The second Lonnie Squires mystery, TOASTED, available September 1!

Cousin Donna Hancock’s Loaves and Fishes Culinary Ministries evangelical cooking school road show–think about it.  Lonnie Squires has to.

Trying to redeem her good name in the little town of Middelburg, Lonnie volunteers as additional security for Cousin Donna’s traveling program.  Her ultimate goal is supporting her own sanity with her beloved soccer.  But she can’t play by herself and no one will play with her if people are trash talking behind her back.  A good deed might just restore social harmony.

It’s a good plan, until someone partakes of Cousin Donna’s Tasty Toast Points with Sunny Spirit Salmon Spread and ends up decidedly deceased.  People in high places decide it’s Lonnie’s job to prove that the toast wasn’t tainted.

Cousin Donna and her entourage are hiding secrets, but is one of them the secret recipe for murder?  Is Lonnie right to be suspicious of every morsel she eats, wondering if it will be her personal last supper?

Sleuth Lonnie Squires once again discovers that doing the right thing can go very wrong.  This the second title in Josie Gordon’s Lambda Literary Award-winning mystery series combines culinary mayhem with big politics in a small town.

Whoo hoo!  It is exciting to hold a new book in your hands, though I have to confess I’m always a little mystified:  “did I really write that???”  Especially when I’m so embroiled in the next book.

You can order your copy now  from  your local independent bookstore.  Be sure to tell them this is the second in a series and that the first, WHACKED, won a Lambda Literary Award for best Lesbian mystery of 2008.

Can wait to get a taste of the new story?  Read more about it, including the first two chapters to whet your appetite.

The book is Asterios Polyp by Dave Mazzucchelli. 

I love graphic novels and this one got a great write-up in Entertainment Weekly, so I grabbed a copy as soon as I could.

Almost everyone who writes about it says read it, then read it again.  I agree.

There’s a lot to like about this novel which tells the story of a middle-aged man whose life falls away to literally nothing and who sets out to rebuild it and himself in whole new ways.  I particularly loved the visual depiction of the two main characters’ ways of seeing the world–one in a precise, architectural, controlled format depicted largely in blue, and the other a more free-flowing, synchronistic, emotional worldview depicted in pink.  As their worlds come together or split apart, the colors and visuals represent a complexity not conveyed by words alone.   And when the words and the visuals each add more to the other, then a graphic novel is really working its magic.   This one goes even farther with nuanced characterization, terrific humor, and an eye-popping sense of irony.

Scott McCloud blogged on the book as well.  He’s an expert on graphic novels and offers more to think about in terms of medium than I can, so check it out.

I think all of us “non-graphic’ writers can learn a lot from reading graphic novels.  The best dialogue is compact, multi-layered.  Scenes can change with the simplest of cues.  Time spent helping a reader “see” a person or setting or perception clearly is time well spent.  In particular, this reminded me of the importance of understanding and conveying not only how different my characters are but how different the entire world is for each of them, as they move through it, experiencing it and creating it from their own unique perspectives.  Part of what can make mystery novels work is the fact that no two characters see the same thing in the same way.  It was good to be reminded how that extends not just to witness reports of an event, but to every single aspect of life.

I’m off to read the book again. . .

The House of Deputies passed the legislation passed the other day by the bishops to allow for “generous pastoral response to meet the needs of the members of this Church” and to “honor the theological diversity of this Church in regard to matters of human sexuality.”

Hooray.  Convention ends in a few hours.

Nice wrap-up from Integrity here.

Just saw this great piece by Irene Monroe in the Huffington Post.

She gives a fascinating overview of the global and racial issues so entangled with the treatment of LGBT people both in the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion.

A snippet:

By pitting marginalized groups like gays and Africans against each other, the Church masks the geopolitics of race and power while bating homophobia.

Worth the read.

Last evening the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church’s General Convention passed legistation on church rites for blessing same sex unions.  Even better, it passed with a strong majority:  104 bishops yes, 30 no, and 2 abstentions.  It goes to the House of Deputies today, where it seems likely to pass, but you never know.

As I understand it, this is a formalized stating of what is already a sort of “don’t ask, don’t tell” practice of the church, allowing individual bishops to decide if they will do this or not in their diocese.

Passage of this is a huge step; as we know from watching the situation regarding the U.S. military, it can be hard for an institution to publically claim the values it actually practices.  I bet many of us can think of examples from our own lives–I know I can.

What will the ripple effects of all this be–not only in the Anglican Communion–but for LGBT rights (and rites) everywhere?  It will be interesting to see!

The Lead at Episcopal Cafe lists various press sources.  Here’s the New York Times.

The Walking with Integrity Blog calls it “generous pastoral response.”

They did it!  This from an Integrity press release:

ANAHEIM, CA (July 14, 2009)–The House of Deputies reiterated its overwhelming support for the full inclusion of all the baptized in all orders of ministry by concurring with resolution DO25 as amended by the House of Bishops.

“Today’s action put the ‘Amen’ at the end of one of the prayers we have prayed for an inclusive church–ending the BO33 ’season’ by stating unequivocally that the LGBT baptized can and will have equal access to ordination processes in the Episcopal Church,” said the Reverend Susan Russell, president of Integrity USA.

