Diversity Rules Magazine

Her most recent book, An American Queer, a collec on of "The Amazon Trail" columns, was presented with the 2015 Golden Crown Literary Society Award in Anthology/Col- lec on Crea ve Non Fic on. This, and her award-winning fic on, including The Raid, The Swashbuckler, and Beggar of Love, can be found at h p://www. boldstrokes- books.com/ Author-Lee- Lynch.html. I'm not giving away any secrets here. Not saying it's simple or that anyone can do it if they send $25.00 to Post Office Box 1,2,3. Nope, it's a personal journey and every sto- ry has a story. Here's mine, about the writ- ing of my newly released novel, Accidental Desperados. This goes back to about 2007. I was living on the Oregon Coast, grateful to be ren ng a cot- tage on the property of the Pianist and the Handy- dyke. I was, and am, part of their lesbian family. I thought about that a lot, how gay people grow fami- lies of choice whose members nurture one another in minimal to large ways. I thought, wouldn't it be cool, maybe even important, to write a mul -vol- ume, intergenera onal, lesbian family saga. Earlier in my life I couldn't get enough of this type of fic on: Mazo de la Roche's Jalna series set in Canada, The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy, Isaac Bashe- vis Singer's The Family Moskat, but could I take on such an epic task? My books wouldn't appear on The New York Times Best Seller list, but they'd be burst- ing with lesbians. I said it wasn't simple. Life itself bu ed in, as well as other books I needed to write. I heard from a reader; we began months of frequent correspondence. She lived in Tarpon Springs, Florida. I, never having been there, had referred to that city in a book, calling it a something like a tacky li le town. My correspondent pre y much challenged me to visit and see Tarpon Springs for myself. I accepted the challenge and by the me I le , my pen pal had become my sweetheart. We next got to- gether at a conference, then in Oregon. We burned up the skies with our passion to be together. She had a good job in Florida. My job was portable. She flew to Oregon and we drove cross-country my, now our, dog and a number of cats. Two years, I told every- one in Oregon. We'd move back to the west coast in two years. The recession hit and two turned to five. By that me, we were living inland, ten minutes from my sweet- heart's job, in an unincor- porated area called Dover. Unexpect- edly, we had five years to explore rural central Florida, urban Tampa, storied areas like Ybor City, and to wander as far south as Naples and as far east as Miami. I could buy my sweetheart a fresh-off- the-fields strawberry milkshake at a roadside stand any me of year, or boiled peanuts from a farm stand, or real Key Lime Pie. My favorite places were what I call "old Florida" in Accidental Desperados. I was born with the genes of a New England fam- ily, though, and the subtropical sun, the humidity, the omnipresent air-condi oning, were more than this pale white Northern body and respiratory sys- tem could take. We made the move back to Oregon. Where I proceeded to wax nostalgic for the nooks and crannies of old, old Florida se lements and the Amazon - Con't on page 12 The Amazon Trail How To Write A Book By Lee Lynch (c) Can Stock Photo Inc. / grsphoto Diversity Rules Magazine|May 2021|11

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