A bittersweet tale about a summer’s fling: it’s 1891, Queen Victoria’s India, and Mair, a 18 years old young man soon to be leaving for England and his college future, meets Captain Charles Blackthorne, 35 years old and embittered by his current life. Charles sees in Mair his lost hopes, the innocent and young romance he didn’t have the chance to fully experiment, the lightness and carelessness to love and be love by another man. Charles is tired, more than tired he is weary of the clandestine affair he can have with other fellow soldiers, there is no romance in it, there is sex without passion, it’s only a mechanism, and to that, he can renounce. But with Mair he will have the night of his dreams, a night that will remain a lapse in time, nothing more, but everything he wants.

This is only a short story, and it would be interesting to know what it will be of Mair and his adventures in England and of Charles and his life in India; will they be able to fulfil their desires? Will they meet again? We don’t know, but for now, they had they summer’s lease.

http://www.bcpinepress.com/catalogDetail.php?bookCode=53

Amazon Kindle: Summer's Lease
Publisher: Bristlecone Pine Press (September 20, 2011)

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading_list&view=elisa.rolle

Very short and sexy story about yet another Rawlings man, an English family whose men seem to have two characteristic in common: being constable and gay with a penchant for BDSM kinky sex. But this time there is a difference, this Rawlings man, Dane, is petite and almost feminine; only that you have not to mistaken him for weak, he is also a boxing champion. This time the constable is Ross, one of Dane’s cousins colleague and to return the favour to the family he babysits Dane one night when the man is involved in an arson accident. From babysit to dinner to hot sex the time is short and the passion burning brighter and brighter. But with Dane is not possible to have a casual fling, first of all since Ross needs to gain Dane’s trust, and it’s not simple, and second since, once he goes beyond Dane’s barrier, he meets the strong wall that is Dane’s family, with them it’s full commitment or nothing.

To fully appreciate the series it’s probably better to read 2 or 3 of them together.

Amazon Kindle: Handcuffs and Pretty Things (Rawlings Men Series, Book Eight)
Publisher: Resplendence Publishing, LLC (June 23, 2011)

Series: A Handcuffs & Lace Tale
1) She's Got Balls by Mia Watts: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/901006.html
2) Handcuffs & Leather by Kim Dare: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1348704.html
3) Handcuffs & Glory Holes by Kim Dare: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1229667.html
4) Handcuffs & Headlocks by Kim Dare: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1249728.html
5) Handcuffs & Trouble: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1218548.html
6) Handcuffs &Spreader Bars by Kim Dare: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1257715.html
7) Handcuffs & Ball Gags
8) Handcuffs & Megabytes
9) Handcuffs & Pretty Things

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading_list&view=elisa.rolle

Academy Award nominated filmmaker Kirby Dick (This Film Is Not Yet Rated) delivers a searing indictment of the hypocrisy of closeted politicians who actively campaign against the LGBT community they covertly belong to. OUTRAGE boldly reveals the hidden lives of some of our nation’s most powerful policymakers, details the harm they've inflicted on millions of Americans, and examines the media's complicity in keeping their secrets.

Outrage (2009)
Actors: Jim McGreevey, Barney Frank, Larry Kramer
Directors: Kirby Dick
Studio: Magnolia Home Entertainment
DVD Release Date: January 19, 2010
Run Time: 89 minutes
Amazon: Outrage (2009)

"DULY PROVOCATIVE, WELL-SOURCED AND CERTAIN TO GO MORE VIRAL THAN SWINE FLU." --Scott Foundas, Village Voice/LA Weekly

"That clanging sound you hear is the closet-door lock in the executive men's room being boot-kicked off its hinges" --Dennis Harvey, SF Bay Guardian
"A POWERFUL, DISTURBING AND SIGNIFICANT FILM. Director Kirby Dick is awfully persuasive." --Kenneth Turan, LA Times
"***** Powerrful. An essential film." --Jonathan Curiel, SF Chronicle
"Incendiary" --Rolling Stone
"The film builds in passion and intensity until attaining a stirring cumulative power" --The Onion
"One of the best-made films I've seen this year, and without question one of the toughest and bravest." --Jeff Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere
"Put it on your must see list." --About.com
"...OUTRAGE is entertaining, brisk, visually interesting and perhaps even thrilling." --John Anderson, Variety

I asked to all the authors joining the GayRomLit convention in Albuquerque in October (http://gayromlit.com/authors.php) a personal favor, a special Ebook Giveaway: every 2 days I will post 1 book from each author, and among those who will leave a comment, I will draw a winner. Very easy and very fast ;-) I will send a PM to the winner, so remember to not leave anonymous comments!

