ken barber

In the summer of ’69 I was between my junior and senior year in high school and working in a tourist town. Young, dumb, and full of … hormones, I had better things to do than watch the news (except the moon landing), so if the riots were reported at all in my conservative area, I missed it.

I can tell you about what it was like living there at that time as a gay boy. It was a time of great fear for me. I was always gay and had crushes on other boys from the time I was six. At the same time, I learned what the word Queer meant. I was never a brave boy and when other boys tossed out that taunt at each other I knew that I had better keep my head down. My older brother used to tell me about going to the nearby city with his football teammates to roll queers. They lurked in the parking lot of the only little gay bar and waited to catch a man walking alone. Then they would beat and rob him. There was never any consequence for them.

Homosexuality wasn’t talked about except with scorn and hatred. Mostly the local news never reported anything about us, except for when someone was arrested for sex. Then the papers would print their names and addresses for everyone to see. I stayed in the closet all through college and suffered all of the angst and discomfort of having to date girls in order to keep up the pretense of being straight. I hated it.

Finally, I picked up an Advocate newspaper and saw that I wasn’t one of hundreds of gays. I was part of millions of other boys like me, so I moved to Atlanta and got into all sorts of wonderful trouble. I spent the following decades trying to continue the work that the Stonewall folk started. I am so grateful for their bravery that opened the door for me. I think I would have committed suicide if I had been forced to live like that for much longer.

The thing is, I never got over that childhood of intense fear and loneliness. Parts of that little boy still hides in me today.


 
 

@Adam
if you would be willing to send an email to castlerolandpr@gmail.com with a list of story titles I would be happy to check into the status of those you discovered. As it is we updated Cynus' stories to complete, Parker's "Mountains of Memories" is on hold and we updated the status of "Undersong" "Time Quake" "Time May Change" and we checked the status of "Billie Joe's Journals" all have been marked complete for some time. 

Cynus "Rivers of the Dead 4" is now marked complete and we also marked "Logan and Seth" Complete. 

Parker Mountains of Memories' status has been changed to "On Hold"

As we move into 2019, where does Castle Roland Stand?
The year 2018 ended up a bit short of where we were hoping for. We served up 2,984,904 total pages to 402,251 total visitors.
That puts us down by 12% in total visitors over 2017. Yet we were up by 18% in the number of pages served. Not quite sure what to make of that!
But there is good news. Since the launch of our new site, 15 months ago (457 days ago), we have served up 3,783,338 pages. That's amazing and I can't thank our readers enough!
Overall, it appears we can't have good news, without taking into account the bad news... Ain't Life Wunnerful?!
That said, we are looking for another good year, as long as our authors keep sending us great stories!

First off, I apologize for how long it took to get this one out.  It has been a difficult year.  Being homeless has brought new challenges and perspectives to my life.  Changes in my family situation have also made life, well, let's call it interesting.  I have been working on Glen's story for a  while now, trying to make sense of the various medical and scientific aspects I have written into the story.
But be warned, Glen's memories aren't the only thing changed by his contact with the electrical world.  Things in his life that Glen-who-is would never have suspected are about to make their presence felt.  And a few little surprises will enter along the way.
Act three is in the works.  I'm hoping it will take less than 18 months to get it to the finish line.  There are other projects still wanting love as well, so I will do my best.
Seeya on the other side, my brothers,
D'Artagnon, aka Robby
PS.  Monumental shout of praise to Al who made the graphic for the story page.  You keep coming through for this site again and again, buddy.  Thank you.

