Who the fuck are you?

I have one rule: don’t post when you’re mad. This is one of those times when my rule doesn’t matter.

It’s Pride month. And the celebration is hard-won. The glorious riot of people who’d had enough of indignity and cruelty.

We are a community that celebrates the families we have made, and the truth we tell, despite the danger inherent in telling the truth. In being disobedient to the dominant culture.

You don’t have to understand being gay. You don’t have to understand being queer. You don’t have to understand being trans. You don’t have to understand being bisexual or pansexual or asexual. IT. IS. NOT. ABOUT. YOU.

IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU, MOTHERFUCKER.

You don’t get to apply the grace and love of Jesus to yourself, and the wrath and judgment of old-testament God to the rest of us. Fuck. You.

For real. Fuck you.

You don’t have to understand ANYTHING to love your neighbor. You don’t have to understand anything to love a child that is not the person you think they should be. Back up. Your child is not you. They get to be whomever they envision. That is what we do here on earth. We make the best of our short time. We tell the truth about ourselves. We show up for each other. We do our best.

And sometimes we say the wrong thing. Sometimes we do the wrong thing. But despite all of that we get up, shake off our worries, and show up for each other.

You deny your kid your love, and you increase their exposure to suicidal thoughts, dangerous situations, plagues of shame and self-doubt. You created this human being, but you don’t get to make their choices for them. That’s not how this works. We each choose for ourselves.

Show up. Love them. YOU HAVE ONE FUCKING JOB, PARENTS. LOVE YOUR CHILD. You don’t have to understand them to see how fucking beautiful they are. Even when they are flailing. Even when they are making decisions you don’t agree with. Stay close to them. Be supportive. Love them. For christsake. Love is the least of it, you selfish motherfuckers. Your child is the best of you.

A beacon in the night ahead.

Celebrate them. Because I do. I celebrate them. I hold a mother parade every day for the wonder of it all. The inexplicable beauty of this weird fucking planet, and all these children who might be anything.

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Jill Malone

Jill Malone grew up in a military family, went to German kindergarten, and lived across from a bakery that made gummi bears the size of mice. She has lived on the East Coast and in Hawaii, and for the last seventeen years in Spokane with her son, two dogs, a hedgehog, and a lot of outdoor gear. She looks for any excuse to play guitar. Jill is married to a performance artist and addiction counselor who makes the best risotto on the planet.

Giraffe People is her third novel. Her first novel, Red Audrey and the Roping, was a Lambda finalist and won the third annual Bywater Prize for Fiction. A Field Guide to Deception, her second novel, was a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley, and won the Lambda Literary Award and the Great Northwest Book Festival.

Giraffe People

Giraffe People

Between God and the army, fifteen-year-old Cole Peters has more than enough to rebel against. But this Chaplain’s daughter isn’t resorting to drugs or craziness. Truth to tell, she’s content with her soccer team and her band and her white bread boyfriend.

And then, of course, there’s Meghan.

Meghan is eighteen years old and preparing for entry into West Point. For this she has sponsors: Cole’s parents. They’re delighted their daughter is finally looking up to someone. Someone who can tutor her and be a friend.

But one night that relationship changes and Cole’s world flips.

Giraffe People is a potent reminder of the rites of passage and passion that we all endure on our road to growing up and growing strong. Award-winning author Jill Malone tells a story of coming out and coming of age, giving us a take that is both subtle and fresh.

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A Field Guide to Deception

A Field Guide to Deception

In Jill Malone’s second novel, A Field Guide to Deception, nothing is as simple as it appears: community, notions of motherhood, the nature of goodness, nor even compelling love. Revelations are punctured and then revisited with deeper insight, alliances shift, and heroes turn anti-hero—and vice versa.

With her aunt’s death Claire Bernard loses her best companion, her livelihood, and her son’s co-parent. Malone’s smart, intriguing writing beguiles the reader into this taut, compelling story of a makeshift family and the reawakening of a past they’d hoped to outrun. Claire’s journey is the unifying tension in this book of layered and shifting alliances.

A Field Guide to Deception is a serious novel filled with snappy dialogue, quick-moving and funny incidents, compelling characterizations, mysterious plot twists, and an unexpected climax. It is a rich, complex tale for literary readers.

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Red Audrey and the Roping

Red Audrey and the Roping

Occasionally a debut novel comes along that rocks its readers back on their heels. Red Audrey and the Roping is one of that rare and remarkable breed. With storytelling as accomplished as successful literary novelists like Margaret Atwood and Sarah Waters, Jill Malone takes us on a journey through the heart of Latin professor Jane Elliot.

Set against the dramatic landscapes and seascapes of Hawaii, this is the deeply moving story of a young woman traumatized by her mother’s death. Scarred by guilt, she struggles to find the nerve to let love into her life again. Afraid to love herself or anyone else, Jane falls in love with risk, pitting herself against the world with dogged, destructive courage. But finally she reaches a point where there is only one danger left worth facing. The sole remaining question for Jane is whether she is willing to accept her history, embrace her damage, and take a chance on love.

As well as a gripping and emotional story, Red Audrey and the Roping is a remarkable literary achievement. The breathtaking prose evokes setting, characters, and relationships with equal grace. The dialogue sparks and sparkles. Splintered fragments of narrative come together to form a seamless suspenseful story that flows effortlessly to its dramatic conclusion.

Winner of the Bywater Prize for Fiction, Red Audrey and the Roping is one of the most memorable first novels you will ever read.

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