Thursday, December 31, 2009

January 2010 Publishing Notes

The buzz: This year Penguin will publish Mehmet Murat Somer's Wig Murders, a new installment about the transvestite detective from Istanbul.

Broadway books will publish Meredith Baxter's memoir of her personal and professional life, including her fight with breast cancer, her 19 years of sobriety, and her recent announcement that she is gay.

Doubleday has released Union Atlantic, a first novel by Adam Haslett.

This April Scribner will publish The Moonlit Earth, a new novel by Christopher Rice, a thriller about a woman who must try to save her brother's reputation and life when he is accused of a terrorist act.

StarBooks Press has released Nerdvana, edited by Fred Towers, an erotic collection of stories about men who wear glasses, and Unmasked II: More Erotic Tales of Gay Superheroes.

Lethe Press has reissued Alex Jeffers's novel, Safe as Houses. Lethe also has plans to reissue Jeff Mann’s collection of erotica A History of Barbed Wire.

Next month InsightOut book club will publish a hardcover edition The Haunted Heart and Other Tales, a collection of gay-themed ghost stories by Jameson Currier (the author of this blog).

Later this year Alyson will publish Frank Browning's Spirits of Desire: Conversations With My Priest, describing the author's sexual encounters and deep dialogues with a Dominican monk about faith, sin, sex, love and the eternal body.

This spring Alyson Books will publish David McConnell’s new novel, The Silver Hearted. The author is also currently at work on a non-fiction project, Gay Panic: True Stories of Straight Men Who Kill Gay Men.

Stephen Greco takes a hard look at "faking it" inside New York's media and art worlds in his new novel The Culling. The novel is one of three which the author has releasing soon. Others include Dreadnought, a novel in the form of six stories, about what happens when young consumers and creative talent are stalked by a Big Brand of unprecedented power, and Other People’s Prayers, a sequel to The Culling, which will be published in March, 2010.

Michael Alenyikov’s Ivan & Misha: A Novel in Stories, will be published by Northwestern University Press this fall. The stories explore the lives of a Russian immigrant family in New York City, circa 2000. The title story appeared in Descant and was anthologized in Best Gay Stories, 2008.

Lev Raphael, author of 19 books, including the Nick Hoffman mystery series, the short story collection Dancing on Tisha B'Av, and, most recently, the memoir My Germany, has donated 89 boxes of handwritten and typed manuscripts, annotated drafts, letters, diaries and book tour journals and other research material to the Michigan State University Libraries.

Perry Brass will lead a workshop on the topic of his new book, The Manly Art of Seduction, with Jerry Kajpust, Wednesday, January 20, 2010, at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center in NY, 208 West 13th Street, 7:30 to 10 pm.

The newest issue of the gay speculative fiction magazine Icarus is out, featuring fiction by Tanith Lee, Robert Joseph Levy, Chaz Brenchley and Rodello Santos.

Charis Books in Atlanta recently celebrated its 35th birthday.

Lambda Rising, Dupont Circle’s LGBT bookstore since 1974, is set to close in January 2010, along with the bookstore located in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Owner Deacon Maccubbin has sold the storefront located at 1625 Connecticut Ave NW in Washington, D.C. to an undisclosed buyer.

This spring Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan are the subject of a new multi-author play, The Really Big Once, produced by the Target Margin theater company. The play covers the years 1948 to 1953, when the two men collaborated on Camino Real. Performances April 15 for a limited engagement at The Ontological at St. Mark’s.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that the new Tony Kushner play, The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism & Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, would not be arriving in New York this spring as expected, to allow the playwright to make revisions to the script. Kushner is also the writer-in-residence at the Signature Theatre in New York, which is dedicating its 2010-11 season to the playwright, including a revival of Angels in America.

Kudos: Lucy Jane Bledsoe was awarded the 2009 Arts & Letters Prize for fiction as well as the Fiction Award from the Sherwood Anderson Foundation.

Recipients of the United States Artists grants included poet and novelist Sapphire, whose book was recently made into the film Precious.

Among the nominees on the long list of the Irish IMPAC Dublin Literary Award were The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer; Pilcrow by Adam Mars-Jones; The Black Tower by Louis Bayard; Child 44 by Tom Robb Smith; and The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine.

Maida Tilchen won the 2009 New Mexico Book Award in the LGBT Category for her novel, Land and Beyond Maps; other finalists were Keith Pyeatt (Struck) and A.C. Katt (The Sarran Plague).

Among the LGBT nominees for the Black Quill Awards given by Dark Scribe Magazine are The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (Dark Genre Novel of the Year); Kelland by Paul G. Bens Jr. (Best Small Press Chill); Martyrs & Monsters by Robert Dunbar (Best Dark Genre Fiction Collection); Pumpkin Teeth by Tom Cardamone (Best Dark Genre Fiction Collection); The Haunted Heart and Other Tales by Jameson Currier (Best Dark Genre Fiction Collection and Best Cover Art and Design); and Ugly Man by Dennis Cooper (Best Dark Genre Fiction Collection). Icarus magazine also received a nod for Best Dark Scribble for publishing the short story “The Man in the Mirror.”

Among the winners of the World Fantasy Award was Richard Bowes for his novelette “If Angels Fight.” Originally published in the February 2008 issue of The Magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy, the story was reprinted in Best Gay Stories 2009.

Among the nominations for the 15th annual Critics’ Choice Movie Awards were honors for Precious and A Single Man. The Broadcast Film Critics Association nominated each film for best picture. The nominations for the 67th annual Golden Globe Awards included Precious receiving a nomination for best dramatic film and Colin Firth garnering a nomination for best actor in a drama for his role in A Single Man.

Open Calls: Hors-micro / Off-mic, a new gay literary e-zine organized and edited by Dominic Ambrose and a group of writers in Paris, is looking for poetry, fiction, prose, photos, and artwork in English or French with the cross-cultural life of Paris as its theme. Submissions can be sent to off_micparis@yahoo.fr. “Edition Zero” of the e-zine is viewable at http://issuu.com/hors-micro/docs/notre_magazine_lgbtnov3/32.

The Queer Foundation, a Washington nonprofit corporation, will offer the three winners of its 2010-11 High School English Essay Contest College scholarships in the amount of $1,000 for studies in queer theory or a related field at a US college. Deadline is February 26, 2010. For more information, a printable flyer, or an application form, please visit http://queerfoundation.org/Documents/essay_contest.html.

Passages: Robin Wood, an influential British film critic who published the first serious critique on Alfred Hitchcock in Cahiers du Cinéma, died on December 18, 2002 at his home in Toronto. He was 78. His essay "Responsibilities of a Gay Film Critic," originally a speech at the National Film Theater and later printed in Film Comment magazine in 1978, was also included in the revised edition of his book Personal Views.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Favorites of the Year

Favorite Gay Novel: I’m usually behind in reading new books — often by a year or more — unless I’m asked to review a specific title or I am judging an awards category. The best gay-themed novel I read in 2009 was John Weir’s What I Did Wrong — which was published in 2006. I’d avoided reading the book in part, because I knew there was a character based on David Feinberg, a mutual friend I shared with Mr. Weir, and in part, because I had enjoyed Andrew Holleran’s novel on the same theme, Grief, but felt that Holleran was often repeating himself too much in all his writings — he keeps writing the same story over and over, even though they are always gorgeously written and insightful and terrific reads — and I was worried that Weir’s novel might be a re-tread of his first novel The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket, which I admired a great deal. What I Did Wrong was much better than I had expected it to be. I thought Weir’s novel captured David with uncanny precision in the character of Zack, but it also vividly captured the narrator Tom’s grief and imbalance following Zack’s death. Tom’s “lost boy adrift” sort of life mirrors the lasting affect that AIDS has had on friends and survivors — in a way that doesn’t go away with aging and the passing of years. This is also a deeply felt book about having a New York relationship and the experiences of a certain generation living in the city, in the same way that Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Bright Lights, Big City or Slaves of New York are about New York experiences. My only qualm was that I wished Mr. Weir had written a little more about his and David’s ACT UP experiences as activists — but of course that is me projecting my knowledge of some of the facts of both men and the events of their lives and not necessarily what Mr. Weir wanted to include in his novel — or should have included in it. But this was a profoundly good and satisfying read for me; in many passages of this novel Weir’s prose is stellar and lush, particularly in its last, glorious paragraphs.

