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.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
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.
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
December Publishing Notes
The buzz: Abrams will publish Gore Vidal’s illustrated memoir in the Fall of 2009. The memoir will combine personal reflections with a social history of the twentieth century, and never-before-seen images of political and cultural icons from Vidal’s personal collection. ** World Parade Books will release Edward Field’s memoir Kabuli Days, Travels in Old Afghanistan this month.
Touchstone Fireside will publish Gyles Brandreth’s next three mysteries featuring Oscar Wilde as a sleuth aided by his real-life friend Arthur Conan Doyle. ** Sphere will publish mystery writer Val McDermid’s next two books, including a new Tony Hill for publication in 2009. ** Holt will publish Louis Bayard’s next two literary suspense novels.
In 2009, Arsenal Pulp Press will publish Fist of the Spider Woman: Tales of Fear and Queer Desire, edited by Amber Dawn. ** Da Capo will publish Catherine Friend’s The Last Farm Standing, a look at the state of small, sustainable farms, and how sheep may be the answer to our environmental woes.
Author Stephen McCauley is working with on a film adaptation of his novel The Easy Way Out. Filming is set to begin in March in Paris. ** Showtime announced that it is developing Perry Moore’s book Hero, the story of a young gay superhero, into a hour-long series for the network. Moore will be writing the script and will executive-produce the series along with his partner, Hunter Hill. The two are also collaborating with comic book legend Stan Lee and his Pow! Entertainment partner Gill Champion. ** Nicole Kidman will star in and produce the film version of The Danish Girl, based on the novel by David Ebershoff, about the world’s first post-op transsexual, Einar Wegener. Charlize Theron will also star. ** John Hurt will star in the film An Englishman in New York, about Quentin Crisp’s later years. ** John Boorman is attached to direct the $25 million, CG-animated pic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, adapted from L. Frank Baum’s original novel. Unlike the MGM classic, it will not be a musical.
Jane Fonda returns to Broadway after a 46-year absence, in 33 Variations, a new play by Moisés Kaufman, scheduled to open in the winter of 2009. ** South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are working with Avenue Q co-writer Robert Lopez to on a new musical, Mormon Musical, which will star Cheyenne Jackson. ** Playwright Michael Yawney’s play, 1,000 Homosexuals, about Anita Bryant’s 1977 campaign to repeal Miami-Dade County’s first gay-rights ordinance, recently opened in Miami. The play was commissioned by the Adrienne Arsht Center for Performing Arts. Miami’s Camposition is producing the play. ** The Milwaukee Gay Arts Center is suing the city for shutting down its production of the popular musical revue, Naked Boys Singing. ** This month the Thorny Theater in Palm Springs is presenting Michael Holmes in Judy’s Old Fashioned Christmas Show, a comic tribute to the old Garland holiday specials.
Variety reported that due to the recent departure of City Opera Artistic Director Gerard Mortier, some upcoming opera projects will be shelved. Among them, the musical adaptation of the film Brokeback Mountain. ** The Fort Worth Opera has announced it will stage the world premiere of Before Night Falls, a new opera by Cuban American composer Jorge Martin, based on the memoir by Cuban dissident poet Reinaldo Arenas, as the centerpiece of its 2010 Opera Festival.
Don Weise has been named the new publisher of Alyson Books. ** In November poet, novelist and playwright Jewelle Gomez married Dr. Diane Abbe Sabin at the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library. The wedding was written up in the Style section of The New York Times.
In Atlanta in November, Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse in Atlanta celebrated its 15th year and Charis Books & More its 34th.
The Atlanta Queer Literary Festival has set their 2009 dates: November 4 through 7, 2009. More details forthcoming at http://atlqueerlitfest.blogspot.com/.
Gay rights activist Cleve Jones and Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black published a manifesto calling for LGBT civil disobedience and government intervention against Proposition 8 in the San Francisco Chronicle. Jones and Black have urged President-elect Barack Obama, House speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate majority leader Harry Reid to push legislation that protects LGBT people in areas of hate crimes, marriage, military service, adoption, Social Security, taxation, immigration, employment, housing, and access to health care, social services, and education. ** Louis-Georges Tin, editor of the recently published Dictionary of Homophobia and president of the International Day Against Homophobia Committee, will address the United Nations General Assembly in December to urge a world-wide end to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. ** Dustin Brookshire of limpwristmag.com has started the Not In My Georgia Project in response to the rumored legislation to ban adoption by LGBT Georgians.
Kudos: Mark Doty won the National Book Award for Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems. ** Hudson Booksellers named When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris as its Book of the Year. ** On the IMPAC Dublin longlist for the 2009 award, which honors book-length fiction published in English during 2007, were Alan Bennett for The Uncommon Reader, David Leavitt for The Indian Clerk, Ali Smith for Girl Meets Boy, Jeanette Winterson for The Stone Gods, Andre Aciman for Call Me By Your Name, Jonathan Coe for The Rain Before It Falls, and Marianne Wiggins for The Shadow Catcher. The shortlist will be announced April 2, 2009. ** Michael Cunningham won the sixth annual Fairfax Prize given by the Fairfax County Public Library Foundation. ** Chris & Don: A Love Story was nominated for best documentary for the Gotham Independent Film Awards.
Marc Andreyko was among the recent Out magazine 100. He is the author of the graphic novel, Torso, based on the true story of Eliot Ness and a serial killer in 1930s Cleveland, now in development as a Paramount film. Other works of note include co-creating and writing a modern update of the Peter Pan universe, The Lost, and work on the DC comic book series Manhunter, which features the son of the original Green Lantern, a superhero named Obsidian, in a happy and healthy gay relationship.
In November, The Black Cat, a bar in Silver Lake, California that was home to the gay rights movement in Los Angeles, was named a historic-cultural monument. The bar was the site of a police raid and subsequent protests in 1967, predating the Stonewall riots in New York City by two years. Today, the bar at Sunset Junction is known as Le Barcito, a small stucco building with a purple facade that still bears the original sign of a black and white smiling cat.
Open Calls: Editors Richard Labonté and Lawrence Schimel are seeking short essays and memoirs for the anthology I Like It Like That: True Tales of Gay Desire, to be published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2009. Submissions should be between 1000-3000 words and sent to truetalesofgaydesire@gmail.com. Deadline is Feb 1, 2009. ** Labonté is also seeking short stories and erotica for Best Gay Erotica 2010. Blair Mastbaum is this year’s guest judge. Original work, or reprints of work published or scheduled to be published between July 2008 and July 2009, are eligible. Deadline is April 1, 2009. Queries and submissions to: bge2010@gmail.com in .doc format.
Passages: Irish poet James Liddy died in November, 2008. Born in Dublin in 1934, Liddy is best known for his early collections In A Blue Smoke (1964) and Blue Mountain (1968). The first volume of his memoir, The Doctor’s House: An Autobiography, was published in 2004.
Touchstone Fireside will publish Gyles Brandreth’s next three mysteries featuring Oscar Wilde as a sleuth aided by his real-life friend Arthur Conan Doyle. ** Sphere will publish mystery writer Val McDermid’s next two books, including a new Tony Hill for publication in 2009. ** Holt will publish Louis Bayard’s next two literary suspense novels.
In 2009, Arsenal Pulp Press will publish Fist of the Spider Woman: Tales of Fear and Queer Desire, edited by Amber Dawn. ** Da Capo will publish Catherine Friend’s The Last Farm Standing, a look at the state of small, sustainable farms, and how sheep may be the answer to our environmental woes.
Author Stephen McCauley is working with on a film adaptation of his novel The Easy Way Out. Filming is set to begin in March in Paris. ** Showtime announced that it is developing Perry Moore’s book Hero, the story of a young gay superhero, into a hour-long series for the network. Moore will be writing the script and will executive-produce the series along with his partner, Hunter Hill. The two are also collaborating with comic book legend Stan Lee and his Pow! Entertainment partner Gill Champion. ** Nicole Kidman will star in and produce the film version of The Danish Girl, based on the novel by David Ebershoff, about the world’s first post-op transsexual, Einar Wegener. Charlize Theron will also star. ** John Hurt will star in the film An Englishman in New York, about Quentin Crisp’s later years. ** John Boorman is attached to direct the $25 million, CG-animated pic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, adapted from L. Frank Baum’s original novel. Unlike the MGM classic, it will not be a musical.