Today they are on to allowing for same-sex blessings.  This had early popular support and as I understood it, folks thought this would sail through.  But the bishops sent it to committee yesterday.

It can be hard to do more than one brave thing at a time.  Trust us–we GLBT people know.  Here’s hoping the Bishops stick with it, keeping their eye on mission and not on what the rest of the Communion is threatening.

Why should we care what the Episcopalians decide to do about opening the full church to LGBT people?

Ripple effect.

According to the New York Times,

The battle over homosexuality in the Episcopal Church has been watched closely by other mainline Protestant churches that are also divided internally on the issue. Many are looking to the Episcopal Church as a bellwether that could foretell whether their denominations can survive the storm over homosexuality intact.

And if not intact–which implies without change–then broken, perhaps like Christ himself, to rise anew with grace and power and light.  (Good God, did I write that?  That makes me sound darned churchy after all!  I’m channeling Lonnie Squires today, evidently.)

Intact isn’t the highest good.  And those watching will see the outcome immediately and over time and learn the blessing that full inclusion will be.

Maybe I should run and write one of Lonnie’s sermons while I’m in a theological frame o’ mind!

When I ponder things like the need for clean water around the world, preventable disease, the U.S. and world economies, war, genocide, drugs, child soldiers, treatment of women and a host of other troubles on this planet, it still stuns me that opening the door for LGBT people to have full access to all orders of the Episcopal Church is such a big “problem.”  I guess it’s like legalizing marriage for us.  Seriously?  Stopping us is worth all this money and effort?  More than stopping those other things?

Must be we’re more powerful than all those other things, huh?  Otherwise, why would people bother?

Anyhow, here are a few excellent links if you want to learn more:

The Episcopal Life Online report of yesterday’s vote in the House of Bishops.

A Guardian (U.K.) report on the Archbishop’s “regret” over the U.S. position.

The Times (London) report that schism is now “inevitable.”

Actually, though I joke about how much power we have to be the cause of all this trouble, the sad truth is really about the power of hate and fear.   Here’s hoping the House of Deputies stand strong in the face of threats and votes to finalize this thing with the same 2 to 1 margin they did on Sunday.  It will be an interesting day.

Here’s the lead paragraph from an Integrity press release about the goings on at the Episcopal Convention:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ANAHEIM, CA (July 12, 2009)–In a special session today, the House of Deputies of the Episcopal Church approved a resolution, 151 to 66, which effectively overrides the three-year ban on gay bishops within the church. The gently-worded resolution, DO25, affirms Episcopal membership in the Anglican Communion while declaring that all orders of ministry, including the episcopate, are open to the LGBT baptized of the church.

There was a 2/3 majority in both the lay people and the clergy on this vote.  HUUZZAAH!

The House of Deputies is the legislative body at this convention elected to represent the people of each diocese in the United States.  There are thousands of them.  And such a resounding vote of support from the people of the church!   The world is certainly changing.

Next, the way things go in the Episcopal Church, the House of Bishops has to approve anything passed by the deputies, no matter what the percentage of deputies in support.  It’s worth noting that the Bishops aren’t elected by their people to represent them in policy-making, and have no restrictions on their participation.  They get to go back to each convention and vote time and again, whether their people like what they do or not.  So, it will be very interesting to see how they respond to such a clear message from the people of the church.

Here’s hoping the resounding support from the people of the church will embolden the bishops who have remained silent or unsure to rise and speak and help the church move forward.  Having a mainstream religious institution in America stand up and truly welcome LGBT folks will have an enormous positive ripple effect on human rights as a whole in our nation and in the world.

But in terms of knowing how the  world is changing, the deputies’ votes have said plenty–at least to my heart.  No matter what the bishops do to the institution, my being is lightened today knowing that most of the church’s people clearly have opened their hearts to me and mine.  That’s something to celebrate.

As a writer, I’m captivated and thrilled by what I’ve just learned about Harvard University’s public narrative process.  Anything with “narrative” in the title gets my attention.  Fancy word for storytelling, right?  I’m a novelist and a lover of books, movies, television and long talks with friends.  I love storytelling.  So when I saw a mention of this process, I read a little more.  Here, Harvard’s Marshall Ganz explains it:

“Narrative, story telling, is how we learn to access the courage to confront the unknown, to make choices to act upon them, choices informed not only by our head, but by our hearts,” Ganz said. “Narrative, then, is a way we can communicate our own values, experience the values that we share with one another and find the courage to confront challenges to those values that require action. Through public narrative, we learn to link our own calling to others, and action, in other words, it is a way to put Ubuntu into action.”  . . .  The art of public narrative includes the “story of self,” the “story of us” and the “story of now.”

Ganz nails the power of storytelling:  “to access the courage” to live more fully as individuals and as members of community.  This is the reason I write and the reason I coach others who want to improve their storytelling.  Whether it’s “literature” or “genre fiction” or “memoir” or this sort of public narrative, the authentic telling and writing and reading of stories changes the world for the better.

This came to my attention (in an article from Episcopal Life Online) because the Episcopal Church is using the process during their General Convention to help people of many views come together in more open, authentic and productive ways.  There’s lots more info at the article if you’re interested.