Favorite Gay Memoir/Autobiography: I fell in love with Joel Derfner’s Swish immediately on opening it and I couldn’t put it down. Derfner writes narrative essays about himself, and about learning knitting, making friendships, dating, dating, and dating, being a cheerleader, and his love of musical theater. He has the kind of engaging, talky, campy personality that you hope your best friend has. What sets this memoir apart from a lot of similar comic, gay essay books is Derfner’s intelligence and seriousness coupled with a delightful sense of irony and bewilderment of who he is and what he wants. I’ve been recommending this book ever since I finished it.

Favorite Short Story by a Gay Author: Later this year Lee Thomas has a collection In the Closet, Under the Bed being published by Dark Scribe Press and I had a chance to read an advance copy of this. These are fifteen horror tales, many of which find gay male protagonists battling supernatural forces. I think that this will be a classic horror collection because Thomas does the kind of “guy fiction” that Stephen King does, only he is doing it with gay characters and themes. The best story in the collection has no paranormal gimmicks to it at all to it — “Crack Smokin’ Grandpa” — just a mounting sense of dread as the clues and truths behind the evolving relationship of a gay man and an older one come to light. It’s a powerful and unsettling story.

Favorite Discovery: I’ve blogged about this before, but I think that more readers need to know of these books — the gay and lesbian line of local history books published by Arcadia. I read Gay and Lesbian San Francisco by William Lipsky (and loved it) and then discovered Gay and Lesbian Atlanta by Wesley Chenault and Stacy Brankham (and could not put it down because I grew up in Atlanta).

Favorite Re-Discovery: I sometimes pull down from my shelves a favorite book that I had read years before—sometimes for enjoyment, sometimes to study an author’s technique. This year I had the joy of rediscovering Allan Hollinghurst’s The Swimming Pool Library. I remember when I first read the book in 1989 I was awed by the author’s prose style and his unabashed depiction of gay life in London. It was a marvelously sexy book. I had always been hesitant about revisiting this book, in part because I was probably one of the few people who had been disappointed by The Line of Beauty. But I will only say this: my rediscovery of this book was as magnificent as my first reading of it.

Favorite Guilty Pleasure: I have developed a tremendous affection for ghost stories and this year I spent a lot of time reading both new and old ones — literary short fiction — in an attempt to compile an historical and chronological list of ghost stories that feature gay characters and which were written by gay authors (i.e. “The Mysteries of the Joy Rio” by Tennessee Williams, “Dr. Woolacott” by E.M. Forster, and “The Circular Valley” by Paul Bowles). So I was particularly enthralled by Ken Summers’ Queer Hauntings: True Tales of Gay and Lesbian Ghosts which came out in October. This is a non-fiction guide/reference work of gay and lesbian ghosts and locations haunted by queer spirits. Summers also maintains a Web site at Moonspenders.com which details queer paranormal events and locations.

For a glance at what other gay authors have revealed as their favorite reads of the year, visit Stephen Bottum's terrific blog, Band of Thebes.

Monday, November 30, 2009

December Publishing Notes

The buzz: In collaboration with the Weinstein Company, the University of Minnesota Press is publishing a tie-in edition of A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood to coincide with the film adaptation of the novel directed by Tom Ford. The Press has a launched a Web site at http://www.asingleman-book.com/ with a goal of introducing Isherwood to a new generation of readers.

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore and Gina Carducci have collaborated on a film titled All That Sheltering Emptiness…, a meditation on elevators, hotel lobbies, hundred dollar bills, the bathroom, a cab, chandeliers, cocktails, the receptionist, arousal, and other routines in the life of a New York City callboy. The film premiered in New York in November.

Gwyneth Paltrow has joined Nicole Kidman in the cast of The Danish Girl, a film adaptation of David Ebershoff's novel.

Fremantle has acquired the television rights to Frank Bruni’s Born Round, about a man struggling with a lifelong eating disorder who lands the most influential job in the food world as chief restaurant critic for the New York Times.

Actor and author Alan Cumming received an Order of the British Empire, one of the United Kingdom’s highest honors, for his work as an entertainer and LGBT rights activist.

Kaylie Jones, the daughter of author James Jones, noted on The Daily Beast that a gay story line was cut from her father’s 1951 novel From Here to Eternity. The publisher forced Jones to omit passages in which the character Maggio (played by Frank Sinatra in the movie version) made extra money by providing sexual favors to older gay men.

In 2010 and 2011, there were be a two-volume memoir forthcoming by composer Stephen Sondheim: Finishing the Hat and Look, I Made a Hat.

The New York Public Library will become the permanent home of the personal papers of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist E. Annie Proulx.

Farrar, Straus, Giroux will publish David Levithan's first adult novel, The Lover’s Dictionary, an alphabetically episodic narrative that traces the ups and downs of an urban romance.

Ganymede recently issued Ganymede Poets, One, its first annual anthology of the 38 poets published in the first six issues of the gay literary journal. Among the poets included are David Bergman, Brian Brown, Edward Field, Walter Holland, Jee Leong Koh, Jeff Mann, and Gregg Shapiro.

Authors Eric Arvin and Pat Nelson Childs have started a new LGBT publishing company Young Offenders Media. More details can be found at: http://www.youngoffendersmedia.com/.

This month Alyson releases Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS, edited by David Groff and Philip Clark. The anthology features work by 45 poets who died of AIDS.

“All The Way Through Evening,” Perry Brass’s collaboration with composer Chris DeBlasio, who died of AIDS in 1994, will be part of the program of Gilles Denisot and Mimi Stern-Wolfe on December 6th at the Benson AIDS Concert at St. Marks in the Bowery, 131 East 10th Street in Manhattan.

Queer Mojo Press releases this month Love Hard: Stories 1989 – 2009 by D. Travers Scott, collecting the author’s short fiction from the past twenty years which originally appeared in anthologies, underground queer ‘zines, erotica magazines, and live performance, along with several new stories.

This month Dark Scribe Press will release In the Closet, Under the Bed, a collection of fifteen horror stories by Lee Thomas.

In a recent post at Gay Writers (http://gaywriters.ning.com/forum/topics/we-must-be-aware-that-we-have), book critic Amos Lassen protested the decision of a lesbian Arkansas judge.

The Minneapolis Star reported that Out Word Bound Book Store, the gay and lesbian bookstore in Indianapolis, is closing after Christmas.

The Publishing Triangle's annual holiday party will be Friday, December 11: from 6:30–9:30 p.m., at the offices of In the Life at 184 Fifth Avenue (between. 22nd and 23rd Sts), fifth floor. Members pay $20, guests $25 (includes one drink).

Sunday, November 01, 2009

November Publishing Notes

The buzz: Author Augusten Burroughs has partnered with Katalyst Films to develop TV projects, including a Showtime comedy based on his memoir Dry. Bryan Fuller and Bryan Singer are separately adapting another Burroughs book, Sellevision, for NBC.

Actor Peter Paige will direct an adaptation of Neil Miller's nonfiction book Sex-Crime Panic: A Journey to the Paranoid Heart of the 1950s, about the mass panic in Sioux City, Iowa following the 1955 killing of an eight year old boy when authorities arrested twenty middle class gay men completely unconnected to the crime.

Novelist Michael Nava is running for San Francisco Superior Court Judge. You can support his campaign by going to www.navaforjudge.com/ and joining his Facebook page, Michael Nava for Judge.

This month Rebel Satori press is releasing Advocate Days & Other Stories by Mark Thompson, the former Advocate editor and journalist. Thompson is also the author of the popular Gay Soul.
Rebel Satori press is also releasing this month the vampiric novel DeVante's Coven, by SM Johnson, a novel by L.A. Fields titled Maladaption, and Love Hard, a collection of short fiction by D. Travers Scott.

This month Lethe Press is releasing the 5th edition of Loving Someone Gay by Don Clark, Ph.D. Lethe has also recently released Velvet Mafia editor Sean Meriwether’s debut collection of fiction, The Silent Hustler, and Tom Cardamone’s collection of gay speculative fiction, Pumpkin Teeth.

Flux will publish Brent Hartinger's novel Shadowwalkers, about a gay teenager who escapes his isolation on an island in Puget Sound by experimenting with astral projection, which leads him into a spiritual realm of mystery and danger.

