dude

C & P won't be the last of the FreeThinker stories you'll be reading here at AwesomeDude. FreeThinker is one of those writers who has captured my loyalty with his innovative plots and incredible characters. We certainly are happy to have him here at AwesomeDude. :D

New Life/Life Goes On has now been added to the Best of Nifty as undoubtedly people will be looking for the story. The last chapter Dave posted on his own site was Chapter 7 of Life Goes On... while Nifty has Chapter 6 as last. I was very, very sad to see The Glass Onion disappear. I did everything I could to persuade Dave to stick it out, but he wanted to reclaim that part of his time the site/story was taking and you can't deny him his right to make the decision he did.

Trab wrote: Please send these to me. But If they fall in the catgory already mentioned by the author below (Chapters 1 & 2), don't bother as they will be edited and reposted. Jamie wrote: I would suggest you write directly the author (Jamie) or his editor(AJ) if you think you can do a better job with the story. It would be hard, -in my estimation- as this is one of the best author-editor teams on the web. You seem to have a lot of time on your hands in retirement, Trab, why don't you try to produce (and edit) your own story. Generally speaking... this has been a very positive thread and I am disappointed that it is now headed downhill with the squabbling of two wannabe proofreaders. :(

End of the ?Rainbow? Gay author Alex Sanchez wraps up his trilogy of books for gay teens By GREG MARZULLO Friday, November 04, 2005 WHEN AWARD-WINNING author Alex Sanchez finished his debut novel, ?Rainbow Boys,? he had no intention of taking it to a publisher. ?It was too scary to think about being published. I just wanted to finish it,? he says. It wasn?t until one of his writing instructors showed the manuscript to her agent that Sanchez began to think he could market the story to gay teens and adults. After it was published in 2001, ?Rainbow Boys? ended up being named a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association, was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, and was a bestseller at gay book retailer Insightoutbooks.com. ?Rainbow Boys,? its sequel ?Rainbow High,? and now ?Rainbow Road,? released in October, follow three gay friends during their journey from early adolescence through high school and finally to a fateful pre-college summer. Sanchez will be reading from the book at D.C.?s Lambda Rising on Thursday, Nov. 10, and at the Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library in Falls Church, Va., on Saturday, Nov. 12. The final book in the trilogy, ?Road? is a coming-of-age story about three gay teenage friends who drive from D.C. to Los Angeles. Nelson is the effeminate type who?s been out since he was born. Jason is the late-blooming jock who recently lost his college basketball scholarship after coming out. Kyle, Jason?s boyfriend and Nelson?s best friend, is the gay everyman. The trio sets out to drive Jason to a speaking engagement at a new queer high school in L.A., and they get involved in a series of adventures, meeting Radical Faeries, transgendered Britney Spears impersonators, and mature loving gay couples along the road. MUCH OF THE conflict in ? Rainbow Road? swirls around the complicated relationships among the three protagonists, which can be seen as symbolic of the factions within the larger gay male community. At the start of the story, nelly Nelson and hyper-butch Jason don?t connect at all, and Kyle feels forced to play the mediator. The boys spend a night at a Radical Faerie sanctuary in Tennessee where the queer campers are dressed in chiffon and smeared with glitter. Nelson immediately feels at home, and Jason thinks the gay faeries are freaks. Nelson confronts the bewildered jock by saying, ?It?s the rest of the world that?s weird. Why shouldn?t you be able to dress how you want, act how you want, and love who you want? If you?re so straight-acting, then why don?t you have the guts to just let yourself go and be who you are?? Sanchez says he views the interactions between Nelson and Jason as being as much about masculinity as about gay issues. ?In the straight and gay worlds, we still have an archetypal image of what it means to be male,? he says. ?Even though Nelson has such incredible strength, we don?t associate him with that. That?s not who we idolize in terms of masculinity.? The challenge between these two types of men hangs in the air throughout the novel, and it may inform the author?s future works. Sanchez is on contract with the publishing house Simon and Schuster to write a book per year. His upcoming novel is about the relationship between a gay boy and his straight best friend. ?I discovered in writing these books that I thought I was writing about being young and gay and male in America,? he says. ?A lot of it was about being young and male in America and how challenging it is for boys regardless of being gay or straight.? The author says he sees America as struggling to integrate people who are different into its societal fabric, and for gay people, the strong desire to be like everyone else can devalue the queer experience. ?Because we are able to be invisible, unlike ethnic minorities, we do have the opportunity to see things from the outside while appearing to be on the inside. We have a gift to be bridge builders,? he says. SANCHEZ?S WRITING HAS reached a wide array of readers, the largest percentage being adult gay men. ?The e-mails I get from gay men who are reading the books are that they?re going through what I went through when writing them ? they?re remembering what their high school experiences were and what they might have been,? says Sanchez, who politely declines to give his age. Even still, there is that opportunity to build bridges between different groups of people with these stories. According to Sanchez, a long-time Northern Virginia resident who recently moved to Hollywood, Fla., the biggest surprise in his readership is the large number of straight teenage girls who love the books. ?For young people growing up today in the era of ?Will & Grace,? they?re hearing about gay people all the time. Girls are very open and curious to finding out more about it,? he says. Sanchez says he feels encouraged by this response from the female sector, because, ?They?re our straight allies. They?re the ones who are really going to change things for the gay community.? In all three of the ?Rainbow? books, however, Sanchez says that staying true to oneself is the most important message he can offer to his readers. This message pertains to everyone ? gay or straight, male or female. ?The boys go through different experiences, and they?re never entirely positive or negative,? he says. ?No matter how good an experience is, it has some cost attached to it. A good point from which to make decisions is, ?Am I being true to myself???

