Tag Archives: religion

04Jul/25

Bill Hulseman

Featured Guest, Newsreel, , , , , , , ,

July 4, 2025

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 10, Episode 27: Bill Hulseman!

Bill Hulseman shares his essay collection: Six to Carry the Casket and One to Say the Mass. We dive into belonging, birth order trauma, pride parades, identity, pop culture (Madonna & Golden Girls as spiritual!), and reconciling religion with queer health!

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Bio:
Bill Hulseman is a writer, ritual designer, and former educator whose work explores identity, belonging, and personal agency. His debut book, “six to carry the casket and one to say the mass,” is a collection of deeply personal essays examining the identities we inherit, the traditions we navigate, and the power we have to shape our own narratives. Through reflections on family, Catholicism, and queer identity, Hulseman offers a nuanced exploration of what it means to carve out space for oneself in a world that often seeks to define us.

Aformer middle school principal, teacher, and campus minister, Hulseman holds degrees in religious studies, the comparative study of religion, and education leadership. His time in Catholic schools gave him both a profound appreciation for faith and a firsthand understanding of the tensions between personal identity and institutional tradition. His writing is informed by this background, as well as his deep love for pop culture—where figures like Madonna and “The Golden Girls” helped him see himself long before the world was ready to.

Hulseman now lives in Seattle with his husband, Jonathon, where he continues to write, design rituals, and lead meaningful conversations about identity, faith, and belonging.

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25Apr/25

Scott Terry

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April 25, 2025

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 10, Episode 14: Scott Terry!

Scott Terry shares his novel: The Gift. We discuss fiction exploring the intersection of racism and homophobia under the certainty of religious superiority.

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Bio:
Scott Terry (also writing under Scott M. Terry) was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, and spent his childhood praying for God and Armageddon to heal him of his homosexual thoughts. At the age of sixteen, he escaped from home and was riding bulls in the rodeo as a gay cowboy.

Scott’s memoir, (Cowboys, Armageddon, and The Truth) was named one of the Top 20 Must Read Books of 2013 by Advocate magazine. It was named one of the best LGBT releases of 2012 by Out In Print and Band of Thebes book lists, and was a double-award winner of the Rainbow Book Awards (Best Gay Debut, and Best LGBT Non-Fiction, 2013). Scott’s new novel, The Gift, is a work of fiction and released in Spring 2025. Scott has written often for the San Francisco Chronicle, and his essays has been featured in the Huffington Post and Alternet Magazine, amongst others.

Scott’s rodeo gear, clothing, and championship buckles are in the permanent collection of the Autry Museum of the American West (Los Angeles), and are currently on display in the museum’s Imagined Wests exhibit. He and his husband operate an organic farm in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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06Dec/24

Gerard Cabrera

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December 6, 2024

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 9, Episode 47: Gerard Cabrera!

Gerard Cabrera joins us to share his novel: Homo Novus. We discuss Latinx characters, HIV/AIDS, religion, the complexities of abuse, and what characters have to face to move forward. We also touch on the importance of community as a writer, and The Publishing Triangle as a resource.

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Bio:
Gerard Cabrera earned a degree in English and American Literature at Brandeis University, his Masters’s Degree in Public Health from Hunter College, and his law degree from Northeastern University School of Law. He served on the board of Gay Community News, was a member of the theater troupe United Fruit Company, and competed in the 1994 Gay Games.

Over the years, Gerard has worked in non-profits, universities, and in government. Active in New York’s queer communities, he has practiced public interest law his entire legal career. Gerard is a Massarican from Springfield, Massachusetts, the birthplace of Dr. Seuss, basketball, and the first American dictionary. He lives and works in New York City.

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29Nov/24

Trent Clifford

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November 29, 2024

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 9, Episode 46: Trent Clifford!

Trent Clifford joins us to share his debut book & memoir: Reclaiming Faith. We discuss the reconstruction that happens after deconstructing religion, being a queer person stepping back into faith, and finding groups willing to listen when they’ve missed the mark.

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Bio:
Trent Clifford is a poet, speaker, spiritual director, abuse survivor, proclaimer of truth, reclaimer of faith, and he’s passionate about reimagining spirituality. Originally working as a children’s pastor, Trent left congregational ministry when he came out as queer. He pivoted and has spent the better part of his adult life in the professional theater, as a director, actor, and playwright. And now Trent’s dipped into his lifelong skills as a storyteller to bring the divine back into his life.

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29Apr/22

Todd Shewchuk

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April 29, 2022

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Todd Shewchuk as the guest on Season 7, Episode 17 – A Conversation Sparker!

Todd Shewchuk joins us to share his upcoming novel, A Family Divided. Baz and Vance also give their reviews of Our Flag Means Death, and then share what they’re reading, watching, and listening to!

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Todd Shewchuk was raised in a very Catholic household in Waukegan, Illinois, which was the inspiration for his novel, as he and his father have butted heads over the years about his homosexuality. The novel started off as a play in 2012. After meeting his now fiance Lee Pulaski, he was inspired to take the story deeper and turn it into a novel. Still in the editing process, Todd hopes to have the book out by this fall. Todd also has a small craft business called Creations By TS, you can also find him on Facebook, promoting health and wellness after a very dramatic 130 pound weight loss.