This month Starbooks Press is releasing Horny Devils, a new collection of erotic horror stories by Daniel W. Kelly, and Can’t Get Enough, a 20th anniversary collection of erotica by John Patrick, edited by Eric Summers.

Gallaudet University Press has brought out Raymond Luczak’s ninth book, Whispers of a Savage Sort and Other Plays about the Deaf American Experience and Rebel Satori Press will publish the author’s deaf gay novel Men with Their Hands. The book won first place in the Project: QueerLit 2006 Contest and was a co-first place grant from the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation for Full-Length Fiction. More details on the author can be found at http://www.raymondluczak.com/.

In January 2010 Harper Perennial will publish Myrlin Hermes’s novel The Lunatic, The Lover, and the Poet. Hermes won the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation novel competition in 2006 for the novel about a gay Hamlet. An excerpt and video trailer is available on the author’s Web site. http://www.myrlinahermes.com/.

Citadel will publish Kiri Blakeley’s memoir Hard Wired: What My Gay Fiancé Taught Me About Sex, Love, and Life, about the aftermath of her decade-long romance ending with the revelation that her fiancé was gay.

Alyson will publish Scott Sherman's next two mystery novels in his Kevin Connor series.

Next spring, Cleis will publish College Boys, a collection of erotica edited by Shane Allison.

Donatello Press has published a memoir by playwright and activist Glenn Hopkins titled Slim Volume.

Readings this month: Various authors at The Atlanta Queer Literary Festival, November 7 in Atlanta at the Decatur Library; Raymond Luczak at Bluestockings in Manhattan, November 8; Sarah Schulman at Housing Works Bookstore in Manhattan, November 16; Edward Field with Dutch instrumentalist Ack Van Rooyen, November 20 at the Westbeth Community Room in Manhattan.

Kudos: Among the nominations for the National Book Awards was Carl Phillips for his tenth poetry collection, Speak Low. Gore Vida will be awarded the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation.

Brotherhood, a Danish movie about a gay love affair between two members of a neo-Nazi group, won top honors at the Rome Film Festival.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton inaugurated a monument to poet Walt Whitman in Moscow. The monument is located in the gardens of the Moscow State University, where last May the mayor ordered the arrest of 32 gay and lesbian activists from Russia and Belarus who were attempting to stage a Slavic Gay Pride.

Open Calls: Bona Fide Books seeks submissions for Queer in the Last Frontier, a collection of essays about gay and lesbian life in Alaska. Deadline: February 5, 2010; maximum 5,000 words. For more information and guidelines, go to http://www.bonafidebooks.com/.

Burrow Publishing is seeking submissions for an erotica anthology (gay and bisexual) Men of Color Erotica to be released in 2010. Stories should prominently feature men of color. The deadline for submissions is December 15. For additional information and requirements, please visit http://www.burrowpublishing.com/.

Steve Berman is reading gay male themed essays and fiction published in the 2009 calendar year for Best Gay Stories 2010. Submissions and recommendations can be sent to sberman8@yahoo.com.

Thursday, October 01, 2009

October Publishing Notes

The buzz: In 2011, Barrett Books will publish Chaz Bono's memoir Coming Clean: The Truth About Becoming a Man, chronicling the physical, emotional, and relational aspects of his decision to transition from a female to male, told in a day by day account of the process, exploring the 12-month period that will be the bulk of his transformation from his decision to take male hormones and how they affect him, to surgical procedures, through the end result, and also covering his father's death and his foray into prescription drug addiction.

Next fall Flux will re-issue John Donovan’s 1969 YA novel I’ll Get There: It Better Be Worth the Trip, widely regarded as the first YA novel to touch on the topic of homosexuality. The book centers on a 13-year-boy whose efforts to cope with his estranged mother lead to a close friendship with another boy.

In 2010, Hansen will publish John DiLeo's Tennessee Williams and Company: The Essential Screen Actors, looking at eleven screen actors in Tennessee Williams' films and explores their artistic connections, some of them flat-out failures, between these screen actors and their Tennessee Williams roles.

Alyson will publish a new installment of Neil Plakcy’s Hawaiian detective series featuring a gay police detective, titled Mahu Blood.

Rebel Satori Press has released The Elijah Tree, a novel by Cynthea Masson, about a young boy who is birthed in the fire of a mystical vision.

Cleis will publish Christopher Pierce's Biker Boys: Gay Erotica Stories in July 2010. Next summer Cleis will also publish Elizabeth Ozar's The Big Gay Breakup Book, a guide to getting over him or her and moving on to a highly successful relationship, offering her own thoughtful and insightful to one of the hardest of life's passages - the end of a relationship.

Seal Press will publish Tina Fakhrid-Deen’s Colage’s The LGBTQ Family Handbook, a resource for kids of gay, lesbian, trans, and queer parents -- full of invaluable questions and answers from kids living in all varieties of alternative family situations.

Simon Pulse will publish Brian Farrey's Chasers, about two teens who join a group called 'chasers' which promises them in-depth lessons about gay history and a place where they'll be accepted; but when the group's lessons morph into violent encounters and dangerous sexual pursuits, the young men must decide if their lives are really worth it.

In June 2010, Simon Spotlight will publish Tim Gunn's Gunn’s Golden Rules: Life's Little Instructions for Making It Work, applying old-world values to modern situations, from the lost art of etiquette to practical advice, showing how to navigate life and unflappably rise to any occasion, to Patrick Price at Simon Spotlight Entertainment, for publication in June 2010, by Peter Steinberg at The Steinberg Agency (world).

Lethe Press has released its second annual edition of Wilde Stories: The Year's Best Gay Speculative Fiction featuring stories by Sven Davisson, Alex Jeffers, and Lee Thomas. Lethe has also released the nonfiction book Queer Hauntings: True Tales of Gay & Lesbian Ghosts, a guidebook by Ken Summers of gay and lesbian ghosts and haunted gay places.

Wayne Courtois will be signing copies of Report from Winter on October 3 at 1:00 pm at Barnes & Noble, at Country Club Plaza in Kansas City.

Lester Srong and David Waggoner will be signing copies of their book XY on XY on October 6 at 8 pm at the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation, 26 Wooster Street, in Manhattan.

Paul Bens and Ann Somerville will read at A Different Light in San Francisco on October 30 at 7:30pm.

The newest issue of Icarus, the Magazine of Gay Speculative Fiction, has been released and features work by authors Jeff Mann, Lee Thomas, Alex Jeffers, and Chad Helder.

Outwrite Bookstore and Coffeehouse was runner up for Best Bookstore on Creative Loafing's Best of Atlanta list.

Fire & Ink III: Cotillion, a festival for LGBTQ writers of African descent, will happen Oct. 8-11, 2009 in Austin, TX at the Hilton Austin, 500 E. 4th St. in downtown Austin, with additional Cotillion events at the Blanton Museum and the Historic Victory Grill, among others. A complete listing of presenters can be found at http://2009.fireandink.org/.

The 2010 Saints and Sinners Literary Festival will be May 13th through 16th in New Orleans. Among the authors slated to attend are Ann Bannon, Michael Nava, and Tim Miller.

Christopher Rice has resigned as President of the Board of Trustees of the Lambda Literary Foundation. Katherine Forrest has stepped into the role on an interim basis. Alyson publisher Don Weise has also joined the Board of Trustees of the literary organization. Tony Valenzuela has been appointed as interim Executive Director, replacing outgoing Charles Flowers, while the Foundation continues its search for candidates for the position. Richard Labonté is the administrator for the Lambda Literary awards. The organization’s revised mission statement and awards guidelines have been posted to the Web site.

The Publishing Triangle has published their award guidelines for books published in 2009 at http://www.publishingtriangle.org/awards.asp.

A staged reading of The Age of Innocence, a musical co-created by Walter Holland and Ted Kociolak, will be held at the York Theater in Manhattan on October 20th at 7:30PM. For details and reservations visit. http://www.yorktheatre.org/New%20Pages/Readings.html.

The theater department at the University of Wyoming at Laramie will stage a reading of The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later on Oct. 12, an epilogue to the Tetonic Theater Project play, joining more than 120 theaters across the nation and overseas that will have readings on the same day.

