Today’s Pride Month interview is with author Craig Laurance Gidney:
Hi, Craig! I hope you’re staying safe and healthy during current events. What are you doing to stay creatively motivated in these unusual times?
I’m working on my serialized novel HAIRSBREADTH, which is being published by Broken Eye Books. Plus I have a couple of stories coming out sometime soon. The titles are “Sigilance” and “Myth & Moor.”
Since June is Pride Month, I have to ask: how has being queer influenced or informed your writing?
It’s not a conscious thing, but queer issues seem to creep into my work. Most (but not all) of my characters are queer or black.
I’m also always interested in the intersectionality of our identities. The Stonewall Riots, which led to the Pride Month we now celebrate, started with a trans black woman and yet too often, people of color are left out of discussions on gay rights. Can you speak a little bit about where we are and what we need to do to make our rainbow truly equal?
The racism in the LGBTQA community is as toxic as it is in the mainstream world. The way it manifests in the queer community is through sexual stereotypes, which are very damaging to queer BIPOC, and White Fragility makes it difficult to talk about it. This will require much self-reflection and many uncomfortable conversations. The LGBTQA community is infected by white supremacy, so much so that there was a movie called Stonewall that whitewashed the riots.
Anytime I interview someone I haven’t interviewed before, I always ask: What does your creative process look like? Are a plotter, a pantser, somewhere in between?
For the most part, I’m a pantser. I’ll have some vague and formless plot points I want to reach but for the most part I do free flow writing that’s concerned with character and the rhythm of the language. Word choice and image -crafting are like catnip to me!
What are you working on now? Do you have anything coming out soon?
Hairsbreadth is my “black girl magic” novel, which riffs on the fairytale Rapunzel and black folk magic (aka Hoodoo). It’s set in the same “universe” as A Spectral Hue. It’s being serialized (every 2-3 months) and it will eventually become a book. “Myth and Moor” is coming out in an anthology of stories inspired by Hammer Horror films. My story features a fearless Emily Brontë vs a nightmare figure from British folklore. “Siligance” is coming out in an anthology of queer weird fiction, and was inspired by The King In Yellow and Jean Genet’s homoerotic fiction.
And finally, where can people find you and your work online?
My website craiglaurancegidney.com is the best place to find out about my literary adventures!
Craig Laurance Gidney writes both contemporary and genre fiction. He is the author of the collections Sea, Swallow Me & Other Stories (Lethe Press, 2008), Skin Deep Magic (Rebel Satori Press, 2014), and the Young Adult novel Bereft (Tiny Satchel Press, 2013) and A Spectral Hue (Word Horde, 2019). Three of his books have been finalists for the Lambda Literary Award. He lives in Washington, DC.