 Hello, I'm Keith Gosland. I'm Ann Charles. And I'm Linda Quinlan. Welcome to all things LGBTQ. It's October 22nd and Tuesday and I guess we'll start with our headlines, Keith. And we're off and running. First thing is our trivia question, because I keep forgetting it. Out in the mountains, October 2006, article about a Vermont Supreme Court ruling in the Miller Jenkins lawsuit. Why would we care about that? And then looking very, very quickly, the Vermont Coalition for Ethnic and Socials Equity in Schools, the coalition has appointed and the press release will be going out actually today of the 11 community members who have been appointed to serve on this task force, three of whom may have identified as being part of the LGBTQ plus spectrum. You can find out who by going on the coalition's website and reading the bios. There is two positions specifically for youth. There is a position, new lips, for the indigenous communities, LGBTQ people with disabilities, all of the people who should be at the table have been invited to be at the table. Good. Very good. Very brief comment. Current discussion happening within the LGBTQ news network. We need to be very conscious right now that as the impeachment inquiry moves forward, that 45 will target the LGBTQ plus community for greater restrictions and pull back of positive policies because it's the one way he can secure himself with his base. That was part of his campaign promise. Today, this month is LGBTQ History Month. I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the things that have been pointed out that we got wrong. That's interesting. Yeah. And then I'm going to talk about Vermont specific events, including a very exciting poetry reading that might be happening at the Kellogg-Covered Library. And speaking of poetry readings, you may notice our striking outfits. We're wearing them in solidarity with one of our number who will be celebrated on the show with an interview and with our praise, our ongoing respect and praise. My headlines are as follows. Good news from Northern Ireland. Finally, it's going to legalize abortion and same-sex marriage. And this happened last night. It was a little bit of a squeaker. Bad news from Hong Kong. A serious setback for equal marriage. Uganda news. I hate to even report it. A Uganda government spokesperson says there are no plans to reintroduce the kill the gays bill. But a prominent activist was brutally killed. So we'll get to that. I have good news from Brazil involving a Brazilian drag queen named Pablo Vitar. Good news about Mariela Franco. And let me just tell you, as you know, she was assassinated in Rio. She's the first-ever LGBTQI person to be nominated for the Sakharov Prize. Morgan news from Brazil. A judge orders Brazil to reinstate the funding for films in LGBT victory. I mentioned that last time. They had cut off funding for 80 films because Bolsonaro was worried that four of them had gay content. But now a judge has ruled that the whole action was illegal. I have very interesting news about the London production of the color purple. And I'd like to elicit responses from my fellow panelists. And then stories I'm not going to get to, probably, a Reading Chick-fil-A outlet to close in England. I saw that. I love that. LGBT rights row. Coca-Cola has been fined for pro-LGBTQ ads in Hungary. And I have a picture now of the ads. They're appealing the decision. A Danish pro hockey player, John Lee Olson, comes out as gay. And I have a picture of him. He's very happy to have done it. His team is supportive. An American anti-LGBTQIA preacher condemns New Zealanders after he was denied entry to New Zealand. His name is Stephen Ambrose of the Faithful World Baptist Church. Was he trying to bring Chick-fil-A takeout? He was going to cause a little trouble in New Zealand, but he was excluded from entry to the country. Unfortunately, the World Congress of Families is prepping for an African conference with supporters of anti-gay laws. And when I mentioned the story about Ghana last time and the special education program they're initiating, Linda said, with great foresight, now the anti-gay preachers from the U.S. are going to go over there. And lo and behold, Brian Brown, who is head of World Conference of the Family and the International Organization of the Family, is headed to this conference in Accra, where he's going to cause as much trouble as he can. Evil walks among us. Okay, what you need to prophesize is he goes over there and he doesn't come back. Or at least, you know, eggs, have eggs thrown at him. Again, like potatoes, like the... So those are my headlines. I didn't mean to interrupt you. Okay. Well, there's a little bit of a row at Baylor University, yeah? A row? Yeah, a row. Where? At Baylor University, which we'll get to. And Miley Cyrus says she thought she had to be gay because men are evil. I know. Is Miley Cyrus gay? She said she was at one