Call for Poems for Anthology edited by Megan Volpert and published by Sibling Rivalry Press

Sibling Rivalry Press is seeking submissions for an anthology scheduled for publication in August 2013. This assignment is so gay: LGBTIQ Poets on the Art of Teaching, edited by Megan Volpert, will be the first-ever anthology to feature an international roster of LGBTIQ poets writing about and from the teacher's perspective. Whether elementary or collegiate, public or private, the school is an institutional battleground for representations of queer culture. This book will examine the joyous burden that is the experience of LGBTIQ teachers, an inherently valuable and until now relatively invisible piece of the educational puzzle.

Submit up to five previously unpublished poems.
Poems must engage some aspect of teaching, but need not be explicitly queer-themed.
Author must identify as LGBTIQ.
Submission period is open January 1 through June 1, 2012.
Authors can expect reply by July 1, 2012.

http://www.thisassignmentissogay.com/

Barbara Grier, A Life Of Lesbians and Books
1933-2011

I was at NWSA when I saw an email about Barbara Grier dying. I was in shock for most of the conference and now today it is just slowly sinking in that she has left us. I am deeply saddened.

There is an excellent piece by Victoria Brownworth over at Lambda Literary:
http://www.lambdaliterary.org/features/rem/11/11/in-remembrance-barbara-grier/

Victoria gives a good overview of Barbara's life and work. Here are some other tidbits:

Jeannette Howard Foster wrote and published Sex-Variant Women in Literature in 1956 which is really the first book that defines a canon of lesbian literature. Foster was a librarian and read three other languages so she included all of those in her review of literature with lesbian themes. (For a delightful biography of Foster, see Joann Passet's book Sex Variant Woman). Grier searched out Foster and the two became good friends. Grier advocated for the republication of Sex-Variant Women in Literature by Diana Press and when Diana Press ceased publishing it, Grier republished it at Naiad Press.

Grier kept all of her notes about books on note cards. There are about 30 linear feet of note cards on lesbian literature at the SFPL. It is mind-blowing to me how organized she was with cataloging lesbian literature.

Grier was also a regular reviewer of books with lesbian themes in them. Many of these reviews were published in The Ladder and she collected them in a book called Lesbiana published in the early 1970s.

Grier could sniff out a lesbian from a book anywhere. Grier wrote about Mary Oliver's first book in 1967 (I think) that it would be sensuous and interesting to lesbians. Oliver didn't formally come out until 2002.

Grier was a prodigious letter writer. She estimated that she wrote 300 letters a week. At a typewriter or by hand. Astonishing.

Grier worked in a variety of jobs - generally so that she could have access to a free long distance telephone line. (Some remember that in the old days, we paid by the minute for long distance phone calls; barbaric, I know). The job that she was especially good at was bill collection. She could whip through her calls, collect the money (she apparently had extraordinarily high collection rates - this is by her account and she does have a bit of braggadocio, so take that for what it is worth), and then make her calls to organize lesbians.

She was a voracious reader and her literary tastes ran the gamut. I don't think it is an understatement to say that Gertrude Stein has popularity among lesbians in part because of Barbara Grier. She published a stand alone edition of Tender Buttons which before that was by and large unavailable to common readers. She also brought out an edition of Renee Vivien's work which sparked the scholarship on lesbians in France between the wars. Literary poetry though in Grier's mind and life was on the same shelf as mystery and romance. In the end, I think Grier's tastes were both profoundly ecumenical and strategically profitable.

She was savagely attacked for selling a serialization of Lesbian Nuns to Penthouse Forum in 1985. Yet, she insisted that she wanted to reach lesbian readers wherever they were, including readers of Penthouse and in fact there are a number of letters to her condemning her for including the serialization in Penthouse from women who said they saw it there because they were subscribers and find it erotically satisfying (my words at the end there, not theirs!)

She was an extraordinarily savvy business woman. She sold books profitably. She recognized by the mid-1980s that lesbians were going to buy movies on VHS and sold those profitably.

In addition to being a savvy business woman, she was extraordinarily principled. Many disagreed with her principles, but they really shine through in all of her work. Lesbians first. Real images of lesbians. Real images of lesbian sexuality. Debate and engagement as a part of community.

I am extraordinarily sad about her death. She was a literary giant. No one quite fills her shoes in the lesbian community right now and I hope that we won't look back and write that Grier was the end of an era because there still is more work to do. I hope that wherever Barbara Grier is tonight she is finding it a place filled with good lesbian books and plenty of time to read them.

Lambda Literary Foundation Announces
New Guidelines for Lambda Literary Awards Submissions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 29, 2011
CONTACT: Dr. Judith Markowitz, LLF Co-Chair
(773) 769-9243, jmarkowitz@pobox.com


For its first 20 years, the Lambda Literary Foundation accepted submissions for the Lambda Literary Awards based solely on a book's LGBT subject matter. That policy changed in 2009 to restrict the awards to self-identified lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer authors. After two years of implementing the LGBT-only policy, the queer book community remains sharply divided about limiting Lammy nominations to LGBT authors only.

In its review of the LGBT-only policy, the LLF Board of Trustees took into consideration LLF's mission statement

The Lambda Literary Foundation nurtures, celebrates, and preserves LGBT literature through programs that honor excellence, promote visibility and encourage development of emerging writers.

and core provisions in its Bylaws. The Board also noted that the large majority of finalists and winners of the Lambda Literary Awards have been LGBT authors, but not all of them. There have also been a small number of outstanding books about LGBT lives written by our heterosexual allies.

In addition, the LLF Board solicited opinions from individuals in the LGBT book community, including publishers, authors, important donors, readers, and casual supporters. Those opinions represented both sides of the issue and were, in many cases, intensely held.

After careful consideration of all these factors, the Board crafted a new policy designed to honor excellence in writing about LGBT lives. The new policy has three components:

LGBT authors will be recognized with three awards marking stages of a writer's career: the Betty Berzon Debut Fiction Award (to one gay man and one lesbian), the Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize (to one male-identified and one female-identified author), and the Pioneer Award (to one male-identified and one female-identified individual or group)
Awards for the remaining Lambda Literary Award categories will be based on literary merit and significant content relevant to LGBT lives. These awards will be open to all authors regardless of their sexual identity
All book award judges will be self-identified LGBT
"We fully understand the importance of this issue and the extent to which it has divided our community," said LLF Board Co-Chair, Dr. Judith Markowitz. "Resolving these strongly-held differences was not easy. We worked carefully keeping in mind the best interests of LGBT people, writing, and writers."

She continued, "The policy we've crafted recognizes that those opposing viewpoints are actually contained in LLF's mission. We hope that the result of our deliberations promotes healing and strengthens LGBT writers and literature."

The revised guidelines appear on the LLF website. They are effective immediately in preparation for the 24th Annual Lambda Literary Awards to be held in New York City in early June 2012.

##

The Lambda Literary Foundation nurtures, celebrates, and preserves LGBT literature through programs that honor excellence, promote visibility and encourage development of emerging writers. LLF's programs include: the Lambda Literary Awards, the Writers' Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices, and our comprehensive website, www.LambdaLiterary.org. For more information call (213) 568-3570.

Milk and Honey Schedule of Reading Events

Milk and Honey -- A Celebration of Jewish Lesbian Poetry! West Coast Book Launch! Join contributors Joan Annsfire, Ellen Bass, and Elana Dykewomon in moving us toward a new year and new inspirations
Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 6:30 p.m.
James C. Hormel Center at the San Francisco Public Library
Co-Sponsored by Keshet and the East Bay JCC
100 Larkin Street
San Francisco, CA

Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 10:30 p.m. EST
Radio Interview with Lara Zelinsky on BlogTalkRadio
For more information and to tune in, go to: http://blogtalkradio.com/lara-zielinsky

Monday, October 10th, 7:00 p.m.
Reading at Bluestockings
172 Allen
New York, NY
Featuring Joanna Hoffman and Eleanor Levine
All other contributors are invited to join us and read at this event!

