 Hi, welcome to the All Things LGBTQ Interview Show, where we interview LGBTQ guests who are making important contributions to our communities. All Things LGBTQ is taped at Orca Media in Montpelier, Vermont, which we recognize as being unceded Indigenous land. Thanks for joining us and enjoy the show. Hi, everybody at All Things LGBTQ. I'd like our audience to meet Madeline Narikouma, and she is, this is Narikou. Nakamura. Nakamura, sorry. And she is, this is your first novel, right? Yeah. Breakers, here it is, it's a delightful read. And she is a writer and editor based in Los Angeles, the author of First Breakers, a lifelong fantasy devotee. She was writing her first novel the day she realized that computer science degree wasn't happening, and you graduated from Mills College in California. So you wanted to be a computer person, huh? I did, yeah. I had this idea that I was going to write for video games and didn't think that hard about it until I get to college and quickly realized that that wasn't a great career path for me and also that I couldn't do math. And so programming wasn't going to work out either. Yeah, I think it has some close to languages too, right? If you're good at languages, you'd probably be good at writing languages for computers. I think, yeah, I think there's transferable skills, but I couldn't do the, I couldn't pass like the basic classes that you needed. Yeah. Quickly changed courses. So what was your major after that? Creative writing. Nice. So tell us a little bit about you first before we get into the novel. When did you start writing and when did you think, I know you said that you started thinking about it after you realized that your computer life wasn't going to happen, but were you always interested in writing even as a child or? So interestingly, not, not particularly. I always loved to read. I was a big reader and I always knew that I was good in English classes in school as a kid, but it didn't really occur to me that I could write things that other people would read that I could make any sort of career out of that basically until college because I had very, I had really very little idea of what I wanted to do at all in, in school up to high school. And it wasn't until I started reading really interesting things in college that I developed this ambition to be a novelist. But yeah, no, I, I did not write that that much in as a younger person. So you created this whole world of places and characters. And you made your lead character, Adrienne, bipolar. And could you tell us like why you maybe chose that as something, as something that your lead character would have? Um, I think that I wanted to tell a story that kind of ran counter to a lot of incorrect narratives that are out there about people with mental illnesses that are viewed as more, well, that often are more severe than the mental illness that most people are familiar with. Um, that, that is something that I struggle with in my life. Um, and I was noticing that most of the narratives that most people are familiar with are very, um, damaging and unkind. And a lot of people have misconceptions about these, um, lesser known mental illnesses because of that. Um, and I thought that I just wanted to contribute something against that kind of, you know, flow a little bit. Yeah, because, you know, it's explained so beautifully in the book, um, you know, uh, and, and the struggle with, with drugs and, and with the mental illness and, you know, kind of using drugs to, uh, get rid of the demon that is in your head. Um, and, uh, I found it, uh, really an interesting concept. And, and when you don't find in literature all that often in this kind of a way, so I really appreciated, um, that. And, and there were some, uh, I'm just going to ask you, like, why a male character and not female? Oh, um, I've been asked that before actually, and I should have, uh, you know, anticipated that other people would wonder about this, but it really never occurred to me. Um, I don't connect my gender to my writing that much. Okay. Um, it's not something that, you know, looms large in my mind as I'm writing. I don't feel any particular barrier to, uh, writing in, in a male voice. Um, it was at random. Mostly I was just thinking of when I, when I come up with a main character for a book I want to write, um, I just come up with a person and it, it doesn't, uh, factor in that much the gender of the person unless I'm going to be, you know, addressing any gender specific issues. But Chris breakers is not really particularly about that. So, you know, there was, there wasn't a barrier there for me. Yeah, I was just, yeah. Um, and, and, um, some of the names like his last name was the name of a French physician, and I don't know whether that was intentional or, or not. So, um, the last name de Forna, actually I got because that was the last name of the, um, the man who performed the last guillotine execution in France. I didn't choose it because of that, but I stumbled across the name while I was reading, you know, a book about French history. And I thought it's a cool name. And I wrote it down in my list of names that I might choose from in it. You know, it ended up being chosen, but that, that is how I get most of my names by combing through history books and like finding a name that I think is cool and just writing it down. There's not usually an intentionality in which specific like meaning is attached to that name though. But Malaise is a really, you