Lisa Gayle is the author of “Emerald Spirit”, a new book exploring themes around gender and life transition, immortality and facing realities as a woman. Yesterday, in part 1, we covered a little about “Emerald Spirit’s” main character and a little about Lisa herself. In part 2, Lisa and I will be chatting about Lisa’s favorite scenes from her book, how her friend got her motivated, and what’s next for Lisa?

Becki: Lisa, can you give us one or two of your favorite scenes from your book?
Lisa: (laughs) Wouldn’t that be giving away too much? I think my favorite is the awakening. Another one that was fun to write was when she meets her old neighbor in San Diego and learns about her former life. I also like the playful stuff that happens as Susan grows accustomed to being a woman and finds she likes men.

Becki: Why write a transgender fiction book now? And since you wrote it some time ago, why publish now?
Lisa: Actually this is in the past. I started this book probably ten years ago and never finished until last year. I had gotten just so far and got distracted from the project for a long time. I put it aside and didn’t think much about it. Besides I really didn’t know how I wanted it to end. It was my friend, Carollyn Olson, who pushed me to finish it.

Carollyn had just published her first novel, “Deception” and I mentioned that I had this thing I was working on. I sent her the unfinished manuscript and she wrote back Shouting at me “OH MY GOD!!!! YOU HAVE TO FINISH THIS!” She got me to write the ending and have it published.

Becki: How does the theme of death and re-birth play into your main characters life and does that mirror or relate to the experience of other transpeople (or other people in other life transitions all of them not necessarily transgender).
Lisa: You know, I hadn’t really thought of it in such allegorical terms but I suppose it really does because transitioning is really a death and rebirth. You leave one life behind and start a new one.. Initially it was just an exploration of feelings and speculations but it does work on that level as well.

It also has some element of everyone’s wish for immortality, or at least longer life or a second try at getting life right. OK, I’m no longer 60 years old and winding down. Suddenly, I’m 20 and I have a chance to not make those stupid mistakes I made all my life. I have the wisdom of my 60 years and a new fresh body. Of course if’s female now but hey, won’t that be an interesting kick?

Becki: Besides Gordon, can you give our readers any description and insight into another important character in your book and how you came to bring this person to life in your book?
Lisa: Here’s the romance novel reader/writer showing up. Greg is her knight in shining armor. Susan is a smart, capable and strong woman, but she has to face some realities that she never considered as a male. Primary is that she is discriminated against and harassed because she is a woman. This was something she never saw even in her own company until it was directed at her. It was going on when she was a man but she was too involved in other things to see it. She also realizes that while she has skills and is not a tiny woman, she has physical limitations simply because most of these bad people she encounters are so much larger and more physically powerful than she is. She needs someone like Greg to fill that need. Doesn’t hurt that he’s a handsome hunk either. I made Greg kind of an ideal but gave him a past that he doesn’t talk about and that might be something she really doesn’t want to know about. He’s done some things that might not be suitable for all audiences. That’s his mystery.

And every story needs a villain. It’s more interesting when that villain is someone the hero/heroine knows and doesn’t suspect. I had fun making that character pretty slimy. I confess to have modeled him after someone I know. So he’s kind of a real person. That part was a vicarious giggle for me.

Becki: Your smart, gorgeous, a great friend, and devoted parent and spouse, so now a published author, what’s up next on the horizon for you Lisa?
Lisa: Flattery will get you a free copy of the book! (laughs) I really don’t know what’s next. I’m working on a new story that will feature a detective who crossdresses, very convincingly, to work on a big case. I’ve also agreed to allow Carollyn to use the characters in my book in her new novel “Breaking Point”. I’ve been an advisor and consultant on that project as well as writing a chapter or so for it.

Right now, I’m being Dad to my teenage daughter who is smart, talented and beautiful (Can’t tell I’m proud of her, can you?), and trying to stay afloat in the recession. I’ve been appointed Assistant PostMistress for the Vanity Club, which is a wonderful online sorority that counts some of the most beautiful trans-women in the world as members. I’ll be going to the Lake Erie Gala this November.

I’ll let you know when the newest book becomes available.

Becki: Lisa I hope you do! And thanks so much for taking the time to visit with us at Beck’s Cafe

Lisa Gayle is both beautiful and funny. An upstate NY resident and a proud parent, she helps to bring the Erie Gala Transgender Conference to life every year in Erie PA. She’s also a budding author with a new book that explores questions of gender and life transition, immortality and facing realities as a woman she could have never considered as a man. I caught up with Ms. Gayle for coffee and a chat about her new book, “Emerald Spirit”.

Becki: What led you to write your book?
Lisa: I spent my whole professional career in an office. Got my degree in accounting of all things and I hated it. I was never a detail-oriented person. (Is that right brain or left? I can never remember.) I was always more interested in the arts. My favorite subjects in school were always English and the arts. I enjoyed writing short stories bur never thought I could put together a story that would be suitable for a book. This story didn’t start out as a book either. I just started writing about this idea I had and it kept growing.

Becki: So the story kind of took on a life of it’s own, or, maybe picked you up and carried you on a journey to see it written! Have you always written, what were some of your earliest works?
Lisa: Always. I made up elaborate stories as far back as I can remember.

I have a series of short stories, mostly in the Twilight Zone kind of genre that I may publish someday. Some of these date back to my college days, back when there were still dinosaurs roaming around. I need to finish the three or four ideas I have in progress before that compilation could be book length.

My favorite has to be “The Foxhole”. It’s about a soldier in war who finds himself in a foxhole with a few other GI’s whom he does not know. As they shelter from enemy fire there, they discover that they are not even fighting the same war. One is from Viet Nam, another fought in WWII and another Korea.

