I had the chance to catch up with queer author, columnist, and provocateur Dan Savage this week for QBlog in advance of his new book “American Savage”, which comes out on Tuesday! We chatted about sex, marriage equality, community pushback, transphobia, biphobia, bullying, the new book and more.

Read my interview with Dan below, then come out to Powell’s books this Sunday at 2pm for a Q Center-sponsored reading, Q&A, and meet and greet with Mr. Savage himself!

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Logan Lynn: Hey Dan. Thanks for squeezing me into your busy schedule today. I’m looking forward to your book launch event at Powell’s in Portland coming up this weekend on June 2nd! How does it feel to be making these book rounds once again?

Dan Savage: (Laughs) It feels good. It’s been 7 years since I managed to carve out the time to sit down and write a book because they invented blogging and podcasting and vlogging and Twitter and Instagram. It’s not enough anymore to write a weekly column or bust out a few news items a week. You have to be constantly running your mouth online. It really takes the time away that I used to be able to put into plowing away at a book. It was a tough thing to manage.

Lynn: Well, I’m looking forward to reading it. You recently won an Emmy as well, correct?

Savage: Yeah. I didn’t win an Emmy, everybody who participated in the It Gets Better project won an Emmy. It was awarded The Governor’s Award, which is kind-of their Up With People, social justice, good works award. We are really proud to have gotten (the Emmy) but it was for the project and it’s because of the great impact it has had. The Emmy wasn’t for me and Terry. It was for all of us.

Lynn: That’s really great. What has been the most rewarding part of being involved with the It Gets Better project for you?

Savage: I’ve heard from so many LGBT kids who were helped by the project. People don’t write newspaper stories about kids who don’t kill themselves, so most of these stories aren’t out there and people don’t hear them. I now have ongoing penpal/Twitterpal relationships with some of the Read the rest of this entry »

Mother’s Day today has me thinking about my own mom, how our relationship has changed over the years, and how lucky I feel to be where we are today together. Our story is one of deep struggle and even deeper joy, all held together by an unbreakable bond which was no doubt formed lifetimes ago.

My mother has always been a strong woman. Growing up in the same oppressive church that I did, she was held down for many years by traditional religious ideals and company which didn’t allow her to identify with this power, but those of us who have known and loved her all this time know that she is a beautiful, powerful force of nature, and she always has been.

Her loving sweetness, her well-read brain, her deep, complex inner life, her quick wit, her fierce loyalty, her earnest desire to be good; to know and accept the truth, and to be forgiving when others fall short, all make up her character and feed into a bright light about her. She brings this light with her when she enters a room, and all who find themselves in her presence are illuminated by it. I have watched this happen in dark corners of buildings, as well as in the darkest corners of my heart, for my entire life.

I learned how to cry from my mother; how to get in touch with my raw feelings and let them out when the world is too mean to keep them in. These skills have been life-saving at different points in my being here. My experience of growing up gay in the Midwest, even sometimes from those closest to me, was that there was no room in the rural Christian landscape for a sissy like me. My mother never once made me feel this way. She took me to dance class when I wanted to go, and she sat proudly at my recitals. She bought me Barbie dolls when I wanted them, and while I’m sure it must have scared her, she always seemed to celebrate my being different.

When I was older and troubled from the battle scars of my youth, my mother once again loved me through her fear. She marched bravely toward death as Read the rest of this entry »