know, like an interesting name given Malaise definition also. Um, oh yeah, Malaise, Malaise, his best friend that her name was chosen, really a random just for nothing. And, uh, is it Rache or Rache is actually a dog? I, I looked it up. It was like really cool. It's like a dog that hunts by scent. Yeah. Um, the, uh, the name of the creatures that these military officers have accompanying them. I believe it's pronounced Rache in real life, but I, I don't really like how that sounds. And I find it impossible to read out loud that way. So in my head, it's Rache, but I'm wrong. Um, but you know what, it's my fantasy world. So I'll be wrong if I want. And as we go along, uh, and also he has, um, a keeper, did Casimir and, um, his keeper is kind of, um, oh, I don't know, what would you say, harsh? Terrible. I would, he's pretty terrible. Yeah. Yeah. You're not meant to like Casimir particularly. And, and, you know, Adrian is in love with him. Um, and so that speaks to like how he feels about himself, uh, and, uh, coming to terms with that whole issue of, you know, sometimes just loving people who aren't that good for you. Um, and, and, and how did he, um, did that come from like a, uh, like a, a, where they have, uh, people who, uh, are, you know, take care of people with alcohol problems. Like I don't know, I forget what you call them on. Sponsors. Yeah. Yeah. So he was like a sponsor to him, right? Yeah. I mean, it's a similar role, I think. And, and what did you want to get across with your book? Uh, like you tell the audience like, you know, um, the worlds were really fascinating. The people were really fascinating also. And I really in, um, I loved Belize, but I also liked the relationship with, um, him and, and the soldier, uh, Gennady. Uh, I think Gennady is probably closest. Yeah. Um, and so it seems to be that under all that you're telling a story about illness, um, compassion, um, and all of those sort of human emotions that are involved in this, in this novel. And, um, I was kind of hoping they would become lovers in the end, I mean, but I was looking like, oh, maybe they'll be, you know, um, so, so what did you, what were you trying to get people to see and understand in writing this book? Um, my primary motivation for writing any book that I write is, is honestly to tell a fun, enjoyable story with characters that people can attach to, um, in terms of like messaging. There are various themes like, you know, compassion for people who are not like yourself, um, importance of standing up to unjust authority. Those all just kind of came out by coincidence as things went along. My main goal was essentially just, I wanted an interior perspective. I wanted a narrative by someone who was bipolar in, in, in his own words, um, not an outside perspective of this person, not other people who don't have that illness talking about them. But, you know, someone who, uh, has bipolar speaking about themselves because that is pretty, pretty rare, I find. So that was like my main intention with the story. And the whole idea of like, uh, the demon or, uh, being in this person's head and having Malaise kind of, you know, put her hands inside and do all that healing. Yeah, I mean, his, his terminology for his mental illness, the, this idea of the demon, it's not, you know, he's not actually possessed. It's a, it's a metaphor. Right, exactly. Um, but, and I think it's addressed at some point, the, the intention of this language, he says, you know, I'm giving this a name, um, that's separate from me so that I can separate it from myself. But, you know, he's, he's aware that that's kind of, it's a defense mechanism because it's not separate from yourself particularly. Um, but that's how he chooses to comfort himself a little bit. And it, and, and when he uses, uh, so when he uses his magic, uh, near the end of the story, he has lightning in his hands. Hmm. Uh, right. Um, so he's kind of deciding about whether, I mean, he's taking a moral stand there, right? About should I use the powers that I have and if I use the powers for good, is it still a bad thing? Cause he, cause he was involved in an experiment that went wrong early. Right. And I think that his relationship to his magic is very complicated, partially, of course, because he has this massive guilt over a mistake that he made as a doctor, healing people. Um, and so his ability to get past that mental block and help, uh, Kennedy, his friend is, is a development for him. But I think the moral stand that he takes at the book is just like, should I kill this guy? Right. Like I, this guy just stabbed my friend. Do I kill him? We're on a battlefield. Um, and that's his, that's his choice. I, it is a moral stand, but also partially, I think it's about, you know, what can I live with? What, um, what actions do I need to take to make sure that I can like live with myself? I found that was, that was throughout the novel. That was one of the things that I found to be, um, you know, draw me to these characters was they were feeling complex and, um, they, uh, you know, there was a lot of sort of moral or, uh, choices they had to make throughout this novel, um, that I found pretty interesting. Um, so I have here a little synopsis of the book and, um, I don't know if, well, maybe we should just have you read and that might be a better way to do this. So do you want to start in the beginning? Sure, um, I'll read a couple of minutes of the first chapter. Okay, great. Um, the day