Jane Fonda returns to Broadway after a 46-year absence, in 33 Variations, a new play by Moisés Kaufman, scheduled to open in the winter of 2009. ** South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are working with Avenue Q co-writer Robert Lopez to on a new musical, Mormon Musical, which will star Cheyenne Jackson. ** Playwright Michael Yawney’s play, 1,000 Homosexuals, about Anita Bryant’s 1977 campaign to repeal Miami-Dade County’s first gay-rights ordinance, recently opened in Miami. The play was commissioned by the Adrienne Arsht Center for Performing Arts. Miami’s Camposition is producing the play. ** The Milwaukee Gay Arts Center is suing the city for shutting down its production of the popular musical revue, Naked Boys Singing. ** This month the Thorny Theater in Palm Springs is presenting Michael Holmes in Judy’s Old Fashioned Christmas Show, a comic tribute to the old Garland holiday specials.
Variety reported that due to the recent departure of City Opera Artistic Director Gerard Mortier, some upcoming opera projects will be shelved. Among them, the musical adaptation of the film Brokeback Mountain. ** The Fort Worth Opera has announced it will stage the world premiere of Before Night Falls, a new opera by Cuban American composer Jorge Martin, based on the memoir by Cuban dissident poet Reinaldo Arenas, as the centerpiece of its 2010 Opera Festival.
Don Weise has been named the new publisher of Alyson Books. ** In November poet, novelist and playwright Jewelle Gomez married Dr. Diane Abbe Sabin at the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library. The wedding was written up in the Style section of The New York Times.
In Atlanta in November, Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse in Atlanta celebrated its 15th year and Charis Books & More its 34th.
The Atlanta Queer Literary Festival has set their 2009 dates: November 4 through 7, 2009. More details forthcoming at http://atlqueerlitfest.blogspot.com/.
Gay rights activist Cleve Jones and Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black published a manifesto calling for LGBT civil disobedience and government intervention against Proposition 8 in the San Francisco Chronicle. Jones and Black have urged President-elect Barack Obama, House speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate majority leader Harry Reid to push legislation that protects LGBT people in areas of hate crimes, marriage, military service, adoption, Social Security, taxation, immigration, employment, housing, and access to health care, social services, and education. ** Louis-Georges Tin, editor of the recently published Dictionary of Homophobia and president of the International Day Against Homophobia Committee, will address the United Nations General Assembly in December to urge a world-wide end to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. ** Dustin Brookshire of limpwristmag.com has started the Not In My Georgia Project in response to the rumored legislation to ban adoption by LGBT Georgians.
Kudos: Mark Doty won the National Book Award for Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems. ** Hudson Booksellers named When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris as its Book of the Year. ** On the IMPAC Dublin longlist for the 2009 award, which honors book-length fiction published in English during 2007, were Alan Bennett for The Uncommon Reader, David Leavitt for The Indian Clerk, Ali Smith for Girl Meets Boy, Jeanette Winterson for The Stone Gods, Andre Aciman for Call Me By Your Name, Jonathan Coe for The Rain Before It Falls, and Marianne Wiggins for The Shadow Catcher. The shortlist will be announced April 2, 2009. ** Michael Cunningham won the sixth annual Fairfax Prize given by the Fairfax County Public Library Foundation. ** Chris & Don: A Love Story was nominated for best documentary for the Gotham Independent Film Awards.
Marc Andreyko was among the recent Out magazine 100. He is the author of the graphic novel, Torso, based on the true story of Eliot Ness and a serial killer in 1930s Cleveland, now in development as a Paramount film. Other works of note include co-creating and writing a modern update of the Peter Pan universe, The Lost, and work on the DC comic book series Manhunter, which features the son of the original Green Lantern, a superhero named Obsidian, in a happy and healthy gay relationship.
In November, The Black Cat, a bar in Silver Lake, California that was home to the gay rights movement in Los Angeles, was named a historic-cultural monument. The bar was the site of a police raid and subsequent protests in 1967, predating the Stonewall riots in New York City by two years. Today, the bar at Sunset Junction is known as Le Barcito, a small stucco building with a purple facade that still bears the original sign of a black and white smiling cat.
Open Calls: Editors Richard Labonté and Lawrence Schimel are seeking short essays and memoirs for the anthology I Like It Like That: True Tales of Gay Desire, to be published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2009. Submissions should be between 1000-3000 words and sent to truetalesofgaydesire@gmail.com. Deadline is Feb 1, 2009. ** Labonté is also seeking short stories and erotica for Best Gay Erotica 2010. Blair Mastbaum is this year’s guest judge. Original work, or reprints of work published or scheduled to be published between July 2008 and July 2009, are eligible. Deadline is April 1, 2009. Queries and submissions to: bge2010@gmail.com in .doc format.
Passages: Irish poet James Liddy died in November, 2008. Born in Dublin in 1934, Liddy is best known for his early collections In A Blue Smoke (1964) and Blue Mountain (1968). The first volume of his memoir, The Doctor’s House: An Autobiography, was published in 2004.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
A Bookstore Tourist
This October I took a cruise to the Mediterranean, visiting Venice, Dubrovnik, Santorini, Corfu, and Ephesus (in Turkey). The weather was gorgeous, as was the scenery, and the overall experience was very interesting and relaxing (and which was what I needed). The highlight of my trip, however, was my final day in Paris because of a stopover flight — a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon crowded with Parisians strolling arm and arm through the streets. I walked through the Marais till I found Rue Ste Croix de la Bretonnerie, where I was relieved to discover that Les Mots à la Bouche, the gay bookstore was open. I was tired from the flights and my stamina isn’t what it used to be, and I wedged my way through the aisles looking at titles, searching for books that might be familiar to me in their English editions. And there, face out on the shelves with the other works, was Les Fantômes, the French translation of my AIDS stories by Anne-Laure Hubert that French publisher Cylibris had published in late 2005. I’d seen the edition before; I have several copies and have given many as gifts to friends. But I had never seen the book in a bookstore.
It’s hard to explain this sort of thrill to someone who hasn’t had the experience of seeing their writing displayed in a bookstore. It’s immensely gratifying and awesome and exhilarating, probably like what an architect might feel standing in front of his completed building, particularly if you have spent years and years, as I do, writing a book, struggling with the plots and characters and themes and then trying to find a publisher who was willing to release it out into the world. I remember the first time I saw a book of mine in a bookstore — it was the winter of 1993, late February, and I was temping at a job on Park Avenue in Manhattan. My first collection of short stories had been accepted more than two years before by Viking, but because of a recession and a company freeze on signing contracts with new authors, the book was not slated for publication until that spring. The store was a small Barnes and Noble outlet, situated on a corner of one of the high-rising glass skyscrapers on Park Avenue near Grand Central Station. I hadn’t expected to find my book so soon in a store. I was on a lunch break, escaping my desk where I had eaten a sandwich because I was too poor to afford the neighborhood restaurants. It was a winter I could barely even afford to take the subway. I had stepped out of the cold into the bookstore, thinking I might look at a magazine or find a title I might later be able to get from the public library, before I headed back to my dismal job, where, at the time, I was typing up the license plates of cars and trucks that had been abandoned and were sitting in a lot in Queens. And there, in the store on a shelf with the rest of the fiction, were five copies of Dancing on the Moon. The first sight of them remains one of the happiest moments of my life, particularly when I correlate it with the unfortunate experiences and deaths from AIDS of the friends who inspired those stories.
That spring and the following one were full of similar thrills. My book found its way into the windows of Brentano’s on Fifth Avenue and B. Dalton’s in the West Village on Eighth Street. I did readings and signings for the first time — including at Lambda Rising in Washington, D.C and Glad Day in Boston, among other stores. I’m not a widely bought or distributed author and the press runs of my books haven’t been the kind to impress any kind of bestseller list, but I’ve now seen my books in an airport bookshop (in New Orleans), in foreign bookstores (also at Word is Out, the gay bookstore in the Bloomsbury district of London, where I was on the shelves with many of my friends’ books), and part of a suggested reading list posted at a university bookstore. And even now, fifteen or so years later, I still get a thrill discovering something I have written in a store, even if it is a used copy of my novel, Where the Rainbow Ends, in the second-hand bookstore in my hometown, north of Atlanta.