A Brave New World
The end of 2018 is approaching and The Castle is still going strong with some bold and innovative ideas coming soon. Our numbers look outstanding for 2018 with an expected  130,000 individual visitors and over 3 million total views. The website currently averages close to 2000 visitors per day.
The Admin team has decided to make some changes in our structure and organization, The long serving forums Chief Moderator Zach Caldwell stepped down to help facilitate that change. The PR team is being relabeled the Community Outreach team and while it will continue its role handling announcements and special events it will now take on reaching out to new authors and inviting them to join the family. It will also oversee collaboration between other sites. The first of which is the Critic’s Corner reviews are now available on the site iomfats.org We hope to open dialogue between many sites in conjunction with our mission to expose the stories to as many readers as possible. The Community Outreach team is seeking volunteers to assist in all capacities including looking for “Critics” to help write reviews in the Critic’s Corner program. If you are interested please email castlerolandpr@gmail.com. There has also been some discussion on fundraisers and the Community Outreach team will continue to explore those ideas.
Financially the Castle has its ups and downs but we manage month to month.  The Website campaign helped fund the new site with enough funding remaining to maintain the site for almost a year. Donations since the campaign have been unexpectedly slower and we currently have enough funds to cover expenses for about four more months. That is the lowest we have been in a long time. The Admin team has began setting aside personal funds to help bolster the treasury if it comes to that but in the meantime we will continue to ask all of you to consider helping out.
Some of the programs we have been discussing about launching or relaunching include live audio author workshops. One with a professional published LGBTQ Romance Novelist. The Novelist is a personal friend of Community Outreach Director Ken Barber and is excited to give you, her tips and tricks and answer questions. We have discussed the possibility of live author chats again where the readers can interact with authors and ask questions.  We will continue our ever popular Annual Halloween Contest now in its 5th year but with some major changes.
Over all, the Castle foundations are strong and steady and we will continue to stick to our mission. The Castle Admin team is always open to suggestions and ideas and we will continue to seek them out through direct communication, polls and surveys. Today the Castle looks towards the future in hopes of reaching out to more and more people across the world and sharing with them creativity, imagination, hope, and a sense of community.
“What a Journey we have been through, but thankfully we have all been faithfully keeping our goals. The lights of the Castle will always burn bright because of all the dedication and passion.” - David Roland
 
The Castle Senior Volunteers:
David Roland, President and CEO
Al Norris, Webmaster and COO
Ken Barber, Senior Vice President, Director of Community Outreach
Kyle Aarons,Vice President,  Author Relations Manager
D’Artagnon,Vice President,  The Castle Forums Manager
Dennis Payne, E-Newsletter Coordinator
William King, Critics Corner Coordinator
Ranger, Castle Historian
Jon Dom, Castle Historian
Mary McNeil, Universe Administrator, Archivist (Retired)
Rilbur, Webmaster (Retired)
Zach Caldwell, Forums Chief Modorator (Retired)

As we approach our one year anniversary of the launch of our newest version of Castle Roland, the Administration team has decided to take you on a little behinds the scenes tour of what we do, who we are and what we have accomplished. 
Everyday at least one member of the Administration team takes time out of their busy personal schedule to solve technical issues, answer questions, post updates, discuss upcoming promotions, plan events and contests, and yes, to write this post. Officially there are only three administrators for the entire organization, Roland, Al Norris and Ken Barber. Unofficially we have lots and lots of advisors and assistants. Everyone involved from administrators to editors are unpaid volunteers. 
The amount of growth we have experienced in such a short time has caused some growing pains. Some programs we attempted failed horribly, others soared beyond our wildest expectations. Whenever a project fails we have to remember the words of the Great USA President, Franklin Roosevelt “It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” 
We have reached out across the world. Most of our readership is centered in North America and Europe but we have had emails and notes from places like Loas, The Philippines, Afghanistan, Australia, Madagascar and even more. Places where people could could be arrested, thrown in jail and possible killed just for reading our stories. Yet they still do. We can only guess that our stories and the hours of time and effort we put into the website gives them hope and courage. And yes of course a view into a sexual concept they can only think about and never act upon for fear of their lives. 
We consider ourselves an adult focused site as some of the stories we host would be considered erotica but we are certain that teenagers, struggling with their own sexual orientation have discovered a place where, just for a short time they can set aside their fears of coming out and immerse themselves in world of imagination that allows then to be true to themselves.  
To understand how we accomplished all of that we are going to go back to the "beginning" of The Castle and give you a 3 part history. Starting on August 12, 2018, part one will be the origin and beginning years through the end of 2015. On August  15, 2018, Part two will encompass 2016 and 2017. The Final post will be August 19, 2018 and will include where we are today and our plans for the future. Starting in September and each month after that we will share with you some details about key people in The Castle: The Administrators, Authors that have been with us from the very beginning, Editors and key volunteers.
(Please feel free to comment, make suggestions or ask questions)
 