Tuesday, October 11th, 6:30 p.m.
Reading at The City College of New York, sponsored by The Simon H. Rifkind Center
160 Convent Avenue
New York, NY 10031
Featuring Sandra Tarlin, Hilary Lustick, Rose Fox, and Sima Rabinowitz

Saturday, 12 November 2011 Time TBD
Reading at Charis Books & More in Atlanta, GA
Megan Volpert has graciously coordinated this event which will be held in Atlanta during the National Women's Studies Association Conference. I will be attending and reading with Megan, Lisa Dordal, and Batya Weinbaum. All other contributors are invited to join us for this event.

Sunday, 13 November 2011 Time TBD
Reading at Location TBD in Atlanta, GA

Sunday, 18 December 2011 at 5 p.m.
Sunday Kinds of Love Reading Series
Busboys & Poets
14th & V. Street
Washington, DC
Eryca Kasse and I are the featured readers for half the program; Ahron Taub is the other featured reader.

Reading/Celebration of Milk and Honey at Split This Rock! - March 22-25, 2012
Eryca Kasse secured a reading and celebration for Milk and Honey in conjunction with the 2012 Split This Rock conference, March 22-25. We don't have the time and location yet, but when we do, I'll let you know. Meanwhile, feel free to make plans to join us.
More information about Split This Rock here: http://www.splitthisrock.org/festival2012/festival2012.html

Photos from Milk and Honey: A Celebration of Jewish Lesbian Poetry
Reading at The Center in Washington, DC on Saturday 6 August 2011



Margarita Miniovich from Toronto, Ontario, Eryca Kasse from Washington, DC, and Batya Weinbaum from Cleveland, OH






From left to right: Margarita Miniovich, Julie R. Enszer, David Mariner, Eryca Kasse, Jessica Simon, and Batya Weinbaum.

Bikram Yoga and Dissertation Writing

The Bikram Yoga challenge kicked off the next nine months of me focusing on writing and completing my dissertation. While I did the challenge first and foremost for health and exercise reasons, I learned a lot about writing while on the yoga mat and thought that I would share some of these reflections here.
First, Bikram is a highly regimented form of yoga. Thirty-six postures each done two times over the ninety minute class. The same thirty-six postures every class, in the same order. Once I learned the poses, I found the format and repetition comforting. In addition, the instructors deliver what is called a dialogue, telling you exactly what to do every step of the way. You job as a student of Bikram is to shop up and tune into the dialogue. I think that this process parallels writing. My job as a writer is to show up, tune in to what needs to be written, breathe, and stay in the room.
Even though Bikram is a repetitious practice, new things happen on the mat every day. Some days, poses are easier, some days poses that were easy are difficult. I'll never forget the day I had trouble with the opening breathing practice. This is easy, breathe in through the nose, exhale through the mouth. Six counts. In and out. One day, I just couldn't do it. Couldn't get with the pattern, couldn't take long breaths. This happens while writing. Stay with it. The next posture is coming up and this one will end shortly.
Progress is both incremental and happens in leaps and bounds. Some days, I feel as weak and out of shape as I did before Bikram. Other days, I slide into a strong camel pose and thing wow! I am really getting good at this. Some days, while it is still hard to hold the awkward pose, it feels a smidge easier than yesterday. I still can't get out of the one bent legged tree pose. I fall every day. I hope someday to have the strength to come out of it gracefully. Writing is the same way. Some days, things flow and come together. Other days, it's a lot about moving commas around, fixing footnotes, or rereading a passage for the umpteenth time. What is important is that I'm there, putting in the time, on the mat, in front of the computer.
Complaining about things doesn't help. Yes, the room is hot, yes, sometimes teachers keep you in a pose too long or too short. Sometimes there are other things I'd rather be doing. Water doesn't help. Moving the mat or adjusting the towel doesn't help. Being present, tuning into the breath, being still, those things help. Just like at the computer. Checking email? Not helpful. Looking at Facebook? Not helpful. Getting another diet coke? Not helpful. Being present, being still, tuning into the words and the argument, those things help.
In yoga, no one is perfect. We all have good days and bad days. Just like in writing. What is important is the intention. Breathe deeper. Hold the standing bow pose longer. Balance. Stretch. Breathe. Write the next sentence, make the next connection, sharpen the argument a wee bit.
Writing is a practice. Writing big projects is a long practice. Tune in. Spend time on the mat.

30-Day Bikram Yoga Challenge

In late June I completed a thirty day Bikram yoga challenge. It was exhilarating. Now before you think I am a crazy exercise person, let me be plain: I'm not. In fact when I started the challenge in late May, my first class of the thirty day challenge was only my third class of Bikram yoga. My previous two classes had been eleven months earlier and twenty-five months earlier. So, I jumped in the deep end with no preparation. The first ten days, I thought I would die in the heat and humidity of the class, or at least when I realized I wasn't going to die, I wanted to die. Yet, I persisted, in large part because I had schedule the classes into my calendar and I am loathe to not fulfill my commitments. Around day eleven, I started enjoying the classes, though my hips and back protested that it wasn't pleasurable. Around day sixteen, I started having orgasms every time I slept. Daytime naps, long nights of sleep. It was fantastic. Unfortunately, it has waned since I have scaled back my practice. So having completed the Bikram yoga 30-day challenge, I have some advice for folks considering it. In short, do it. I loved it and recommend it. I was able to do it because I had the time to devote to the classes. Each class is 90 minutes. Yup, 90 minutes in a 105 degree room at about 40% humidity. The reality is though it takes up about three hours a day by the time you get to the studio and get home ands showered. Sometimes, an extra hour to recuperate, especially at the beginning. For the first ten days, I was exhausted. I can't imagine doing it full time with a stressful job. There are a few other things you'll need besides time and energy to do the challenge:
Washer and dryer. I know people probably do it without home laundry, but it is a lot of laundry with the daily costume and towel. I can't imagine schlepping it all to the laundromat every few days. I did laundry every other day during the challenge.
Good deodorant soap. During the challenge, I used a lot of soap, strong, dry your skin soap. My skin was so soft and moisturizer from all of the sweating that a good deodorant soap in the shower was a blessing.
Water, water, water. Coconut water, vitamin water, tap water. I drank about 96 ounces every day of the challenge.
I feel healthier, happier, stronger, more focused and calmer since my challenge. Now I am trying to do Bikram three times a week and balance it with running and an occasional trip to the gym. Oh, and doing some writing, too!

S as in Sam, Z as in Zebra

Dear Friends,

It's been a while since I've sent an update about my activities. Right now I am wrapping up a thirty-day Bikram Yoga challenge. For those of you who know me well, you know I am no fan of heat and humidity, but the thirty-day Bikram Yoga challenge has been great; I recommend it!

Part of why I've been able to take the time to do this thirty-day Bikram challenge is that I have a fellowship to write my dissertation next year. The University of Maryland's College of Arts and Humanities awarded me a year-long Snouffer fellowship, so I'll be blissfully writing away all day, everyday next year and hopefully graduating in the spring. The yoga practice is kicking off my year of focus and discipline for writing and thinking about lesbian print culture.

New Book: Milk and Honey: A Celebration of Jewish Lesbian Poetry

I had the great pleasure of working with Lawrence Schimel, the publisher of A Midsummer Night's Press, on the anthology Milk and Honey. With contributions from a range of Jewish lesbian poets, Milk and Honey is a beautiful and, I hope, meaningful book. In his pre-publication review, Amos Lassen wrote about Milk and Honey, "The poems are sensual, political, religious and what have you as each poet probes her inner self and allows us to have a peek at who she is. Some of the poetry is sensitive and tender while others are strong and angry so it is safe to say there is something for everyone (even for me as a gay Jewish male)."

Milk and Honey will officially publish in September 2011, but I have a few advance copies available for sale for $14.95, and you can order them directly from the publisher's website here:
http://amidsummernightspress.typepad.com/amsnp/2011/05/milk-and-honey-a-celebration-of-jewish-lesbian-poetry.html
When ordering, let me know if you would like a signed copy.

And if for some reason, you don't have my first collection of poems, Handmade Love, feel free to order the two books together!

New Poems in Beltway

The incomparable Kim Roberts invited poems from me for the spring issue of Beltway. There are two new poems, "A New Refrigerator" and "My Name is Ethyl," in the issue and two poems from my previous collections. You can read my poems in Beltway here:
http://washingtonart.com/beltway/enszer.html
and be sure to browse the full issue and sign up for the Beltway newsletter. Kim publishes great stuff in Beltway.