before extravagant disaster, I The day before extravagant disaster set in, I walked to work alongside the opera circadia. It's water is swollen with the ongoing down for. I barely paid attention to where I was going. The error I'd made revealed itself when I ran right into someone, a black streak in the rain. Streak resolved itself into a vigil officer, and I prepared to be executed on the spot. I said reflexively, stars and saints. He said equally reflexively, something unspeakably impolite. He was a young man, only a little older than some of my students in his earliest twenties, I guessed, a lieutenant star gleamed on his uniform. He pushed an unruly sweep of black hair out of his face and pointed his chin at me, narrow eyes, dark with scorn. He was soaked to the skin, but he didn't seem to care. Excuse you, the officer said. Watch it. True, I'd walked into him, but I bridled nevertheless, biting my tongue to suppress a waspish response. I stand by my aversion to the vigil. Their uniforms are designed for intimidation, all black and sharp edges and their race hounds are bred to terrorize. Strange animals, neither wolves nor lions, ill tempered to a one. This officer's race was much smaller than most, not quite coming up to his knees, but the sight of her still drove a shiver through me. The yellow eyes set deep in her black, fox-like face, shown with a dreadful intelligence. I said, excuse you, the officer said. I said, watch it. His race slashed her tail, sending raindrops flying. Yes, I heard, I said delicately, taking a measured step back. I regretted my choice within an instant. I should have been practical and apologized. He scowled, one hand drifting to the hilt of his saber. I remembered my earlier thought that he might simply run me through in the middle of the street. But other people had noticed there was something amiss while watching. The majority of passers-by who stopped in their tracks were university students and faculty. Most of them soaked just as the soldier was. People are unused to inclement weather in Astrum, but I brought an umbrella. One of the advantages of my affinity for lightning is a sense for storms. The soldier looked around and noticed his audience. I saw him weigh the situation. Side, and his hands went, went in his pockets instead. I could take you in for assaulting an officer, he said. It was an accident. Whatever. And that's the first couple pages of Adrian encountering the soldier for the first time, Kennedy. Thank you. That's great. So what is your next project and have you started? Um, I have a stockpile of a few finished books. I'm publishing the sequel to Curse Breakers in 2025, also with Canis major. Um, and then I have a few other finished books. Um, one is about a pair of witch finders also in this universe. Um, I'm not sure where that'll go. Probably with Red Hen. And I'm not sure yet, but yeah, I have a couple finished books. And my current project that I'm actively working on is about a shapeshifter assassin. From the same, no, it's just, you know, different stuff. They're like, wow, I can't believe you have books already in line to go. That's amazing. And was this actually the first book you read? I mean, that you wrote? No, um, the first novel that I wrote, I wrote for my senior thesis project in college. And that was the novel about the pair of witch finders in this universe. And then Curse Breakers was second. Hey, and, and when, and your book is coming out in September, correct? September 12th. Can people get pre-orders of them or? Yeah, you can pre-order them on Amazon. I think that you can pre-order them on Barnes & Noble, Kobo, various like websites. It should be pretty easy to find pre-orders. Okay. And for your last words, what would you like the audience to know about you or your writing or what they can look for in the future or anything you'd like to tell our audience? I think I'd like to shell for the sequel. If you like the book, please, please keep an eye out in 2025 for the sequel. And buy the book on the Amazon. Yes, please buy my book. Yeah. And we'll have your, your website on so that people can go there and take a better look at you and perhaps buy some books there too. And this was great. Thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it. And we'll see you soon. Thank you so much. Thank you. As people who watch LGBTQ have noticed, I will frequently make reference to Vermont's Human Rights Commission and the work they are doing and the initiatives where they have taken the lead, particularly as it looked at redefining what constitutes bullying. Well, the Human Rights Commission has hired a new executive director. And we thought we would take this time to say hello and congratulations to that new director and talk about the work of the Human Rights Commission. So please welcome for a first interview, Big Cartman. Welcome. Hi, thank you. And indeed, congratulations. And my deepest condolences on your job. But from reading the press release, you were one of the attorneys for the Human Rights Commission before you were appointed as the executive director. So you had a sense of what you were getting into. But first, let's let's talk a little bit about Big and how you happened to come to Vermont and your experience as an attorney in Vermont. OK, sure. Yeah. So I I grew up in upstate New York and after college, where I got a bachelor's in studies for social justice, I went to Vermont Law School and just felt really lucky that after graduating