point, but she felt she had to because she thought men were evil. How strange. She now identifies as pan-sectional. It could change tomorrow. What a strange story. Now there's a serial we can all get behind. Yes. You can eat and support LGBTQ equality at the same time. The Human Rights Campaign has joined forces with Honey Nut Cheerios to help raise funds for LGBTQ people. So that's good news. I happen to like Honey Nut Cheerios. And that serial is distinctive looking, you know. It is. It is. It's got like, I don't know, like a gay Honey Nut. I see. Billy Porter. Excuse me. I've got these allergies. Billy Porter recently said the music industry is hugely and violently homophobic and sabotage his early career. However, Mr. Porter will be playing the fairy godmother in the new Cinderella movie. I can't wait to see that. I can't wait. I know. A little story about Ron Farrell. Ben Shapiro. William Barr. Shep Smith. Oh my goodness. I know. Savannah Jargers having its pride parade and celebrations on October 24th through the 29th. Susan Collins, which you probably know about in Maine, is presently polling at 33%. We love that. I hope it's going down. A country commissioner in Tennessee was caught on video ranting about how the U.S. has a queer running for president. It's time to wake up. It's time. It's past time. Said Sevier County Commissioner Warren Hurst, Republican, at a meeting yesterday about an ordinance to make the county a gun sanctuary. So we'll have more about that later in the program. All we need is a gun sanctuary. Well, if it's a gun sanctuary, then they're over there and we can keep them there? They can't come off the sanctuary. Okay, looking at events coming up that you're going to want to participate in, November 4th, Kellogg Hubbard Library at 7 o'clock, someone might be reading selected works from Chelsea Creek, and it might be our own Linda Quinwood. On Sunday, if you're watching this Saturday night, set your alarm clock, get up early tomorrow morning. Sunday at one o'clock in the afternoon. No good. At Perky Planet, which is on St. Paul Street in Burlington. Women's Coffee Social. They're looking at it and it's sponsored by the Prize Center. They're looking at trying to make it at least a monthly event. That same afternoon, don't even have to come home. Is it going to be like once a month, you think? Well, no, that's what they're trying to. Okay, once a month. Okay. There is a community potluck that afternoon, five o'clock at the Pride Center. Oh my gosh. Make your best castor roll. And then on Monday night is women's game night. What date? This is Monday the 28th. So no, this is all in succession. It's like the day after we air and there we go. So it looks as though the Pride Center is starting to reach out. Let's see how sustained their action is. Reach out to women? Yes. Good. I wish I could do this Sunday, but we already have tickets to the theater, don't we? Saturday. Oh, Saturday. Well, I was going to say no, if they could only make it past Burlington. Yeah. True. Oops. On Wednesday, October 30th is the LGBTQ Plus Town Hall Forum being sponsored by the Alliance and Rainbow Umbrella, six o'clock at the Montpellier Senior Center. This is an opportunity for our communities to come together and say, this is what we need. Rather than somebody telling us, this is what we can do for you. This is our opportunity to say, this is truly what would be helpful for us. This is where we are stubbing our toes, or this is what is working well. And specifically the people who are traditionally left out are youth and our seniors. Yeah. Please come. And this is going to be repeated statewide. But Wednesday the 30th is when it's happening here in Montpellier. And the Kellogg-Harvard Library, also on Monday the 28th at 6.30, is their LGBTQ Plus book and film series. Yeah. They're going to be discussing the book Picture Us in the Light, which is a young adult novel written by Kelly Lloyd Gilbert, and it's co-sponsored by the Unitarian Church. Okay. And I was hoping you had read a review of it so you could comment, but the face you're making is like, what is that? You know, actually I think I own it, but I haven't read it. Oh, okay. That's why I was furrowing my brow. Is that okay? It was celebration. All right, Northern Ireland, good news. It was decided at the 11th hour. There was an attempt to block the change, but it collapsed into a farce. The new legislation puts the House of Commons on track to legislate for marriage equality by January 2020, paving the way for same-sex couples to wed on Valentine's Day. So there's going to be a lot of festivities in Northern Ireland on Valentine's Day. The abortion law that was also passed obliges the UK to ensure regulations for free, legal, and local abortion services, making sure that they're in place by the 31st of March 2020. After midnight, that's last midnight, yesterday at midnight, there'll be a moratorium