The new season line up for the Thorny Theater in Palm Springs includes Candy and Dorothy by David Johnston, Dudes by Dan Clancy, Two Married Men by Arch Brown, Mensky’s Burlyesque conceived by Larry Lazzaro, and A Perfect Relationship by Doric Wilson. More details at: http://www.thornytheater.com/

As part of its 2010-11 season dedicated to the work of Tony Kushner, Manhattan’s Signature Theater Company will mount the first New York revival of Angels in America.

Dame Edna Everage, aka Barry Humphries, returns to Broadway next spring with Dame Edna: It’s All About Me.

Nicole Kidman will star in a film adaptation of David Ebershoff’s novel, The Danish Girl, about painter Einar Wegener, the first person to undergo gender reassignment surgery.

Leopardrama Limited has optioned the film rights of Richard McCann's Mother of Sorrows.

Bryan Fuller and Bryan Singer are partnering to adapt Augusten Burrough’s novel Sellevision for NBC.

Kudos: On the shortlist for the Booker prize is The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters.

Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire received the top audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival. The Topp Twins, a film about the New Zealand lesbian sister singing-comedy duo of the same name, received the audience award for best documentary.

Colin Firth took the best actor award at the Venice Film Festival for his portrayal of a gay professor in A Single Man, the new film from Tom Ford based on the Christopher Isherwood novel. A Single Man also won the Queer Golden Lion, an award independent of the official festival, for films with gay themes or content.

Among the inductees to the new Canadian Queer Hall of Fame was Janine Fuller, Little Sister’s bookstore manager and author.

Open Calls: Editor Richard Labonté is looking for fiction and memoir for Beautiful Boys: New Gay Fiction, to be published by Cleis Press in Fall 2010. Deadline is February 1, 2010. Payment: $50-$75 plus two contributor copies. Word length: 6,000 maximum. Submissions can be sent to: cleisbeautifulboys@gmail.com, in .doc or .rtf format. Include real name/address/50-word bio.

Labonté is also seeking submissions Best Gay Erotica 2011 to be guest judged by Kevin Killian. Deadline is April 1, 2010. Payment $50-$75, plus two contributor copies. Queries and submissions to: mailto:bge2010@gmail.com.

Labonté is also seeking fiction for Best Gay Romance 2011. Deadline is May 1, 2010. Payment is $50 to $75 plus two contributor copies. Include real name/ address/ 50-word bio, to bgr2011@gmail.com.

Gayfest NYC is accepting submissions for the Festival of New Plays and Musicals to be presented in New York City next year. Deadline is October 31, 2009. For more details visit: Gayfest.com.

Monday, August 31, 2009

September Publishing Notes

The buzz: The schedule for the 2009 Atlanta Queer Literary Festival, November 3-8, 2009, has been posted at http://www.atlqueerlitfest.com/. Events include readings by Andrew Beierle, Catherine Lundoff, Collin Kelley, Franklin Abbott, Stacyann Chin, and Manil Suri, workshops with Regie Cabico, Kit Yan, Marty McConnell, and Ami Mattison, and an exhibition of photographs and ephemera featured in the book Gay and Lesbian Atlanta with comments by co-author Wesley Chenault. The AQLF's partnership with the Decatur Book Festival takes place over Labor Day Weekend, September 4-6, in Decatur, GA. Featured authors includes Sharon Sanders, Franklin Abbott, Z Egloff, Shawn Stuart Ruff, Collin Kelley, Megan Volpert, Amy King, C. Dale Young, James Allen Hall, Radclyffe, Kim Baldwin and J.M. Redmann.

The Lambda Literary Foundation will hold a Read-a-Thon Set November 21, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. at Giovanni's Room bookstore in Philadelphia to benefit both the Foundation and the bookstore. LGBT authors will read from a recent or classic book and answer questions for approximately 15 minutes total for each author.

Charles Flowers, the Executive Director of The Lambda Literary Foundation will leave his position in the fall.

Broward County in Florida is proposing to balance its budget by slashing 30% of its cultural grants, a move that could impair Fort Lauderdale's Stonewall Library & Archives. The Stonewall Library & Archives houses over 18,000 LGBT-related books and audio-visual materials, as well as 5,000 historical LGBT items, many focusing on the history of gays in the South.

A West Bend, Illinois couple has asked that certain books be moved to a restricted section of the West Bend Community Memorial Library community library and that the Library Board balance its collection of books about homosexuality with books that affirm traditional “heterosexual perspectives.” A group called Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays recently issued a statement condemning the library for continuing to neglect books by ex-gay authors. On June 2, members of the West Bend Library Board voted unanimously not to move or restrict any of the books. Meanwhile, the terms of four Library Board members were not renewed. Four men subsequently filed a lawsuit, stating certain books caused them pain, and called for one of the library’s books to be publicly burned.

Greenwood Press has issued a two-volume Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States, edited by Emmanuel S. Nelson.

The Outer Alliance, a new organization, has been set up in support of LGBT advocacy in the Sci Fi/Fantasy community. More details can be found at http://outeralliance.wordpress.com/.

Kensington will publish Michael Salvatore's Between Boyfriends in June 2010.

Country Valley Press has just published a limited edition hand-sewn chapbook by Jeffery Beam of a long poem entitled, An Invocation.

Entertainment Weekly reported that Michael Cunningham is working on his latest novel, his first in four years, titled Olympia. Olympia follows an art dealer who is drawn increasingly toward his wife’s younger brother, who reminds him of the couple’s younger years.

In October, Belhue Press will publish The Manly Art of Seduction by Perry Brass.

This fall, Rebel Satori Press will publish D. Travers Scott new story collection, Love Hard.

In 2010 It Books will publish RuPaul's Workin’ It! RuPaul's Guide to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Style!, a style guide and confidence manifesto.

Queerty noted that there are reportedly two finished scripts of Invisible Life, E. Lynn Harris’s first novel -- one which focuses on the college years and the other on the New York City years of characters Raymond, Nicole and Basil. The late author was in Los Angeles meeting with producers shortly before he died. Several of Harris’s friends — including Eric Jerome Dickey and Kimberla Lawson Roby — will meet with local book clubs in his place this fall.

Mike Nichols will direct Deep Water, an adaptation of the 1957 Patricia Highsmith novel starring Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron.

Robert Downey Jr. is reportedly in talks with Universal Pictures to play the vampire Lestat in a new film based on Anne Rice’s popular trilogy of novels The Vampire Chronicles.

The Menier Chocolate Factory’s production of La Cages Aux Folles is headed to Broadway and will open in a yet-to-be-announced Shubert theater on April 18, 2010.

Kudos: Among with recipients of literary awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which honor writers of exceptional talent, was Chris Adrian who received the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award for his short story collection A Better Angel. Among the writers receiving 2009 Guggenheim Fellowships were Chris Adrian and Stacey D’Erasmo.

Open Calls: Candace Walsh and Laura Andre are seeking submissions for And Then It Shifted: Women Open Up About Leaving Men For Women to be published by Seal Press in 2010. Deadline is December 1, 2009. More details can be found at andthenitshifted@gmail.com and http://sites.google.com/site/andthenitshifted

Applications are now being accepted for the James Duggins Mid-Career Novelist Award awarded annually at the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans. The awards, in their fourth year, recognize and promote LGBT mid-career novelists of extraordinary talent and service to the LGBT community. They are made possible by James Duggins, PhD, a retired educator who taught history at San Francisco State University. Two annual cash awards of $5,000 each will be made to one man and one woman. Eligibility is open to any author who has written and published at least three novels, or at least two novels and substantial additional literary work, including poems, short stories, or essays. Authors may nominate themselves or another candidate by midnight October 31, 2009. For more details visit: http://www.sasfest.org/.

Also of Note: Copies of The Haunted Heart and Other Tales, a collection of my gay-themed ghost stories, published by Lethe Press, is now available through your favorite bookseller.

The gorgeous cover painting was done by Richard Taddei, a painter I have long admired. If you want to see more of Richard’s work, you can find him online at http://www.richardtaddei.com/.

Vince Liaguno, co-editor of the Stoker-winning anthology Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet, has posted his generous review on line at Dark Scribe Magazine, which he edits and publishes. Read it at: http://www.darkscribemagazine.com/reviews/

And I am also doing a reading on October 29th in Manhattan at Housing Works Bookstore with two other talented writers (and friends) who have new books coming out -- Tom Cardamone, author of Pumpkin Teeth: Stories, and Sean Meriwether, author of The Silent Hustler. Here’s the details on the event.

