Book Buzz #30: June 2011
Author: John Morgan Wilson
May 31, 2011
In case you missed it, here’s the link to the complete list of 2011 Lambda Literary Award winners in more than 50 categories, as well as Pioneer Awards to playwright Edward Albee and novelist Val McDermid. Congratulations, everyone!
Speaking of Lammy winners, previous recipients KG MacGregor and Elizabeth Sims will be featured speakers at the Seventh Annual Golden Crown Literary Conference in Orlando, Florida June 9-12. The Goldies honor distinguished lesbian literature in twelve categories. Tickets may be purchased online or at the door.
Out lesbian Kara Swisher, co-executive editor of the All Things Digital website, where she writes the BoomTown blog, was honored with the Local Hero award at the 22nd Annual GLAAD Media Awards last month. To see the full list of recipients, click here. You can also view a video of the San Francisco event here.
The 2011 Independent Publisher Awards have been announced, with LGBT honorees in at least three of the 69 IPPY categories: GLBT Fiction, Gay/Lesbian Nonfiction and Erotica. To see all the winners and runners-up, click here.
The Ides of March by Leo Cabranes-Grant has won the Pregones Theater national competition showcasing the work of Latin@ playwrights exploring issues of queer identity. Revolving around an older Puerto Rican man training his dead partner for a race, it will be performed at the Pregones in NYC June 9-11.
Jodi Picoult’s novel Sing You Home leads the Top 10 Summer Reading list in About.com’s Lesbian Life section, followed by Best Lesbian Romance 2011, edited by Radclyffe, and Black, Gifted and Gay, by Leyla Farah.
The Independent Book Publishers Association has announced its 2011 Benjamin Franklin Award winners and finalists in the Gay/Lesbian category: Reflections of a Loving Partner: Caregiving at the End of Life, (Quality of Life Publishing), by C. Andrew Martin; 50 Years of Queer Cinema: 500 of the Best GLBTQ Films Ever Made, (Blood Moon Productions), by Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince; and Desire by Starlight (Bold Strokes Books), by Radclyffe.
In the Audio Books category, Dog Ear Audio was a finalist for its production of A Pirate’s Heart (Bold Strokes Books), written and narrated by Catherine Friend.
Award-winning novelist and longtime activist Noel Alumit (Talking to the Moon, Letters to Montgomery Clift) has been appointed to the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs, a body that advises state officials and agencies on issues vital to APIA communities. Read more here.
Keshet, a national organization working for the full inclusion of LGBT Jews in Jewish life, has chosen author-playwright-performance artist Kate Bornstein, poet Lesléa Newman, and the late Harvey Milk as the initial honorees in its new Jewish LGBT visibility project. To read more about the “Hineini: Here I Am” project and see the first three posters in the series, click here.
ForeWord Reviews, devoted to indie publishing, has announced the finalists in the Gay/Lesbian Fiction and 55 other categories for its 2010 Book of the Year Awards, to be handed out later this month. Click here for the full list.
The National Gay & Lesbian Journalists Association (NGLJA) will hold its 2011 national convention August 25-28 in Philadelphia, when the latest winners of its Excellence in Journalism Awards and Hall of Fame inductees will be formally announced. Details here.
Aussie website gay-ebooks.com is celebrating its fifth year in operation, after recording its 100,000th pdf download last month from its gay and lesbian components. Individual publications have reportedly passed the 10,000 mark.
Peter Ian Cummings and Savas Abadsidias, former editors of XY and the Abercrombie & Fitch Quarterly, respectively, have announced the launch this month of B Magazine (http://www.bmag.us/ ), “the gay magazine of the future,” which will reportedly include articles and commentary among all the visuals.
The New Town Writers of Chicago have published A Gay and Gray Anthology, featuring poetry, prose and performance pieces by older members of the LGBT community. At this writing, this is the only available on lulu.com.
Saints & Sinners 2011: New Fiction from the Festival, edited by Amie M. Evans and Paul J. Willis, is out from Queer Mojo. Leading the stories, all from the twelve finalists in this year’s Saints & Sinners short fiction competition, is “Fishwives,” the winning entry by Sally Bellerose.
A&M Books plans to reissue a series of Sarah Aldridge novels in eBook format, including her classic, All True Lovers, first published by Naiad Press in 1978. Sarah, who died in 2006 at age 94, was a founding partner in Naiad, the pioneering publisher of lesbian and feminist literature.
The second annual UK Meet for authors, publishers and readers of GLBTQ fiction will take place in Milton Keynes on July 23. For details or to reserve a place, click here.
That’s all the Book Buzz for now. So, go read a book!