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[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmVfmfhwu8k[/embedyt]

12Nov/18

Earthly Pleasures by Sera Trevor

Review, , , , , , , ,

 

Sera Trevor was a lovely recent guest on our show. To find out more about her and get links to her work, check out Episode 185: Ugh Reality!

There are some books you feel comfortable with right away. After the first page I knew this book and I would get along just fine. It was something indefinable, accessibility to an author’s writing or put another way, this seemed a friendly, approachable book. It welcomes the reader in and assures them that a good story is about to be told.

Prince Paurick is a bit a tool, to be honest. He’s reckless, spoiled, libidinous and vain, with little sense of duty. When he has to be joined with an acolyte to an all-powerful Goddess, to ensure his family’s royal lineage and bring fertility back to a starving land, he does it ungraciously. The monk isn’t to his taste at all, swarthy, shy fellow who he finds desperately unprepossessing.

Brother Laurel is loyal to the Goddess and will do his duty whatever it takes, but he doesn’t have to like it. After Paurick’s unflattering response to him, he just wants to get it over with, but the machinations of the Goddess and his own feelings complicate matters, especially when he finds he is enjoying the luxury the Prince takes for granted.

So that’s the premise, and it’s told with humour, wit and sparky dialogue. Laurel is sweet, and has a bit more about him than his subservient manner would first suggest. There are some comic moments, but also an underlying theme of the damage caused by brainwashing by cults, greed and duty over love. I thought the pace of the story was terrific and not once did I feel the story flagged. It was a joy to read, with Laurel being a perfect foil for the profligate Paurick. Their burgeoning relationship was sweet, the love scenes and language used within them helping to create the atmosphere. It’s a magical kingdom where the prince had to sleep with someone he doesn’t like in order to appease a power-hungry regime, but written with flair and comic timing so it never felt dark and gloomy.

This was a book I could sit back and enjoy, knowing that nothing truly nasty would happen. A bit of angst, some hot sex between two lusty lads, and a feel-good plot verging on the ridiculous (although this isn’t the first time I’ve read a book with magical bodily fluids) and this was a huge amount of fun. It’s well-written too, with a knowing glint in the author’s eye. Yes, I could see where she was coming from with this. I’d definitely read another book by Ms. Trevor.

BLURB

Prince Paurick is a hedonistic degenerate—or at least that’s what his father and the rest of the royal family thinks of him, and he’s happy to live down to their expectations.

But when the crops of their kingdom start failing, the king commands that Paurick be joined to Brother Laurel, a monk, in order to combine Paurick’s royal magic with that of the Goddess, and thus bring fertility back to the land.

The union is only meant to be temporary, but Brother Laurel is so ugly and prudish that it might as well be an eternity. However, as they get to know one another, Paurick realizes he has misjudged Laurel and finds himself falling for the thoughtful and sensitive young man.

The fate of the kingdom relies on their sexual union, but as time goes on, it becomes clear that the fate of their hearts is in jeopardy as well.

 

07Sep/17

When Heaven Strikes by F.E. Feeley Jr.

Review, , , , , , , ,

I was scared to read this one at first. The striking image on the front cover hinted at a plot concerning wild weather, but I could have been wrong. It could have been an allegory for the chaos that religious fervour can wreak on innocent lives. What if I was disappointed?

Turns out, it is both, and I wasn’t disappointed. First off, it is books like this one that make me love my job. After an easy-going start, the author draws the reader into the lives of Ted and Anderson, before focussing on the aftermath of a homophobic attack that has totally unexpected results. Both parts of the book are cleverly interwoven, yet easing towards an inevitable and dramatic climax.

As an inveterate storm-watcher, I was waiting for the tornado to hove into view, and it does, but I’m not saying when. Everything I was expecting to happen, didn’t happen. I really hoped the author wouldn’t succumb to the normal romantic tropes, and he doesn’t. I was expecting a book full of rage against the religious machine, but the outcome is more one of forgiveness.

This is such an elegant book. The sex scenes are beautifully choreographed, the progress of Ted and Anderson’s relationship feels totally real. Yes, love does happen at first sight. Then the reader gets sucked in by the secondary characters, the most surprising of which was the fire and brimstone preacher and his son. Again, expectations confounded at every turn.

In fact, this book IS like a tornado, throwing the reader into a spin. I loved that the ending made me cry. That is what books are supposed to do. Entertain you, anger you, make you feel. This book has all the feels, and much, much more. A masterclass in how to craft an MM romance, and support it with a plot that is so much more. A strong contender for my Book Of The Year.

BLURB

Artist Ted Armstrong lives a solitary and eccentric life. The survivor of child abuse disguised as religion, Ted has cut himself off from the world.

Then Ted meets Anderson Taylor, and it’s like being struck by lightning.

Anderson is a cardiac surgeon whose passion for his work has consumed him. He fears he’ll never find a partner—until he sets eyes on Ted. It’s happening fast, but both men know what they feel is right.

Confronted with an angry preacher, a scandal, and an act of God that threatens to destroy everything, their relationship will face its first true test.