Friends of Dorothy
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Friends of Dorothy
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The 2016 publication of Meg-John Barker and Julia Scheele’s Queer: A Graphic History (London: Icon Books) shows that stories set in Oz in general and the MGM Wizard and Wicked in particular still have a special place in current queer culture. It contains 171 pages of graphic novel type images. Seven allude to the MGM Wizard, with depictions of the Emerald City, the Yellow Brick Road, the Scarecrow, Flying Monkeys, a melting witch, and shiny shoes. Two others are of the main characters in Wicked, Elphaba and Glinda. The MGM Oz and Wicked are mentioned on page 109. A well-known example of such slashy writing queer writing is Wicked (1995/2003), which imagines a whole different story going on between the scenes of The [Wonderful] Wizard of Oz (1900/12939), destabilizing the narratives and binaries involved in the original. As far as I can tell, there are no other recurring images related to any other stories in any medium.
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At the Amazon page for my book, you can explore both print and digital versions of the book. I will describe the functions as I see them on my browser, Firefox. It might be somewhat different for you in another browser. ![]() PAPERBACK On the left is the cover with the words “Look inside↓” If you click on either the cover or the words, a LOOK INSIDE! window appears. Only a small portion of “preview” pages are available here, but it is still pretty cool. There are several ways to navigate from here: 1) There is a BOOK SECTIONS window on the left. Certain parts of the book are listed that you can travel directly to. 2) You can SCROLL through the pages that get displayed by using the down arrow on the bottom right. 3) You can JUMP from page to page with the blue left and right arrows. ![]() 4) The TABLE OF CONTENTS (second page after cover) has most chapters, appendixes and sections highlighted and you can jump directly those. 5) There is a SEARCH INSIDE THIS BOOK window on the left, below BOOK SECTIONS. Words entered here will be matched against the complete book. So, for example, if you search on “rufus,” you will get 14 results, some of which are highlighted blue and clickable, and others are grey that you can’t see the page of. The page for the first blue ‘hit’ is displayed to the right. ![]() 6) SURPRISE ME is another option that shows up in various places in addition to being listed in the BOOK SECTIONS window. KINDLE There is the same “look inside” logo. This puts you in a continuous set of unnumbered pages called a “sample” that goes up to what would be page 21. You land at the beginning of the Foreword, where the text of the book begins. 1) You can SCROLL back to see the earlier pages such as Table of Contents, or go forward for more text. 2) You can JUMP to the next or previous screen with the blue left and right arrows. The next screen overlaps a few lines with the previous screen. 3) The two SECTIONS listed take you to the cover and the beginning of text (in my case, the Foreword). 4) There are LINKS in the lists before the Foreword, such as the Table of Contents and list of Figures, but they work for pages in the sample. Links to outside the book work, such as those to my website and Dark Ink Press.
Explore! Poke around! Discover! Have fun! The last week has been a whirlwind of marketing activity and preparation for the big release day, this past Tuesday. I have been working closely with Nate Jasper, my website and social media guy, of Design Northampton and Kate Anderson, of Dark Ink Press. We have been planning bookstore readings, posting to Facebook, creating mailing lists, sending out email blasts, perfecting this website, setting up Twitter and Instagram accounts and more. A lot of this social media stuff is totally new to me, similar to the part of the movie at the Witch's Castle: exciting and scary.
Today you can go to Amazon or Dark Ink Press and actually order my book!
I can’t believe “Friends of Dorothy” is now actually published. It feels unreal. Quite a few friends have already pre-ordered the book, which makes me very proud and happy. There is still a lot of work to be done. An alternative to Amazon will be available soon, as will digital versions to download. Thanks to International Wizard of Oz Club friends, Willard Carroll, Bill Beem and John Fricke, I found out that the “It’s here” graphic is based on an advertisement in the Sept. 12, 1942 Detroit Times for Oz Peanut Spread, sold by Swift & Company. ![]() I am the author of a new book, “Friends of Dorothy: Why Gay Boys and Gay Men Love The Wizard of Oz.” Researching, writing and getting this book out there has been a long process (twenty years!), but things have accelerated in the last few weeks. As a first time author, I thought readers might be interested in the process of writing, publishing and marketing my first book. As well as reflecting on the past, I will be talking about what is happening currently with the book: readings and other special events. So, what is the story with Oz and gay men? It’s not simply a matter, as many people assume, of gay men being into Judy Garland. I have interviewed over 100 gay Oz fans and it turns out gay men are also fans of the Oz books, as well as Wicked and The Wiz. Also my respondents became fans when they were as young as 3 or 4 or 5 years old. Even if their first exposure to Oz was the MGM film with Judy Garland, they were not signing on to fandom because they gave heard that Judy is a gay icon, or that they themselves were aware of being gay. Something is going on at a much deeper level. Themes of all sorts in stories set in Oz resonate with young gay boys. “Friends of Dorothy” details the existence of the Oz-gay connection, presents responses of individual fans to Oz stories, and then puts the phenomenon of gay love of Oz into a broader social and cultural context. Stay tuned and I look forward to your responses here! |
AuthorDee Michel is the author of the book "Friends of Dorothy - Why Gay Boys and Gay Men Love The Wizard of Oz." Archives
May 2023
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