Lindon Weztser
Lincoln: The Family I never Expected
Chapter 16

Lindon Weztser
Lincoln: The Family I Never Expected
Chapter 17

New Beginnings. 
Castle Roland (The Castle) has a unique and complex history. Its origins start with the merger of two separate sites and concepts. Saber Peak Ranch and The Revolutions Universe sites were both experiencing some management and technological issues and an overall decline in readership. Both sites may have been lost completely at that time if it were not for the efforts of David Roland. Roland gathered a few key people to form a committee to attempt to save both sites. The end result was The Castle absorbed both sites and started afresh. A few months later Ken Barber’s very small site Readers Ranch was also absorbed into the merger.
The merger process was long and at times tempers flared. Everyone involved was (and still is) very passionate about making sure the authors stories were treated fairly and lawfully. Everyone involved in this merger are volunteers and no one gets paid. Yet they put in countless hours of agonizing phone calls, Skype chats and web conferencing to make sure the process went as smoothly as possible. The biggest obstacle to overcome was the website itself. Rilbur with very little notice and completely volunteering his time, designed and programmed the first edition of the site. Without his help the dream of the Castle would never have even come close to realization. The originally designed site was intended to be a temporary bridge between the immediate need and the end result. Because of Rilbur’s skill and knowledge the original design lasted way longer than any of us ever imagined. 
The one thing that was decided early was The Castle’s mission: to provide a warm and welcome place for a diverse group of authors; to share their talents with readers from all over the world. To incorporate stories that take place in various settings and time periods, and span many genres. So no matter what they are looking for all visitors will find it on The Castle
During all the merger negotiations no one ever expected the kind of support and growth we would see. The Castle never intended to become arguably the third largest online gay fiction hosting site. Yet here we are today, with over 70 hosted authors, over 440 individual stories and thousands and thousands of individual chapters. On our forums we have 540 members, 1,600 discussions topics and over 17,000 individual posts According to our conservative estimates our readership will grow to over 3 million total views by this year's end.
At the end of 2014, The Castle had just over 45,000 individual people visit the site. That's more than the population of Wala Wala, Washington, USA. We hit just short of 1 million total views. At the end of the 2014 The Administrators celebrated those numbers as they knew they were onto something. They began to think about ways to grow and develop the site even more. Recruiting requests for volunteers were posted, contests were planned, forum membership drives were organized, special events began.
The work paid off. At the end of 2015 The Castle opened it doors to 76,801 individual visitors which is equivalent to all of the employees of the entire coal mining industry in the United States and over 1.7 million total views. This was an 80% increase over the previous year. Since The Castle launched in April of 2014 this was the first full year in operation and once again all the volunteers celebrated and plans began to expand some programs, add new programs, and cut some programs.
(Please feel free to comment, make suggestions or ask questions. The next section will be posted later this week)
 