I also adapted a short story by Robert Sheckley, “The King Wishes” into a stage play. I would love to produce that for the stage one day.

Becki: I bet the range of characters in your stories is very wide. Can you tell us how you come up with your main character for “Emerald Spirit” Gordon who becomes Susan?
Lisa: Susan wasn’t really a character until later in the process. I started writing not about a specific person but about an idea. What would it be like to wake up in a strange hospital and find that I was no longer a male? But not just a male who had say, undergone SRS, perhaps by accident, (you know the old urban myths: the hospital got the wrong patient for the transplant surgery and now this guy has someone else’s heart and there was nothing wrong with his. That kind of thing.) but that he, now she, was 100% genetic female. So when you read it, the chapter in which that happens is the first part written. After a while I thought there was a larger story that could be told. It expanded in both directions from there. Eventually Susan needed to be a real person.

Becki: The main character, Gordon Carson, with his millionaire, wealth and expensive plane sounds similar to a Howard Hughes or Richard Branson, what led you to create a character like Gordon with his unique attributes?
Lisa: I needed to have someone with a great deal to lose. Someone for whom this sudden change would be even more devastating than the obvious physical changes. It didn’t hurt to give him the means to have done so many things in his life that would come in handy during the story. Making him wealthy, intelligent and successful provided all that.

(tomorrow in part 2:  Lisa’s favorite scenes from her book “Emerald Spirit”, how her friend got her motivated, and what’s next for Lisa?)

The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) is hosting a general conference call on September 8th, 8PM Eastern Time, to bring listeners up to date on the ENDA legislation and let listeners know how they can help get the U.S. Federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) passed.

What is ENDA? As NCTE notes:

• This legislation would address discrimination in the workplace by making it illegal to fire, refuse to hire, or refuse to promote an employee simply based on his or her sexual orientation or gender identity. It would reinforce the principle that employment decisions should be based upon a person’s qualifications and job performance.
• ENDA closely follows the model of existing federal civil rights laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act, ensuring that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are treated in the same way as other groups protected under law – no better, no worse.

To join the NCTE conference call update on ENDA please click to their site to register ahead of time: NCTE ENDA CON CALL LINK

To learn more about ENDA please link here: GovTrack on ENDA and at Wikipedia’s ENDA article here.

One would think our existing laws are enough. Just enforce what we have to protect all Americans in accordance with the spirit of our Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. However, existing laws, such as Title VII may not protect trans-persons from discrimination (see why here) and note the Diane Schroer case with the U.S. Library of Congress here.

It stinks that we can’t just take the Declaration of Independence and existing laws as is but, when we don’t, as well as the rest our laws, then we need to strengthen protections (which adds costs and burden to our economy but let’s not go there right now). An interesting historical parallel/aside on the topic of the necessity of new laws that on the surface don’t seem necessary is the issue of slavery in the U.S., as reported in Newsweek in July of 2008. “The 13th amendment passed in 1865 made slavery unconstitutional. There was no federal statute that made it a crime to hold a black person as a slave.” Slavery was unconstitutional and immoral but legal! You can read that full story at Newsweek’s site here.

We covered ENDA here at Beck’s Cafe extensively in 2007 and for some of the back stories please see:

• Enda Fallout Constricts Title VII Claims
• ENDA Baldwin Amendment, will you please call?
• Representative Tammy Baldwin – Keeping Our Eyes on the Prize (ENDA Statement)
• ENDA: Barney Frank backs down, HRC Commits, time bought
• ENDA, Time to make some phone calls
• Continues coverage on ENDA: Sean Hannity, ADA and James Byrd
• Continued Coverage on ENDA: Robyn’s Story
• Petition Drive to support complete ENDA
• Transgender Rights Hail Storm

Way back in July 2006 we ran a story on ZDNet’s free on-line seminars, “At The Whiteboard“. Our post was entitled, “Good Tech Learnin’ for Free” and we weren’t kidding. It was both good and free and is still running today for some quick understanding of key technologies.

Since then a number of other free on-line webinars has popped up and GuruTube is another great one. Like ZDNet’s “At the Whiteboard”, GuruTube features knowledgeable and sometimes famous speakers on a variety of interesting and timely topics. While ZDNet tends to focus on technology, GuruTube focuses primarily on business and marketing. The webinars are 4 to 8 minutes in length and chock full of information you can use right away. A helpful bump in your knowledge. And of course, the Frugal Tech found them to be a nice value since she found them to be free and to be of good quality. A great combination. Go grab a nice iced mocha cappucino and have a look for yourself at GuruTube.

“I only take communication by fax?” I was told by my medical specialist. In a tone that brokered no negotiation on the subject.

What? Fax? Do they make those anymore?

I had to scratch my brunette head and really put on my thinking cap. I mean, a fax for communication instead of email? Or IM? Or SMS? Or …. Faxing?

Well there was no budging her, she was a fax fan and that was that. If I wanted to correspond on my medical history that was going to have to be by fax (to her locked office) or I’d be outta luck. So, being a frugal femme on a budget, like alot of my readers, I started poking about and found the unlikely product, FaxZero. A web based fax service.

When you first come to the FaxZero website you immediately see something that looks scammie. I mean, it just looks cheap and likely to take your information and then spam you to death. But while it has a certain retro feel, the Frugal Tech found FaxZero to be everything they say it is. Cheap, easy to use, and reliable. In multiple tests of both the free Faxzero service and the pay-as-you-go “premium” service our faxes went through without a hitch. We have never been bothered by them in soliciting us back either. In short, the system works terrific, is very handy as it is web based, is easy to use, has a free option and is a great value.

If you need to use a fax, the Frugal Tech at Beck’s Cafe raises her mug high to FaxZero.