Sean Abley – whom I have known since my mid-20s – and whom I interviewed about his queer horror film anthology – thought up a project late last year, and asked a couple of writers to contribute. Abley is doing this the old-fashioned ‘zine way. His idea was so hilarious and esoteric (we’re having trouble even finding the words to describe what the idea actually is: I mean, we KNOW what it is, but how to describe it is another thing). Everyone is writing with basically the same parameters, but after that, sky’s the limit. I jumped at the chance to participate. Writing what I wrote was the most fun I’ve had writing something in a very long time. This was a different kind of fun than the regular pleasure of knowing something I wrote is good and/or finally out there in the world.
Here, I had to invent and riff. And also pretend. Cathartic.
I haven’t read any of the pieces written by the other contributors – Sean, Calpernia Addams, Richard Newby, Heather O. Petrocell, Julieann Stipidis, Sarah Stubbs, Michael Varrati, and Dave White – and I can’t wait. They’re all excellent writers, many of them leading lights of the queer horror film scene (although this particular ‘zine has nothing to do with that), and I can’t wait to see how they “understood” this assignment. Sean gave me an opportunity to explore writing as a form of play. After a year and a half of research/fact/interview Frankenstein (don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining), writing my piece for Sean’s ‘zine was so freeing.
The ‘zine will be published in April. Stay tuned.
Hi Shiela,
First off, congratulations for this, exciting!
Second: This is out of the blue & possibly a bit impertinent but you can always ignore if appropriate (& not relevant here but if I could find a post where it was relevant I wouldn’t have to ask): I seem to remember you discussing here a movie, not sure whether you formally reviewed it anywhere, I believe it was a two-hander, both actors fairly famous, one of them (male?) plays a cab driver, other (female?) plays his fare, & the whole film is their conversation as they drive along
Does this ring a bell? I cannot for the life of me remember name of the movie or either of the actors. Saw something on bluesky today that made me think, “I wonder if that’s a reference to [that movie]”, now it is bothering me that I can’t think of it
That is all. Congrats again, & thanks for everything you do here, including so many generous replies!
adding, in my attempts to google up an answer for myself I came across some old discussions on here of Slings & Arrows from 2006 or so, so that was fun
Daddio! Loved it. Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson.
Thank you! Yes, that was it; I knew the female lead was someone excessively pretty. Kept thinking Ben Kingsley for the male lead, that’s pretty far off
This sounds exciting. Glad you had a fun time writing.
It was a riot – really excited to see how everybody else “understood” the assignment.