on criminal prosecutions halting police investigations into abortion cases, including a case against a mother who faced jail for buying her then 15-year-old daughter abortion pills online. In 2014, when I needed an abortion and was denied one, I swore I would add my voice to the campaign for abortion rights, and to have achieved that is just incredible, said Ashley Tupley, who was part of the Supreme Court challenge to the ban. So good news. Now in Hong Kong, I wish I could report the same thing. They're having terrible time anyway. In general. Yeah. Well, the background is that MK, a Hong Kong woman in the same-sex relationship, filed an application for judicial review at the High Court in June 2018, claiming that the government was breaching her constitutional rights to privacy inequality. The case was heard at the end of May of this year. Currently, Hong Kong only legal recognizes marriages as between a man and a woman, and does not recognize same-sex marriage or civil partnership or any other form of legal union. The High Court in this MK case held that same-sex couples in Hong Kong had no constitutional right to marry under the territory's basic laws. The case follows two other recent landmark decisions that went in the other directions in which the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal held that the blanket denial of specific marriage benefits to same-sex couples legally married civil partnerships overseas could not be justified and amounted to sexual orientation discrimination. So if you're living in Hong Kong and a citizen, you can't get married or have a civil partnership. But if you got married overseas, you can. And representative of Amnesty International Hong Kong said, sadly, the discriminatory treatment of same-sex couples will continue for the time being. The result is deeply disappointing, but will not dampen the fight for LGBTIA rights in Hong Kong. We stand in solidarity with LGBTI people in Hong Kong and all those who bravely campaign for equal rights. The Hong Kong authorities must stop stigmatizing people based on who they are. So a setback there. I'd like, I have two Uganda stories, if I may. You can only do one now. You want to wait till your next segment and do both. Well, I definitely want to get to the good news from Brazil and the color purple. Because you want comment on the color purple. Yes. So minister in Uganda stirred up a lot of controversy by saying he wants the return of what is called the kill the gaze bill, which, you know, in the original form, it included the death penalty. But then in 2014 it was introduced. It was dismissed. A version came up and was passed. And Obama boycotted the Muse 70 regime. Say, and he cut human USA to Uganda. So Uganda struck it struck down the anti homosexuality act on the technicality. So this. But now they're probably getting piles of money. Well, this deplorable ethics and integrity minister Simon Lakoto said his country's current penal law is limited. So he stirred up all this, you know, controversy and coverage. But Uganda has backtracked and said it doesn't plan to institute kill the gaze bill. However, in tandem with this on October 6, Brian was what 28 very active human rights advocate was murdered in his home. He'd worked as a paralegal paralegal for human rights awareness. And he was beaten with a hammer in his home taken to the hospital. Activists wanted him moved to a better hospital in Kampala. He died on route. So three other gay and transgender people have been killed in Uganda in recent months amid the climate of increasingly hostile statements by politicians about LGBT rights. On August 1st, a group of motorcycle taxi drivers beat a young transgender woman to death near Kampala. The organization, the young man who was recently killed belong to has also experienced previous violent attacks. In February 2018, two security guards were seriously injured during a violent break in at the organization's Kampala offices. And a security guard there was beaten to death. No one has been brought to justice. So, you know, they have they don't really kill the gaze bill, but it's still awful. When you have hate speech, you have action that accompanies it. You don't mean that. Well, you know, Trump will probably give them more money to have to pass the kill the gay bill. They're not going to pass it. Yeah, not now. But anyway. So tell me some fun stuff. Well, there is, well, Ronan Farrow proposed to John Lovett in a draft of his new book. It was so kind of romantic. His new book is called Catch and Kill. And he said that he put they used to pass notes because Lovett was helping him with editing. And so they had notes often in the manuscript. And so he put a proposal in the manuscript and John said yes. And so they'll be getting married. That's good news. And he's kind of directly out of the closet now. Yes. And Lovett is hinting around about it. They met, I guess, in 