Hopefully as you get older and wiser, you discover things about yourself that keep you happy. I have been fortunate to have taken some amazing trips during the last two decades — many due to the generosity of friends — and I’ve learned that I find great joy in being a bookstore tourist. Some people go to museums or sporting events or concerts or restaurants when they travel. I love to hunt for books — and, for the record, not for just my own. I search out local ghost story anthologies, local gay history books, local literary journals and magazines, unusual translations, and all sorts of novels and fiction by both mainstream publishers and small presses. Of all the bookstores I've been to, some other memorable experiences stand out — a deja-vous experience at the Haunted Bookshop in Cambridge (realizing I had already been there decades before with a friend who was now deceased), a boulevard in Pisa, Italy, lined with bookstores, store after store after store, with bins of books outside in the bright sun, the same with Galway, Ireland and the Shinjuku district of Tokyo. I remember the first time I walked into City Lights bookstore in San Francisco and didn’t want to leave because the friend I was with wanted to go elsewhere. I can still spend hours wandering along Charing Cross while many of my other friends are out at the theater. And I’ve often thought I might one day retire to Napa, California — on my last visit there a few years ago I counted more than four bookstores within blocks of each other. I'm not ready for that yet, though. (I still have a few more years left...) And first I'd like to find that town in Wales where there's nothing but bookstores.
It’s hard to explain this sort of thrill to someone who hasn’t had the experience of seeing their writing displayed in a bookstore. It’s immensely gratifying and awesome and exhilarating, probably like what an architect might feel standing in front of his completed building, particularly if you have spent years and years, as I do, writing a book, struggling with the plots and characters and themes and then trying to find a publisher who was willing to release it out into the world. I remember the first time I saw a book of mine in a bookstore — it was the winter of 1993, late February, and I was temping at a job on Park Avenue in Manhattan. My first collection of short stories had been accepted more than two years before by Viking, but because of a recession and a company freeze on signing contracts with new authors, the book was not slated for publication until that spring. The store was a small Barnes and Noble outlet, situated on a corner of one of the high-rising glass skyscrapers on Park Avenue near Grand Central Station. I hadn’t expected to find my book so soon in a store. I was on a lunch break, escaping my desk where I had eaten a sandwich because I was too poor to afford the neighborhood restaurants. It was a winter I could barely even afford to take the subway. I had stepped out of the cold into the bookstore, thinking I might look at a magazine or find a title I might later be able to get from the public library, before I headed back to my dismal job, where, at the time, I was typing up the license plates of cars and trucks that had been abandoned and were sitting in a lot in Queens. And there, in the store on a shelf with the rest of the fiction, were five copies of Dancing on the Moon. The first sight of them remains one of the happiest moments of my life, particularly when I correlate it with the unfortunate experiences and deaths from AIDS of the friends who inspired those stories.
That spring and the following one were full of similar thrills. My book found its way into the windows of Brentano’s on Fifth Avenue and B. Dalton’s in the West Village on Eighth Street. I did readings and signings for the first time — including at Lambda Rising in Washington, D.C and Glad Day in Boston, among other stores. I’m not a widely bought or distributed author and the press runs of my books haven’t been the kind to impress any kind of bestseller list, but I’ve now seen my books in an airport bookshop (in New Orleans), in foreign bookstores (also at Word is Out, the gay bookstore in the Bloomsbury district of London, where I was on the shelves with many of my friends’ books), and part of a suggested reading list posted at a university bookstore. And even now, fifteen or so years later, I still get a thrill discovering something I have written in a store, even if it is a used copy of my novel, Where the Rainbow Ends, in the second-hand bookstore in my hometown, north of Atlanta.
Hopefully as you get older and wiser, you discover things about yourself that keep you happy. I have been fortunate to have taken some amazing trips during the last two decades — many due to the generosity of friends — and I’ve learned that I find great joy in being a bookstore tourist. Some people go to museums or sporting events or concerts or restaurants when they travel. I love to hunt for books — and, for the record, not for just my own. I search out local ghost story anthologies, local gay history books, local literary journals and magazines, unusual translations, and all sorts of novels and fiction by both mainstream publishers and small presses. Of all the bookstores I've been to, some other memorable experiences stand out — a deja-vous experience at the Haunted Bookshop in Cambridge (realizing I had already been there decades before with a friend who was now deceased), a boulevard in Pisa, Italy, lined with bookstores, store after store after store, with bins of books outside in the bright sun, the same with Galway, Ireland and the Shinjuku district of Tokyo. I remember the first time I walked into City Lights bookstore in San Francisco and didn’t want to leave because the friend I was with wanted to go elsewhere. I can still spend hours wandering along Charing Cross while many of my other friends are out at the theater. And I’ve often thought I might one day retire to Napa, California — on my last visit there a few years ago I counted more than four bookstores within blocks of each other. I'm not ready for that yet, though. (I still have a few more years left...) And first I'd like to find that town in Wales where there's nothing but bookstores.
Friday, October 31, 2008
November Publishing Notes
The buzz: Charles Busch’s new play, The Third Story, will debut off-Broadway January 14, 2009 at the Lucille Lortel Theater in the West Village. ** The inaugural production of the Shameless Theater Company, a new theater company in London which will focus on works with gay themes, will be American Briefs, a series of short works by US-based playwrights, followed by Busted Jesus Comix, based on the real-life story of a Florida minor prosecuted on obscenity charges for writing a comic book, and The Choir by Australian playwright Errol Bray, about the castration of young boys.
Giovanni's Room bookstore in Philadelphia, Pa. celebrated its 35th anniversary in October. Ed Hermance is the store’s co-owner. Giovanni's has 12,000 titles in its active inventory. It holds 50 readings a year and a photograph of the author James Baldwin, who once visited the store, hangs behind the front counter. Giovanni's is the second-oldest gay-and-lesbian bookstore in the country, behind only New York's Oscar Wilde Bookshop. ** The 38-year-old feminist bookstore Amazon Bookstore Coop is changing its name to True Colors Bookstore. Ruta Skujins is the store’s new owner. According to the terms of an out-of-court settlement reached in a 1999 trademark infringement lawsuit brought against online retailer Amazon.com by the feminist bookstore, rights to the Amazon name reverted to the Internet retailer if ownership of the 2,800-square-foot bricks-and-mortar store in south Minneapolis changed hands.
A Missoula, Montana, library board voted to keep The Joy of Gay Sex on its shelves after a resident requested that it be removed. ** Towleroad reported that the Time Out Gay and Lesbian London guide book was refused for sale at the Historic Royal Palace bookshops, including the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace, Kew Gardens and the Banqueting House, bookshops. A list of books was 'censored' by management at Historic Royal Palaces, an independent charity which manages the sites on behalf of the Queen.
The city of West Hollywood donated a former storage garage to the ONE Archives for a museum of gay history, which opened in October. The inaugural exhibit looks at Los Angeles' gay pride parades from its inception. The president of the board and curator of the collection is Joseph Hawkins, a professor of gender studies and anthropology at USC. Future exhibits will be devoted to lesbian pulp fiction and photographs of nude musclemen. Starting small, the space is 600 square feet and is open for four hours three days a week, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and is located at 626 N. Robertson Blvd. Admission is free.
Viking will publish Colm Toibin's new novel, Brooklyn, about a young woman who emigrates from a small Irish town to Brooklyn in the 1950s, in May 2009. Arsenal Pulp Press will publish Sarah Schulman’s novel The Mere Future in October 2009. Fourth Estate has acquired Michael Cunningham's new novel, set in New York. Ecco will publish designer, artist, and actress Gloria Vanderbilt’s OBSESSION: An Erotic Tale, in July 2009. Chronicle will publish Jack Kerouac's You’re a Genius All the Time: Belief and Technique for Modern Prose, comprised of the thirty maxims Kerouac penned to define his spontaneous prose style, providing inspiration for all creative types. Norton will release a paperback edition of Luc Montagnier's 1999 book VIRUS: The Co-discoverer of HIV Tracks its Rampage and Charts the Future. Montagnier received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of the virus that causes AIDS, and the book provides his first-hand account of that discovery process.
Author Gore Vidal was injured in a fall and cancelled an appearance at an Ohio library, and is recuperating at home. The 83-year-old author told the AP he's working on a new novel about the U.S.-Mexican war in the 1840s.