Review of Sisterhood

I was thrilled to have my chapbook, Sisterhood, reviewed on Lambda Literary. V. Jo Hsu reviewed three recent chapbooks including Sisterhood in a thoughtful and careful review. She says Sisterhood "riffs expertly on a single, heartfelt note" and "captures the strange and protean forms of memory and mourning." Is there any greater pleasure than having one's work read closely and attentively?
You can read the review here:
http://www.lambdaliterary.org/reviews/05/12/christina-hutchins-julie-enszer-and-stacey-waite/

If you don't have a copy of Sisterhood, there are still a (very) few left from Ron Mohring's Seven Kitchens Press. Click here to order it:
http://sevenkitchenspress.wordpress.com/our-authors/julie-r-enszer/

I have one one hand that I can inscribe for you if you wish; email me if you'd like to purchase it.

Sinister Wisdom

You may know that I am now the co-editor of Sinister Wisdom with my dear friend and comrade, Merry Gangemi. We just published our second issue of Sinister Wisdom and are working on sending the third one to print now. In case you don't know, Sinister Wisdom is one of the oldest lesbian-feminist journals still publishing in the U.S. Begun in 1976 by Harriet Desmoines and Catherine Nicholson, there have been a variety of editors of the magazine over the last thirty-five years; Sinister Wisdom has published a wide range of lesbian writers. Merry and I are proud to be stewarding this important lesbian literary tradition.

Please support us! If you are a lesbian writer, submit work to the journal. Encourage your local bookseller to carry Sinister Wisdom. Most importantly, subscribe to Sinister Wisdom. You can subscribe online with paypal using the links here:
http://www.sinisterwisdom.org/subscribe.html
Or send in an old fashioned check to the Berkeley address on that same web page. Merry and I both appreciate the community support for Sinister Wisdom and our work as editors

**

That's my early summer wrap up. More will be coming in the fall. I am planning a series of readings for Milk and Honey and working on other projects. Drop me a line and let me know how you are. Thanks for all of your support for my work! I look forward to seeing you soon.

All best,

Julie

P.S. If you would like to be added to my email list, drop me a line to Julie R Enszer (no spaces) at gmail dot com and let me know! Happy Summer!

Happy Birthday Djuna Barnes!

(From The Writer's Almanac)

It's the birthday of writer Djuna Barnes (books by this author), born near Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York (1892). For many years she lived in the Bohemian world of Greenwich Village and then as an expatriate in Paris, drinking and smoking and having love affairs with men and women alike. She interviewed celebrities, from Florenz Ziegfield to Coco Chanel, and she was friends with James Joyce, Emily Coleman, and Gertrude Stein.

She had a long affair with the sculptor Thelma Wood, who was constantly unfaithful. Barnes' most famous novel, Nightwood (1936), was a modernist novel about the destructive relationship of lovers named Robin and Nora, and she based Robin heavily on Thelma. Nightwood didn't sell well—her first royalty check was for £43. But it got rave reviews from other writers. T.S. Eliot convinced Faber and Faber to publish it, and he said, "It is so good a novel that only sensibilities trained on poetry can wholly appreciate it." Dylan Thomas called it "one of the three great prose books ever written by a woman." William S. Burroughs wrote: "I read Nightwood back in the 1930s and was very taken with it. I consider it one of the great books of the twentieth century. At that time I even tried a few writing experiments, consciously imitating her style. It is an entirely unique style: one sentence, and you know it is Djuna."

Whatever its critical reception, Nightwood didn't make money, and Barnes lived off the support of Peggy Guggenheim, the patron of many writers and artists. She went through a bottle of whiskey a day. As early as 1930 she wrote: "I've gotten cranky and old-maid like — I don't even like to have an animal looking at me, and when I lay a thing down I want to find it exactly where I put it — it's as bad as that!"

So she moved back to New York City and into an apartment in Greenwich Village, 5 Patchin Place , where she lived as a recluse for the last 42 years of her life. In 1971, she agreed to be interviewed by The New York Times. She said, "Years ago I used to see people, I had to, I was a newspaperwoman, among other things. And I used to be rather the life of the party. I was rather gay and silly and bright and all that sort of stuff and wasted a lot of time. I used to be invited by people who said 'Get Djuna for dinner, she's amusing.' So I stopped it." Writers came to pay homage to her, including Bertha Harris and Carson McCullers, but she sent them away. Her neighbor E.E. Cummings used to check on her by yelling out his window. She rarely left her house, and she spent her last 30 years working on a long poem that was found in her apartment when she died in 1982. In 1973, she told her editor Douglas Messerli: "It's terrible to outlive your own generation."

May Swenson: The Writer's Almanac

Question
by May Swenson

Body my house
my horse my hound
what will I do
when you are fallen

Where will I sleep
How will I ride
What will I hunt

Where can I go
without my mount
all eager and quick
How will I know
in thicket ahead
is danger or treasure
when Body my good
bright dog is dead

How ill it be
to lie in the sky
without roof or door
and wind for an eye

With cloud for shift
how will I hide?

"Question" by May Swenson, from Nature: Poems Old and New. © Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994.

May Sarton Poem: The Writer's Almanac

May Sarton is a favorite poet of mine for a series of long and complex reasons which I am not going to innumerate here. Still read this poem from The Writer's Almanac.

Now I Become Myself

by May Sarton

Now I become myself. It's taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
"Hurry, you will be dead before--"
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!

"Now I Become Myself" by May Sarton, from Collected Poems 1930-1993. © W.W. Norton, 1993.

23rd Annual Lambda Literary Awards Announced in New York

Three-time Pulitzer Prize Winning Playwright Edward Albee &
Award-Winning Crime Writer Val McDermid Honored at
23rd Annual Lambda Literary Awards

New York, NY -- Three-time Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Edward Albee and Gold Dagger Award-winning crime fiction writer Val McDermid were honored last night at the 23rd Annual Lambda Literary Awards, in a ceremony at the School of Visual Arts Theater in New York City. Taking place the same week of Book Expo America-the book publishing industry's biggest annual gathering of booksellers, publishers, and others in the industry-the Lambda ceremony brought together over 400 attendees, sponsors, and celebrities to celebrate excellence in LGBT literature.

The ceremony was hosted by comedienne Lea DeLaria who kept the evening light and hilarious with her brand of bawdy humor saying, "I don't know what the [expletive] I'm doing here. You're all smarter than me." Also in attendance were presenters such as Jim McGreevey, Stefanie Powers, and award-winning author, Emma Donoghue.

Awards were presented in twenty-four categories. Among the winners were Eileen Myles's Inferno (A Poet's Novel) which took the top honor in Lesbian Fiction and Adam Haslett's Union Atlantic in Gay Fiction. There were two ties as well, an unusual occurrence for the Awards, in the Lesbian Memoir category as well as in LGBT Studies.

Tony Award-winning playwright Terrence McNally presented the Foundation's Pioneer Award to Edward Albee, saying of the legendary playwright, "He has avoided gay subject matter throughout his career that people wonder if he's gay. Well, I'm here to tell you he is ... I picked him up at a party in 1960." In accepting his honor, Albee remarked "I'm not a gay writer. I'm a writer who happens to be gay."

The other Pioneer Award was given to acclaimed Scottish crime writer Val McDermid who joked that there were no lesbians in the small town she grew up in believing they were "mythical, like mermaids." McDermid went on to thank the writers who came before, such as her award presenter Katherine V. Forrest, saying, "I understand the importance of doors being opened. Other people opened doors for me."

LLF Executive Director, Tony Valenzuela, in his remarks from the stage appealed to the audience to support the literary arts. He said, "If civil rights are another way of saying quality of life, of what makes life meaningful and gives us joy, then writers, publishers, literature, arts, are a key component of civil rights and we have to say that over and over again."

Alex Sánchez, Mexican-American author of award-winning novels for teens and adults, and Susan Stinson, winner of the Benjamin Franklin Award in Fiction, received the Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prizes, and the University of Wisconsin Press received a special Publisher's Service Award.