there, I managed to get a job here and I've gotten, you know, blessed to be able to continue to work and stay here in Vermont as an attorney since 2005. And one of those roles as an attorney was with the Vermont State Employees Association. Yep, my first job out of law school was with a like law firm, you know, private practice, doing personal injury and workers comp for, you know, injured workers mostly. And I wasn't really interested in doing that kind of for profit work, reading medical records. And I was so psyched when the VSEA had an opening that was like, you know, a dream position for me to get to be in house counsel for them. And I so I stayed there for about six and a half years and then decided to go another way and, you know, open up my own practice where I did solo work for mostly like consulting kind of took all of my experience representing workers and wanted to work with managers to help them have better workplaces. So I got to do some great work with small businesses and nonprofits and government, like local governments, doing trainings around workplace harassment prevention and, you know, personnel policies, had to do some, you know, investigations, personnel investigations and, you know, things like that as well, but mostly trying to do preventive law. So not so much responding to a crisis situation at a workplace, but helping foster a better workplace before it gets to that point, you know, of needing to do an investigation or needing to deal with a harassment allegation or something like that. So working with the State Employees Association, you probably got more than the casual view of how state government works and state systems. So being armed with that knowledge, what makes you decide you wanted to be an attorney for the Human Rights Commission? Well, you know, one of the areas that the Human Rights Commission does work on is state employees discrimination claims. So I knew that I was well equipped to do that work, you know, well versed in employment law and having been in so so many workplaces in Vermont in state government. You know, I've been to every correctional facility in the state, you know, I've gone. It's like, you know, I've gone to all the agencies and, you know, help workers out all over the state. So it was a nice. It was nice to be, you know, familiar with how a lot of state operations already go. But I was also really drawn to the work here at Human Rights Commission because of the other areas of our jurisdiction. So we also enforce fair housing laws and we protect against discrimination in places of public accommodation. And those are two really like emerging areas of the law around, you know, protecting the rights of our community members from being discriminated against. I think there's a bit of uncertainty in public forums when you make a reference to public accommodations. Exactly. Exactly who is or who might not be be included as a public accommodation. Yeah. And it's it's definitely a legal term. And we're saying a place of public accommodations. So it's really any place that is open to the public or providing services to the public. So it does include all state government, all local government services it includes schools, it includes restaurants, gas stations, hotels, anything that the public is supposed to be able to, you know, enter or receive services from. It's really broad. And if I were to encounter what I perceive to be discrimination, you know, when when I'm in a local restaurant, what is it? How would I approach you? And what is it that I can expect that the Human Rights Commission is going to be able to do for me? OK, great question. So any of our areas of jurisdiction, there are multiple ways to get in touch with us. If you think you might have experienced discrimination, you can always call our office. You can call a human being. We'll either answer the phone or get back to you very soon. You can go onto our website and fill out an online questionnaire, start to give us some of the information about what happened, or you can just email us at human dot rights at Vermont dot go. And we receive complaints from all those different ways every single day. So what what are the types of complaints that the human rights commission has traditionally received? And then after you get the complaint, what is it that you do with it? OK, so let's go first to what we do with complaints. And then we'll talk about the types of cases we see. So our complaint process is you know, pretty straightforward intake. We have an intake specialist here who will receive any information that you can share about what happened to you. And if we feel that sometimes that's just a phone call, sometimes it's a few emails, you know, sometimes people prefer to come in and meet with us. And that's great. Our office is here in downtown Montpelier, still standing and open. And if we decide that what you're sharing with us is, you know, could be enough to be a legal claim, then we will help complain it. You become a complainant and we draft a complaint for you to summarize what has happened and that gets sent to the the respondent, the party who we think may have been discriminatory. They get an answer. They get an opportunity to answer that complaint and to go point by point and say whether they admit or deny each of the elements of your complaint. And then we ask them to provide any relevant information, documents, you know, witnesses and we conduct an investigation. We have three