There will be a fundraiser for Stuart Timmons, author of The Trouble With Harry and Gay LA, who suffered a stroke in January, on Saturday, November 15, 3 to 5 p.m. at the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at 909 West Adams Blvd. in Los Angeles. There will be readings by Malcolm Boyd, Chris Freeman, Trebor Healey, Michael Kearns, Felice Picano, Derek Ringold, Terry Wolverton, and others. There is a $25 suggested contribution.
Australian writer Geoff Knight has launched a GayWriters Web site as a ning community at http://gaywriters.ning.com/.
AfterElton is sponsoring a Vote for the Best Gay Books at http://www.afterelton.com/print/2008/10/booksurvey_voting).
Kudos: Till Kleinert's Cowboy, a 35-minute film about a city dweller and a country lad's terrible price for love, won the £25,000 first prize at the Iris Prize Festival in Cardiff, which the organizers call the world's biggest gay and lesbian film festival. The German director’s film also won him a £500 travel award to help him return to the UK to make his next film. James Bolton and Dream Boy, a love story between teenagers in the American South in the 1970s, won the festival’s award for best feature film. The feature film is selected by the Friends of Iris, individuals who open their homes to the makers of films shortlisted for the festival. ** Among the finalists for the National Book Awards were: Frank Bidart for Watching the Spring Festival, Mark Dotyfor Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems, Reginald Gibbons for Creatures of a Day, Richard Howard for Without Saying, and Patricia Smith for Blood Dazzler. ** The winners of the 2008 Gaylactic Spectrum Awards are: Best Novel: Wicked Gentlemen by Ginn Hale. Best Short Fiction: "Ever So Much More than Thirty" by Joshua Lewis from the anthology So Fey. ** Manuel Muñoz was one of the 10 recipients of the 2008 Whiting Writers' Awards.
And the Nominees Will Be: The Publishing Triangle is now accepting submissions for its 2009 debut fiction, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry awards, given for books published in 2008. Details and forms can be found at the Web site http://www.publishingtriangle.org/. ** Submissions for the next cycle of the Lambda Literary Awards are now being accepted, for books published during 2008. Awards are given in twenty-two (22) categories. For more details visit the Lambda Literary Foundation at http://www.lambdaliterary.org/.
Open Calls: Editor Stephen Soucy is looking for short stories for the anthology ART from ART, about stories that are connected directly to—or inspired by—a work of art, to be published by Modernist Press. Deadline is 12/01/08. Submit your story and a brief bio via email to shsoucy@modernistpress.com. ** Queerphilosophy is looking for essays and pieces of creative non-fiction for an anthology slotted for 2009. Pieces should explore how individuals navigate through current ideas of sexuality and gender identity when faced with traditional philosophies and religions. Submit work that is at least 1000 words to queerphilosophy@gmail.com . For more details visit the Web site at http://www.queerphilosophy.com/. ** Knockout Literary Magazine is sponsoring a 2009 International Reginald Shepherd Memorial Poetry Prize. Three prizes will be awarded: $300, $50, and $25 gift certificates to Powell's Books and publication of prize-winning poems in Knockout. Submission deadline: 8/1/09. Details and entry guidelines: www.knockoutlit.org/rsprize.htm. ** The Eric Rofes Center for Multi-cultural Queer Studies plans to house the largest collection of LGBT/Queer/SGL chapbooks. Submissions can be sent to: HSU- Multicultural Center, c/o Eric Rofes Center Chapbook Archive, 1 Harpst Street, Arcata, CA 95521.
Passages: Ron Hanby, director of gay and lesbian sales at Bookazine, died in October. Shelf Awareness reported that the company called him "a passionate bookseller and an advocate for each and every one of his accounts. He worked hard to make sure that our booksellers had a level of personal service unparalleled in this industry." Before joining Bookazine, Hanby worked at Waldenbooks, B. Dalton Bookseller and Encore Books. In 1997 Hanby received a Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award.
Giovanni's Room bookstore in Philadelphia, Pa. celebrated its 35th anniversary in October. Ed Hermance is the store’s co-owner. Giovanni's has 12,000 titles in its active inventory. It holds 50 readings a year and a photograph of the author James Baldwin, who once visited the store, hangs behind the front counter. Giovanni's is the second-oldest gay-and-lesbian bookstore in the country, behind only New York's Oscar Wilde Bookshop. ** The 38-year-old feminist bookstore Amazon Bookstore Coop is changing its name to True Colors Bookstore. Ruta Skujins is the store’s new owner. According to the terms of an out-of-court settlement reached in a 1999 trademark infringement lawsuit brought against online retailer Amazon.com by the feminist bookstore, rights to the Amazon name reverted to the Internet retailer if ownership of the 2,800-square-foot bricks-and-mortar store in south Minneapolis changed hands.
A Missoula, Montana, library board voted to keep The Joy of Gay Sex on its shelves after a resident requested that it be removed. ** Towleroad reported that the Time Out Gay and Lesbian London guide book was refused for sale at the Historic Royal Palace bookshops, including the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace, Kew Gardens and the Banqueting House, bookshops. A list of books was 'censored' by management at Historic Royal Palaces, an independent charity which manages the sites on behalf of the Queen.
The city of West Hollywood donated a former storage garage to the ONE Archives for a museum of gay history, which opened in October. The inaugural exhibit looks at Los Angeles' gay pride parades from its inception. The president of the board and curator of the collection is Joseph Hawkins, a professor of gender studies and anthropology at USC. Future exhibits will be devoted to lesbian pulp fiction and photographs of nude musclemen. Starting small, the space is 600 square feet and is open for four hours three days a week, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and is located at 626 N. Robertson Blvd. Admission is free.
Viking will publish Colm Toibin's new novel, Brooklyn, about a young woman who emigrates from a small Irish town to Brooklyn in the 1950s, in May 2009. Arsenal Pulp Press will publish Sarah Schulman’s novel The Mere Future in October 2009. Fourth Estate has acquired Michael Cunningham's new novel, set in New York. Ecco will publish designer, artist, and actress Gloria Vanderbilt’s OBSESSION: An Erotic Tale, in July 2009. Chronicle will publish Jack Kerouac's You’re a Genius All the Time: Belief and Technique for Modern Prose, comprised of the thirty maxims Kerouac penned to define his spontaneous prose style, providing inspiration for all creative types. Norton will release a paperback edition of Luc Montagnier's 1999 book VIRUS: The Co-discoverer of HIV Tracks its Rampage and Charts the Future. Montagnier received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of the virus that causes AIDS, and the book provides his first-hand account of that discovery process.
Author Gore Vidal was injured in a fall and cancelled an appearance at an Ohio library, and is recuperating at home. The 83-year-old author told the AP he's working on a new novel about the U.S.-Mexican war in the 1840s.
There will be a fundraiser for Stuart Timmons, author of The Trouble With Harry and Gay LA, who suffered a stroke in January, on Saturday, November 15, 3 to 5 p.m. at the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at 909 West Adams Blvd. in Los Angeles. There will be readings by Malcolm Boyd, Chris Freeman, Trebor Healey, Michael Kearns, Felice Picano, Derek Ringold, Terry Wolverton, and others. There is a $25 suggested contribution.
Australian writer Geoff Knight has launched a GayWriters Web site as a ning community at http://gaywriters.ning.com/.
AfterElton is sponsoring a Vote for the Best Gay Books at http://www.afterelton.com/print/2008/10/booksurvey_voting).
Kudos: Till Kleinert's Cowboy, a 35-minute film about a city dweller and a country lad's terrible price for love, won the £25,000 first prize at the Iris Prize Festival in Cardiff, which the organizers call the world's biggest gay and lesbian film festival. The German director’s film also won him a £500 travel award to help him return to the UK to make his next film. James Bolton and Dream Boy, a love story between teenagers in the American South in the 1970s, won the festival’s award for best feature film. The feature film is selected by the Friends of Iris, individuals who open their homes to the makers of films shortlisted for the festival. ** Among the finalists for the National Book Awards were: Frank Bidart for Watching the Spring Festival, Mark Dotyfor Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems, Reginald Gibbons for Creatures of a Day, Richard Howard for Without Saying, and Patricia Smith for Blood Dazzler. ** The winners of the 2008 Gaylactic Spectrum Awards are: Best Novel: Wicked Gentlemen by Ginn Hale. Best Short Fiction: "Ever So Much More than Thirty" by Joshua Lewis from the anthology So Fey. ** Manuel Muñoz was one of the 10 recipients of the 2008 Whiting Writers' Awards.