The Lambda Awards ceremony's glamour quotient reached new highs this year with a stellar roster of presenters from a diverse cross section from the worlds of film, television, theatre, politics, religion, sex, and of course literature. Besides McGreevey and Powers, gracing the stage to bestow awards were transgender photographer Amos Mac, feminist porn actress and director Tristan Taormino, former speech writer for Billy Graham Mel White, Mr. Gay USA Eddie Rabon, and beauty queen Claire Buffie, Miss New York.

Immediately following the awards ceremony, a VIP after-party took place at Chelsea's Cheim & Read, the legendary art gallery that has exhibited Robert Mapplethorpe, Don Barchardy, and Diane Arbus. The performance troop Unitard (Mike Alboof the Underminer, Nora Burns, of the Nellie Olesons, and David Ilku, of the Dueling Bankheads) provided their twisted and sardonic brand of entertainment.

Ceremony Sponsors:
Sponsors of the event include: RÖKK Vodka, Harper Perennial (all at Benefactor level); Kensington Publishing (Patron level); Northwest Press, Barefoot Wine (Mentor level); Cleis Press, Blind Eye Books, Arsenal Pulp Press, Seal Press, Bywater Books, The American Institute of Bisexuality, Rainbow Book Fair (all at Friend level); and FLUX Books (Gift Bag level).

23rd Annual Lambda Literary Award Winners
Lesbian Fiction

Inferno (A Poet's Novel), by Eileen Myles, OR Books

Gay Fiction

Union Atlantic, by Adam Haslett, Doubleday

Lesbian Debut Fiction

Sub Rosa, by Amber Dawn, Arsenal Pulp Press

Gay Debut Fiction

Bob the Book, by David Pratt, Chelsea Station Editions

Lesbian Memoir/Biography (TIE)

Hammer! Making Movies Out of Sex and Life, by Barbara Hammer, The Feminist Press
Wishbone: A Memoir in Fractures, by Julie Marie Wade, Colgate University Press

Gay Memoir/Biography

Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist and Sexual Renegade, by Justin Spring, Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Lesbian Mystery

Fever of the Bone, by Val McDermid, HarperCollins

Gay Mystery

Echoes, by David Lennon, Blue Spike Publishing

LGBT Anthology

Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, edited by Kate Bornstein & S. Bear Bergman, Seal Press

LGBT Children's/Young Adult

Wildthorn, by Jane Eagland, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

LGBT Drama

Oedipus at Palm Springs, by The Five Lesbian Brothers: Maureen Angelos, Dominique Dibbell, Peg Healey, and Lisa Kron, Samuel French, Inc.

LGBT Nonfiction

King Kong Theory, by Virginia Despentes, The Feminist Press

LGBT SF/Fantasy/Horror

Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories, by Sandra McDonald, Lethe Press

LGBT Studies (TIE)

Another Country: Queer Anti-Urbanism, by Scott Herring, New York University Press
Assuming a Body: Transgender and Rhetorics of Materiality, by Gayle Salaman, Columbia University Press

Bisexual Fiction

The Lunatic, the Lover and the Poet, by Myrlin Hermes, Harper Perennial

Bisexual Nonfiction

Border Sexualities, Border Families in Schools, by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli,Rowman & Littlefield

Transgender Fiction

Holding Still For as Long as Possible, by Zoe Whittall, House of Anansi Press

Transgender Nonfiction

Balancing on the Mechitza: Transgender in Jewish Community, edited by Noach Dzmura, North Atlantic Books

Lesbian Erotica

Sometimes She Lets Me: Best Butch/Femme Erotica, edited by Tristan Taormino, Cleis Press

Gay Erotica

Teleny and Camille, by Jon Macy, Northwest Press

Lesbian Poetry

The Nights Also, by Anna Swanson, Tightrope Books

Gay Poetry

Pleasure, by Brian Teare, Ahsahta Press

Lesbian Romance

River Walker, by Cate Culpepper, Bold Strokes Books

Gay Romance

Normal Miguel, by Erik Orrantia, Cheyenne Press


PHOTOS OF THE 23RD ANNUAL LAMBDA LITERARY AWARDS
found in link below: Photo credit: Donna Aceto

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lambdaliterary/

Start you summer reading by buying the Lammy winner!

http://www.lambdaliterary.org/2011-lambda-literary-award-winners/


23rd Annual Lambda Literary Awards Committee Members
Honorary Host Committee
Ann Bannon
Don Bachardy
Bill Clegg
Kate Clinton
Mart Crowley
Michael Cunningham
Stacey D'Erasmo
Jim McGreevey
David Mixner
Ann Patchett
Stefanie Powers
Andrew Tobias
Edmund White

New York Host Committee
David McConnell - Co-Chair
Don Weise - Co-Chair
S. Chris Shirley - Co-Chair
Jamie Brickhouse
J. Brooks
Benoit Denizet-Lewis
Dick Donahue
Jessica Falvo
David Gale
Charles Rice-Gonzalez
Nicholas Nicholson
Heather Aimee O'Neill
Julia Pastore
Lori Perkins
Patrick Ryan
Rakesh Satyal
Liz Scheier
Bob Smith
Jerl Surratt
Linda Villarosa
Paul Whitlatch

About the Lambda Literary Foundation: The Foundation nurtures, celebrates, and preserves LGBT literature through programs that honor excellence, promote visibility and encourage development of emerging writers. LLF's programs include the Lambda Literary Awards, the Writers' Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices, and our web magazine at www.lambdaliterary.org.

I Knew a Woman
by Theodore Roethke

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I'd have them sing in a chorus, cheek to cheek).

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing we did make).

Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant notes to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved).

Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I'm martyr to a motion not my own;
What's freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways).

"I Knew a Woman" by Theodore Roethke, from The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke. © Anchor, 1974. From today's The Writer's Almanac.

Review of Sisterhood!

Lambda Literary published a review by V. Jo Hsu of three chapbooks, including my chapbook, Sisterhood. I am so pleased! It is especially great because I am in the wonderful company of Christina Hutchins and Stacey Waite, two poets I admire greatly. You can read the review over at Lambda Literary here. And if you don't have a copy of Sisterhood, I think that the incredible publisher Ron Mohring of Seven Kitchens Press has a few left. You can visit Ron's publishing empire here.

MILK AND HONEY: A CELBRATION OF JEWISH LESBIAN POETRY
Official Release: September 2011
Advance copies on sale now at A Midsummer Night's Press



In this land of Milk & Honey, poems flow. Contemporary Jewish, lesbian poets address an array of experiences – relationships between and among women, family relationships, politics, solitude, ethical responsibilities, history, solidarity, and community.

Milk & Honey features beloved poets like Ellen Bass, Robin Becker, Elana Dykewomon, Marilyn Hacker, Sharron Hass, Eleanor Lerman, Joan Nestle, Lesléa Newman and Ellen Orleans, as well as new and emerging voices.

With language and imagery that moves from the sensual and political to the tender and serene, Milk & Honey explores the vibrant, complicated, exhilarating experience of being Jewish and lesbian—or queer—in the world today.

Julie R. Enszer’s first book of poems is Handmade Love (A Midsummer Night’s Press). She has published also published the chapbook Sisterhood (Seven Kitchens Press). She has an MFA from the University of Maryland and is enrolled currently in the PhD program in Women’s Studies at the University of Maryland.


MILK AND HONEY: A CELEBRATION OF JEWISH LESBIAN POETRY
edited by Julie R. Enszer

Body Language 07

ISBN-13: 978-0-9794208-8-7
ISBN-10: 0-9794208-8-1

Poetry/Lesbian Studies/Jewish Studies
86 pages/perfect bound
Pub Date: 1 September 2011
US: $14.95
Europe: €11

FREE SHIPPING ON U.S. ORDERS!

A POEM BY DONALD HALL
From Today's The Writer's Almanac

Conversation‚s Afterplay
by Donald Hall

At dinner our first night
I looked at you, your bright green eyes,
In candlelight.
We laughed and told the hundred stories,
Kissed, and caressed, and went to bed.
"Shh, shh," you said,
"I want to put my legs around your head."
Green eyes, green eyes.

At dawn we sat with coffee
And smoked another cigarette
As quietly
Companionship and eros met
In conversation's afterplay,
On our first day.
Late for the work you love, you drove away.
Green eyes, green eyes.

"Conversation's Afterplay" by Donald Hall, from The Painted Bed. © Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. Reprinted with permission.