2011 when Lovett wrapped up his time as a speechwriter for Barack Obama. And that new book is supposed to be pretty hot. Yeah. I heard an interview on NPR was pretty good. Yeah, it talks about NBC backing off from the Harvey Weinstein story. Well, yeah. Of course. Parents Lash Out After Georgia School adds trans-inclusive policies. Carlton Wilson okayed allowing a trans student to use the bathroom that corresponded with their gender identity. But Wilson says he has received death threats. So his decision is on hold for now. So we can see where that's going. Ben Shapiro, another one of our depots. Who is he? I'm going to tell you. Good. I wondered during the headlines. Well, he was part of the problem in Baylor. Let me just say this that Baylor, the school is requiring both this gay organization, which is called gay, and Youth for American Freedom, YAAF. They've been having this fight because the Christian organization has accused the gay organization for ripping down their flyers and trying to disrupt their meetings. But one of the things that they're doing is they're inviting Ben Shapiro, who has said that transgender is a disease and has attacked the Supreme Court for striking down laws, discriminating against laws that decriminalize homosexuality. So these two groups are being ordered into mediation by Baylor. So the Christians invited Ben Shapiro to Baylor. Right. And then he accused the gay. Well, he has come, but this is who he is because he comes up again here. Ben Shapiro, who was mentioned as a person speaking at Baylor, has threatened Beto O'Rourke with a gun over his LGBTQ policies. Beto O'Rourke said he would strip churches of their attack exempt status if they didn't support same-sex marriage. So he's threatened him with a gun. And another deplorable on our long list is Franklin Graham, who said he will not bow down to the altar of the LGBTQ agenda, and he would not worship the rainbow flag. Well, who asked him anyway? Exactly. Is Baylor religious? It's a Baptist church. A Baptist school in Texas. In Texas. Yep. Yep. I think it's near Houston. It's fine. It's not in Houston. All you need to say is Texas. Texas, I know. Well, he went after Beto O'Rourke. Yeah. So they probably, yeah. And William Barr, our finest attorney general of the United States, made a speech at Notre Dame and preached about religious freedom. He decided he decried the rise of secularity, secularism, and vowed to do all he can to ensure religious freedom in America, where really, you know, over the last 50 years, Barr said, religion has been under attack, and there has been a steady erosion of religion as a guiding force in our society. This is the person who's supposed to be enforcing and protecting us with the separation of church and state? Yes. That same attorney general? Okay. And the one who doesn't find any problem with lying as a moral issue. But, you know, that's another story. I say impeach them all, but you're near the top. And thank you, president, the new president, once they're all impeached. Nancy Pelosi. Oh, shoot. My political inclination jumped out. I get it. Sorry. And let me just one more quick story. Shep Smith quits Fox after 23 years with the organization. I don't say Fox News, I just say FoxR, Fox Entertainment. Um, saying even with our polarized nation, he hopes that the facts will win the day, that truth will matter, that journalism will thrive. Smith called, was called out in a tweet in which Trump said the network doesn't work for the United States anymore, aiming it at him. So I think, I didn't realize he was gay, Shep Smith. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Now I know. Yeah. And, you know, apparently he was out to get him. So who was out to get Trump was out to get him. Yeah. And so because he was critical of the decisions they had made, and if he's hoping that Fox Entertainment will actually do real journalism, you know, it's a good thing he retired when he did entertainment. So, so LGBTQ History Month, things we didn't get right, starting with faggot did not derive from the match to burn the bundle of sticks to burn gays because they didn't burn gays. Gays were hung. That was the punishment. Faggot shows up in a vocabulary of criminal slang. So it was something that was within some, that segment of the culture anyway, had nothing to do with anything else. And as we've, as we have had as a trivia question on this show before, Harvey Milk was not the first openly gay elected to public office. It was Kathy Kozashenko, a lesbian who ran for city council in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1974, three years before Harvey was elected and three months before Elaine Noble was elected to the House of Representatives in Massachusetts. The black cat riot in Los Angeles. Was that the donor Trump? No. Never happened. Okay. It was a police raid. What happened is one of the officers was assaulted while trying to take