Tricks and Treats: Gays, Ghosts, and Goblins
Thursday, October 29, 2009
7:00 pm
Housing Works Bookstore Café
126 Crosby Street
New York, NY
Admission is free and all book sales proceeds benefit people living with HIV.

Friday, July 31, 2009

August Publishing Notes

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Sunday, June 28, 2009

July Publishing Notes

The buzz: Screen Gems has acquired the rights to Beautiful Girl by Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Cunningham, a story that "concerns a shy but brainy high school girl who returns for senior year after having slimmed down six dress sizes. She finds herself flirting with the handsome English lit teacher, but the mutual crush turns deadly when the teacher's obsession with the student compels him to exact maniacal revenge on everyone who was cruel to her."

Keith Orr, co-owner of the Common Language Bookstore, the GLBTQ bookstore in Ann Arbor, sent an email to customers saying that the store was not making enough sales to support itself and needed help from customers and the community. Orr and his partner Martin Contreras have been subsidizing the store with the personal savings and with money from another business they own the aut Bar.

Writer Patrick Gale will be reading from his 2009 novel The Whole Day Through and answering questions from the audience at the Dutch Bookshop Vrolijk, Paleisstraat 135, Amsterdam: July 11th at 5 p.m. More details at www.vrolijk.nu/homo-boek/book-patrick-gale-whole-day-through.html.

Alyson will publish Mel White's Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right in the Spring of 2010.

Alyson will also publish Ryan Field's An Officer and His Gentleman, a gay erotic romance about a small-town aspiring chef and his military lover, and EM Lynley's Sex, Lies and Wedding Bells, a gay erotic romance about a New York reporter who travels to Texas to cover the story of a real-life "runaway bride," only to fall in love with the groom and discover the bride's shocking secret.

Here Networks has completed a merger with PlanetOut to create a new company called Here Media. Holdings include the Advocate magazine, Here Studios and Here Films. Other assets include a television company and online properties Gay.com and Planetout.com.

Kudos: Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet, an anthology of queer horror tales edited by Vince A. Liaguno and Chad Helder, received the Bram Stoker Award for Best Anthology from the Horror Writers of America.

Jade Donigan of Ponderay, ID, Hannah Kapp-Klote of Lawrence, KS, and Calen Winn of Vashon, WA, are the Queer Foundation Scholors for 2009-2010. Each student received a $1,000 scholarship for study at the college of their choice.

Nicola Griffith and Scott Cranin have joined the Board of Trustees of the Lambda Literary Foundation.

Open Calls: Todd Gregory is accepting submissions for an anthology of erotic gay vampire tales titled Blood Sacraments, to be published by Bold Strokes Books in October 2010. Deadline is October 1, 2009. Submissions must be mailed to: Todd Gregory, c/o Greg Herren, 5500 Prytania Street #215, New Orleans, LA 70115. Questions can be emailed to gregwrites@gmail.com.

Mary, a literary magazine published quarterly, is currently seeking submissions for both print and web versions. Submissions are welcomed in prose, poetry, or essay format. Submissions should not be any longer than 5,000 words, and can be submitted electronically at maryliterary@gmail.com Mary also accepts a small portion of art, photos, and illustrations to be published along side written work. Please contact us by email if you are interested in submitting your visual creations. For more details visit: http://www.maryliterary.blogspot.com/

The Queer Foundation Scholar, an electronic newsletter published in March and August, is looking for essays from undergraduate or graduate students. Photographs and graphic art are also welcome if they are part of a creative work. If accepted, authors of submissions will receive $100 paid toward tuition and fees at their college or university. Submissions may be sent to the editor at any time to rverzasconi@msn.com.

“The Man in the Mirror” in Icarus: My ghost story, “The Man in the Mirror,” is in the first issue of Icarus, a new gay speculative fiction magazine, edited by Steve Berman, which also featuring work by Jeff Mann, Joel Lane, and Tom Cardamone. Icarus is a full-color quarterly, devoted to tales of gay fantasy, horror, science-fiction, and “everything else weird that falls through the cracks.” Craig Gidney is the assistant editor, Toby Johnson is the graphic designer, and Steve Berman and Lethe Press are the publishing forces behind the new magazine.

The single issue price of Icarus is $13 plus postage at http://lethepress.magcloud.com/. To order a year's subscription (4 issues), send $50 via Paypal to lethepress@aol.com. Subscription price includes free shipping and subscribers will receive a gratis copy of the latest edition of Wilde Stories, Lethe’s annual anthology of the year's best gay speculative fiction, with their 2nd issue of Icarus. Electronic editions of Icarus are also available. Contact lethepress@aol.com for more information.

Sunday, May 31, 2009

June Publishing Notes

City Lights is releasing this month Smash the Church, Smash the State!, an anthology of gay activist writings edited by Tommi Avicolli Meccca.

Also this month, Queer Mojo Press is releasing Trebor Healey’s collection of short fiction, A Perfect Scar & Other Stories.

Perry Brass, Robert W. Cabell, and Doric Wilson will read at Rebels and Rhinestones, Thursday, June 11, from 7:30 to 9:30 pm. at the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen Library, 20 West 44th Street in Manhattan. The event is hosted by Francine Trevens and sponsored by the Greater New York Independent Publishers Association (GNYIPA), and co-sponsored by the New York Center for Independent Publishing. There is a requested donation of $8.

Doric Wilson, John Finch, Steven Hauck, Robert W. Cabell, Perry Brass, Heidi Russell, and others are scheduled for Stonewall + 40, Thursday, June 18 at 6 p.m. at Barnes & Noble, Lincoln Triangle, 1972 Broadway in Manhattan. The event is free and open to the public.

The fourth issue of Ganymede, a gay literary and art journal, is now available. Highlights include a rare reprint of Oscar Wilde’s story, “Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime,” fiction by Bruce Nugent, Ryan Doyle, Jeffries Schwartz, new work by seven poets, Ian Duncan’s essay on porn star Matthew Rush, and portfolios on magic realism painter George Tooker and seven photographers. Details and sample pages can be found at http://www.ganymedenyc.com/

Mavety Media Group has shuttered all of their gay magazines—including Mandate, Torso, Honcho, Inches, and Playguy. Among this blogger’s first published work was short fiction that appeared in Mandate in the 1980s.

Twelve Press will publish Christopher Bram's Eminent Outlaws, a group biography about gay American writers who changed the culture.

In the Spring of 2010, Harmony will publish Bryan Batt's She Ain’t Heavy, She’s My Mother, about what it was like being raised by an eccentric but very loving Mom in 1970s New Orleans.

Thom Bierdz, actor, artist, and author of the memoir Forgiving Troy, returns to The Young and the Restless in a hush-hush story line twenty years after his last appearance on the top-rated soap.

BBC2 announced that it will adapt Sarah Waters' fourth novel, The Night Watch, into a ninety-minute film.

This month Square One is releasing a paperback edition of Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert and a Life by Elliot Tiber with Tom Monte to coincide with the movie version directed by Ang Lee.

David Brendan Hope’s play The Beautiful Johanna will be part of the North Carolina Stage's Catalyst Series downtown in January 2010. His play The Loves of Mr. Lincoln, about the President’s relationship with Joshua Speed, will have a reading June 5 in New York at the BGT Theater.

Nathan Manske has launched a website, http://www.imfromdriftwood.com/, which is a compilation of "true stories by gay people from all over," with a goal to link gays and lesbians, from the smallest towns to the biggest cities.

Kudos: The Publishing Triangle award winners are: In the Shadow of the Magic Mountain by Andrea Weiss (Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction); Drifting Toward Love by Kai Wright (Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction); Interpretive Work by Elizabeth Bradfield (Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry); Boy with Flowers by Ely Shipley (Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry); Light Fell by Evan Fallenberg (Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction); The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel (Ferro-Grumley Awards for LGBT Fiction). Martin Duberman was honored with the 2009 Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement, and Carole DeSanti won the Publishing Triangle’s Leadership Award.

The Lambda Literary Awards were announced May 28, 2009. A complete list of the winners can be found on the Foundation Web site at http://www.lambdaliterary.org/.