I just adore Donald Hall.

Publishing Triangle Announces Award Winners at Annual Ceremony

Gender Outlaws Anthology Receives Special Award We're proud to present the winners for the best LGBT books of 2010. The winners were announced last night at the 23rd annual Triangle Awards, April 28, 2011, at the New School in New York. Also listed below are the finalists for each category.    The Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction WINNER! Barbara Hammer, Hammer! (Feminist Press) Finalists Terry Castle, The Professor and Other Writings (HarperCollins) Emma Donoghue, Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature (Alfred A. Knopf) The Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction WINNER! Justin Spring, Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward (Farrar Straus Giroux) Finalists R. Tripp Evans, Grant Wood (Alfred A. Knopf) Wendy Moffat, A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster (Farrar Straus Giroux) The judges for these nonfiction awards have also voted to bestow a Judges' Special Award in Nonfiction to Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, edited by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman (Seal Press). Carol Rosenfeld, chair of the Publishing Triangle said, "The Triangle is recognizing this anthology, which celebrates gender nonconforming people in all their beauty, humanity, and complexity, with a special prize. The contributors to this book confront gender issues with such vibrant, mind-expanding style that readers are urged to question the status quo of seeing gender in binary ways."   The Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry   WINNER! Jen Currin, The Inquisition Yours (Coach House Books)  Finalists Elizabeth J. Colen, Money for Sunsets (Steel Toe Books) Eleanor Lerman, The Sensual World Re-emerges (Sarabande Books) The Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry WINNER! Michael Walsh, The Dirt Riddles (University of Arkansas Press) Finalists Paul Legault, The Madeleine Poems (Omnidawn) Eric Leigh, Harm's Way (University of Arkansas Press) The Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction WINNER! Katharine Beutner, Alcestis (Soho Press) Finalists Michael Alenyikov, Ivan and Misha (Triquarterly/Northwestern University Press) Catherine Kirkwood, Cut Away (Arktoi Books) The Ferro-Grumley Awards for LGBT Fiction (presented in conjunction with Ferro-Grumley Literary Awards) WINNER! Michael Sledge, The More I Owe You (Counterpoint Press) Finalists  Daniel Black, Perfect Peace (St. Martin's Press) Lucy Jane Bledsoe, Big Bang Symphony (University of Wisconsin Press) Daniel Allen Cox, Krakow Melt (Arsenal Pulp Press) David McConnell, The Silver Hearted (Alyson) Eileen Myles, Inferno (OR Books) Publishing Triangle Honors Alan Hollinghurst and Gay and Lesbian Review    Alan Hollinghurst was honored with the Bill Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2011 Publishing Triangle Awards last night at the Tishman Auditorium of the New School at 66 West 12th Street in New York.  Also honored last night the Gay and Lesbian Review, which is receiving the Publishing Triangle's Leadership Award. This award is given annually to someone who is not a writer or to an organization, in recognition of his, her, or its contributions to LGBT literature.   For more information about these awards, visit our homepage.

Carol Ann Duffy's Poem, RINGS

I'll be waking up at 5 am tomorrow morning to watch the royal wedding. In part it is to honor my eleven year old self who woke at 5 am in 1981 to watch Charles and Diana get married. There seems an important symmetry in the events thirty years apart. At eleven, I assembled a scrapbook of the wedding, knowing at some level even then that scrapbook would be my only wedding book. The early rising will be voluntary, unlike when Diana died and I was woken equally early by our housemate screeching, oh, no! She died! Some may remember it was a tragic summer, Gianni Versace, then Diana. It seemed like a summer of tragedy in our young queer lives. So I'll watch in honor of my younger self, and my friend Johnie who woke me screaming now over a decade ago.

I'm enjoying the discussions about Carol Ann Duffy's decision to write a poem for the occasion. The occasion poem is a difficult matter, and I think Duffy rose to the occasion. The poem, along with many others is at The Guardian and I've reproduced it below.

What do you think? A good poem? An appropriate response to the many political and ethical considerations of the occasion? Let me know. Meanwhile, I am looking forward to rising before the sun tomorrow.


Carol Ann Duffy
Rings

for both to say

I might have raised your hand to the sky
to give you the ring surrounding the moon
or looked to twin the rings of your eyes
with mine
or added a ring to the rings of a tree
by forming a handheld circle with you, thee,
or walked with you
where a ring of church-bells,
looped the fields,
or kissed a lipstick ring on your cheek,
a pressed flower,
or met with you
in the ring of an hour,
and another hour . . .
I might
have opened your palm to the weather, turned, turned,
till your fingers were ringed in rain
or held you close,
they were playing our song,
in the ring of a slow dance
or carved our names
in the rough ring of a heart
or heard the ring of an owl's hoot
as we headed home in the dark
or the ring, first thing,
of chorussing birds
waking the house
or given the ring of a boat, rowing the lake,
or the ring of swans, monogamous, two,
or the watery rings made by the fish
as they leaped and splashed
or the ring of the sun's reflection there . . .
I might have tied
a blade of grass,
a green ring for your finger,
or told you the ring of a sonnet by heart
or brought you a lichen ring,
found on a warm wall,
or given a ring of ice in winter
or in the snow
sung with you the five gold rings of a carol
or stolen a ring of your hair
or whispered the word in your ear
that brought us here,
where nothing and no one is wrong,
and therefore I give you this ring.

TRUE LOVE by SHARON OLDS

This is a crazy week. Many deadlines, much to do. Amid my stress and madness though, this beautiful poem arrived from Knopf this morning as a part of their poem a day series for National Poetry Month. I love the work of Sharon Olds and found this poem to be just a perfect moment in my day. You can see the original post here. And if you love it, buy Wellspring by Sharon Olds here.

True Love

In the middle of the night, when we get up
after making love, we look at each other in
complete friendship, we know so fully
what the other has been doing. Bound to each other
like mountaineers coming down from a mountain,
bound with the tie of the delivery-room,
we wander down the hall to the bathroom, I can
hardly walk, I hobble through the granular
shadowless air, I know where you are
with my eyes closed, we are bound to each other
with huge invisible threads, our sexes
muted, exhausted, crushed, the whole
body a sex—surely this
is the most blessed time of my life,
our children asleep in their beds, each fate
like a vein of abiding mineral
not discovered yet. I sit
on the toilet in the night, you are somewhere in the room,
I open the window and snow has fallen in a
steep drift, against the pane, I
look up, into it,
a wall of cold crystals, silent
and glistening, I quietly call to you
and you come and hold my hand and I say
I cannot see beyond it. I cannot see beyond it.

ONE OTHER PUBLISHING RANT

First, a note to gentle readers: I have realized that I can blog quite easily using my iPad. Hence a few more posts recently, written in the late evenings. I've had the iPad for just over a year now (yes, I bought it the first day they were sold), and find it immensely useful as a reader for PDF documents as well as for doing email and teaching presentations. Over the past few months, though, I have been using it more for writing. Yes, writing. I find Pages to be very functional. So lately I've been taking notes on the iPad, typing assignments, writing poems, and now even blogging.

Tonight's brief rant about publishing is connected to the note. Earlier this week, Jesse Jackson, Jr. said that iPads were resulting in a loss of jobs in the United States. I don't even know where to begin with analyzing the lunacy of this statement. Now don't get me wrong. I'm an admirer of Jackson. His fathers Presidential campaign is one of the first political campaigns I worked on. (At my tender age then, many of my more senior political colleagues told me that a black man would never be President of the United States. Much has changed since then. Including how we read and write.) so it pains me to say this, but Jackson couldn't be more incorrect. There are many reasons that publishing is suffering as an industry, certainly the growth of ereaders is a part of the economic problems plaguing the publishing industry, but they are only a part, and in the final analysis will probably only be a small part. Moreover, loss of jobs in the United States is also a multifactorial phenomenon. Sorry, Representative Jackson, blaming iPads for our current economic woes, while it may have garnered you a brief headline, simply demonstrates your lack of complexity in thinking about how we read, write, think, and work in today's world.

ON LGBT PUBLISHING

Publishers Weekly features a story today titled On the Front Lines: LGBT Publishing in 2011. Very smart comments from Don Wiese, Raphael Kadushin, and Tony Valenzuela among others. What is mind-numbing about this article is the list of forthcoming LGBT books in 2011. It is in the middle of the article, so keep reading.