people into custody. And it was one of those scenarios where law enforcement went in, playing clothes, just part of the bar scene with the signal they just started arresting people. Well, the bartender hit one of the police officers. He ended up going to the hospital and we had a riot. Not, not. And the first organized gay rights protest and Ann got this one was five years before Stonewall. It was in New York, 1964. And it was a response to within that year, approximately 2,500 service members were given a less than honorable discharge because they'd be part of the LGBTQ community. It wasn't a big demonstration, but the people who were in attendance were the daughters of the Linus. Homosexual League of New York. Doesn't that sound like the baseball team? The Madison Society and the New York City League for Sexual Freedom. All right. I'll put that up against bar's group anytime. Yes. Yes. All right. Let me rush through this good news from Brazil because I want to consult my co-host about the color purple story. First of all, a Brazilian drag queen makes Time Magazine's next generation leader list. This is Pablo Vittara, 24 year old Brazilian drag pop singer who was included along with other rising stars from around the world. He's established, I'm sorry, she has established herself as someone to watch on many fronts using her platform as a musical star to demand equality for LGBTQ people in Brazil. She identifies as gay and gender fluid. She's become something of an internet sensation in recent years, racking up a half a billion Spotify streams and a billion YouTube viewers as well as garnering 9 million Instagram followers. Next, as I mentioned, oh, and I have a picture of Pablo before you. Please observe her. Mariella Franco, I have a picture now of her. She's the first ever LGBTI person to be on the Sakharov Prize shortlist. The European Parliament announced the finalists for the Sakharov Prize on October 9th. And for the first time in 30 years, an LGBTQIA person is on the list. As we know, Mariella Franco was a Brazilian politician, feminist, and human rights defender. I have a picture of her before you now. A black bisexual activist. She fought for the rights of women, young people, favela residents and LGBTI people in Brazil until she was brutally murdered in March 2018 at the age of 38. She's being honored. And Judge orders Brazil to reinstate the funding for the LGBT films, among others. The four LGBT themed films are going to be back in production. And so it's kind of a temporary restraining order, but it's a victory. But now I have a fairly long story, if I may, involving Alice Walker, the British theater community, and a homophobe who was cast as Sealy. And they took her out, right? They took her out. Yeah. Alice Walker has finally spoken out about the whole. They've both spoken out. So Alice Walker says that her being cast in this role was a betrayal. An actress who'd made homophobic comments was fired from the role in the production of the story's musical version earlier this year. Good. Alice Walker says it would be a betrayal because Alusia Umuba, who was set to portray Sealy in the production of the musical that ran earlier this year, The Lester Curve, and then the Birmingham Hippodrome in England was fired after actor Aaron Lee Lambert shared a 2014 Facebook post in which Umuba called homosexuality a sin, saying it's illegal but not right. So Lambert didn't know her. It's legal but not right. What did I say? Illegal. Oh, pardon me. Thank you. Please always correct me because I get so caught up in the story. I misspeak occasionally. Lambert said Umuba. At least you can say practice. She said Aaron Lambert said Umuba would be a hypocrite if she played Sealy, who finds love with a woman after having been abused by men while holding homophobic views. Last month, Amoeba said she plans to sue Lester Curve over her firing and the global artist's agency for dropping her as a client. She, as you probably know, is the daughter of a prominent British anti-LGBTQ activist. Amoeba contends that she has suffered discrimination because of her Christian beliefs. Walker stayed silent on the matter until this weekend. Now I don't think that'll fly in England, not like it will there. In Uganda maybe. Yeah. Um, let me show you a picture of Alice Walker right now. Yeah. She sent a letter to the color purple. She stayed silent and then she sent a letter to the color purple producer Scott Sanders and authorized him to share the letter on Facebook. In it she expressed heartfelt compassion for Amoeba. Then she explained how she came to create Sealy and I found this very interesting. Sealy, and this is, I'm quoting from the letter, is based on the life of my grandmother Rachel, a kind and loving woman brutally abused by my grandfather. It's safe to say after a frightful life serving and obeying abusive men who raped in the place of making love, my grandmother, like