Book Buzz #32: August 2011
Author: John Morgan Wilson
August 1, 2011
Author/playwright/activist Larry Kramer (The Normal Heart) filed an opinion piece in The Advocate, setting the record straight (so to speak) about his views on gay marriage, which he claims were misrepresented by The New York Times. 
You can read it here.
Alan Hollinghurst’s The Stranger’s Child, a queer take on the English country house novel, is among the thirteen nominees on this year’s longlist for the UK’s prestigious Man Booker Prize for Fiction . Alan is a previous Man Booker winner for the gay-themed The Line of Beauty in 2004. The shortlist of six authors will be announced on September 6, the winner on October 18. To see the complete longlist, click here.
Also from the Brits: At The Guardian website, you can listen to a podcast in which Max Schaefer interviews Stella Duffy, Paul Burston and Neil Bartless about the connection between their gay identities and their work and readers, probing the ongoing “writer vs. gay writer” issue.
Speaking of the New York Times, it maintains a “Gay Writers” articles collection that might be of interest to some Book Buzz readers.
Ammonite and Slow River, Nicola Griffth’s first and second novels, both featuring queer protagonists, have been selected among other notable science fiction titles for e-book reissue by SF Gateway, an ambitious new digital library that Gollancz will launch this fall. Gollancz is the SF and Fantasy imprint of the Orion Publishing Group, the British publisher that celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Read more about it here.
BLOOM , the nonprofit literary journal published by Charles Flowers, has posted guidelines and announced the judges for its 2011 Chapbook Contest, including a new nonfiction category: Mark Doty, poetry; Nina Revoyr, short fiction; and Rigoberto Gonzalez, creative nonfiction. The deadline is September 15. Guidelines and entry form are available here.
Membership in the Facebook group Gay Writers (and Readers) United – “where creators and fans of GLBT content can hook up, chat, exchange ideas, and share views on writing, reading, publishing, plotting and brainstorming” – is nearing the 700 mark and growing.
Just getting started: Gay Writer’s Circle, which Juan Figueroa created “to connect, encourage, and highlight gay writers around the world who write for blogs, various websites, bios & books, poetry and more.”
Justin Spring‘s award-winning biography Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade (Elysium Press) is now an exhibition at the Museum of Sex in New York. The July opening was timed to coincide with the release of the biography in paperback. Selections from the Steward Archive are also available in An Obscene Diary: The Visual World of Sam Steward, a limited edition from Elysium.
Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer, author of the classic Serving in Silence (adapted into an acclaimed 1995 TV movie starring Glenn Close), has written the foreword to Out of Step by J. Lee Watton, a memoir of five Navy WAVES accused of being lesbians and dismissed from the military in 1965. A&M Books has long planned the release for September 20 – which turns out to be the same day that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is now set to be lifted.
In a recent feature, the Arkansas Times included Bryan Borland as one of eight Arkansans under the age of 35 who “are doing great things for their state and nation.” Bryan is the publisher of Sibling Rivalry Press and editor of Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry , which can now be accessed digitally by clicking here.
Bold Strokes Books has published a gay noir short fiction anthology, Men of the Mean Streets, edited by Greg Herren and J.M. Redmann. Among the contributors: John Aterovis, Mel Bossa, ‘Nathan Burgoine, Michael Thomas Ford, Felice Picano, Neil Plakcy, Max Reynolds and Julie Smith.
Robyn Ochs discusses bisexual identity issues and the second edition of Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, which she co-edited with Sarah E. Rowley, on the podcast website John Selig Outspoken.
The 10th annual West Hollywood Book Fair, set for October 2, will have a strong queer presence among the more than 300 participating authors, including Jeanne Cordova, Terrance Dean, Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla, David Francis, Claire McNab, Felice Picano, Christopher Rice and Terry Wolverton. For more details, click here.
Patricia Nell Warren’s talk at the Autry National Center of the American West on her collection, My West, Personal Writings on the American West: Past, Present, and Future, has been posted on YouTube as Part I and Part II.
Gay Authors.org continues to update its resource list of LGBT short fiction sites, and welcomes reader input. You can check out the recently-updated resource page here.
Diane Anderson-Minshall is the new executive editor of The Advocate and Editor in Chief of HIV Plus. Matthew Breen had earlier been announced as The Advocate’s new Editor in Chief.
It’s been a very good year so far for fiction writer Sally Bellerose. After winning this year’s Saints & Sinners Short Fiction Contest – her story appears in Saints & Sinners: New Fiction from the Festival 2011 (Queer Mojo), along with entries from the other finalists – her novel The Girls Club (Bywater Books) just scored a rave review in Publisher’s Weekly.
LGBT writers and themes are well-represented in Art from Art, selected and edited by Stephen Soucy, an anthology of 38 stories inspired by art, each accompanied by a related image. It’s available from Modernist Press in color hardcover and B&W trade paper editions. Among the out contributors are Jameson Currier, Terri Griffith, Alex Maclennan, Michael Mendolia, Marshall Moore, Felice Picano, Kevin W. Reardon, and Richard C. Zimler.
Joanne Bodin’s Walking Fish is the Gay/Lesbian fiction winner at the 2011 IBA International Book Awards , the competition’s only LGBT category.
Attention law students: This year’s deadline is past, but you might want to make note of the Michael Greenberg Student Writing Competition for next year. It’s sponsored by the National LGBT Bar Foundation, which recognizes and encourages outstanding law student scholarship on legal issues affecting LGBTQ and intersex persons.
Sarah Aldridge’s All True Lovers, widely considered a classic of lesbian literature, has been reissued by A&M Books as an e-book through Kindle, Nook and other formats.
Jimmy Creech, former Methodist minister and author of Adam’s Gift: A Memoir of a Pastor’s Calling to Defy the Church’s Persecution of Lesbians and Gays (Duke University Press) was interviewed about homosexuality and the Bible, the future of gay marriage, and related issues on Gay.com.
Mark Thompson, editor of The Fire in Moonlight: Stories from the Radical Faeries(White Crane Books/Lethe Press), joined more than 60 Radical Faerie-identified men last month to celebrate their community at the Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse, which two local publications have dubbed “Atlanta’s best bookstore.”
Step Into My Shoes: Expressions from the LGBTQ Community, edited by Tonja Dudley Bagwell, a wide-ranging anthology of inspiration, thought and images related to LGBTQ issues, is available from Jafansta, Inc.
Lambda Award-winning poet Ellen Bass has issued an appeal for donations to assist activist/writer Pam Mitchell, who is in extended recovery from a second bout with cancer, and without sufficient funds to cover her bills. Pam’s work has appeared in Sojourner, Gay Community News, numerous other queer and feminist publications and several anthologies. To make inquiries or donations, contact Skye Alexander at skyeralexander@yahoo.com.