investigator positions here who are working all over the state on way too many cases at once to investigate these complaints of discrimination. And then it so and throughout the process, it's our statutory duty to see if we can work with the parties to find a resolution if we can just work something out and kind of heal what's occurred or get to a better understanding about how to make it right. We're always supporting the parties and trying to do that. And many people are here without attorneys and really benefit from a neutral investigator who can also like serve as a go between for conversations about a resolution. But if the parties aren't able to work something out, then our investigator will interview everyone who has relevant information, look at all the documents and write up a pretty comprehensive investigative report that will summarize all the facts and all our investigators are attorneys. So they also do a legal analysis about the claim and they make a recommendation about whether or not there's reasonable grounds to believe that discrimination occurred. OK, so once that investigative report with recommendations gets sent to the parties, the parties get a chance to provide a response to say why they agree or disagree. And all that information gets reviewed by the human rights commissioners. These are these are governor appointed commissioners. There are five. They conduct a hearing once they have hearings as part of their public meetings once a month. And the hearings are held in executive session. That part of the meeting is not open to the public. Everything that has happened up to this point is entirely confidential by law. We do not disclose it to anyone except the parties. Parties have the right to know what's going on in the investigation. But the commissioners do not conduct like a trial. They don't take evidence. They just give the parties an opportunity to say their piece and to answer any clarifying questions that the commissioners might want to ask. But it's usually under an hour. And then the commissioners go and delivery and they make a determination about whether there's reasonable grounds to believe that discrimination occurred. That determination, if it's reasonable grounds, like, yes, we think this happened, then that determination is a matter of public record under our statute. And then it opens up a six month time period where the Human Rights Commission director, me, will try to see if the parties can do a mediation or settle the case at that point. If the if the commissioners go no reasonable grounds and they decide that there's not a reasonable grounds to believe that discrimination occurred, that's basically the end of it for our process and everything, you know, maintain we maintain confidentiality of that information. OK, so if you determine that you could not substantiate that discrimination occurred, but I, as the party who felt that I was aggrieved, decide no, no, no, I want to do something independently. That would be a civil action. Would the information that I have already provided to the Human Rights Commission then be available to whoever it is that I sought to represent me in a civil suit? So the parties have the right to anything in our investigative file. OK, but only the parties. We can't disclose it to the public. If. If the commission substantiates it or says, yes, we think there is reasonable ground and you as executive director cannot mediate some kind of settlement, would you then be the party filing and representing me in a court proceeding? We could we could file the case as the Human Rights Commission as the plaintiff. We have the authority to be the plaintiff in an enforcement action and you as an individual would still have your right to pursue a case with your own name as the plaintiff. You may have other claims, right, that you want to have as part of it. Sometimes we have cases where we're the only party who's a plaintiff. Sometimes the plaintiffs file their own case. We file the enforcement action and we end up joining together, but have separate counsel. But yeah, but we don't represent. We don't take all cases to court that go reasonable grounds. We take many. We take more now than we ever did. And we but we have an agreement with HUD for our housing cases. We generally do have to take our HUD cases to Superior Court. But our process is is separate from what an individual can do in court. So partway through the process, you can say, you know what? I got everything I need here. I'm out. You know, you can withdraw your case and you can file any time. We don't issue a right to sue letter. You know, you can pursue your state court claims regardless of what we're doing and regardless of what our determination is. So it sounds as though the commissioners and you said there were five of them. Have a great deal of say in. What the actions that the Human Rights Commission takes on, the things they pursue, sort of the direction the agency takes. If if I as a private citizen decide that, you know, this is something that has interest for me is. How are those commissioners appointed? What I believe you said that they were appointed by the governor. Correct. And they have a set term. OK, that's six years. I could be for I'm pretty sure it's six years. And so they're staggered. They don't all go vacant at the same time. And so when there's a vacancy, I believe it gets posted like through the governor's office. There's like a page about boards and commissions