I'm originally from Iowa, so my eyes and ears perked when I heard about the recent lift on the gay marriage ban in Iowa.  Since I'm working on a handful of m/m and f/f pieces at the moment, I thought I'd share a few tidbits of info.  Lots of the national news agencies are reporting through the AP on different angles of the story.  What I'd like to share are some links of my hometown newspaper (The Telegraph Herald) and the newspaper of the most recent town in Iowa where I lived prior to moving to Tennessee (The Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier). The Des Moines Register has recently run enough stories on the issue that they now have a quick link at the top of their home page devoted to the gay marriage issue.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=NEWS&template=keywords&keyword=iagaymarriage

I especially like this article and the picture :)

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090410/NEWS/904100376/1001/NEWS

http://www.thonline.com/forums/Comments.cfm?BlogID=274&MainSection=User%20Blogs&THBlogID=5#post274

The whole issue is a heated one on both sides.  To be honest, I was surprised the court lifted the ban, because Iowa is a fairly conservative state.  The more articles I've read on the issue, the more I've also appreciated that Iowa is a fairly liberal state as well in terms of civil rights.  Iowa was the first state to allow women to take the bar exam and practice law, the first state to desegregate schools, and one of the first states to strike down slavery laws.

As a part of my research, I have also recently discovered that gay marriage is totally legal in Spain, giving gay couples exactly the same rights as straight couples.  I studied in Santiago de Compostela, Spain (in the autonomous region of Galicia) in 2001.  I also have a B.A. in Spanish, so I'm not sure how I missed the news in 2005 when gay marriage was legalized in Spain.  I'm currently working on a m/m BDSM pirate short story set in Galicia between newlyweds.  :)

Tags: law | Galicia | Spain | Short story | civil rights | gay | lesbian | f/f | m/m | works in progress | news | newlyweds | BDSM | Pirates | Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier | Associated Press | Des Moines Register | Telegraph Herald | Iowa | Gay Marriage | LGBT | Jen Bluekissed

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Sweaty Sex releases today!  My short story, "Getting Lucky Isn't The Same As Being Lucky," is included.  I had a ton of fun writing this one and would like to mention a few things about the story that set it apart from some of my others.

"Getting Lucky," is a baseball story.  I'm a huge baseball fan.  The rivalry between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs has kept me up many a summer night.  The setting for the story is in Dubuque, Iowa and Dyersville, Iowa.  I'm originally from Dubuque, so creating a rivalry for the two minor league baseball teams, the Iowa Cobs and the Idaho Spuds, was a hoot.  (I was utterly tempted to type Kernels rather than Cobbs.  The temptation almost got the better of me, but the Cedar Rapids Kernels may not have appreciated my using their real life team).

My husband's family is from Idaho.  Now that I'm no longer living in Iowa, I can't tell you how many people with whom I've spoken have mixed up Iowa and Idaho in casual conversation.  I couldn't resist using both in the story.  Other than farmland, the two states are very different places.

I will also mention that most of the details regarding Dubuque are true.  There are only two details that I fabricated.  One of the things I made up is that Dubuque doesn't really have a minor league baseball team.  I even found a way to work Loras College into the story  I attended Loras, graduating with BA degrees in English, Spanish, and Secondary Education.  Go Duhawks!

On a completely different note, the kind folks at the Geek Squad were able to recover all the files on my laptop as well as wipe the virus clean.  I've been breathing a giant sigh of relief for the past two days.  Let's just say that now I own more thumb drives than I care to admit.

I can't help but thank all of my readers for putting both Experimental and Ambrosia in the top ten!  Let's put this anthology there too!

Tags: Experimental. | Ambrosia | Sweaty Sex | laptop | virus | Idaho | Iowa | sports | baseball | Jen Bluekissed | anthology

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