Catching up...New Year and some Old Drama

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Catching up...New Year and some Old Drama

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Feb. 1st, 2011 at 2:26 PM

How's things with everyone? I've been busy meeting new friends and saying goodbye to old ones. Since I work for Uncle Sam, most of my friends are military, which means I have to say goodbye to them after a few years. It makes me sad, but I have a whole family all over the world now.

I've also been busy working with OutServe, which is a group created by gay military members for gay military members to give them a safe place to vent and be themselves amongst family. The Hawaii Chapter has gotten quite large, and we do weekly events with all the younguns to give them something to do. I've meet some amazing new friends and we are having SO much fun.

I have not, however, been so busy that I haven't had time to read the occasional book. In fact, I cracked open Sean Michael's latest story, PUSH. I'm a fan of his Hammer series. Imagine my shock when I saw THIS on the title page:

Push: A Hammer Novel
TOP SHELF
An imprint of Torquere Press Publishers
PO Box 2545
Round Rock, TX 78680
Copyright © 2011 by Tracy Rowan
Cover illustration by S. Squires
Published with permission
ISBN: 978-1-61040-154-8

Ummm....wanna run that past me again? Sean Michael is a sixty-year-old chick from Chicago? The same Sean Michael who for YEARS has professed to be a male? Who said in chat that he was a man and didn't think he should have to whip out his cock to prove it? WOOOOOOOW.

Ok, I need a poll. Is Sean Michael a seriously pervy old lady, or is this yet another one of TQ's infamous typos? What do y'all think?

( 19 comments — Leave a comment )

egret17 wrote:

Feb. 2nd, 2011 12:50 am (UTC)

There's a discussion of pseudonyms in this thread on the GRs M/M Romance group and Sean Michael features in it. :)

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emmyjag wrote:

Feb. 2nd, 2011 05:13 am (UTC)

yeah, I remember that. some of the comments on that thread are mine. we've been pondering TQ's propensity to have 3 authors under a good 20 pseuds for some time, lol.

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egret17 wrote:

Feb. 2nd, 2011 01:29 pm (UTC)

So, based on that thread - Tracy Rowan is Shawn Clements. ;)

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lakeaustin wrote:

Feb. 2nd, 2011 01:06 am (UTC)

LOL

I have to say I don't think Sean Michael is a man. I am, however, open to seeing his cock. But I also don't think he lives in Chicago. I vote typo.

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emmyjag wrote:

Feb. 2nd, 2011 05:14 am (UTC)

Re: LOL

My brain is seriously scarred at the thought that he's the sweet little old lady next door writing porn. GAWD *bewbies shrivel*

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(Anonymous) wrote:

Feb. 2nd, 2011 03:27 am (UTC)

I think this is just a typo, BUT Sean Michael's gender is still in question because I recently found out that Sean Michael and B.A. Tortuga are the same person. B.A. purports to be female. She has a picture on her website that looks genuine, but who knows. B.A. Tortuga is also an alias, but nobody knows who this person's actual name and gender is. Tracy Rowan was not one of the alternate aliases of Sean/B.A. (so far).

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emmyjag wrote:

Feb. 2nd, 2011 05:15 am (UTC)

and BA, if I remember correctly, is Shawn Ann Clements. oh, the tangled web...

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d_moonchild wrote:

Feb. 2nd, 2011 04:43 am (UTC)

Don't know anything specific about Sean Michael but I believe it is fairly common in the BL publishing world that female authors create fake male identities. The standard explanation provided (when the lie is discovered) is that some gay men avoid books in this genre unless they are written by those "like them".

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emmyjag wrote:

Feb. 2nd, 2011 05:16 am (UTC)

own up or don't address it at all, I say. it's not exactly anyone's business. but when asked, for gawd's sake DONT LIE. the truth will out eventually!

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alex_beecroft wrote:

Feb. 2nd, 2011 09:58 am (UTC)

I couldn't care less one way or another. But then I'm genderqueer and don't think the sex of your body has much relevance to anything other than lifting weights. Seriously, if 1000s of people have been convinced from his writing that he's male, then clearly - if he is actually female - it doesn't make any difference to the writing. If it doesn't make any difference to the writing why does it matter?

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emmyjag wrote:

Feb. 2nd, 2011 02:42 pm (UTC)

I could care less who writes the stories I read as long as they're good and keep me entertained. But to say it doesn't matter would be disingenuous when it clearly DOES matter to the female authors who feel the need to assume male names to write slashy smut. Otherwise, why do it?

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alex_beecroft wrote:

Feb. 2nd, 2011 04:26 pm (UTC)

Well, thinking about it, there are many reasons why you'd do it, ranging from "I always wanted to be a man," through "my editor told me to," "I don't want people to pick up my books expecting them to be girly because they aren't," and "you sell more and get more respect as a man," (none of which IMO is blameworthy of the author) to "I want to be able to swank around the community pretending I know more about the gay male experience than anyone else" and "I want to be able to enter competitions from which I would be banned if people knew I was a straight woman." (Both of which are dodgy.)

If it was proved that any particular author's reason to use a male pseud was one of the last two reasons, then I'd be concerned. But in the absence of other evidence, I'm all for giving people the benefit of the doubt and believing it's one of the others. And if it is, then it's understandable and none of my concern.

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emmyjag wrote:

Feb. 2nd, 2011 04:39 pm (UTC)

I'm not trying to make any judgments about whether it's right or wrong. Just give me a good book to read and I'm happy. But people keep saying that it doesn't matter whether males write as females or vice versa, when if it didn't matter, nobody would do it. Whether it SHOULD matter is another conversation.

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alex_beecroft wrote:

Feb. 2nd, 2011 05:37 pm (UTC)

Ah, I see what you mean. And it's true, it's more that I believe it shouldn't matter than that it honestly doesn't.

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gehayi wrote:

Feb. 2nd, 2011 02:43 pm (UTC)

I vote that it's a pseudonym. (The same thing happens in het romance; "Leigh Greenwood" is actually Harold Lowry, Jessica Stirling is really named Hugh C. Rae, and Edwina Marlow, Jennifer Wilde, Katherine St. Claire and Beatrice Parker are all pseudonyms of Tom E. Huff. People just tend to make less fuss about a man writing under a woman's name than they do about a woman writing under a man's.)

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emmyjag wrote:

Feb. 2nd, 2011 02:55 pm (UTC)

while TQ is rather infamous for having authors with multiple pseuds, they're equally infamous for the sheer amount of typos and fuck ups in their books. I actually think this was one of their sloppy messes this time.

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(Anonymous) wrote:

Feb. 6th, 2011 04:09 pm (UTC)

Oh, that's a typo. I know Tracy. She's definitely not Sean Micheal, lol.

~ Kat

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hamafake wrote:

Apr. 14th, 2011 01:06 am (UTC)

Couldnt agree more with that, very attractive article

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(Anonymous) wrote:

Aug. 23rd, 2011 12:32 pm (UTC)

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I really liked the article, and the very cool blog

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( 19 comments — Leave a comment )

February 2011