Sarah Schulman has been named the 2009 winner of the Kessler Award, given to a scholar who has, over a number of years, produced a substantive body of work that has had a significant influence on the field of LGBT Studies.

Carol Ann Duffy became Britain’s first lesbian Poet Laureate.

Jim Duggins, Michael Thomas Ford, G. Winston James, Radclyffe, and Jess Wells were inducted into the Saints and Sinners Hall of Fame at the annual literary festival in New Orleans. Michael Lowenthal and Elana Dykewomon received the Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists’ Prize.

Open Calls: Windy City Times is accepting poetry and prose submissions for their 6th Annual Pride Literary Supplement, edited by Kathie Bergquist and Owen Keehnen. This year’s theme is Stonewall 40: Looking Out. Prose has a 300 word limit, 3 poems submission is the maxium allowed. Word documents should be e-mailed to WCTPride@gmail.com. Deadline is June 10, 2009.

Ganymede, a literary/art print journal by and for gay men published quarterly as a paperback book in New York is seeking gay male writers of short stories, essays, poetry, reviews. Details, tables of contents, readable sample pages can be found at http://www.ganymedenyc.com/. Submission guidelines: http://ganymedesubmissions.blogspot.com/.

Tincture, an imprint of Lethe Press for work by LGBT writers of color, is seeking submissions for a 2010 Gay Latino Fiction Anthology. Deadline: November 1, 2009. Unpublished short stories or novel excerpts of up to 7500 words. Submissions can be sent to LatinoLethePress@gmail.com.

Aesthetica magazine, a UK-based international arts and culture publication, is seeking poetry, fiction, artwork and photography for their Annual Creative Works Competition.
For full details visit: http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/submission_guide.htm. Deadline is August 31, 2009.

Passages: Rodger McFarlane died May 15, 2009 in New Mexico. He was 54. McFarlane committed suicide while traveling to New Mexico. He was a former executive director of Gay Men's Health Crisis and executive director of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. McFarlane also authored The Complete Bedside Companion: No-Nonsense Advice on Caring for the Seriously Ill, and most recently penned the afterward for Larry Kramer’s The Tragedy of Today’s Gays. In 1993, he coproduced the Pulitzer Prize–nominated production of Larry Kramer’s The Destiny of Me, the sequel to The Normal Heart.

Thursday, April 30, 2009

May Publishing Notes

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Tuesday, March 31, 2009

April Publishing Notes

The buzz: This fall Alyson will publish Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS, edited by Philip Clark and David Groff. Contributors will include Thomas Avena, Tim Dlugos, Tory Dent, Essex Hemphill, Paul Monette, George Whitmore, and others.

In April, Poets Wear Prada Press will publish Jee Leong Koh’s first full-length collection Equal to the Earth. Koh blogs here.

This spring, Rebel Satori Press will published a tenth anniversary (and revised) edition of Emanuel Xavier’s novel Christ Like.

Picador will publish Wayne Koestenbaum's Humiliation, exploring the connection between our private experiences of humiliation and our current fascination with the public humiliation of others.

This fall Alyson will also publish Women of the Bite, edited by Cecilia Tan, a lesbian vampire erotica anthology, first published as an e-book by RavenousRomance.com.

The University of Chicago Press will publish Alice Kaplan's To Live in France, the stories of three women who went to live in France as students: Jacqueline Bouvier (1949-1950), Susan Sontag (1957-1958), and Angela Davis (1963-1964).

Among the new book releases with videos is the novel I Still Have a Suitcase in Berlin by Stephens Gerard Malone. View it on You Tube here.

Amid growing controversy and threats of violence, Alekper Aliyev’s Artush And Zaur, a gay novel of a doomed love affair between two men during the collapse of the Soviet Union, has been removed from the shelves of Azeri bookstores, Reuters reported.

Author Lyndon Evans will be doing LGBT themed op-ed blogs for the New Times in Connecticut. Evans also blogs here.

The Bay Area Reporter weighed in on the North Beach incident involving Mark Doty while the poet was in San Francisco. The article is here. Doty also wrote about the incident on his blog.

Among the panels being planned for this year’s Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans May 14-17, are “Tales of the New Depression: The Realities of the Modern Market,” “Shameless: The Author’s Art of Self-Promotion,” “Making Time for Creativity,” “How to Write With a Full Time Job,” and “The Versatile Writer: Writing in Different Genres.”

PEN World Voices festival will include a panel on April 30 on gay writers Reinaldo Arenas and Blai Bonet. Panelists include Jaime Manrique, Biel Mesquida, Margalida Pons, Carles Rebassa, and Manuel Vázquez Portal. The event is free and open to the public at Elebash Recital Hall, CUNY Graduate Center, 65 Fifth Avenue.

Rob Weisbach is starting a "new generation management company," Rob Weisbach Creative Management, designed to "re-conceive the traditional literary agency as a cross-training development company--one that will work with new and established talent on all aspects of career building."

Craig Gidney has become editor of Lethe Press. Steve Berman remains as publisher. One of Gidney's top priorities is the establishment of the Tincture imprint, which will feature the work by gay people of color.

Christopher K. Navratil is now the publisher of Running Press.

This fall Arsenal Pulp Press will launch Queer Film Classics, a new series of books on LGBT cinema, edited by Thomas Waugh and Matthew Hays.

Hansen Publishing will publish Gregg Barrios's Rancho Pancho, a two-act play that explores the turbulent and passionate relationship between playwright Tennessee Williams and Pancho Rodriguez, who inspired the character of Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, which follows the relationship from the summer of 1946 on Nantucket Island with novelist Carson McCullers to the summer of 1947 in Provincetown.

Hansen will also publish David Kaplan's Tenn at One Hundred, a retrospective collection of edited essays marking Tennessee Williams one hundredth birthday and his legacy as a premier American playwright.

Next spring, Scribner will publish Actor James Franco's collection of short stories.

Stephen Spinella and Linda Emond have joined the cast of Tony Kushner’s Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures, a new work that will have its premiere at the Guthrie Theater this spring.

Ugly Betty star Michael Urie will star in The Tempermentals, a new play by Jon Marans, set to begin April 30 at the Barrow Group Studio Theater in Manhattan. The play is about the origins of the Mattachine Society, a gay rights organization started by the activist Harry Hay in 1950, when “temperamental” was a code word for homosexual.

In Grandfield, Oklahoma, a high school teacher was reportedly fired for having students produce their own short films about Matthew Shepard, after watching The Laramie Project.

Embren Entertainment will release the film The Big Gay Musical this summer. The story follows Paul and Eddie, starring in a meta-musical titled Adam and Steve Just the Way God Made 'Em.

Kevin Kline, John C. Reilly, and Katie Holmes will star in a film adaptation of Jonathan Ames’ novel, The Extra Man.

Kudos: The Publishing Triangle has selected the finalists for their literary awards in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. A complete list is available on the organization’s Web site. Editor Carole DeSanti will receive the organization’s Leadership Award and Martin Duberman is the recipient of the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. The awards will be presented May 7, 2009, at the Tishman Auditorium of the New School for Social Research (66 West 12th Street in New York City) at 7 p.m. The ceremony is free and open to the public, with a reception to follow.

Among the finalists for the Indies Choice Book Awards from the American Booksellers Association is David Sedaris for “Most Engaging Author.”

Among the finalists for the 2009 Stoker Awards, given by the Horror Writers of America, are: “The Dude Who Collected Lovecraft” by Nick Mamatas and Tim Pratt, and “Turtle” by Lee Thomas for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction, and Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet, edited by Vince A. Liaguno and Chad Helder for Superior Achievement in an Anthology.

Among the finalist’s for the Galaxy British Book Awards are: Stephen Fry in America by Stephen Fry for Popular Non-Fiction Award and The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff for Richard & Judy's Best Read of the Year.

105 books in 22 categories from 72 publishers are finalists for the annual Lambda Literary Awards. A full list of the finalists is available on the foundation’s Web site. The awards will be presented Thursday, May 28, 2009 at the Proshansky Auditorium at CUNY Graduate Center, Fifth Avenue at 34th Street in Manhattan. Tickets are $75 until May 15, 2009 and $95 thereafter.