As we approach our one year anniversary of the launch of our newest version of Castle Roland, the Administration team has decided to take you on a little behinds the scenes tour of what we do, who we are and what we have accomplished. 
Everyday at least one member of the Administration team takes time out of their busy personal schedule to solve technical issues, answer questions, post updates, discuss upcoming promotions, plan events and contests, and yes, to write this post. Officially there are only three administrators for the entire organization, Roland, Al Norris and Ken Barber. Unofficially we have lots and lots of advisors and assistants. Everyone involved from administrators to editors are unpaid volunteers. 
The amount of growth we have experienced in such a short time has caused some growing pains. Some programs we attempted failed horribly, others soared beyond our wildest expectations. Whenever a project fails we have to remember the words of the Great USA President, Franklin Roosevelt “It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” 
We have reached out across the world. Most of our readership is centered in North America and Europe but we have had emails and notes from places like Loas, The Philippines, Afghanistan, Australia, Madagascar and even more. Places where people could could be arrested, thrown in jail and possible killed just for reading our stories. Yet they still do. We can only guess that our stories and the hours of time and effort we put into the website gives them hope and courage. And yes of course a view into a sexual concept they can only think about and never act upon for fear of their lives. 
We consider ourselves an adult focused site as some of the stories we host would be considered erotica but we are certain that teenagers, struggling with their own sexual orientation have discovered a place where, just for a short time they can set aside their fears of coming out and immerse themselves in world of imagination that allows then to be true to themselves.  
To understand how we accomplished all of that we are going to go back to the "beginning" of The Castle and give you a 3 part history. Starting on August 12, 2018, part one will be the origin and beginning years through the end of 2015. On August  15, 2018, Part two will encompass 2016 and 2017. The Final post will be August 19, 2018 and will include where we are today and our plans for the future. Starting in September and each month after that we will share with you some details about key people in The Castle: The Administrators, Authors that have been with us from the very beginning, Editors and key volunteers.
(Please feel free to comment, make suggestions or ask questions)
 

As we approach our one year anniversary of the launch of our newest version of Castle Roland, the Administration team has decided to take you on a little behinds the scenes tour of what we do, who we are and what we have accomplished. 
Everyday at least one member of the Administration team takes time out of their busy personal schedule to solve technical issues, answer questions, post updates, discuss upcoming promotions, plan events and contests, and yes, to write this post. Officially there are only three administrators for the entire organization, Roland, Al Norris and Ken Barber. Unofficially we have lots and lots of advisors and assistants. Everyone involved from administrators to editors are unpaid volunteers. 
The amount of growth we have experienced in such a short time has caused some growing pains. Some programs we attempted failed horribly, others soared beyond our wildest expectations. Whenever a project fails we have to remember the words of the Great USA President, Franklin Roosevelt “It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” 
We have reached out across the world. Most of our readership is centered in North America and Europe but we have had emails and notes from places like Loas, The Philippines, Afghanistan, Australia, Madagascar and even more. Places where people could could be arrested, thrown in jail and possible killed just for reading our stories. Yet they still do. We can only guess that our stories and the hours of time and effort we put into the website gives them hope and courage. And yes of course a view into a sexual concept they can only think about and never act upon for fear of their lives. 
We consider ourselves an adult focused site as some of the stories we host would be considered erotica but we are certain that teenagers, struggling with their own sexual orientation have discovered a place where, just for a short time they can set aside their fears of coming out and immerse themselves in world of imagination that allows then to be true to themselves.  
To understand how we accomplished all of that we are going to go back to the "beginning" of The Castle and give you a 3 part history. Starting on August 12, 2018, part one will be the origin and beginning years through the end of 2015. On August  15, 2018, Part two will encompass 2016 and 2017. The Final post will be August 19, 2018 and will include where we are today and our plans for the future. Starting in September and each month after that we will share with you some details about key people in The Castle: The Administrators, Authors that have been with us from the very beginning, Editors and key volunteers.
(Please feel free to comment, make suggestions or ask questions)
 