Sealy, was not attracted to men. Walker wrote, she was in fact very drawn to my grandfather's lover, a beautiful woman who was kind to her, the only grown person who ever seemed to notice how remarkable and creative she was. In giving Sealy the love of this woman in every way, love can be expressed. I was clear on my intention to demonstrate that she too, like all of us deserve to be seen, appreciated and deeply loved by someone who saw her as whole and worthy. Walker, who has had relationships with both men and women, said she believed sexual love can be extraordinarily holy, whoever might be engaging in it, and that she urges readers to question the scriptures of all religions. I'll go along with that. Love, however, it may be expressed, is to be honored and welcomed into this light of our common survival as a consciously human race. Playing the role of Sealy while not believing in her right to be loved or to express her love in any way she chooses would be a betrayal of women's right to be free, she concluded. As an elder, I urge all of us to think carefully about what I am saying. Even as you, a luasi omuba, sue the theater company for voiding your contract. This is just an episode in your life. Your life, your work and your growth will continue in the real world. A world we must make safe for women and children, female and male, and the greatest freedom of all is freedom to be your authentic self. Good for her. So you both agree? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't see it. Not a First Amendment right? No. I mean, because the basis was a homophobic statement, it wasn't that you are Christian. So it's that you're playing a part or someone who finds love with another woman and if you're homophobic, how do you do it? Okay. You're saying is it a violation of First Amendment? Is it as in freedom of speech? I have the right to profess my belief and hold to it and express it. This is one of those situations where the individual, the portrayal of the character is such that you, as the person portraying it becomes part of the equation. It is not a separate and distinct. I have this set of beliefs, but I should be able to portray anyone I want. And I agree with Alice Walker that this is a real betrayal of the intent of her novel. And this is British, right? Well, I don't know what the British courts have for freedom of speech, freedom of expression. An argument also could be made that Steven Spielberg really repressed the homosexual content in the movie. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah. So you don't think the actress was asked to retract it when she was fired and refused? So how do we think the Christian communities of faith would respond if I were to portray Christ? I know. Then sit back and watch the argument. Now, there is an idea. I can get behind. Okay. Just briefly, I wanted to just talk about this rant about the family of a queer teen in Tennessee who died this past week after being outed at school concerned because the district attorney in charge of this case has made anti-gay comments about how he does not treat LGBTQ victims the same as straight victims of violence. Late last month, Channing Smith, 16, was outed on Snapchat. A classmate shared graphic texts between Smith and another boy with other students at the school. According to his brother, Smith was freaking out when he saw the message. On Instagram that evening he wrote, I'm going to get off social media for a while. I really hate how I can't trust anybody because those I did were so fake. Bye. Later that night, his father found his body. He died of suicide. His family wants an investigation of the social media messages and their relationship to his death. Smith had been bullied at school and classmates have said that the girl who outed him was just doing it to be mean. But the family is also questioning just how thorough the investigation will be. Smith died in Coffey County, Tennessee, where that district attorney North caught him. So anyway, we'll give you more on that as we get it. So what about trivia? Well, are we going to have an interview? Are we doing the interview first and then trivia? Don't we usually do the interview first? Well, I'm going to introduce myself. So let's go to the interview. And for today, this interview is about just a very happy occasion within the All Things Family. Because Linda Quinlan, you've had a collection of poetry that's been published. Yes. Very exciting. And it's called Chelsea Creek. And that's a very deliberate name, I'm told. It is. It is. And in fact, I went with my daughter-in-law just to get the picture that's on the front, which is Mr. Groverbridge. And it's in Chelsea, Massachusetts. And what might make Chelsea special to Linda Quinlan? Because I grew up there. And it was a very interesting community to grow up in, in, especially in the 50s. When most of Boston was pretty segregated, Chelsea was very