And the Nominees Will Be: The Publishing Triangle is now accepting submissions for its 2009 debut fiction, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry awards, given for books published in 2008. Details and forms can be found at the Web site http://www.publishingtriangle.org/. ** Submissions for the next cycle of the Lambda Literary Awards are now being accepted, for books published during 2008. Awards are given in twenty-two (22) categories. For more details visit the Lambda Literary Foundation at http://www.lambdaliterary.org/.
Open Calls: Editor Stephen Soucy is looking for short stories for the anthology ART from ART, about stories that are connected directly to—or inspired by—a work of art, to be published by Modernist Press. Deadline is 12/01/08. Submit your story and a brief bio via email to shsoucy@modernistpress.com. ** Queerphilosophy is looking for essays and pieces of creative non-fiction for an anthology slotted for 2009. Pieces should explore how individuals navigate through current ideas of sexuality and gender identity when faced with traditional philosophies and religions. Submit work that is at least 1000 words to queerphilosophy@gmail.com . For more details visit the Web site at http://www.queerphilosophy.com/. ** Knockout Literary Magazine is sponsoring a 2009 International Reginald Shepherd Memorial Poetry Prize. Three prizes will be awarded: $300, $50, and $25 gift certificates to Powell's Books and publication of prize-winning poems in Knockout. Submission deadline: 8/1/09. Details and entry guidelines: www.knockoutlit.org/rsprize.htm. ** The Eric Rofes Center for Multi-cultural Queer Studies plans to house the largest collection of LGBT/Queer/SGL chapbooks. Submissions can be sent to: HSU- Multicultural Center, c/o Eric Rofes Center Chapbook Archive, 1 Harpst Street, Arcata, CA 95521.
Passages: Ron Hanby, director of gay and lesbian sales at Bookazine, died in October. Shelf Awareness reported that the company called him "a passionate bookseller and an advocate for each and every one of his accounts. He worked hard to make sure that our booksellers had a level of personal service unparalleled in this industry." Before joining Bookazine, Hanby worked at Waldenbooks, B. Dalton Bookseller and Encore Books. In 1997 Hanby received a Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
October Publishing Notes
The buzz: The Associated Press reported that Federico Garcia Lorca's family won't oppose a petition to open a mass grave where his body is believed to have been dumped after Franco supporters allegedly executed the poet and playwright at the outbreak of Spain's Civil War. Garcia Lorca was 38 when he was killed. Investigations indicate the poet, who was open about his homosexuality, was shot along with a school teacher named Dioscoro Galindo Gonzalez and two labor union activists -- Francisco Galadi and Juan Arcolla -- on Aug. 18, 1936, near the Viznar mountain gorge in southern Spain. The bodies are believed to lie in a site near a designated a memorial park. Several thousand others are believed to have been shot and dumped at the gorge. The Telegraph reported that British author Alexander McCall Smith will include more gay characters in his popular The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novels. The Advocate reported that Sir Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono are both reported to be unhappy with the book John Lennon: The Life by Philip Norman that claims John Lennon longed to be in a relationship with McCartney. Author and illustrator Maurice Sendak came out at the age of 80 in the pages of The New York Times. Rachel Maddow's book on how the United States has departed from its constitutional ideals and historical traditions to become a militarist nation will be published by Crown. In Spring 2010 Little Brown will publish Cris Beam's J, about a female-to-male transgender teen as he begins to live as a boy and comes to terms with what it means to be trans and Puerto Rican in New York City. Lethe Press is launching a new imprint of “bear” titles -- Bear Bones Books. The reissue of Jeff Mann’s memoir Edge will be the first book in the series. Ron Suresha will helm the imprint. Blind Eye books will publish Josh Lanyon's novel The White Mountains in September 2009. Circle of Seven productions has produced a video trailer for Dark Scribe Press’s upcoming book of queer horror: Unspeakable Horror. The trailer can be viewed on the press’s blog site: http://darkscribepress.blogspot.com/2008/09/unspeakable-book-trailer.html. Velvet Mafia is now posting new content weekly. Among the recent items are poems by Andy Quan and Brian Brown, and fiction from Jeff Leavell, John Stewart, Drew Gummerson and Sean Meriwether. The Tectonic Theater Project has added an epilogue to The Laramie Project, their play about the murder of college student Matthew Shepard. The troupe revisited Laramie to interview residents about changes since the murder ten years ago. The epilogue will be added to the published piece and included in future performances. Plans for a new gay-and-lesbian theater festival in Orlando ran aground after accusations that the chief organizer took money from an AIDS fundraiser. The GLBT theater festival was originally planned to include three plays, a series of new-play readings, and the presentation of awards honoring two deceased gay and lesbian theater artists. Q-Notes reported that a casting call ad for auditions of a South Carolina production of the off-Broadway hit Naked Boys Singing was canceled by The State, a daily newspaper in Columbia, “because of the nature of the content.” Also in the Carolinas, Q-Notes reported that C3 Entertainment in North Carolina produced a play asserting people could not only pray being gay away, but also pray away AIDS. Arch Brown’s Thorny Theater in Palm Springs, California has launched its new season with Brown’s play Sex Symbols. DVD distributor Wolfe Video has acquired Were the World Mine, directed by Tom Gustafson, an original musical about a gay high school student who is cast in his school's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The film has won several awards at film festivals. Variety reported that director Steven Soderbergh is working on a biopic of Liberace, with Michael Douglas playing the flamboyant pianist. Matt Damon is in talks to play Scott Thorson, Liberace's alleged companion of five years. Designer Tom Ford has acquired the rights to Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novel A Single Man, about a middle-aged gay professor. Actor Colin Firth is said to be in discussions for the role, with Julianne Moore play a friend and a former student. Jamie Bell is also said to be part of the cast, with the movie beginning shooting in November. New York magazine reported that Barack Obama supporter and openly gay actor and author Alan Cumming is hoping to become a U.S. citizen in time to register to vote in the upcoming presidential election. OutWeek, the former GLBTQ New York City-based magazine published from June 1989 to July 1991, is now available in an online archive, thanks to sponsorship by The Gill Foundation, Larry Kramer, and Gabriel Rotello, with help from the One Foundation and Tectonic Theater Project. The magazine was noted for its “outings” of national figures and its coverage of AIDS activism. Boston Edge reported that an archive of historical gay video footage belonging to Gay Cable Network pioneer and sex club entrepreneur Lou Maletta -- much of it in VHS format -- sits uncatalogued and deteriorating in a Manhattan storage room. The video and DAT tapes includes footage from the Continental Baths in the ‘70s of Bette Midler and Barry Manilow, a comment made by Dick Cheney about gay marriage back in 1984, and some of the earliest coverage of AIDS within the gay community of New York. Gay Cable News was the first news show of any kind to broadcast a picture of a Karposi's sarcoma lesion, and that clip is now preserved by the Museum of Broadcasting. A library in Helena, Montana, wants to ban the book The Joy of Gay Sex. The library board of directors is expected to make a decision on the matter at its Oct. 21 meeting. According to several press reports, sources in Wasilla, Alaska, noted that Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin tried to use her sway as mayor to censor the local library, and now New York literary agent Holly Bemiss and her partner Erin Bried are throwing a “Sarah Palin Book Club” fundraiser for the Lambda Literary Foundation October 2 at 7 pm at Cattyshack in Brooklyn. A special prize will be given to the best Sarah Palin lookalike. Christopher and Anne Rice are opening up their home in Rancho Mirage, California for “Written in the Sand 2008,” another fundraiser for Lambda Literary Foundation on Saturday, November 8. Admission is $65 and $40 for students.
Kudos: Un Altro Pianeta, a drama from Stefano Tummolini, won the second Queer Lion Award from the Venice Film Festival for the best feature with a gay theme. James Lear was named Writer of the Year for his novel The Palace of Varieties at the Erotic Awards in London. Alex Ross of The New Yorker and author of The Rest Is Noise, was one of the 25 recipients of the 2008 MacArthur Foundation Genius Fellowships. Tony Kushner received the first Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award. Greg Wrenn’s book of poems Off the Fire Road received The Laurel Review/GreenTower Press Midwest Chapbook Series Award and will be published in the spring of 2009.