New Beginnings. 
Castle Roland (The Castle) has a unique and complex history. Its origins start with the merger of two separate sites and concepts. Saber Peak Ranch and The Revolutions Universe sites were both experiencing some management and technological issues and an overall decline in readership. Both sites may have been lost completely at that time if it were not for the efforts of David Roland. Roland gathered a few key people to form a committee to attempt to save both sites. The end result was The Castle absorbed both sites and started afresh. A few months later Ken Barber’s very small site Readers Ranch was also absorbed into the merger.
The merger process was long and at times tempers flared. Everyone involved was (and still is) very passionate about making sure the authors stories were treated fairly and lawfully. Everyone involved in this merger are volunteers and no one gets paid. Yet they put in countless hours of agonizing phone calls, Skype chats and web conferencing to make sure the process went as smoothly as possible. The biggest obstacle to overcome was the website itself. Rilbur with very little notice and completely volunteering his time, designed and programmed the first edition of the site. Without his help the dream of the Castle would never have even come close to realization. The originally designed site was intended to be a temporary bridge between the immediate need and the end result. Because of Rilbur’s skill and knowledge the original design lasted way longer than any of us ever imagined. 
The one thing that was decided early was The Castle’s mission: to provide a warm and welcome place for a diverse group of authors; to share their talents with readers from all over the world. To incorporate stories that take place in various settings and time periods, and span many genres. So no matter what they are looking for all visitors will find it on The Castle
During all the merger negotiations no one ever expected the kind of support and growth we would see. The Castle never intended to become arguably the third largest online gay fiction hosting site. Yet here we are today, with over 70 hosted authors, over 440 individual stories and thousands and thousands of individual chapters. On our forums we have 540 members, 1,600 discussions topics and over 17,000 individual posts According to our conservative estimates our readership will grow to over 3 million total views by this year's end.
At the end of 2014, The Castle had just over 45,000 individual people visit the site. That's more than the population of Wala Wala, Washington, USA. We hit just short of 1 million total views. At the end of the 2014 The Administrators celebrated those numbers as they knew they were onto something. They began to think about ways to grow and develop the site even more. Recruiting requests for volunteers were posted, contests were planned, forum membership drives were organized, special events began.
The work paid off. At the end of 2015 The Castle opened it doors to 76,801 individual visitors which is equivalent to all of the employees of the entire coal mining industry in the United States and over 1.7 million total views. This was an 80% increase over the previous year. Since The Castle launched in April of 2014 this was the first full year in operation and once again all the volunteers celebrated and plans began to expand some programs, add new programs, and cut some programs.
(Please feel free to comment, make suggestions or ask questions. The next section will be posted later this week)
 

Glad you like the idea. The entire series is completely written out but we didn’t want to post it all at once for fear it would be too long and peeps would just not read it. This way it’s a little more digestible. I hope every finds some little tid-bits of fun information and maybe some wow moments. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walla_Walla,_Washington
its a very cute little town in Washington state. I have actually visited before. 

New Beginnings. 
Castle Roland (The Castle) has a unique and complex history. Its origins start with the merger of two separate sites and concepts. Saber Peak Ranch and The Revolutions Universe sites were both experiencing some management and technological issues and an overall decline in readership. Both sites may have been lost completely at that time if it were not for the efforts of David Roland. Roland gathered a few key people to form a committee to attempt to save both sites. The end result was The Castle absorbed both sites and started afresh. A few months later Ken Barber’s very small site Readers Ranch was also absorbed into the merger.
The merger process was long and at times tempers flared. Everyone involved was (and still is) very passionate about making sure the authors stories were treated fairly and lawfully. Everyone involved in this merger are volunteers and no one gets paid. Yet they put in countless hours of agonizing phone calls, Skype chats and web conferencing to make sure the process went as smoothly as possible. The biggest obstacle to overcome was the website itself. Rilbur with very little notice and completely volunteering his time, designed and programmed the first edition of the site. Without his help the dream of the Castle would never have even come close to realization. The originally designed site was intended to be a temporary bridge between the immediate need and the end result. Because of Rilbur’s skill and knowledge the original design lasted way longer than any of us ever imagined. 
The one thing that was decided early was The Castle’s mission: to provide a warm and welcome place for a diverse group of authors; to share their talents with readers from all over the world. To incorporate stories that take place in various settings and time periods, and span many genres. So no matter what they are looking for all visitors will find it on The Castle
During all the merger negotiations no one ever expected the kind of support and growth we would see. The Castle never intended to become arguably the third largest online gay fiction hosting site. Yet here we are today, with over 70 hosted authors, over 440 individual stories and thousands and thousands of individual chapters. On our forums we have 540 members, 1,600 discussions topics and over 17,000 individual posts According to our conservative estimates our readership will grow to over 3 million total views by this year's end.
At the end of 2014, The Castle had just over 45,000 individual people visit the site. That's more than the population of Wala Wala, Washington, USA. We hit just short of 1 million total views. At the end of the 2014 The Administrators celebrated those numbers as they knew they were onto something. They began to think about ways to grow and develop the site even more. Recruiting requests for volunteers were posted, contests were planned, forum membership drives were organized, special events began.
The work paid off. At the end of 2015 The Castle opened it doors to 76,801 individual visitors which is equivalent to all of the employees of the entire coal mining industry in the United States and over 1.7 million total views. This was an 80% increase over the previous year. Since The Castle launched in April of 2014 this was the first full year in operation and once again all the volunteers celebrated and plans began to expand some programs, add new programs, and cut some programs.
(Please feel free to comment, make suggestions or ask questions. The next section will be posted later this week)
 