diverse. And as a community, we had our problems. But we all, there were Hispanic, Black, Polish, German, Jewish, Irish, all kinds of people. And we all lived in a city that was a mile by a mile wide and managed to have fairly good relationships with each other. So in that sense, it was an interesting place to grow up. Working class. I was going to say, strong working class in a strong union community. Strong union, yep, yep. So did you start writing poetry while you were in Chelsea? I did. I had a class in the eighth grade, which was on poetry. And I wasn't a very good student. I have to say I had some learning disabilities, which at that time were not recognized. But when I saw, when I started reading poetry in this class in the eighth grade, I thought, this is it. This is what I want to do. And I continued doing it to varying degrees throughout my life after that. So. Okay. So what is the it factor for poetry? What's the voice it gave you that other forms of writing didn't? You know, I'm not sure except that it gave me a way with a person with few words. And it gave me a way to tell a story or an experience or a feeling in a very short and concise way. It fit my personality. And that's a wonderful lead into asking you if you would read one of the poems from your collection. Okay. And there's one in particular that seems to reflect those early years in Chelsea. Chelsea, yes. So I'm going to read Popping Frogs in the 50s. And this will kind of give you an idea what it was like to grow up for probably a lot of people, but particularly for me in Chelsea. So Popping Frogs in the 50s. Beside the soldier's home, the knot, the knotted rope swing pulled between our legs as our body swung and our toes touched the leaves below. This was before the boys opened us like the names they carved on bark. They gathered frogs from the pond and threw them under cars just to hear them pop. Us girls held each other's hands and tightened our roller skates with keys. On the stoop our fathers played polka and laughed at the frog crackers as the heat exploded into twilight. The porch light and shirts went on. I saved as many frogs as I could but most weren't quick enough to hide in the summer grass. They slipped in oil as thick as mud. I sat down by the pond making mud pies, listening to my mother yell about polio as if that were the only danger. Thank you. So when you create something like that, is it by inspiration or are you one of those poets that has a set time when you sit down and you just write whatever? Inspiration. Totally? Pretty much. I don't have a schedule. Okay. I do have lots of paper and pen around for when things hit me and I may want to remember what they are but no. It's mostly inspiration. I get an idea. I start from there but it could be ten o'clock at night or it could be six in the morning so I really have no schedule in that way. You're up at ten o'clock at night? Sometimes. Okay. Now the poems in this collection, they spend your life. Right. So they weren't written specifically for this collection. Right. You put them together. Yes. How did you choose the poems that would go into this collection? Well actually Ann and I put it together and she is my in-resident editor, partner and tremendous help in getting this collection together. But I did it kind of, a lot of it is about Chelsea and my childhood. Some are about New Orleans which also played a huge part in my life. So they're chosen mostly a place, being in a place and what that means and how that reflects what kind of person I am. So it has a lot to do with place. Okay. So place was the common theme that ran through for you and the emotion. Right. That it brought to you. Right. Now I'd like to talk a little bit about how you got to be published because I'm told it's not by the traditional method and you have been published before, correct? Yeah, I've been published in a lot of periodicals and literary magazines throughout my life, you know, probably maybe 25 or 30 individual publications of my poems. But I never really thought about getting a collection together until like the last few years I'd say I was thinking, you know, it's time. So Ann and I put this collection together and I started sending it out to places like that do publications. And so this was one of the places I sent it to which was, excuse me, Brickhouse Press, but they had a Wicked Women's Poetry Competition and I thought that fits me. So tell me about that. Well I saw it in, I think it might have been online and this was their first contest and it was started by a woman and so they were just looking for, they wanted to publish and give an award to a woman who had exceeded all expectations. That's the way I am. But so I sent my poems in and then about, I don't know, six months later I guess I got this email and saying this isn't, it's official, you'll get an official notice, but I couldn't wait to tell you that you won this award