January Publishing Notes

The buzz: Augusten Burroughs’ new memoir, A Wolf At The Table, is expected to be in stores this April. Rich Merritt, author of the new novel, Code of Conduct, has launched a Web site and a blog for writers at http://www.richmerritt.com/. Andy Quan’s new book of poetry, Bowling Pin Fire, is now in bookstores. Kensington will publish Rakesh Satyal’s Blue Boy, about a sexually confused Indian-American boy who thinks he may be the reincarnation of the Hindu god Krishna. The Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris has opened “L’Enfer,” its secret collection of erotic manuscripts and art, to the public for the first time in nearly 40 years. The collection, amassed over 170 years, includes manuscripts by the Marquis de Sade. Letters to Noel Coward, a new book edited by Barry Day, revealed that Noel Coward served as a British spy before and during World War II. Little Britain star David Walliams has signed a two-book deal with Harper Collins Children’s Books. His untitled debut novel is expected in the Autumn of 2008. Chad Allen is expected to star in a third in the Donald Strachey mysteries for Here! TV. Rupert Everett will write and act in a movie about Oscar Wilde. Ewan McGregor and Jim Carrey have signed on to star in I Love You Phillip Morris, based on the book by Steve Russell. Among the talent lining up for Gus Van Sant’s film of The Mayor of Castro Street are Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, James Franco as Milk’s longterm partner Scott Smith, Josh Brolin as Dan White, and Emile Hirsch as Milk’s aide Cleve Jones.

Kudos: C. Bard Cole won the 2007 Novel of Novels contest for This is Where My Life Went Wrong. It will be the first book-length work of fiction to be published by Blatt Books. Among Out magazine’s annual list of notable queers were writers Edmund White, Kevin Sessums, Thomas Mallon, Eliot Schrefer, Kim Powers, Lori Sonderlind, and editor Will Schwalbe. Arch Brown’s Palm Spring’s Thorny Theater won four Desert Theater League Star Awards including Best Original Writing for David Brendan Hopes for his play Anna Livia, Lucky in her Bridges, and Best Overall Production for Arch Brown's Doubleltalk. Artist Delmas Howe will receive the 2008 Lifetime Achievement award from the Leslie/Lohman Art Foundation for his contribution to gay art.

Open Calls: The Queer Foundation, a Washington nonprofit corporation, will offer the three winners of its 2008 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 29, 2008. More details can be found at the Web site. ** Richard Labonté and Lawrence Schimmel are seeking submissions for Queer Utopias, a science fiction anthology, to be published by Arsenal Pulp Press, Spring 2009. Maximum word length: 10,000 words. Submissions can be sent as an attachment in .doc format to queerutopias@gmail.com. Deadline is May 15, 2008. ** The Leslie/Lohman Gallery accepting submissions for four large group art exhibitions in 2008. The Great Gay Photo Show, a large group photography show; Art! Actually! Painting, Drawing, Sculpture, about the act of making art, The Great Lesbian Show, a large group lesbian show, and Imaginary Portraits: Gay Lovers In History, a large group show of portraits based on known or newly discovered LGBTQ couples from ancient to contemporary society. For more details on deadlines and submission requirements, please visit the gallery’s Web site.

My Favorites of 2007: Favorite novel: Michael Tolliver Lives by Armistead Maupin. The trip down memory lane was unforgettable. Favorite memoir: Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. Deserves every award it received. Favorite story: “Love and Hydrogen” by Jim Shepard -- I finally caught up with this ill-fated romance that takes place on board the Hindenburg. Favorite movie: La Vie en Rose. Marion Cottilard is amazing as Edith Piaf.

Passages: Historian Allan Bérubé died of complications from stomach ulcers at the Catskills Regional Medical Center in New York on December 11, 2007. He was 61. Berbe was the author of Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II, published in 1990 and which won a Lambda Literary Award and was adapted as a documentary by Arthur Dong. In 1996, Bérubé received a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for his work. He was also one of the founders of the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Project in 1978. He is survived by his partner John Nelson, his mother, and three sisters. ** Mel Cheren, a pioneering force in the dance music movement of the '70s and an AIDS activist, died December 7, 2007, from complications of AIDS. He was 74. Known as the “Godfather Of Disco,” Cheren co-founded West End Records in 1976. Cheren was a key backer of the Paradise Garage, a nightclub in the West Village. Cheren gave Gay Men’s Health Crisis its first home, donating space for it in a building he owned in Chelsea, and sponsored its first fund-raiser, at the Paradise Garage. Cheren also started 24 Hours For Life in 1987, a non-profit organization of music and media professionals who raised money for AIDS awareness. In 2000, Cheren published a memoir, My Life and the Paradise Garage: Keep on Dancin', which became the basis of a feature length documentary, suitably titled The Godfather of Disco.