The offerings? At least two books by celebrities, a book about manners (really? It's probably fun and delightful, but I question how it is enhancing our literary lives.) and the book mentioned of lesbian interest? A memoir about being straight for a year. If this list is representative of what we can expect in the forthcoming year (and I feel confident it isn't, rather it is what mainstream publishing has chosen to highlight), it is going to be a bleak and dismal year.

The banality of these books demonstrates the way gay and lesbian readers are regarded by New York publishing houses. It is discouraging to say the least and even frightening. I don't know what the answer is, but this is an issue that deserves more attention and activist interventions if we are to preserve and continue LGBT literary culture.

Meanwhile, check out great books being published by independent and small presses. Ed Madden has a collection of poetry coming out from Lethe Press that excites me. Minnie Bruce Pratt's newest collection Inside the Money Machine from Carolina Wren Press is gorgeous and exciting. (You can see my review at Lambda Literary here.) And Monique Truong's stunning book, Bitter in the Mouth, which was released last August and didn't receive the recognition it deserves, is worth picking up to see the vibrancy, creativity and excitement of LGBT literary culture.

Our literature deserves more than we are getting from New York publishing. We need to demand it and find a way to hold mainstream publishers and all involved with publishing accountable.

LESBIAN POETS WIN PRIZES

It's a big week for lesbian poets. Kay Ryan won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her book, The Best of It. I have a review of the book, which I thoroughly enjoyed, forthcoming in CALYX. Joan Larkin won the Shelley Prize from the Poetry Society of America. I viewed her book, My Body: New and Selected Poems for the Lambda Book Report. Announced earlier this month, a Guggenheim for lesbian poet, Eleanor Lerman. I am thrilled to see all of these poets receive the recognition they deserve.

I've been thinking a lot about lesbian poets writing during the Women's Liberation Movement and the ways that poetry circulated and represented some of the visions and dreams for liberation of women generally and lesbians particularly. While lesbians were recognized and regarded within women's communities, they also consistently won prizes from mainstream poetry and literary organizations. Olga Broumas's recognition as a Yale Younger Poet in the late 1970s; the Lamont Prize to Minnie Bruce Pratt in 1989 for her second collection, Crime Against Nature, and many others. In spite of this recognition, the continued reading and canonization of lesbian poetry struggles. In short, our words are too easily forgotten. When is the last time you read Judy Grahn's "Edward the Dyke" in a poetry anthology? Or Joan Larkin's "Cunt Poem"? This is to say, we must work against the forgetting and erasure of lesbian work.

Perhaps, though, with a former US Poet Laureate as an open lesbian (Kay Ryan) and an open bisexual woman as the UK Poet Laureate (Carol Ann Duffy) and the best-selling poet in the US open about being a lesbian (Mary Oliver), we have passed the point where erasure and forgetting are dangers. I hope so, although history proves again and again the ease with which women and their contributions to our cultural lives are erased and forgotten. Let us guard against that happening again.

ROBIN BECKER CHAPBOOK PRIZE

Don't forget to submit to the Robin Becker Chapbook Prize at Seven Kitchens Press. The deadline is Friday, 15 April 2011!


http://sevenkitchenspress.wordpress.com/series-guidelines/guidelines-the-robin-becker-chapbook-prize/

Publishing Triangle Awards 2010

March 2011 Newsletter Finalists Announced for Best Lesbian and Gay Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Debut Fiction Published in 2010 Special Award to Gender Outlaws Anthology   The Publishing Triangle proudly announces the nominees for its annual Triangle Awards, honoring the best lesbian and gay nonfiction, poetry, and fiction. These 22 books represent the best in LGBT literature for 2010. Winners will be announced at a ceremony at the New School on April 28, 2011.   Finalists for the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction Terry Castle, The Professor and Other Writings (HarperCollins) Emma Donoghue, Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature (Alfred A.Knopf) Barbara Hammer, Hammer! (Feminist Press) Finalists for the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction R. Tripp Evans, Grant Wood (Alfred A. Knopf) Wendy Moffat, A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster (Farrar Straus Giroux) Justin Spring, Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward (Farrar Straus Giroux) The judges for these nonfiction awards have also voted to bestow a Judges' Special Award in Nonfiction to Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, edited by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman (Seal Press). Carol Rosenfeld, chair of the Publishing Triangle said, "The Triangle is recognizing this anthology, which celebrates gender nonconforming people in all their beauty, humanity, and complexity, with a special prize. The contributors to this book confront gender issues with such vibrant, mind-expanding style that readers are urged to question the status quo of seeing gender in binary ways."   Finalists for the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry Elizabeth J. Colen, Money for Sunsets (Steel Toe Books) Jen Currin, The Inquisition Yours (Coach House Books) Eleanor Lerman, The Sensual World Re-emerges (Sarabande Books) Finalists for the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry Paul Legault, The Madeleine Poems (Omnidawn) Eric Leigh, Harm's Way (University of Arkansas Press) Michael Walsh, The Dirt Riddles (University of Arkansas Press) Finalists for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction Michael Alenyikov, Ivan and Misha (Triquarterly/Northwestern University Press) Katharine Beutner, Alcestis (Soho Press) Catherine Kirkwood, Cut Away (Arktoi Books) Finalists for The Ferro-Grumley Awards for LGBT Fiction (presented in conjunction with Ferro-Grumley Literary Awards) Daniel Black, Perfect Peace (St. Martin's Press) Lucy Jane Bledsoe, Big Bang Symphony (University of Wisconsin Press) Daniel Allen Cox, Krakow Melt (Arsenal Pulp Press) David McConnell, The Silver Hearted (Alyson) Eileen Myles, Inferno (OR Books) Michael Sledge, The More I Owe You (Counterpoint Press) Novelist Alan Hollinghurst to Receive Bill Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award Alan Hollinghurst  is the 2011 recipient of the Publishing Triangle's Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement, named in honor of the legendary editor of the 1970s and 1980s.   Hollinghurst, a novelist, scholar, and activist, won the Man Booker prize for his fourth novel, The Line of Beauty, in 2004. A professor at University College in London, he is a published poet and has translated Racine's Bazajet. He has also edited several books, including a volume of poems by A. E. Housman and Three Novels by Ronald Firbank. Since his dazzling debut, The Swimming Pool Library, in 1988, Hollinghurst has been regarded as one of the best novelists writing in English in our time. His other books are The Folding Star, winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction (1994), and The Spell (1998). His new novel, The Stranger's Child, will be published in October 2011 by Alfred A. Knopf.   Mr. Hollinghurst will receive his award at the annual Triangle Awards, honoring the best in LBGT fiction, nonfiction, and poetry; the ceremony will be held on Thursday, April 28, 2011, at the New School in Greenwich Village, New York. The Bill Whitehead Award is given to a man in odd-numbered years and to a woman in even years, and the winner receives $3000. Gay and Lesbian Review to Receive This Year's Publishing Triangle Leadership Award The Gay & Lesbian Review/Worldwide has been selected as the winner of this year's Publishing Triangle Leadership Award. Created in 2002, this award recognizes contributions to lesbian and gay literature by those who are not primarily writers: editors, agents, librarians, and (as in this case) institutions. The award will be presented at the Triangle Awards ceremony on April 28, 2011.   For 17 years The Gay & Lesbian Review has provided a forum for enlightened discussion of issues and ideas of importance to lesbians and gay men. Founded as The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review in 1994, this journal for the literate non-specialist consistently offers the best writing and thinking our culture has to offer. With its thematically organized issues and high production values, the magazine provides its LGBT readers with a lively tour through the world of letters six times a year. The Gay & Lesbian Review is a major force in current gay and lesbian intellectual life. The Publishing Triangle Literary Awards Fund A very necessary component of our awards program is the specially dedicated fund that provides prizes for the winners of the Randy Shilts and Judy Grahn Nonfiction Awards, the Audre Lorde and Thom Gunn Poetry Awards, and the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. Poetry winners receive $500; for nonfiction and debut fiction, the prize is $1000. This fund is supported by member dues, proceeds of events like our annual holiday party, and through the generosity of passionate readers and supporters of LGBT literature For information on how you can make a fully tax-deductible contribution and a list of generous friends who helped endow this fund, please click here  . Lambda Literary Fund Call for Submissions LambdaLiterary.org is currently planning its online editorial content, and is actively seeking feature essays, opinion pieces, author interviews, book reviews, and round-ups. Click on the following links for guidelines and deadlines. For more information, or to find out about books in need of review, send email to LLF's editor, Antonio Gonzalez. Or, follow and friend LLF on Twitter and Facebook. Member Publications The Publishing Triangle celebrates the publications of all our members (individual and corporate) by providing the membership benefit of announcement in our newsletter and on our web site. If you are a member and wish to tell everyone about your new publication, use the template below to submit your publication information. -----  Aaron Anson   Mind Your Own Life: The Journey Back to Love   Balboa (a division of Hayhouse)   June 2011 * ISBN 9781452532899 * $16.95   Life-enhancing memoir. Anson's quest for authentic confirmation would lead him on a mystical journey of love, laughter, turmoil and tears. He struggles with denial, depression and acceptance along with the inner conflicts of his own intolerant religious beliefs that embraced conformism over self-awareness. Engagingly dispenses insightful inspirations. -----   To submit information about your new book, e-mail the following information to newsletter@publishingtriangle.org, putting "Triangle Member Publication" in the subject line:   Author Name Book Title Publisher Publication Month ISBN / Price (optional) Brief Description (maximum 50 words)   New book announcements are for the initial publication of a book only; not reissues or paperback editions of previously published work. The announcement will not go into the newsletter until the author name is checked against the membership database. Please stick to the template outlined above--we will not edit down press releases, catalog pages, flap copy, etc. For corporate members, we reserve the right to limit announcements.   List Your Events on Our Calendar  We're happy to post information on your LGBT literary or book-related events-especially readings by our members. To submit information about your event, e-mail the following information to newsletter@publishingtriangle.org, putting "Triangle Event" in the subject line: Day, Date, Time Event Name Brief Description (maximum 50 words) Location Admission price (if applicable) Contact Information (optional) The Publishing Triangle reserves the right to review all event calendar submissions and to refuse to post events that we do not deem appropriate for our members. Please stick to the template outlined above--we cannot process flyers, press releases, newsletters, web links, etc. If you are submitting multiple events, please separate out and use the template for each event.   Membership For only $40 a year, you receive discounts to events, nominating and voting privileges for the Triangle Awards, and the knowledge that you are supporting the Triangle in its efforts to promote lesbian and gay literature. Membership is open to anyone interested in the growth of lesbian and gay writers, literature, and publishers. Our members come from all walks of life: book and magazine writers, editors, agents, marketing, sub-rights, publicity and sales people, booksellers, designers, librarians, and general book lovers. Visit www.publishingtriangle.org/membership.html to sign up today.   Our Mission The purpose of the Publishing Triangle is to further the publication of books and other materials written by lesbian and gay authors or with lesbian and gay themes. Founded in 1988, The Publishing Triangle works to create support and a sense of community for lesbian and gay people in the publishing industry. We offer forums, as well as networking and social opportunities, for our members. In addition we sponsor programs to increase awareness of and appreciation for lesbian and gay literature.

