to give Vincent Gaydar for a while; he’ll see anybody who is LGBT as being blue. Here’s snippet two:

It was like seeing the world through new eyes. Most of the people looked just the same as always, of course. But Mr. Alwain, the fat guy who ran the grocery store, looked like a giant blueberry—which surprised me, because he was married and had three kids. On the other hand, Ms. Thorndyke the librarian, who everyone knew was a lesbian, didn’t have a trace of blue on her.

“Can’t tell without the spell,” said Melvin.

I’ll recommend anything Coville writes especially this story. https://www.brucecoville.com/

Next week; something else by someone else. —-jeff