As we approach our one year anniversary of the launch of our newest version of Castle Roland, the Administration team has decided to take you on a little behinds the scenes tour of what we do, who we are and what we have accomplished. 
Everyday at least one member of the Administration team takes time out of their busy personal schedule to solve technical issues, answer questions, post updates, discuss upcoming promotions, plan events and contests, and yes, to write this post. Officially there are only three administrators for the entire organization, Roland, Al Norris and Ken Barber. Unofficially we have lots and lots of advisors and assistants. Everyone involved from administrators to editors are unpaid volunteers. 
The amount of growth we have experienced in such a short time has caused some growing pains. Some programs we attempted failed horribly, others soared beyond our wildest expectations. Whenever a project fails we have to remember the words of the Great USA President, Franklin Roosevelt “It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” 
We have reached out across the world. Most of our readership is centered in North America and Europe but we have had emails and notes from places like Loas, The Philippines, Afghanistan, Australia, Madagascar and even more. Places where people could could be arrested, thrown in jail and possible killed just for reading our stories. Yet they still do. We can only guess that our stories and the hours of time and effort we put into the website gives them hope and courage. And yes of course a view into a sexual concept they can only think about and never act upon for fear of their lives. 
We consider ourselves an adult focused site as some of the stories we host would be considered erotica but we are certain that teenagers, struggling with their own sexual orientation have discovered a place where, just for a short time they can set aside their fears of coming out and immerse themselves in world of imagination that allows then to be true to themselves.  
To understand how we accomplished all of that we are going to go back to the "beginning" of The Castle and give you a 3 part history. Starting on August 12, 2018, part one will be the origin and beginning years through the end of 2015. On August  15, 2018, Part two will encompass 2016 and 2017. The Final post will be August 19, 2018 and will include where we are today and our plans for the future. Starting in September and each month after that we will share with you some details about key people in The Castle: The Administrators, Authors that have been with us from the very beginning, Editors and key volunteers.
(Please feel free to comment, make suggestions or ask questions)
 

In Australia, we are looking forward to some warmth, winter is taking FAR too long. ?

I am sure that Asimov would disagree. ?

Lindon Weztser
Lincoln: The Family I never Expected
Chapter 6

William we are going to have create a topic for you as our wandering gay fiction author.  Thanks for this. 

Here is another classic for you with its modern day translation
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
***
First they came for the Muslims, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Muslim.
Then they came for the Latino's, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Latino.
Then they came for the transgender, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not transgender.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

As a writer in the RU I must I am terrified by the similarities. Some of the very views of the conservative right are being twisted and manipulated right under their noses. Its a wolf in sheep skin. "I will keep you safe from the big bad ugliness (Myself excluded of course). I will protect your rights (until I need to infringe on them for security reason). I will make sure no (but me) will interfere in your private life. I will protect the rights of the states  (Unless they disagree with me). I will protect your families. (as long as your white and born here). I will guarantee you the freedom of Religion (as long as its christian). 
Remember this-
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Here is the new version
"Keep, ancient lands, your tired, your poor!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your storied pomp,
Your wealthy, aristocracy, your secrecy,
The lies and swindling of your venerable families.
Send these, the privileged, the arrogant ,
I lift my lamp beside the door to gold!"
 

William we are going to have create a topic for you as our wandering gay fiction author.  Thanks for this.