Open Calls: The online magazine Limp Wrist is offering a $150 scholarship to a LGBT high school senior via a poetry contest. The recipient also receives a spot at the 2009 Juniper Summer Writers Institute. There is no entry fee, but students must identify as a member of the LGBT community. Deadline is December 15, 2008. Further details may be found at editor Dustin Brookshire’s blog: http://dbrookshire.blogspot.com/. ** Starbooks Press is seeking submissions of historically-based erotic novels or anthologies until March 2009. The publisher also has open calls for several erotica anthologies, including Pretty Boys and Roughnecks (deadline February 15,2009) and Unmasked II: More Erotic Tales of Gay Superheroes (deadline March 15, 2009). ** A reminder that the deadline for The White Crane/James White Poetry Prize for a book-length poetry collection is October 30. More details can be found at: http://www.jameswhitepoetryprize.org/.
Passages: Poet Reginald Shepherd died September 11, 2008 from cancer. He was 45. Shepherd was the editor of The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries (University of Iowa Press, 2004) and of Lyric Postmodernisms (Counterpath Press, 2008). He is the author of: Fata Morgana (2007), winner of the Silver Medal of the 2007 Florida Book Awards, Otherhood (2003), a finalist for the 2004 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, Wrong (1999), Angel, Interrupted (1996), and Some Are Drowning (1994), winner of the 1993 Associated Writing Programs’ Award in Poetry (all University of Pittsburgh Press). Shepherd's work has appeared in four editions of The Best American Poetry and two Pushcart Prize anthologies, as well as in such journals as American Poetry Review, Conjunctions, The Kenyon Review, The Nation, The New York Times Book Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and The Yale Review. He is also the author of Orpheus in the Bronx: Essays on Identity, Politics, and the Freedom of Poetry (Poets on Poetry Series, University of Michigan Press). Shepherd received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, the Florida Arts Council, and the Guggenheim Foundation, among other awards and honors. ** John Burnside, the inventor of a kaleidoscope-like device called the teleidoscope and an early gay movement activist who was the longtime partner of the late gay rights pioneer Harry Hay, died on September 15, 2008 at his home in San Francisco. He was 91. In 1979, Burnside and Hay joined Don Kilhefner in organizing the first Spiritual Gathering for Radical Faeries. Burnside and Hay were featured in the 1977 documentary Word Is Out and the 2002 documentary Hope Along the Wind. Donations in Burnside's memory to continue his and Hay's activist work may be made to the Harry Hay Fund, c/o Chas Nol, 174 1/2 Hartford St., San Francisco, CA 94114.
Kudos: Un Altro Pianeta, a drama from Stefano Tummolini, won the second Queer Lion Award from the Venice Film Festival for the best feature with a gay theme. James Lear was named Writer of the Year for his novel The Palace of Varieties at the Erotic Awards in London. Alex Ross of The New Yorker and author of The Rest Is Noise, was one of the 25 recipients of the 2008 MacArthur Foundation Genius Fellowships. Tony Kushner received the first Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award. Greg Wrenn’s book of poems Off the Fire Road received The Laurel Review/GreenTower Press Midwest Chapbook Series Award and will be published in the spring of 2009.
Open Calls: The online magazine Limp Wrist is offering a $150 scholarship to a LGBT high school senior via a poetry contest. The recipient also receives a spot at the 2009 Juniper Summer Writers Institute. There is no entry fee, but students must identify as a member of the LGBT community. Deadline is December 15, 2008. Further details may be found at editor Dustin Brookshire’s blog: http://dbrookshire.blogspot.com/. ** Starbooks Press is seeking submissions of historically-based erotic novels or anthologies until March 2009. The publisher also has open calls for several erotica anthologies, including Pretty Boys and Roughnecks (deadline February 15,2009) and Unmasked II: More Erotic Tales of Gay Superheroes (deadline March 15, 2009). ** A reminder that the deadline for The White Crane/James White Poetry Prize for a book-length poetry collection is October 30. More details can be found at: http://www.jameswhitepoetryprize.org/.
Passages: Poet Reginald Shepherd died September 11, 2008 from cancer. He was 45. Shepherd was the editor of The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries (University of Iowa Press, 2004) and of Lyric Postmodernisms (Counterpath Press, 2008). He is the author of: Fata Morgana (2007), winner of the Silver Medal of the 2007 Florida Book Awards, Otherhood (2003), a finalist for the 2004 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, Wrong (1999), Angel, Interrupted (1996), and Some Are Drowning (1994), winner of the 1993 Associated Writing Programs’ Award in Poetry (all University of Pittsburgh Press). Shepherd's work has appeared in four editions of The Best American Poetry and two Pushcart Prize anthologies, as well as in such journals as American Poetry Review, Conjunctions, The Kenyon Review, The Nation, The New York Times Book Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and The Yale Review. He is also the author of Orpheus in the Bronx: Essays on Identity, Politics, and the Freedom of Poetry (Poets on Poetry Series, University of Michigan Press). Shepherd received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, the Florida Arts Council, and the Guggenheim Foundation, among other awards and honors. ** John Burnside, the inventor of a kaleidoscope-like device called the teleidoscope and an early gay movement activist who was the longtime partner of the late gay rights pioneer Harry Hay, died on September 15, 2008 at his home in San Francisco. He was 91. In 1979, Burnside and Hay joined Don Kilhefner in organizing the first Spiritual Gathering for Radical Faeries. Burnside and Hay were featured in the 1977 documentary Word Is Out and the 2002 documentary Hope Along the Wind. Donations in Burnside's memory to continue his and Hay's activist work may be made to the Harry Hay Fund, c/o Chas Nol, 174 1/2 Hartford St., San Francisco, CA 94114.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Market News
New Presses, New Books, New Stories: While mainstream publishers are leaning more and more to focusing their few gay books on memoirs, light romances, and young adult novels, a new crop of independent boutique publishers are starting to fill in the gaps with a variety of gay offerings, with many offering an outlet for gay short fiction. Modernist Press (http://www.modernistpress.com/), started by Steve Soucy, launches this month with an anthology of gay stories titled Nine Hundred & Sixty-Nine: West Hollywood Stories, edited by Soucy, with fiction by Felice Picano, John Morgan Wilson, Shaun Levin, Timothy State, and others. Modernist is also interested in publishing full-length works of fiction (novels/novellas) and short story collections. For more information, contact Steve Soucy at mailto:shsoucy@yahoo.com. Ignavia, an online literary journal which features gay and lesbian authors and short fiction that is “dark, edgy and queer,” has a new issue up online at http://www.ignaviapress.com/. An editor’s note reveals that Ignavia plans to begin publishing books in 2009. Dark Scribe Press (http://www.darkscribepress.com/) is another independent publisher of dark genre literature – horror, suspense, and thrillers. The Press places a strong emphasis on the integration of gay, lesbian, and bisexual characters in their offerings. First up for the Press is Unspeakable Horror: Shadows from the Closet, an anthology of queer horror stories edited by Vince A. Liaguno and Chad Helder, with fiction by Lee Thomas, Rick R. Reed, Kevin W. Reardon, and others, due in bookstores in December. Rebel Satori Press (http://www.rebelsatori.com/) is an independent publisher of books on spirituality and revolutionary personal transformation. (Satori is a Zen term for enlightenment.) The Press publishes Ashé Journal, along with new/experimental fiction and creative/inspirational non-fiction. Recently the Press published the anthology Madder Love: Queer Men In the Precincts of Surrealism, edited by Peter Dubé, with work by Stephen Beachy, Tom Cardamone, Trebor Healey, Kevin Killian, Rob Stephenson, and others. Forthcoming for the press are novels by J. Warren (Stealing Ganymede) and Sven Davisson (The Devil’s Island). Lethe Press (http://www.lethepressbooks.com/) is another independent publisher that continues to grow. Recently, Lethe has published Haunted Hearths & Sapphic Shades, a collection of lesbian ghost stories edited by Catherine Lundoff, and a solo collection of speculative fiction by Steve Berman titled Second Thoughts. Berman has also implemented two new annual anthologies for the press, the successful Wilde Stories, an anthology of the year’s best gay speculative fiction which was released this summer, and Best Gay Stories, the 2008 edition which features stories by Raymond Luczak, Rick Bowes, Greg Herren, Jeff Mann, and others.