Among the finalists for the Sir Julius Vogel Awards, New Zealand’s sci-fi/fantasy awards, were stories by Lynne Jamneck (“The Oath”), and Lyn McConchie (“Waiting Tables and Time”) from the anthology Haunted Hearths & Sapphic Shades. Editor Catherine Lundoff relays that this is the first time that stories with LGBT content have made the final ballot.

Elana Dykewomon and Michael Lowenthal are the recipients of this year’s James Duggins Mid-Career Author Award, presented at the annual Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans.

The ten finalists in the Saints and Sinners Playwriting competition are: David-Matthew Barnes for Sloe Gin Fizz; Andrew Black for That Second Weekend in September; Leo Cabranes-Grant for The Whale in the Room; Joan Dunayer for Apes on Display; Michelle Embree, Hand Over Fist; Allison Fradkin for Dykechotomous; Michael Edison Hayden for Hustler's Journal; Elizabeth Orndorff for Aidan's Gift; M. Lennon Perricone for Unresolved; and Edward J. Walsh & Robert Thomas Noll for Hit or Miss.

The Book of Getting Even by Benjamin Taylor won second-place honors in fiction the 16th annual Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Awards.

Band of Thebes uncovered several LGBT stories as finalists for the National magazine Awards: Hannah Rosin's "A Boy's Life," for Feature Writing: from the Atlantic; Andrew Corsello's "Let God Love Gene Robison," for Profile Writing from GQ; three pieces by Hendrik Hertzberg including his editorial on the Proposition 8 victory for Columns and Commentary from The New Yorker: Annie Proulx's short story, "Them Old Cowboy Songs," for Fiction from The New Yorker.

Open calls: Seven Kitchens Press is accepting submissions for the Robin Becker Chapbook Prize for an unpublished poetry manuscript in English by a LGBTQ writer. Deadline is May 15, 2009. This year’s judge is Ruth L. Schwartz. More details can be found at http://sevenkitchens.blogspot.com/.

Passages: Scott Symons, the Toronto-born author of the 1967 novel Place d’Armes, died February 23, 2009. He was 75. Symons was also the subject of a documentary film, God's Fool (1998), by Nik Sheehan.

James Purdy died March 13, 1994. He was 94. Purdy was the author of the novels Cabot Wright Begins, Eustace Chisholm and the Works, Malcolm, and The Nephew.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

March Publishing Notes

The buzz: Two bookstore closings of note: Oscar Wilde Bookshop in Manhattan, the world’s oldest gay and lesbian bookstore, will close in March. A Different Light bookstore in West Hollywood, Calif., is closing this spring. The gay and lesbian store's branch in San Francisco will remain open; a branch in New York City closed in 2001.

British author Geraldine Bedell was banned from the first Emirates Airline International Festival of Literature in Dubai because one of the characters in her new novel, The Gulf Between Us, set in the Middle East, is gay. The Gulf Between Us tells the story of a single mother trying to raise three boys in the Gulf emirate of Hawar in the summer of 2002, shortly before the invasion of Iraq. Author Margaret Atwood pulled out of festival in the wake of the fair's decision to cancel the launch of Bedell's book, then decided to participate in a debate on censorship to be hosted at the festival via video link-up.

Bold Strokes Books and Casitas Laquita Resort are presenting the Third Annual Lesbian Book Festival in Palm Springs California, March 5-8, 2009, featuring over twenty authors, including Radclyffe, Jane Fletcher, Andrews & Austin, Kim Baldwin, Jennifer Fulton, and Justine Saracen. For more information visit www.boldstrokesbooks.com or www.casitaslaquita.com. The resort is located at 450 E. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs, CA 92264.

Among those spotted at New York Comic Con was Tim Fish at the booth for Poison Press, “a teeny, tiny publishing house offering gay and gay friendly comics.” Fish’s latest work in his Cavalcade of Boys volumes is Love is the Reason.

Robert Cabell, author of the novel Hair-Raising Adventures of Jayms Blonde, filed suit in Manhattan Federal Court, accusing Adam Sandler, Happy Madison Productions, Sony and Columbia Pictures for copyright infringement for ripping off his idea for a blow-dried public avenger and turning it into the film You Don't Mess with the Zohan.

Casperian Books will publish Paul G. Bens, Jr.’s first full-length novel Kelland this fall.

Vanilla Heart Publishing will publish Collin Kelley’s forthcoming novel, Conquering Venus, this summer.

This month RID Press is releasing Assembly Required: Notes from a Deaf Gay Life by Raymond Luczak. Luczak has included an American Sign Language clip that’s subtitled in English on his Web site: http://www.raymondluczak.com/assemblyrequired.

Out this fall from Haiduk Press: The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered. Editor Tom Cardamone has gathered essays by gay writers discussing their favorite works of forgotten gay fiction. Contributors include Christopher Bram, Alexander Chee, Philip Gambone, Aaron Hamburger, Paul Russell, Rick Whitaker, and others. Cardamone’s collection of his dark, speculative fiction is also forthcoming later this year in Pumpkin Teeth, published by Lethe Press.

Lethe Press is also rereleasing the first two books in Lev Raphael’s Nick Hoffman mystery series. Lethe will also be reprinting Jim Tushinski's novel Van Allen's Ecstasy, which has been optioned by Guest House Films.

In October, Llewellyn will publish Christopher Penczak's The Witch’s Coin: Prosperity and Money Magick, a comprehensive manual on achieving a balanced life - pursuing your soul's purpose but not consigning yourself to living in poverty to do so - including practical tips on herbs, stones, charms and meditations for wealth alongside solid financial advice.

Harper will publish Jack Kerouac's The Sea is My Brother: The Lost Novel, edited by Dawn Ward, along with correspondence and commentary illuminating the author’s development as a young writer, including correspondence with his friend, the poet Sebastian Sampas. Manhattan Films has also optioned the film rights to Kerouac's The Dharma Bums.

Page Six reported that editor Neal Boulton has left Genre magazine to pursue his dream of becoming a best-selling author. Boulton recently sold his motorcycle-trekking book, Sex Across America, and is working on a memoir about being a married bisexual dad of two.

Ballantine will publish comedian Kathy Griffin's memoir. The deal was reportedly made "for more than $2 million."

My Trip Down the Pink Carpet, a solo show written and performed by Leslie Jordan, will begin previews at the Westside Theater in Manhattan on April 15. Jordan recently published a memoir with the same title.

An Evening at La Cage, the world-famous drag revue at The Riveria in Las Vegas, closed in February.

Rent, the spring musical production at the Corona del Mar high school in Newport Beach, California, was canceled after the principal disapproved of its gay characters, but after a controversy arose on the Web and in the media, the school will go ahead with the production of the musical.

Elton John’s Rocket Pictures is hoping to reinvent the Jane Austen classic Pride and Prejudice by having an alien crash-landing disrupt the life of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy in Pride and Predator.

Gerald Clarke's Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland, has been optioned by The Weinstein Company.

Michael Luongo will be holding an all day class on the ins and outs of travel writing, Saturday May 2, at the Smithsonian in Washington DC. To register for the class and for more information, visit: A Roadmap to Travel Writing, Smithsonian Resident Associate Program: http://residentassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/reserve.aspx?performanceNumber=217153.

Tom Goss, a gay singer-songwriter based in Washington, DC, has posted his new music video “Till the End” on his music channel at You Tube -- www.youtube.com/tomgossmusic. Check his Web site for the release of his upcoming CD Back to Love. www.tomgossmusic.com.

Equality Forum 2009 will showcase the first-ever Richard Amsel Retrospective Exhibition, featuring artwork by one of Hollywood’s most highly-acclaimed illustrators. The exhibition runs at the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA, April 15 – May 14, 2009. Equality Forum 2009, the largest annual national and international GLBT civil rights forum, will be held April 27 to May 3 in Philadelphia. Amsel, a native of Philadelphia, began his career when he won a national competition at art schools to create a poster design for the movie Hello Dolly!

The first issue of Collective Fallout has been released with art by Stephen Mead, fiction by Sandra Gail-Lambert, and poetry by Lawrence Schimel and Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhran.

The financial investment firm that owns The Washington Blade and other gay papers has gone into federal receivership.

Los Angeles's two gay magazines, Frontiers and In, have merged into a single biweekly paper.

Lambda Literary Foundation is launching a new directory of professional literary services this month. The directory will provide a list of working professionals in the following areas: editors, literary agents, publicists, graphic designers, Web designers, writing workshops, and writers to hire. To be listed in the directory, the annual fee is $25.

