Monday, November 30, 2009

December Publishing Notes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday, November 01, 2009

November Publishing Notes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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