December Publishing Notes

The buzz: The Rainbow Book Fair will be March 24, 2012 from 11 am to 5:30 pm in New York. Check the Web site (http://rainbowbookfair.org/) for more details on exhibitors, speakers, and events, which next year will take over two floors at the LGBT Center in Manhattan.

Sibling Rivalry Press and the poetry journal Assaracus will sponsor a celebratory reading of more than 25 poets Friday, March 23, 2012 at CLAGS in New York City.

Band of Thebes, Stephen Bottum’s popular literary blog, has posted its annual list of favorite LGBT reads. View the list here: http://www.bestamericannonrequiredreading.blogspot.com/

Michael Graves, Rob Byrnes and Laurie Weeks will read from their new books on Tuesday December 6 at 7 pm at Barnes and Noble at 82nd & Broadway in Manhattan.

The Publishing Triangle’s annual holiday party is scheduled for Thursday, December 8. http://www.publishingtriangle.org/.

Poets Walter Holland, Timothy Liu, Hanna Bergwall, Michael Montlack, and Jason Schneiderman will be reading at the LGBT Center in Manhattan at 7pm on Thursday, December 8th.

Lethe Press has recently released Jewish Gentle and Other Stories of Gay-Jewish Living, Daniel M. Jaffe’s exploration of various aspects of gay-Jewish life: coming out to self and family; redefining one’s relationship to tradition and faith; surviving child abuse and teenage sexual identity angst; experiencing the adult joys and heartbreaks of dating, of forming relationships, and of losing them; coping with HIV/AIDS.

Playwright Tony Kushner is the recipient of a $100,000 Puffin/National Prize for Creative Citizenship, honoring artists and others for “socially responsible work” and challenges to authority.

Kathe Koja’s novel Under the Poppy is the winner of the 2011 Best Novel from the Gaylactic Spectrum Foundation. Winners and short list can be found here: http://www.spectrumawards.org/2011.htm.

On December 3, 2011, the Mischief + Mayhem publishing collective, in conjunction with the New School’s Graduate Writing Program, will mount TRANSMISSIONS, a one-day symposium dedicated to the literature of the first thirty years of the AIDS epidemic. More details can be found here: http://www.newschool.edu/eventdetail.aspx?id=72184

In September 2012 Little Brown will publish Emma Donoghue's Astray, a set of stories spanning centuries and continents, returning to her roots in historical fiction.

Modernist Press will publish Wonder City of the West, a new novel by Felice Picano. The setting for the story is Los Angeles in 1935.

Graywolf will publish Paul Lisiky’s The Narrow Door in 2014.

Charles Silverman, co-author of The Joy of Gay Sex and a pioneer who helped convince the American Psychological Association being gay was not an illness, will talk about his new memoir For the Ferryman with Perry Bass, an activist and prolific gay writer, Thursday January 05, 2012 at 7:00 PM at Barnes and Noble at 82nd Street and Broadway in New York City.

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is planning a West Coast book tour in early 2012 for his forthcoming anthology, Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform from AK Press.

In order to have an extra spectacular tenth anniversary celebration in 2013, the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans will be holding a SAS 9.5 from May 18-20, 2012, a fund raising event for the tenth anniversary festival in 2013. The SAS 9.5 agenda includes a book launch cocktail party celebrating its 3rd annual short fiction contest, a series of custom manuscript review sessions, and other special events.

Scholastic will publish Paul Rudnick's untitled debut young adult novel, a modern fairytale with a twist, in which a cynical teenager meets a fashion Svengali who promises to make her three dresses to transform her into the most beautiful woman in the world, after which she is launched on a romantic international adventure and must decide -- is beauty everything, or can she be just as happy without it?

In 2012, Harrington Park Press will publish Male Sex Work & Society, edited by Victor Minichiello, PhD and John Scott, Phd, the first scholarly, comprehensive volume devoted to male sex work. Leading contributors from developed and developing countries (including North and South America, Europe, East Asia and the Subcontinent, Oceania, and Africa) will examine research on male sex workers and their clients.

Passages: Writer, publisher and co-founder of Naid press, Barbara Grier, died November 10, 2011 at the age of 78. Lou Maletta, founder of the Gay Cable Network, died November 2, 2011 at the age of 74.