For today’s inaugural post, two new poems by 2010 Lammy finalist Brent Goodman. Read the full article →
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Fall 2010 signals the publication of several high-profile books (including one we’ve been waiting for since February). From a few well-knowns (Emma Donoghue), to a relative unknown (Tristan Garcia), to a Grammy winner (Ricky Martin) the fall book line up is all over the map. Here are 10 books (in no particular order) that we expect will make a big impact this autumn. Read the full article →
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JM Redman has been honored with the New Orleans Gay Achievement Awards Lifetime Achievement Award for both her full-time work with an AIDS service organization and her writing (her Micky Knight PI series is set in the Big Easy). You can read about it here. JM’s most recent novel, Death of a Dying Man, won the Lambda Literary award for Best Lesbian Mystery. Her next, Water Mark (Bold Strokes Books), is out this month.
Read Victoria Brownworth's review here.
Speaking of JM and Bold Strokes, BSB’s new author blog has gone live, with a post by JM that explores the post-Katrina question, “How do you write about a city you live in but no longer know?” More posts by BSB authors to follow.
Meanwhile, two titles by BSB author Radclyffe are finalists in The Heart of Excellence Readers’ Choice Awards sponsored by the Romance Writers of America Ancient City Romance Authors chapter: Returning Tides and Secrets in the Stone. Secrets in the Stone was also named a 2010 Prism award winner by the RWA’s Futuristic, Fantasy and Paranormal chapter.
Scott Helm’s Mysterious Skin, a dark novel (and film) about a troubled teenager, a hustler who was once his best friend, and the heart-breaking truths of his childhood, has been adapted by Prince Gomolvilas for a provocative stage production from East West Players, the venerable Asian-American theatre group in Los Angeles. Tim Dang directs a non-traditional cast of Asian actors portraying characters originally written as white. The play will run from September 9 to October 10.
Jeanette Winterson, acclaimed British author of the Whitbread Prize-winning novel Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, first published twenty years ago, has written a children’s thriller for the BBC, to be broadcast later this year. Jeanette has been hard at work on other projects, including two books for children due out soon, a response, she told the Guardian, to “complete and utter defeat and depression” following a breakup with her longtime partner. Read the full article →
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9th Annual West Hollywood Book Fair PSA 2010 featuring Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre comedian Luka Jones and MooDoo puppet Terrence the Monkey.
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“I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am a woman, because I am Black, because I am lesbian, because I am myself – a Black woman warrior poet doing my work – come to ask you, are you doing yours?” (Lorde, p 40)
Audre Lorde asks this question, in numerous ways, through her writing and her life—and let me report that I will spend a life answering her. Black feminist/womanist writers have had a huge influence on my life and identity—as a writer, thinker, and as a person who is able to find the well of courage, fashion a cup and dip in. What a joy to find this intimate volume, I Am Your Sister, and also hear from her contemporaries—writers such as bell hooks, Alice Walker, Johnnetta B. Cole—sharing stories about Lorde. This collection stands as a reminder: not only that oppression is shared if ever it occurs, and that none among us is exempt from the possibility of oppressing others; but that learning and practicing love is vital. I am grateful to Audre Lorde, and to the editors. Each of us can find courage, and remember what to do when we find it. Read the full article →
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Union Atlantic is a smart book. Cerebral. Highbrow. Articulate. Or at least, the author and all it’s supporting characters would like you to believe that. It has a protagonist who fought in the Persian Gulf, Doug Fanning, who yearns to leave the Navy behind and “begin his real life,” which at thirtysomething means becoming the second-in-command of a growing commercial bank called Union Atlantic, headquartered in Boston. Fanning, post-war, is so smart and successful (and wily, really, funneling lots of the bank’s money through a securities scheme involving a limited liability company) that he builds a mansion in Finden, Massachusetts with his excess income, near his boyhood hometown and not far from where his mother once worked as a maid to, well, better-off and wealthier families. He fails to decorate it, however; the mansion remains empty save for a bed, a TV, and other necessities.
His property is next door to antagonist Charlotte Graves, a former high school teacher forcibly retired, whose long-tenured American family and charitable organization previously owned the property where Fanning has erected his monstrous new mansion. Charlotte is something of an eccentric, a “secular mystic” and “fierce independent,” whose tutoring sessions on American history for one of the town’s slackers, Nate Fuller, a high school senior, disintegrates into diatribes and discourses on various subjects ranging from Barry Goldwater to Middle East strategy. Read the full article →
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In Denver, at the annual conference of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) in April, I had the pleasure of hearing Maureen Seaton speak about her work on the panel “Queering Desire: Queer Poets’ Aesthetic Libidos.” As you can imagine, even though the panel was late in the day, it was a lively, and at times even hot, discussion.
Let me be honest: I’ve been in awe of Seaton’s work as a poet since the early 1990s when I read her second book, Fear of Subways. Fear of Subways won the Eighth Mountain Prize. In the early 1990s, I bought almost every book published by Eighth Mountain Press at A Woman’s Prerogative, the local women’s book store in Ferndale, MI. I don’t know why, but I always have had an affinity for publishers and an interest in understanding the aesthetics that shape publishers’ lists. Eighth Mountain Press and Press Gang (in Canada) were my favorite publishers in the early 1990s; each list expressed the aesthetic, political, and intellectual interests I had at the time. Read the full article →
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It’s no knock on Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry that people appear more interested in the story of her life than in the glory of her verses. She was far from prolific, publishing fewer than 100 poems in her 68 years, and she led a fascinating life. She exchanged decades’ worth of letters with America’s finest poets, most of which have been collected in eminently accessible volumes. She has been the subject of biographies and plays and now, perhaps most engaging of all, her story provides the plot of Michael Sledge’s enchanting first novel.
The action begins when 40-year-old Elizabeth sails across the equator en route to Rio de Janeiro. She intends to stay for two weeks before continuing her travels through South America and returning to New York. Instead, she falls under the spell of Lota de Macedo Soares and stays in Brazil for 17 years. Read the full article →
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1. What made you decide to become a librarian? How did you get into the profession?
I wanted to be a writer ala Stephen King, but a steady paycheck and a love of grammar and books and kids just made teaching English a natural choice. However, I found myself coveting the librarian’s job in ever school I taught in. I was discouraged by tales of the limited number of jobs available and thus hesitated to invest in the certification. A teacher friend of mine who was working on her MLS convinced me to do it. I did, and snagged a job at a new school opening that very next fall. My current principal was opening the school, and while I had no library experience, I guess he knew me well enough to know I could handle it. I’m starting my fourth year now. It’s the best job in the world! Read the full article →
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Black Lawrence Press is currently accepting submissions for the 2010 St. Lawrence Book Award, an annual award that is given for an unpublished collection of short stories or poems. The St. Lawrence Book Award is open to any writer who has not yet published a full-length collection of short stories or poems. The winner of this contest will receive book publication, a $1,000 cash award, and ten copies of the book. Prizes are awarded on publication. The deadline for submissions is August 31, 2010. That’s Tuesday! For more information about how to submit your manuscript for the prize, follow this link. Previous winners of The St. Lawrence Book Award include Marcel Jolley, Stefi Weisburd, Jason Tandon, Fred McGavran, and Yelizaveta P. Renfro. Last year’s winner was Brad Ricca.
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