Category Archives: Blog

Review (Mark Carrigan): The Invisible Orientation

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I got a pretty super review for my book The Invisible Orientation, provided by sociologist and researcher Mark Carrigan.

Please read it here on his website.

This is a long overdue book, offering the general purpose introduction to the subject which has heretofore been lacking. It is an essential addition to any academic reading list that encompasses asexuality and should be required reading for any therapists with an interest in sexuality. It provides a sense of what it is like to be asexual that can sometimes be missing from academic work and engages with the literature while nonetheless refusing to be constrained by it. It is also immensely readable, providing an authoritative overview that sign posts the reader who is keen to explore further. I can’t recommend The Invisible Orientation highly enough and hope it has a wide readership.

 

New Video: Rejection

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Now for a video on one of the most universal subjects for authors: REJECTION.

In this video I discuss my personal rejection experiences, share my first rejection letter and laugh over my most condescending one, and give you an idea of how and in what capacity I’ve been rejected over the years–from the perspective of a person who did eventually get to “yes.”

Feature and Excerpt: TIME Magazine

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My book The Invisible Orientation has been featured in TIME online with a six-hundred-word excerpt. They titled the article “How to Tell if You Are Asexual” and showed a bit of my intro and a bit of my section addressing asexual people on how to decide if it’s the label for them.

timefeature

As of this writing, the feature contains a couple of inaccuracies.

[1] The article’s introduction claims that “[Decker] explains that asexual people can become sexual later in life, and that doesn’t mean they were not asexual before. Similarly, sexual people can become asexual,” and this is misleading. I discuss both sexual fluidity and label experimentation in my book, but it is part of a more nuanced discussion; I do not say “asexual people sometimes ‘become sexual’ later” or vice versa, and I think including it in this introduction contributes to the damaging perception that asexuality is just a phase. For most people, sexual orientation is a lifelong piece of identity, and the invalidation asexual people experience at the hands of the “you’ll grow out of it” myth makes this at best inaccurate.

[2] As for “Decker has written for the Huffington Post, The Daily Beast and Salon”–That’s incorrect. I have been interviewed in all of those publications but have never written for them.

Published Short Story: “Your Terms”

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“Your Terms” was published in Timeless Tales today.

Read it here.

pandorasbox

As you should be able to tell from this cover, Timeless Tales is a fairy tale magazine and all of the stories for this issue are Pandora’s Box–inspired. It’s the last story in the pack, with a page following it that explains my inspiration along with some bio stuff. My contribution takes an unusual look at Hope, casting her as a modern woman with a case of agoraphobia. The story makes a point about invisible disability/illness and why it’s so important for people to stop framing such things in the context of “inspiration” for others. People with illnesses and disabilities need their stories and lives to be about themselves.

Accepted short story: “Her Mother’s Child”

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My coming-of-age fantasy short story “Her Mother’s Child,” written in October 2013, was just accepted for publication by Kaleidotrope. It’s a mother/daughter tale set in a secondary world, with interwoven themes of growing up, parent/child relationships, goddess culture, elemental magic, and ladies who love ladies.

I’m told it will not be published until 2015, but I’m patient! Hope you are too, lovely readers.

Revised short story: “Your Terms”

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In late March I completed a new short story and titled it “Hope Came Out.” I submitted it to a magazine and eventually the editor got back to me with good news: She liked it a lot, but she wanted me to revise a particular twenty percent of the story that made the story more meta than she generally likes her published stories to be.

I took her revision advice, submitted a new version of it that reconceived the “meta” section and added about 400 words, and retitled it “Your Terms” because the old title makes a lot less sense in the new version.

Happily, the revision was accepted. I will make a post about it here when it’s available to read.

[Update: You can read it in Timeless Tales Issue 2.]

New Video: Hints for Drafting Writers

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Most of my videos so far have been about publishing and approaching agents and stuff, but I haven’t done much with actual writing technique and the earlier stages of drafting your book. Since I have done a lot of beta reading for authors, I thought I’d share some advice that I’ve found myself repeating for the authors I help on nearly every book.

This video addresses common pitfalls and teaches certain techniques for authors to use in polishing their novels, with particular attention paid to how to begin your novel. It also includes tips on characterization, dialogue, providing background information, pacing, story elements, and even punctuation. Enjoy!

New Novel: Bad Fairy Trilogy, Book 2

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The second book in the Bad Fairy series is now in progress!

It feels very good to jump in again, picking up with my now-teenage protagonist. I started writing it on Sunday, the 4th, and have completed chapters 1 and 2, totaling about 6,000 words. Hopefully I’ll have time to write like the wind and bust this whole thing out reasonably fast, and then I’ll be taking test readers. . . .

Speaking at Pride Week: Asexual Relationships

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I appeared at the University of Virginia on Thursday, April 10, to talk about asexual relationships as part of the university’s Pride week.

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My presentation in the University Chapel went well, including a slide presentation and an interactive talk. I got some really nice questions and got to hear from asexual students who attended my presentation. It was a positive experience all around!

You can see a recording of the presentation on my asexuality channel.