Kudos: Dustin Lance Black won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Milk. Black also won the award for Best Original Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America.

Among the fiction nominees for the Barnes & Noble annual Discover Great New Writers Awards was Benjamin Taylor for his novel The Book of Getting Even.

The American Library Association’s Rainbow List committee, a joint initiative of the ALA’s GLBT and Social Responsibilities Round Tables, has published its second annual list of recommended books for young readers from birth through age 18. The committee chose four titles for special recognition: 10,000 Dresses, written by Marcus Ewert and illustrated by Rex Ray; Skim by Mariko Tamaki (text) and Jillian Tamaki (artwork); Down to the Bone by Mayra Lazara Dole; and Last Exit to Normal by Michael Harmon. For a full list of titles, visit the Rainbow List Web site.

Gun Brooke, Jane Fletcher, Nicola Griffith, and Lesléa Newman received the 2009 Alice B. Medal, a lifetime achievement award recognizing authors of lesbian fiction, given by the Alice B. Readers' Appreciation Awards. The 2009 Lavender Certificates, presented to authors of the best “maiden” novel of the previous year, were awarded to Del Robertson for Taming the Wolff and Gill McKnight for Falling Star and Green-eyed Monster.

Among the nominees for the 2008 Nebula Awards is Ursula K. Le Guin for her novel Powers.

Open calls: Don Kilhefner and Mark Thompson will co-edit an anthology of writing to celebrate thirty years of Radical Faeries. Submissions can include personal experiences, academic “think pieces,” or writings about the impact of the Faeries on gay culture. 2,500 word maximum is suggested. Deadline is July 1, 2009. Entries should be sent as an attached Word Document to either MarkThompson52@aol.com or donkilhefner@sbcglobal.net.

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore has initiated a public art project entitled Lostmissing, a public expression of grief in order to feel hopeful again. For more details visit the blog nobodypasses.blogspot.com.

Dustin Brookshire is sponsoring Project Verse, a 10-week poetry competition with the winner announced in week 11. Judges will be Brookshire, Beth Gylys, and Dana Guthrie Martin. The winner will receive a contract for a limited edition chapbook published by Limp Wrist, and a weeklong residency at Soul Mountain Retreat. For more details visit: http://dbrookshire.blogspot.com/2009/01/project-verse-needs-applicants.html.

Passages: Robert Anderson, the American playwright and screenwriter, died February 9, 2009 at his Manhattan home. He was 91 years old. Among his plays were Tea and Sympathy, I Never Sang for My Father, and You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

February Publishing Notes

The buzz: Next month McFarland & Company will publish Mrs. Ziegfeld: The Public and Private Lives of Bille Burke by Grant Hayter-Menzies, which will include material on the actress’s alleged relationship with director Dorothy Arzner.

In April, Alyson will publish The Mariposa Club by Rigoberto Gonzalez, about four guys in their last year of high school.

Cleis will publish James Lear’s The Low Road in September.

This spring, Lethe Press will reprint So Fey:Queer Fairy Fiction, an anthology edited by Steve Berman.

St. Martin’s will publish Kevin Sessums’s I Left It On The Mountain, which picks up where his memoir Mississippi Sissy left off, exploring the author’s life once he moved to New York City; from his time at Vanity Fair to hiking up Mount Kilimanjaro.

Beacon Press will publish David Plante’s The Pure Lover, a memoir of love and grief, tracing the life of Plante’s longtime partner Nikos and his death of brain cancer, this fall.

Performance poet Megan Volpert has published her second book of poetry, the desense of nonfense.

MLR Press has just released a new novel by Storm Grant, Gym Dandy.

New Press will publish Sarah Schulman’s The Twist: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences, exploring the family as the place where straight and gay people first learn homophobic behavior, in 2010.

GLAAD’s President Neil Giuliano announced that he will step down later this year to pursue “personal interests” and complete a book about his personal and professional life.

Mark Abramson’s Beach Reading reached the San Francisco Chronicle’s Best Seller’s list in January.

368 books from 161 publishers have been submitted to the 21st annual Lambda Literary Awards. The complete list is available on the Foundation’s Web site. Finalists for the awards will be announced no later than March 15, 2009. The awards will be held in New York on Thursday, May 28, 2009.

The first annual Rainbow Book Fair will take place on Saturday March 28, 2009 from 11 am to 6 pm at the LGBT Center at 208 West 13th Street, in Greenwich Village.

Mark Carmien, the owner of Pride & Joy at 20 Crafts Avenue in Northampton, MA, has put the store up for sale. Founded by Martha Nelson in 1992, Pride & Joy has served as the unofficial GLBTQ community center for the area, selling books, DVDs, jewelry, T-shirts, banners and other items.

Bisceglie’s SF Follies debuts February 6th at Actors Theatre in San Francisco.

Regent Entertainment Media, publishers of The Advocate and Out magazines and owner of the here! TV network, signed a merger agreement with PlanetOut Inc. The combined company will be known as Here Media Inc, 80% of which will be owned by the owners of Regent Entertainment Media. Regent Entertainment Media is also the parent company of Alyson Books.

The White House has posted its Gay Rights Agenda on the reactivated Web site at http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/civil_rights/.

Kudos: The American Library Association Honors for 2009 are: Stonewall Book Awards - Barbara Gittings Literature Award to Evan Fallenberg for Light Fell; Stonewall Book Awards - Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award to William N. Eskridge, Jr. for Dishonorable Passions: Sodomy Laws in America, 1861-2003. The Stonewall honor books in literature are: The Conversion by Joseph Olshan, A Perfect Waiter by Alain Claude Sulzer, and The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue. The Stonewall honor books in non-fiction are: Assisted Loving: True Tales of Double Dating with My Dad by Bob Morris, Sex Variant Woman: The Life of Jeannette Howard Foster by Joanne Ellen Passet, Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South by E. Patrick Johnson and Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever by Joel Derfner.

Among the recent nominees for the National Book Critics Circle Awards was a nomination in the Criticism category for Orpheus in the Bronx: Essays on Identity, Politics and the Freedom of Poetry by the late Reginald Shepard.

GLAAD does not include literary awards, but each year the organization nominates comic books for recognition. This year’s nominees are: The Alcoholic by Jonathan Ames, Buffy the Vampire Slayer by Drew Goddard, Jeph Loeb, and Joss Whedon, Final Crisis: Revelations by Greg Rucka, Secret Six by Gail Simone, and Young Avengers Presents by Ed Brubaker, Brian Reed, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Paul Cornell, Kevin Grevioux and Matt Fraction.

Milk received eight Academy Award nominations, including a nomination for Dustin Lance Black for Best Original Screenplay. Push, based on the novel by Sapphire, scored a triple victory at the Sundance Film Festival, winning both the grand jury prize and the audience award for drama as well as a special jury prize for acting.

Open Calls: Rebel Satori Press has launched a new imprint, Queer Mojo, and is seeking submissions for a queer male erotic anthology focusing on characters “out of the mainstream: punks, outcasts, skaters, urban anarchists and secretly rebellious farmboys.” Stories should be no longer than 7,000 words. E-mail submissions as a Word doc attachment to info@queermojo.net. Deadline is June 1, 2009.

Richard Labonté is seeking submissions for Best Gay Romance 2010. Short stories should be no more than 6,000 words. Deadline is May 20, 2009. Submissions to mailto:BGR10@gmail.com with BGR 2010 in the subject line.

Radclyffe is seeking submissions for Best Lesbian Romance 2010. Short stories should be no more than 5,000 words. Deadline is April 1, 2009. Submissions to mailto:BGR10@gmail.comwith BLR 2010 in the subject line.

The Queer Foundation, a Washington nonprofit corporation, will offer the winners of its 2009 High School Seniors English Essay Contest College scholarships in the amount of $1,000 for studies in queer theory or a related field at a US college. Deadline is February 28, 2009. More details can be found at the Web site.

Passages: Sir John Mortimer died January 16, 2009 at the age of 85 after a long illness. Mortimer, one of Britain’s most prolific writers and noted for his television adaptation of Brideshead Revisited, famously defended the publishers of the London Gay News in 1976 after they were accused of blasphemy for publishing a poem that appeared to imply that Jesus was gay.