Excellent commentary on the Infernal Revenue Service! :p

Thanks for copying the post here, James. And thanks for adding the link to the story on Nifty. But we have hosted this story since the early days of AwesomeDude and Pecman writes under the name of John Francis... which might have caused some confusion. We also featured this story in the recent past as a Dude's Pick in the Novel category. If you want to read this story just click on John Francis in the Authors list and select Jagged Angel. When I read the story, I thought of young Andy Williams as well... it is interesting that Pecman chose to dedicate the story to him. What happened to him was as much a tragedy as what he did.

Yes... so good to have another chapter of Beautiful Soul posted after such a long time. And welcome to AD forums, Damien!

Well, that sounds like a challenge! Anyone gonna step forward? :?:

Yeah... isn't that a great little story? :)

:roll: :color:

I just re-read the story again and the flow is very good now... not that it wasn't to start with.... A truly excellent work and what a great Halloween present for us all! Don't worry about updates to other stories... I'll find time to get it done!

Welcome to the club, AOL. Yahoo routinely supplies the Chinese government with access to accounts of dissidents in China which has resulted in a number of arrests. You can bet they are in bed with DHS as well. God bless ameriKa! :walk:

"Adverbs are not your friends..." Stephen King

Jan, You say you are using Invision. I had considered going to them when I had the major problems with database/forums... but their documentation -at least on the website- didn't give me any indication of whether the conversion from phpBB would allow me to keep... for example, the template I am using here. Vereor Men In Black. Do you know?

Go for it Aaron! Your first story was great. One suggestion, don't do so many rewrites and get so nervous over #2. Just let if flow.... :p

From the checking I have done the domain had not expired. Unfortunately, the domain was registered with the original, arrogant and WORST registrar, Network Solutions. Network Solutions is in massive decline since the creation of ICANN and loss of their monopoly. In response to the mass migration to other cheaper, service-oriented domain registrar/web hosts, they have made it virtually impossible to move a domain registered there to another... I know I have moved a half dozen one of which took a year and a half. The are obstructionist at best. I still have one domain there for a friend who only uses it for his email because I can't get them to unlock it so it can be transferred, even though I am the account administrator. I suspect Spence -Tyrell's account administrator- got caught up in the 'get out of the clutches of NS syndrome'. Among the dozens of sites that address this (if you are interested) : http://www.computergripes.com/Network.Solutions.html Ty is back home in rural (and beautiful) New Zealand and Spence is in the US. Give 'em a break! :roll:

Big Mac pleads innocence! He says he downloaded it from elswhere on the web and says he doesn't visit the Talon House anymore since you don't offer him treats like birdies or mousies....

It sure wasn't here yesterday! Well, I'll try emailing him instead of snail mail. Thanks for the heads up.

Don't give up hope. Things must be tough if Ty gave up the domain, but I know things have been tight for him. We have been out of touch after a silly falling out in January. Now I feel like shit. I have an express mail letter ready to go to him in Lake Taupo (Merlow) as I write this... we'll get him back! Mike

Sorry... that must have been my pesky kleptomaniac Halloween cat, Big Mac. Go give him a piece of your mind.. I think he's hanging out on the AD Stories page.

OK...Tuesday, October 11th is National Coming Out Day in the US. How about sharing your coming out experiences before and after and just how you did it? This is the thread I mentioned in today's News & Views column. You show me yours and I'll show you mine... just don't ask me to be first!