Friday, August 29, 2008
September Publishing Notes
The buzz: This fall, Haiduk Press will publish Patrick M. Chapman’s Thou Shall Not Love -What Evangelicals Really Say to Gays, a critique of evangelical views on a variety of subjects, including gay marriage. Lethe Press is in talks with Lawrence Schimel's A Midsummers Night Press to partner in the release of both Best Gay Poetry 2008 and Best Lesbian Poetry 2008 before the end of fall. Lethe Press is also publishing John McNeill’s Sex as God Intended it to Be, Craig Gidney’s Sea, Swallow Me and Other Stories, the anthology Time Well Bent: Queer Alternate History, and the Press is reissuing Jeff Mann’s memoir Edge: Travels of a Leatherbear. Arcade will publish Daniel Harris's Celebrity: A Star-Studded Look at Fame and the Limelight, in July 2009. Alyson will publish a new collection of short stories by Jim Grimsley, Jesus Is Sending You This Message, with an introduction by Dorothy Allison. Sarah Schulman’s next novel will be The Mere Future, which will be published in 2009. Harper will publish playwright, screenwriter, and novelist Paul Rudnick's untitled collection of humorous essays, including his humorous New Yorker pieces. Modernist Press will publish Nine Hundred & Sixty-Nine: West Hollywood Stories in September and celebrate the launch of the book at the West Hollywood Bookfair on Sunday September 28th. Patricia Nell Warren wrote the intro to the collection of gay stories, which features short fiction by Max Pierce, Felice Picano, Timothy State, and others. The reading at the Book Fair is from 4:50 pm to 5:30 pm on the Robertson Stage. More details can be found here. Freaks Read, a literary salon which features gay and erotica writers, is a free event that happens on the last Wednesday of each month at Nowhere (322 E. 14th St. between First and Second Avenues) in Manhattan. Join the moderated "nowherenyc" Yahoo group to receive future announcements. Writers interested in participating can send a story sample to Charlie Vazquez at firekingpress@yahoo.com with Freaks Read as the subject. Perry Brass and Bob Cabell have produced a series of podcasts called Naked Books, about books that "show all and hide nothing" when it comes to genuine feelings and a closeness to life. Among the new LGBT collections at the NY Public Library are the backfiles of the magazine Pinups from photographer and editor Christopher Schulz. The Library is also working on acquiring a complete backfile of HX and Next magazines, a collection of Japanese erotica, and a historic drag performance collection. M. Christian will teach an erotica writing class on October 12th in downtown San Francisco. More details can be found by writing him at Zobop@aol.com. The next annual Saints and Sinners Literary Festival will be May 14 - 17, 2009 in New Orleans. Participants lined up include Jess Wells, Radclyffe, Michael Thomas Ford, and Ali Liebegott. The memorial video produced by Lambda Literary can be found on YouTube here. Rhiannon Argo blogs about the recent Lambda young writers retreat on the new Invert(e) blog site. The blog is the brainchild of the Suspect Thoughts team of Greg Wharton and Ian Philips. Invert(e) is also a new literary journal from the ST Press. Donations are down at White Crane and the organization and the magazine has a call out for financial assitance. Visit http://www.gaywisdom.org/ to see the complete listing of everything White Crane does and to make a tax-deductible contribution. The DreamWalker Group has established a BuyDirect Page which sells books directly from the Web site. Rich Goscicki, author of Mirror Reversal, is currently featured. The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library has acquired the archive of American photographer Robert Giard as part of the Yale Collection of American Literature. Giard, who died in 2002, was known for his portraits of gay and lesbian writers. Bong, a 350-page book about Nguyen Van Dung, a gay man who lives in Ha Noi, was recently published in Vietman. “Bong,” is Vietnamese slang for a homosexual. The book was written by two local journalists who taped more than 200 hours of interviews with Dung. Another book about a gay man, Pham Thanh Trung, will soon be published. Afdhere Jama, the editor of the gay Muslim magazine Huriyah, has released a book about LGBT people in the Islamic World titled Illegal Citizens: Queer lives in the Muslim World, published by Salaam Press, which follows the lives of 33 people in 22 countries including Nigeria, Lebanon, Indonesia, Bosnia, China, India, Israel, and Ukraine. Jama was born in Somalia. He moved to the USA after civil war broke out in his native country. The New York Times reported that Rufus Wainwright has dropped plans to write a musical for the Metropolitan Opera over concerns about the libretto and performance dates. Wainwright wanted his opera, Prima Dona, commissioned by the Met, to be in French, and the production was not slated until 2014. The musical will now premiere next July at the Manchester International Festival in England. Craig Lucas has also been commissioned by the Met and his libretto, with music by Nico Muhly, is expected to be workshopped soon. Wig Out! will be the season opener at the Vineyard Theater will feature the downtown drag performer Daniel T. Boothe, aka Sweetie. The new play by Tarell Alvin McCraney is about competition among drag queens. James Franco will play the young Allen Ginsberg in a film by Rob Epstein. And E! television reported that "a source close to club DJ and Lohan pal Samantha Ronson" is "certainly telling friends she's planning to write a book.”
Also on the horizon: In addition to the titles mentioned above that Lethe Press will publish in the forthcoming months, the Press will also publish my collection Still Dancing: New and Selected Stories. This collection brings together twenty of my stories about the impact of AIDS on the gay community which have been written over the last three decades. Along with ten stories from my first collection Dancing on the Moon, are ten newly selected stories. And for this collection I’ve also chosen stories that revolve around gay New Yorkers—those lost, those surviving, those displaced, those undaunted, and those who became expatriates. Still Dancing’s pub date is scheduled for World AIDS Day, December 1, 2008.
Searching for friends of James Voss: British historian Helen Graham is seeking friends of James Voss, a writer who died of AIDS in the mid-1980s. Graham is working on film and book projects about gay Finnish-American International Brigader and poet William Aalto who died in New York in 1958 while in his early forties. Foss, who knew Aalto during this period, was in his twenties. In the mid-1980s, shortly before he died of AIDS, Foss wrote an evocative biographical sketch of Aalto which remained unpublished but was deposited in a New York history archive and with writer Donald Windham. Foss may have also worked for MIT and his last known residence in the 1980s was on 86th Street in Brooklyn. For further info and queries, Graham can be contacted at h.graham@rhul.ac.uk.
Kudos: Philip Hensher’s The Northern Clemency made the longlist for the Man Booker Prize. ** The Golden Crown Literary Society winners have been announced. A full list can be found at the Web site. ** Press Pass Q reported that Fay Jacobs has been named a winner in the annual National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest. She received first place for her book Fried & True: Tales from Rehoboth Beach, in the category of non-fiction humor. The award will be presented at the group’s annual conference to be held this year in Idaho Falls, Idaho, in September. ** Winners of the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation’s 2007 awards were: Robert Askins of New York, NY for Clean Living, a one-act play; Diana Star Helmer & Thomas S. Owens of Perry, IA for Morty's Mother Marched, a children's story book; and Tracy Wynn of Concord, MA for Mrs. Somebody Somebody, a short story.