23rd Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalists

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 16, 2011   Press Contact: Tony Valenzuela (323) 376-6801, info@lambdaliterary.org    23rd Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalists Announced      Los Angeles, CA - Finalists for the Lambda Literary Award were announced today by the Lambda Literary Foundation in Los Angeles.  Books from major mainstream publishers and from academic presses, from both long-established and brand new LGBT publishers, and even from emerging publish-on-demand technologies, make up the 114 finalists for the "Lammys."  The finalists were selected from a record number of nominations.   The awards, now in their twenty-third year, celebrate achievement in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) writing for books published in 2010. Winners will be announced at a May 26 ceremony in New York at the School of Visual Arts Theater (333 West 23rd Street).   Lambda set a record in 2009 for both the number of LGBT books nominated (462) and the number of publishers participating (about 200), reports Lambda Awards Administrator Richard Labonté. But that record has been surpassed this year, with more than 520 titles represented from about 230 publishers.   "Some of the increase in nominations stems from the growth in recent years of self-published books, reflecting an expanding reliance on ever-more-accessible publish-on-demand technology by talented LGBT authors with worthwhile stories to tell - a do-it-yourself approach that hearkens back to the late 1970s and 1980s, when lesbians and gay men established their own presses and launched the queer book boom," Labonté said. "The books came, and the Lammys soon followed."   "These record-breaking numbers are occurring at a time when the publishing industry is under siege and we hear report after report on the death of books," said LLF Board Co-Chair, Dr. Judith Markowitz. "What's even more heartening is that the quality of those nominations is extremely high. All of this bodes well for the future of LGBT literature and for the Foundation's continued role in advocating on behalf of that literature."   Another sign of evolution in the state of LGBT publishing: the Transgender category joined the Bisexual category in garnering enough nominations to merit dividing it this year into Transgender Fiction and Transgender Nonfiction; the Bisexual category was split for the first time last year. More than 90 booksellers, book reviewers, librarians, authors, previous Lammy winners and finalists, and other book professionals volunteered many hours of reading time, critical thinking, and invigorating shared discussion to select the finalists in 24 categories.   "Lambda Literary depends on the generous gifts of time and talent from its volunteer judges, year after year, to keep the Lammys vibrant.  We couldn't do it without them," said Lambda Executive Director, Tony Valenzuela. "This day really belongs to our finalists, whose work has entered the elite company of Lammy nominated books that enrich our community's literature.  Congratulations to these talented authors on their momentous achievement."   23rd Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalists   LGBT Anthologies Best Lesbian Romance, edited by Radclyffe, Cleis Press Gay Shame, edited by David Halperin, University of Chicago Press Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, edited by Kate Bornstein & S. Bear Bergman, Seal Press Kicked Out, edited by Sassafras Lowrey, Homofactus Press War Diaries, edited by Tisa Bryant & Ernest Hardy, AIDS Project Los Angeles and the Global Forum on MSM & HIV   LGBT Children's/Young Adult Christian, the Hugging Lion, by Justin Richardson & Peter Parnell, illustrated by Amy June Bates, Simon & Schuster God Loves Hair, by Vivek Shraya, illustrated by Juliana Neufeld, Vivek Shraya Jumpstart the World, by Catherine Ryan Hyde, Random House Children's Books Love Drugged, by James Klise, Flux Books Wildthorn, by Jane Eagland, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt   LGBT Drama The Brother/Sister Plays, by Tarell Alvin McCraney, Theatre Communications Group Lydia, by Octavio Solis, Samuel French, Inc Oedipus at Palm Springs, by Maureen Angelos, Samuel French, Inc Slipping, by Daniel Talbott, Dramatists Play Service With Bated Breath, by Bryden MacDonald, Talonbooks   LGBT Nonfiction Balancing on the Mechitza: Transgender in Jewish Community, by Noach Dzmura, North Atlantic Books Ex-Gay No Way: Survival and Recovery from Religious Abuse, by Jallen Rix, Findhorn Press Inseparable, by Emma Donoghue, Alfred A. Knopf King Kong Theory, by Virginia Despentes, The Feminist Press The Right To Be Out, by Stuart Biegel, University of Minnesota Press   LGBT SF/Fantasy/Horror Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories, by Sandra MacDonald, Lethe Press Disturbed By Her Song, by Tanith Lee, Lethe Press Flowers of Edo: A Ghost Story, by Nene Adams, Black Car Publishing Wilde Stories 2010, edited by Steve Berman, Lethe Press Wolfsbane Winter, by Jane Fletcher, Bold Strokes Books   LGBT Studies Another Country: Queer Anti-Urbanism, by Scott Herring, New York University Press Assuming a Body: Transgender and Rhetorics of Materiality, by Gayle Salaman, Columbia University Press Backward Glances: Contemporary Chinese Cultures and the Female Homoerotic Imaginary, by Fran Martin, Duke University Press Citizen Invert Queer: Lesbianism and War in Early Twentieth-Century Britain, by Deborah Cohler, University of Minnesota Press Queering the Public Sphere in Mexico and Brazil: Sexual Rights Movements in Emerging Democracies, by Rafael de la Dehesa, Duke University Press   Bisexual Fiction Fall Asleep Forgetting, by Georgann Packard, The Permanent Press If You Follow Me, by Malena Watrous, Harper Perennial Krakow Melt, by Daniel Allen Cox, Arsenal Pulp Press The Lunatic, the Lover and the Poet, by Myrlin Hermes, Harper Perennial Pride/Prejudice, by Ann Herendeen, Harper Paperback   Bisexual Nonfiction Border Sexualities, Border Families in Schools, by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli, Rowman & Littlefield Dear John, I Love Jane: Women Write about Leaving Men for Women, edited by Candace Walsh & Laura Andre, Seal Press Just Kids, by Patti Smith, Ecco Press Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead, by Paula Byrne, HarperCollins/It Books Sal Mineo, by Gregg Michael Michaud, Crown Archetype   Transgender Fiction Holding Still For as Long as Possible, by Zoe Whittall, House of Anansi Press Glamazonia: The Uncanny Super-Tranny, by Justin Hall with Diego Gomez, Fred Noland & Jon Macy, Northwest Press Jumpstart the World, by Catherine Ryan Hyde, Random House Children's Books   Transgender Nonfiction Assume Nothing, by Rebecca Swan, Soft Skull Press Balancing on the Mechitza: Transgender in Jewish Community, by Noach Dzmura, North Atlantic Books The Color of Sunlight, by Michelle Alexander, CreateSpace Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, edited by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman, Seal Press Just One of the Guys? Transgender Men and the Persistence of Inequality, by Kristin Schilt, University of Chicago Press   Lesbian Debut Fiction Alcestis, by Katharine Beutner, Soho Press Fall Asleep Forgetting, by Georgann Packard, The Permanent Press One More Stop, by Lois Walden, Arcadia Books The More I Owe You, by Michael Sledge, Counterpoint Press Sub Rosa, by Amber Dawn, Arsenal Pulp Press   Gay Debut Fiction Bob the Book, by David Pratt, Chelsea Station Editions The Palisades, by Tom Schabarum, Cascadia Publishing Passes Through, by Rob Stephenson, University of Alabama Press/FC2 Probation, by Tom Mendicino, Kensington Books XOXO Hayden, by Chris Corkum, P.D. Publishing   Lesbian Erotica Best Lesbian Erotica 2011, edited by Katherine Warnock & selected by Lea DeLaria, Cleis Press Sometimes She Lets Me: Best Femme/Butch Erotica, edited by Tristan Taormino, Cleis Press This is How We Do It: A Raw Mix of Lesbian Erotica, edited by D. Alexandria, RedThorn Art   Gay Erotica Best of the Best Gay Erotica 3, edited by Richard Labonte, Cleis Press Gay Erotic Tales from Under the Big Top, edited by Jerry Wheeler, Lethe Press Teleny and Camille, by Jon Macy, Northwest Press A Twist of Grimm: Erotic Fairy Tales for Gay Men, by William Holden, Lethe Press Vancouver Nights, by Hank Edwards, Lethe Press   Lesbian Fiction Big Bang Symphony, by Lucy Jane Bledsoe, University of Wisconsin Press Fifth Born II: The Hundredth Turtle, by Zelda Lockhart, LaVenson Press Holding Still For as Long as Possible, by Zoe Whittall, House of Anansi Press Homeschooling, by Carol Guess, PS Press Inferno (A Poet's Novel), by Eileen Myles, OR Books   Gay Fiction By Nightfall, by Michael Cunningham, Farrar, Straus & Giroux Children of the Sun, by Max Schaefer, Soft Skull Press Consolation, by Jonathan Strong, Pressed Wafer The Silver Hearted, by David McConnell, Alyson Books Union Atlantic, by Adam Haslett, Doubleday   Lesbian Memoir Blood Strangers, by Katherine A. Bricetti, Heyday Hammer! Making Movies Out of Sex and Life, by Barbara Hammer, The Feminist Press Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer, by Chely Wright, Pantheon Books She Looks Just Like You: A Memoir of (Nonbiological) Motherhood, by Arnie Klempnauer Miller, Beacon Press Wishbone: A Memoir in Fractures, by Julie Marie Wade, Colgate University Press   Gay Memoir Beyond Normal: The Birth of Gay Pride, by Gale Chester Whittington, BookLocker.com Grant Wood: A Life, by R. Tripp Evans, Alfred A. Knopf Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist and Sexual Renegade, by Justin Spring, Farrar, Straus & Giroux The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham, by Selina Hastings, Random House She Ain't Heavy, She's My Mother, by Bryan Batt, Harmony Books   Lesbian Mystery The Cruel Ever After, by Ellen Hart, Minotaur Books/St. Martin's Press Fever of the Bone, by Val McDermid, HarperCollins Missing Lynx, by Kim Baldwin & Xenia Alexiou, Bold Strokes Books Parallel Lies, by Stella Duffy, Bywater Books Watermark, by J.M. Redmann, Bold Strokes Books   Gay Mystery Cockeyed, by Richard Stevenson, MLR Press Echoes, by David Lennon, Blue Spike Publishing Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers, by I.E. Woodward, iUniverse Smoke, by Garry Ryan, NeWest Press Vieux Carre Voodoo, by Greg Herren, Bold Strokes Books   Lesbian Poetry The Inquisition Yours, by Jen Currin, Coach House Books Money for Sunsets, by Elizabeth J. Colen, Steel Toe Books The Nights Also, by Anna Swanson, Tightrope Books The Sensual World Re-Emerges, by Eleanor Lerman, Sarabande Books White Shirt, by Laurie MacFayden, Frontenac House   Gay Poetry darkacre, by Greg Hewett, Coffee House Press Other Flowers: Uncollected Poems, by James Schuyler, Farrar, Straus & Giroux  Pleasure, by Brian Teare, Ahsahta Press The Salt Ecstasies: Poems, by James L. White, The Graywolf Poetry Re/View Series "then, we were still living", by Michael Klein, GenPop Books   Lesbian Romance Above Temptation, by Karin Kallmaker, Bella Books Awakening to Sunlight, by Lindsey Stone, Bold Strokes Books Beacon of Love, by Ann Roberts, Bella Books  River Walker, by Cate Culpepper, Bold Strokes Books Starting From Scratch, by Georgia Beers, Brisk Press   Gay Romance Normal Miguel, by Erik Orrantia, Cheyenne Press Three Wrong Turns in the Desert, by Neil Plakcy, Loose ID The Road Home, by Michael Thomas Ford, Kensington Books   ##   Tickets for the Lambda Literary Awards ceremony and After-Party go on sale today.  The ceremony will be held Thursday, May 26, 2011 at the School of Visual Arts Theater in New York City (333 W. 23rd St), followed by a private after-party nearby.  For information: www.lambdaliterary.org/awards.  For the complete list of Finalists on our website: www.lambdaliterary.org/awards/2011-finalists   23rd Annual Lambda Literary Awards   Honorary Host Committee  Ann Bannon Don Bachardy Bill Clegg Kate Clinton Mart Crowley Michael Cunningham Stacey D'Erasmo Jim McGreevey David Mixner Ann Patchett Stefanie Powers Andrew Tobias Edmund White   New York City Host Committee David McConnell - Co-Chair Don Weise - Co-Chair S. Chris Shirley - Co-Chair Jamie Chelsea Brickhouse   J. Brooks Benoit Denizet-Lewis Jessica Falvo David Gale Charles Rice-Gonzalez Nicholas Nicholson Heather Aimee O'Neill Julia Pastore Lori Perkins Patrick Ryan   Rakesh Satyal Liz Scheier Bob Smith Jerl Surratt Linda Villarosa Paul Whitlatch    About the Lambda Literary Foundation: The Foundation nurtures, celebrates, and preserves LGBT literature through programs that honor excellence, promote visibility and encourage development of emerging writers. LLF's programs include the Lambda Literary Awards, the Writers' Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices, and our web magazine at www.lambdaliterary.org.   For information: Tony Valenzuela Lambda Literary Foundation Executive Director phone (213) 568-3570 cell (323) 376-6801 info@lambdaliterary.org  www.lambdaliterary.org Richard Labonté  Lambda Literary Awards Administrator richardlabonte@lambdaliterary.org