"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."
He Is the Wine, I the Cup: Queer Devotion in the Poetry of Abu Nuwas “O my heart’s beloved,You are the sun of beauty,And I — merely the eye that follows you.He kissed me, and I becameThe chalice, trembling in the hand of joy.”- Abu Nuwas...
Stone statue of Xochipilli, Aztec deity of flowers, music, and same-sex desire (c. 1450–1500 CE, now in the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City) Xochipilli, Prince of Flowers: Queer Divinity in Aztec Art What you're seeing is a volcanic stone sculpture showing Xochipilli, an Aztec deity part...
As I did in previous months, I will celebrate Pride Month with one post a day, which the new layout of the blog will feature right here, in the dedicated horizontal band or in the dedicated subcategory. Posts will feature in 3 different categories: Story of...
James Edward Preston Muddock, known by his pen name Dick Donovan, was a British journalist and fiction writer born on May 28, 1843, in Southampton, England. Muddock is best remembered for his contributions to the detective and horror fiction genres, having published nearly 300 stories...
Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman (1852–1930) was an influential American writer known for her poignant depictions of life in rural New England, particularly focusing on the experiences of women. Born in Randolph, Massachusetts, she grew up in a family steeped in Puritan values, which significantly influenced...
William Douglas O'Connor (January 2, 1832 – May 9, 1889) was an influential American writer and a significant figure in the literary world of the 19th century, particularly known for his close association with Walt Whitman. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and his early...
One of the main characters, in the Gothic Novel I'm writing, is a shapeshifter who's unapologetically pansexual and occasionally gender-fluid, so this was a question I was bound to ask myself. 1701: could you be killed for being gay? Specifically, we assume the character left England in...
There’s the widespread narrative that transsexuality is something new and we’re all wound up around something we invented yesterday. And to that narrative we say: fuck you. Representation has never been so important and this is why I’m publishing this string of notes on LGBT+ characters throughout...
Following Aphra Behn’s death in 1689, Delarivier Manley collected her inheritance and brought forward the discourse around the sexual identity of women and the legitimation of female same-sex attraction. She’s one of the “fair triumvirate of wit” with Aphra Behn and Eliza Haywood, a term coined by...
As we have seen with Aphra Behn, the Restauration period started challenging some of the concepts around women’s desire in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships, with delicate examples of transgender and what we now know to call non-binary relationships taken into account. Anne Finch's late production...