Open Calls: The deadline for the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation’s Playwriting Competition is November 30, 2008. All works must present the gay and lesbian lifestyle in a positive manner and be based on, or directly inspired by, a historic person, culture, work of art, or event. For further submission information, visit the Foundation’s Web site at http://www.aabbfoundation.org. ** The Saints and Sinners Literary Festival, in association with the Marigny Theatre Corporation and the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival, is sponsoring their third annual playwriting contest. The winning play will premier the weekend of the Festival, May 14-17, 2009. There is a $10 fee for every play submitted. Participants can enter more than once. Submission instructions can be found on the Web site. ** Applications are being accepted for the 2008 James Duggins Mid-Career Awards. Nominations are open through October 1, 2008. The awards, in their third 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 are 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. Further details and nomination instructions can be found here: http://www.sasfest.org/duggins.php. ** The deadline for the 2008–09 Queer Foundation High School Seniors English Essay Contest is February 28, 2009. This year’s theme is Pink Ink ("We write not only about different things; we also write differently"—Brecht.) For contest rules, judging criteria, and an application form, visit the Web site.** Chip Capelli will be reading for a forthcoming Lethe Press gay men’s erotica anthology tentatively entitled Gemini: Twice A Man's Pleasure. As part of a new Zodiac-inspired line of gay erotica, all submissions should address a theme inspired by the specific sign: in this case, Gemini. Stories should be between 2,000 and 6000 words. Submissions will be read from September 2, 2008 through January 2, 2009 and may be sent to: Gemini, PO Box 18070, Philadelphia PA 19147-0070. Email queries and other communication may be made to ZodiacEditor@gmail.com. ** Editor Joseph R.G. DeMarco will be reading for a forthcoming Lethe Press gay men's anthology tentatively entitled A Study in Lavender: Queering Holmes. All stories must be both gay-themed and mysteries set in the Sherlock Holmes mythos, however the character of Sherlock Holmes need not be the focus. Submissions should be between 1,000 words and 8,000 words. Submissions will be read from January 1, 2009 through March 30, 2009. Queries/Submissions to: holmesanthology@gmail.com. ** Editors Sacchi Green and Rakelle Valencia are seeking lesbian cowboy erotica for an anthology to be published by Cleis Press. Deadline is October 31, 2008. Word length is 2000-5000 words. This anthology is a follow up to Rode Hard, Put Away Wet, assembled by the same editors for Suspect Thoughts Press in 2005. Submit manuscripts as Word or RTF attachments to sacchigreen@gmail.com. Editor Ron Jackson Suresha is seeking stories for Bearotica 3: More Hairy Beefy Macho Fiction. Deadline is November 1, 2008. Preferred length: 2500-3500 words. Submission and guideline details can be found at: www.suresha.com/writing/calls/b3_cfs.php.
Passages: Del Martin, the pioneering lesbian rights activist, died August 27, 2008 with her wife, Phyllis Lyon by her bedside. Martin died at a San Francisco hospital two weeks after a broken arm exacerbated her existing health problems, according to Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Martin and Lyon were partners for 55 years. Co-founders in the 1950s of the Daughters of Bilitis, the first national lesbian organization in the United States, they battled homophobia in the National Organization for Women in the 1960s; founded the Lyon-Martin Health Services clinics for lesbians in the 1970s; and in the new millennium, became the first gay couple to be married in San Francisco - twice. Their books Lesbian/Woman and Lesbian Love and Liberation are classics in lesbian literature. In 2003, Joan Biren immortalized their amazing lives in her award-winning documentary No Secret Anymore: the Times of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. Martin and Lyon exchanged vows at San Francisco City Hall on June 16, the first day same-sex couples could legally wed in California, after being together for more than half a century. Mayor Gavin Newsom, who officiated the wedding, singled them out to be the first gay couple to be declared "spouses for life" in the city in recognition of their long relationship and their status as pioneers of the gay rights movement.
Also on the horizon: In addition to the titles mentioned above that Lethe Press will publish in the forthcoming months, the Press will also publish my collection Still Dancing: New and Selected Stories. This collection brings together twenty of my stories about the impact of AIDS on the gay community which have been written over the last three decades. Along with ten stories from my first collection Dancing on the Moon, are ten newly selected stories. And for this collection I’ve also chosen stories that revolve around gay New Yorkers—those lost, those surviving, those displaced, those undaunted, and those who became expatriates. Still Dancing’s pub date is scheduled for World AIDS Day, December 1, 2008.
Searching for friends of James Voss: British historian Helen Graham is seeking friends of James Voss, a writer who died of AIDS in the mid-1980s. Graham is working on film and book projects about gay Finnish-American International Brigader and poet William Aalto who died in New York in 1958 while in his early forties. Foss, who knew Aalto during this period, was in his twenties. In the mid-1980s, shortly before he died of AIDS, Foss wrote an evocative biographical sketch of Aalto which remained unpublished but was deposited in a New York history archive and with writer Donald Windham. Foss may have also worked for MIT and his last known residence in the 1980s was on 86th Street in Brooklyn. For further info and queries, Graham can be contacted at h.graham@rhul.ac.uk.
Kudos: Philip Hensher’s The Northern Clemency made the longlist for the Man Booker Prize. ** The Golden Crown Literary Society winners have been announced. A full list can be found at the Web site. ** Press Pass Q reported that Fay Jacobs has been named a winner in the annual National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest. She received first place for her book Fried & True: Tales from Rehoboth Beach, in the category of non-fiction humor. The award will be presented at the group’s annual conference to be held this year in Idaho Falls, Idaho, in September. ** Winners of the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation’s 2007 awards were: Robert Askins of New York, NY for Clean Living, a one-act play; Diana Star Helmer & Thomas S. Owens of Perry, IA for Morty's Mother Marched, a children's story book; and Tracy Wynn of Concord, MA for Mrs. Somebody Somebody, a short story.
Open Calls: The deadline for the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation’s Playwriting Competition is November 30, 2008. All works must present the gay and lesbian lifestyle in a positive manner and be based on, or directly inspired by, a historic person, culture, work of art, or event. For further submission information, visit the Foundation’s Web site at http://www.aabbfoundation.org. ** The Saints and Sinners Literary Festival, in association with the Marigny Theatre Corporation and the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival, is sponsoring their third annual playwriting contest. The winning play will premier the weekend of the Festival, May 14-17, 2009. There is a $10 fee for every play submitted. Participants can enter more than once. Submission instructions can be found on the Web site. ** Applications are being accepted for the 2008 James Duggins Mid-Career Awards. Nominations are open through October 1, 2008. The awards, in their third 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 are 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. Further details and nomination instructions can be found here: http://www.sasfest.org/duggins.php. ** The deadline for the 2008–09 Queer Foundation High School Seniors English Essay Contest is February 28, 2009. This year’s theme is Pink Ink ("We write not only about different things; we also write differently"—Brecht.) For contest rules, judging criteria, and an application form, visit the Web site.** Chip Capelli will be reading for a forthcoming Lethe Press gay men’s erotica anthology tentatively entitled Gemini: Twice A Man's Pleasure. As part of a new Zodiac-inspired line of gay erotica, all submissions should address a theme inspired by the specific sign: in this case, Gemini. Stories should be between 2,000 and 6000 words. Submissions will be read from September 2, 2008 through January 2, 2009 and may be sent to: Gemini, PO Box 18070, Philadelphia PA 19147-0070. Email queries and other communication may be made to ZodiacEditor@gmail.com. ** Editor Joseph R.G. DeMarco will be reading for a forthcoming Lethe Press gay men's anthology tentatively entitled A Study in Lavender: Queering Holmes. All stories must be both gay-themed and mysteries set in the Sherlock Holmes mythos, however the character of Sherlock Holmes need not be the focus. Submissions should be between 1,000 words and 8,000 words. Submissions will be read from January 1, 2009 through March 30, 2009. Queries/Submissions to: holmesanthology@gmail.com. ** Editors Sacchi Green and Rakelle Valencia are seeking lesbian cowboy erotica for an anthology to be published by Cleis Press. Deadline is October 31, 2008. Word length is 2000-5000 words. This anthology is a follow up to Rode Hard, Put Away Wet, assembled by the same editors for Suspect Thoughts Press in 2005. Submit manuscripts as Word or RTF attachments to sacchigreen@gmail.com. Editor Ron Jackson Suresha is seeking stories for Bearotica 3: More Hairy Beefy Macho Fiction. Deadline is November 1, 2008. Preferred length: 2500-3500 words. Submission and guideline details can be found at: www.suresha.com/writing/calls/b3_cfs.php.
Passages: Del Martin, the pioneering lesbian rights activist, died August 27, 2008 with her wife, Phyllis Lyon by her bedside. Martin died at a San Francisco hospital two weeks after a broken arm exacerbated her existing health problems, according to Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Martin and Lyon were partners for 55 years. Co-founders in the 1950s of the Daughters of Bilitis, the first national lesbian organization in the United States, they battled homophobia in the National Organization for Women in the 1960s; founded the Lyon-Martin Health Services clinics for lesbians in the 1970s; and in the new millennium, became the first gay couple to be married in San Francisco - twice. Their books Lesbian/Woman and Lesbian Love and Liberation are classics in lesbian literature. In 2003, Joan Biren immortalized their amazing lives in her award-winning documentary No Secret Anymore: the Times of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. Martin and Lyon exchanged vows at San Francisco City Hall on June 16, the first day same-sex couples could legally wed in California, after being together for more than half a century. Mayor Gavin Newsom, who officiated the wedding, singled them out to be the first gay couple to be declared "spouses for life" in the city in recognition of their long relationship and their status as pioneers of the gay rights movement.
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