August Publishing Notes

The buzz: Christine Baranski, George Grizzard, Stan Phillips, and Jackie Hoffman will headline Paul Rudnick’s new play, Regrets Only, premiering October at New York City Center. Charles Busch will host the New York Innovative Theatre Awards on September 18, honoring achievement in off-off-Broadway theater. Arch Brown has launched the Thorny Theater, a new LGBT theater located in Palm Springs, CA. Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, currently producing the movie version of Hairspray, are planning a revival of Peter Pan for ABC TV in late 2007. Gay author and actor Stephen Frey will reveal his struggle with depression and suicide contemplation in a new BBC documentary later this year, The Secret Life of A Manic Depressive. China has banned South Korea’s immensely popular movie, King and the Clown, because of its subtle gay themes. The government of Turkey recently shut down the gay magazine Kaos GL citing "general morality" after the magazine included an article entitled "Visuality of Sexuality, Sexuality of Visuality: Pornography" in their latest issue. Grove/Atlantic will publish Charles Kaiser’s The Cost of Courage: A Family Divided by the French Resistance, which follows the true story of a family on an unpredictable journey through Nazi-occupied Paris, four German concentration camps, and the labyrinth of their emotions after World War II. In bookstores soon: Christopher Bram’s new novel, Exiles in America, Stephen Beachy’s novellas, Some Phantom/No Time Flat, Jeff Mann’s collection of erotica, A History of Barbed Wire, Anthony Bidulka’s new mystery Tapas on the Ramblas, Richard Grayson’s Highly Irregular Stories, and Toby Johnson’s novel, Two Spirits, A Story of Life with the Navajo. Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse in Atlanta was the target of several anti-gay protests during June and July. Customers and activists rallied behind the bookstore and staged counter-protests. Haworth Press, the popular publisher of gay books and journals, was unexpectedly closed for a week in July 2006 due to the flooding that affected the mid-Atlantic area. Located in Binghamton, NY, the press has an account of the flood on its Web site.

Kudos: Ivey Banks, the nom-de-plume of Dora McAlpin-Zeeks, a mother in Odenton, Maryland, won The Next Big Writer, the online novel-writing contest, for her gay-themed novel Out of the Dark, in which teenager Thorn MacDonnell struggles with his sexuality and the fact that he has been diagnosed with HIV and leukemia. The winning prize carries a $5000 award. Lesley C. Weston, head of costume design for The New York City Opera, was runner-up for the novel, Nancy Boy. Q. Allen Brocka and Phillip Pierce took the outstanding screenwriting prize at L.A. Outfest for their screenplay adaptation of Matthew Rettendmund’s novel Boy Culture. Gay friendly Kathy Griffin was nominated for an Emmy for My Life on the D-List. Also garnering an Emmy nod was South Park’s Tom Cruise-centered episode “Trapped in the Closet” for Outstanding Animated Program.

Open calls: Kevin Bentley and Green Candy Press are looking for essays for Sex by the Book: Tales of Lit and Lust. Deadline is October 30, 2006 and submissions should be sent to Green Candy Press, 601 Van Ness Avenue, E-918, San Francisco, CA 94102. Jolie du Pre is looking for submissions for Iridescence: Lovely Shades of Lesbian Erotica forthcoming from Alyson. Deadline is August 31, 2006 and should be sent to womenofcolor@ameritech.net. Gayfest NYC producers Bruce Robert Harris and Jack W. Batman are now accepting submissions for the Festival of New Plays and Musicals to be presented in New York City, May 9-June 2, 2007. The Festival will feature three Main Stage productions, a Studio reading series of new works, guest speakers, talk-backs and other events. Two plays and one musical will be selected for fully-produced Main Stage productions with Actors’ Equity Association casts and professional directors and staff personnel. Work should deal with LGBT characters or issues in some literal or metaphorical way. Deadline is September 30, 2006. Mail two copies of script and one copy of score (on CD only) to: GAYFEST NYC, c/o Bruce Robert Harris, One River Place, Suite 917, New York, NY 10036. To commemorate this year's World AIDS Day observance on December 1 at the National AIDS Memorial in San Francisco, the memorial's board of directors is asking the public for personal testimonies, remembrances, and reflections on the effects of the AIDS pandemic. In keeping with the event’s theme, “AIDS at 25,” the memorial is asking people to identify a single year since 1981 and explain how the pandemic affected them during that year. "This could be a recollection of your own or a loved one's experiences in dealing with AIDS, or remembering the wide swath the disease made in those early years when there were no medications," said Jack Porter, co-chairman of the World AIDS Day observance, in a press statement. "Or it could be related to learning of your own diagnosis or that of a loved one in the last couple years; a visit to an AIDS-stricken African village; or a poignant moment in your work with a client of an AIDS service agency." Submissions should be submitted by September 15 via e-mail to mystory@aidsmemorial.org or by standard mail to the National AIDS Memorial, 856 Stanyan St., San Francisco, CA, 94117. The remembrance service will be held December 1 at the memorial in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.