and I'm looking at it and I'm going, oh really? So I said Ann, this is a joke, right? And she read it and said no this is for real, so that's how it happened. So I won the competition, I got the honorarium for winning and I got the book published. So that's sort of how it happened. So and you're now going to set, because this is the first, you're setting the standard for everyone that comes following you. Yes. You are again being a trailblazer. Yeah. And they're sending you out on a brief tour to promote this, correct? Well no, I went down to where they are. Which is? Which is Washington DC and we had a wonderful award ceremony, a luncheon and a reading, it was fabulous. And as for doing it, I've been doing it on my own after that. And so I read in Chelsea last week, which was fantastic. I am going to read in Malpelia in November, I read in Burlington, and I'm going to read in New York City. So New York City, that will be exciting. That will be very exciting, very exciting. So what happened? Now that you have a published collection, what comes next? Well I just keep writing and maybe try to get another collection together and see what happens. So we will be talking more about the Call of Cabra when we talk about events. But I would like you to read another poem. Okay. And there's one in particular that looking, reading your work, it was, this is Linda. So if you would. And the poem is called Almost Old. And the joke I usually make about this is that when I wrote this, I was almost old. Now I'm closer to almost old. So here it is. The hitch to being, to almost being old is the idea of Florida. Strip malls and strippers, a restaurant or two next to Walmart are the villages where Mitt Romney spoke of better days. 25 years ago I took a train to New Orleans and stayed there for 14 years. Living a dystopian life, held up at gunpoint twice. The smell of jasmine stayed with me even when the police came three days later. Anne Rice in a coffin for Halloween and vampires in the humid mist. I can't just go anywhere anymore. 50 years ago I moved to Aspen with four friends in a Jeep. The heated winter pool, lights and skiers, my first girl love. I left for San Francisco before AIDS, touching the hands of long-haired strangers. I could have found Charlie Manson in Peace Park among the girls I left with. Now Mount Piliar Vermont, the smell of winter air and moaning mornings. I think of Florida. Take a nap, reliving times with old friends and saying final goodbyes, words I might have forgotten. Thank you. What did, being the trailblazer you are now, what advice do you have for lesbian poets coming up behind you? Read a lot of poetry. Find some good mentors. I had some fabulous ones. And just keep doing it no matter what they say, no matter how hard it seems, just keep doing it. All right. So Linda's reading is going to be Monday, November 4th, 7 p.m. at the Kellogg-Cobbard Library here in Mount Piliar, and I want to leave with this. And this was one of the reviews of Chelsea Creek, that it renders the rough terrain of working-class New England with a lush beauty that pulls no punches, letting the brute hardness of a place and its people coexist with a longing and love, finding the tenderness hiding inside tragedy. If you would like to hear more, please come join us on the Fourth. Thank you, Keith. Congratulations. Thank you. That was fun. Yeah, that was fun. Now we go to trivia. Now we go to trivia. Okay, so October 2006 out in the mountains, Vermont Supreme Court, Miller Jenkins decision. People who have been in Vermont for a while, this is the lesbian custody case. They entered into a civil union. One of the partners had a daughter by alternative insemination. The partner then said, oops, I'm not really a lesbian. I found Christ and moved to Virginia and then sued a long legal process. Didn't the minister who helped her go to prison? Yes. Okay. What happened was in Virginia, she tried to file for so custody of the daughter the Virginia court originally granted it. It was challenged because, oh no, this was not a Virginia custody case. It originated in Vermont. Vermont had jurisdiction. Right. Vermont ordered visitation, which was not honored. So Miller took the daughter and with the help of the Mennonite minister went to New York, Canada, El Salvador, and then they believe Nicaragua. And that minister and the associates, they were convicted. 27 months they served. But here is what really did the men and why the federal process at that time, which was honoring justice, they had a Twitter feed encouraging people and supporting the kidnapping of children from same sex household and smuggling them to normal homes. So, and this is still unresolved. It's been 19 years, but this young woman has not seen both parents since 2000. They're still hiding in Nicaragua, or wherever they are. They believe Nicaragua. So with that, I think more than ever and always we need to resist.