Considering my maker included a foreskin in my original equipment, I'd be just as happy if my parents hadn't let them 'get away with it' at the hospital where I was born. :p

Density has no boundries... I have no idea either ??? :pale:

Reviewed by Jim Mack At Swim, Two Boys is one of the rare instances of a gay-themed book going mainstream and receiving some high critical acclaim. Irish author Jamie O'Neill writes a tale of his own country and in doing so, weaves together historic fiction with a profound and moving gay love story. We live the years up to the Easter Rising of 1915 through the eyes of Jim Mack, a confused and shy teenager. Jim rediscovers a childhood friendship in Doyler, an outgoing boy who is struggling to help his impoverished family. Pangs of lust and admiration evolve while Doyler gives Jim swimming lessons in the ocean. But theirs is a relationship smothered by teenage confusion, misunderstandings and sour circumstance that they must both strive hard to break free from in order to appreciate a consummated love. In the mean time, Catholic Ireland is hurtling towards a bloody conflict with England - and despite popular Irish sentiment, the factions behind Ireland's split are ill-prepared, uncoordinated, undermanned and unequipped to fight a war of independence. Both boys become caught up in the conflict; Doyler through his involvement with the socialist faction and Jim through his youthful and naive fantasies of defending one's country: for honour and for loved ones. Jamie O'Neill effectively mixes history and love story in this long and complex work. In a style sometimes compared to fellow Irishman James Joyce, O'Neill is challenging to read through the first few chapters. ?Here the heavy use of 1914 Irish slang (much of it invented by the Author) might easily discourage a halfhearted American reader; but it gives the characters a genuine dimension and therefore heightens the atmosphere and the intentions of the plot. At Swim is a tragedy, but perhaps a fictional tragedy fit to preamble the bloody and senseless violence that gripped Ireland until the turn of the millenium and still haunts the country today. Despite its length, At Swim is punctuated with breakthrough moments for Jim and Doyler, both individually and together. ?All of these ultimately make the story a joy to read and recommend.

Reviewed by Nick Nurse A Book Worth Reading: Boy Meets Boy This is a novel that the author, David Levithan, cheerfully describes as a ?dippy happy gay teen book,? and while that much may in fact be true, Boy Meets Boy is far more than just that. ? There is an old adage that cautions readers against judging a book by its cover. ?Yet in this case, if one flips to the back jacket cover, one sees the most clever ?Author's Bio? in recent memory: while short on actual information, it cheekily informs the reader on many things that our Author has never done. ?It's apparent from the get-go that this is Something Different, and that sense of uniqueness never goes away throughout the entirety of the novel. It is this concept of uniqueness that is one of the central themes of Boy Meets Boy. ?The protagonist, Paul, is growing up in a singular American city: long ago, he says, the lines between straight and gay blurred in such a fashion that punks and skaters listen to ?queercore thrash,? the local chain bookstore holds concerts where Paul's ?Gaystafarian? friend Zeke performs, and the Boy Scouts, ousted after their rejection of gay scout leaders, have become the Joy Scouts. ?In this place where it seems just about anything could happen, Paul stumbles upon Noah, the new boy in town, and is near-instantly smitten in a pitch-perfect description of teenage romance. ?The rest of the book follows the trail of their relationship, from the nervous hellos in the hallways to quiet and moving dates about town to a dramatic falling-out and its aftermath. ?Without giving away the ending, it should be emphasized that this is a ?dippy happy? book, and it never really quite loses sight of that goal in the plot and themes. What elevates Boy Meets Boy above the level of simple romance novel for teens and into something much greater than just that is both the earnestness of the author's vision and the cleverness with which he imparts that vision onto the reader. ?Boy Meets Boy takes an upbeat view of Paul's city, a little oasis of tolerance, while themes that normally bleed through the pages of gay-themed fiction (alienation, acceptance, the conflict of man versus society) are treated as backstory: Paul is seamlessly integrated into this gay/straight Utopia, and acceptance is as natural as breath. ?Instead, Boy Meets Boy takes the interaction between gays and straights one step further and envisions a future where cultural divisions are pass?: here, the American ideal of the melting pot is epitomized in Paul and his group of friends, a medley of gays and straights, all of whom live and love and, in doing so, are treated exactly the same. ?The brilliance of Levithan's vision is in the details: a careful read reveals a savvy writer concerned as much with the proper turn of phrase as with getting the overall structure right. ?Clever offhand references such as ?painting music? and the description of the people that populate Paul's nameless city cement the conviction that this is a writer with something to say and the panache to say it well. ?????? Oh, and did I mention that the novel is damn hysterical, too? ??