and you would submit an application for the governor to consider. OK, all right. So we can put up a link to and this is how to find out when there was an opening and if you're interested. So. This sounds like a great deal of responsibility. Yes. And that you were truly looking out for for the average for monitor. From having already been on staff as one of the attorneys knowing. The responsibilities of the job. What made you decide you wanted to be the executive director? Um, lots of reasons. I I came here because I was very inspired by the work of Bo Yang, our prior director. Bo made amazing progress for civil rights in just a short number of years that she was here really pushing to advance this agency's work, increase our resources and our reach and like, you know, really strengthen our mission and our ability to serve more people. And I was very inspired when I first met her and would not have applied for this job if I didn't have inspired leadership after working for myself for many years, you know. So that was certainly part of it. I mean, I definitely see this career step as a natural a natural culmination of all of the work I've done in this field and the issues that matter most to me. You know, probably around 2017, 2018, I started to have this deep feeling that I was not going to be doing work that I didn't care about. You know, I wasn't going to just do a law practice to make money. I never thought I was going to do that. But I didn't want to just, you know, you know, get this client here, get this client here and have there be no meaning behind it. I realized I really only wanted to do anti-discrimination work and everything that I did after that was in pursuit of that vision. And it's like totally happening now. I'm deeply grateful. And, you know, I definitely wish I'd had more time with Boryang here before she left so that I could learn more from her before before stepping up. But, you know, I'm really excited for this challenge. I like to do a lot of different things in a day. I like to reach out, you know, to our community and make connections and build the network of people who are fighting for our rights. So I realized that, you know, you are still transitioning into the role of executive director but do you have a sense of your priorities of how you would like to advance the work of the Human Rights Commission and how to expand on the advocacy you already provide? Yeah, I mean, I do. And there's short term goals and things that need to get accomplished in-house here. And then there's a longer term vision that can't just be my vision. It needs to be a shared vision among the staff and among the commissioners. But right now, the position that I was in is vacant. And we also were successful in getting funding for a new position that is a full time litigator. That position will be posting and recruiting for as soon as possible. So, you know, that brings our team of six to seven and with that, you know, I also see a need for more resources to this office. Three investigators handling every discrimination case in the state of Vermont is not enough. The cases sit here for a long time because it's there's just a continuous backlog. Some cases take two or three years to get to a resolution. And it's just incredibly stressful for the people who are involved. And it's incredibly stressful for the staff who are feeling the weight of that. And we absolutely need another investigator. We need to take some of the pressure off the people who are here so that we can move through cases more quickly and be able to, like, you know, handle a staff transition if it occurs, like something like that. You know, we also need more office management support. You know, the director kind of does everything and we have, you know, a wonderful admin who's also doing all of the intakes and handling all of the initial complaints. And we have a director of policy education and outreach Amanda Garstas, who's wonderful and is doing so much important work. I mean, all of these parts of our operations need more resources and more staff. So that's like my big long term goal is to just keep increasing our staff, our budget, our ability to reach more and more people. I also think that there's work to be done on the information that we put out there. So our website needs a whole revamping. We need better information that's more understandable for regular non lawyers and more training opportunities that we can provide virtually and around the state to just get the word out more about, like, what is a place of public accommodation? What happens when you come to the Human Rights Commission? What the heck is fair housing? You know, all of these things. It's great that we also with this with the employment law stuff, there's a lot of opportunities for partnership, especially with the Attorney General's Office Civil Rights Unit. You know, there's there's there's already such a strong network of folks working on these issues. And I see us continuing to be a voice for, you know, the cause. And with that, thank you for spending this first interview with you. And I'm already giving you notice that I'm going to want to talk again just prior to the legislative session, right? Talk about what are the issues coming up? Yeah. And how members of the queer community might become involved in advocating on those issues. Great. So thank you and congratulations. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. And until next time, remember, resist.