Today author is Helen Beattie (http://www.helenbeattie.com/)

Love Led Them (Valentine's Day 2012 from MLR Press) by Helen Beattie
Publisher: MLR Press,LLC (February 11, 2012)
Amazon Kindle: Love Led Them (Valentine's Day 2012 from MLR Press)

When Marcus Sanders asks a statue of Cupid to help him fall in love with the man of his dreams... he never expected to fall in love with the man IN his dreams! Is Marcus destined to only ever find happiness while he's sleeping? Or will Cupid's plan truly lead Marcus to love?

Elizabeth S. "Lisa" Kron (born May 20, 1961) is an American actress and playwright.

Kron was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She jokes in one of her plays that her life began on her parents’ trip to Europe: “I was conceived in Venice, you know. (Well, not actually in Venice, but in the nearby town of Mestre where hotels are a lot cheaper.)”

Her mother is Ann Kron, born in 1932. Ann is a former antiques dealer and community activist. In the 1960s she founded the Westside Neighborhood Organization in Lansing, Michigan. In a time when neighborhood segregation was the norm, the WNO helped to bring people from diverse racial and socioeconomic backgrounds together. Ann converted to Judaism when she married Lisa’s father Walter Kron.

Her father is Walter Kron, a retired lawyer born in Germany in 1922. He is Jewish and a Holocaust survivor. In 1937 as the Nazi persecution of the Jews escalated, his parents sent him out of Germany via the Kindertransport program. He went back to Germany after World War II, serving as a US army interrogator of Nazi war criminals. In the 1990s Lisa and her father visited Auschwitz where his parents were murdered by the Nazis in the 1940s. She later found out that her fathers parents were actually killed in Chelmno.

( Read more... )

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Kron

heartquake in north Italy so strong that it awakens me and my home was all shaking for what seemed a long time. I'm fine, my mother is fine and the home is fine.

It was 111 km from where I live:



scary to see how near it was, but I hope that was not a inhabitated zone. Ferrara is quite an old city, hope they didn't have too much damages.

ETA: more or less all medieval towers and churches around there went down: Finale Ligure (tower), Levizzano (tower), Mirandola (cathedral), Poggio Renatico (tower). Some historical palaces. The more damage to people unfortunately are to those factory that were doing the night shift.

Peter Randolph Fisher was born in May 19, 1944 in Richmond, VA and graduated from high school in Eastchester, NY. He did two years at Amherst College, a short term in the Air Force then graduated from Columbia University in 1969. He joined Gay Activist Alliance (GAA) in 1970 and met his lover Marc Rubin - they were together until Marc's death in 2007. He published 4 or 5 books, composed music, was an artist, was employed by Chemical Bank in the data center, had a software consulting business.

"I graduated, with High Honors from Eastchester High School and did two years of study (on the Dean’s List) at Amherst College, College, majoring in psychology, before deciding to leave school in order to come to terms with being gay. (Picture: Marc Rubin)

I worked as a laboratory technician for a year, and, when I was about to be drafted, enlisted in the Air Force, hoping to complete my education while in the service. While stationed in Texas as a psychiatric technician administering psychological tests and counseling basic trainees, I began attending night classes in political science at St. Mary’s University.

Getting out of the Air Force on a medical discharge, I began attending Columbia University in 1967, where I participated in the Political Science Department's special Honors program. I received my B.A. Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa, in 1969, when I was awarded a full scholarship in the form, a Herbert H. Lehman Fellowship and began two years of graduate work at Columbia in political theory before resigning from the Ph.D. program to write The Gay Mystique.

( Read more... )

Source: http://www.gaycenter.org/community/archive/collection/097

( Marc Rubin and Peter Fisher, 1999, by Robert Giard )

( Further Readings )

The son of Holocaust survivors, Lev Raphael is a pioneer in writing fiction about America's Second Generation, publishing his first short story about children of survivors in 1978. Many of his early stories on this theme were collected in his award-winning book, Dancing on Tisha B'Av, while the best of those and newer ones appear in his second collection Secret Anniversaries of the Heart.

Raphael is the author of 18 other books, including two novels about survivors, Winter Eyes and The German Money, and three memoirs, Journeys & Arrivals, Writing a Jewish Life, and My Germany. Raphael's fiction has been widely anthologized in the U.S. and Britain, most recently in the anthology Promised Lands, which contains Lev's latest story featuring a child of survivors: "Money."

Along with hundreds of reviews in papers from The Washington Post to The Detroit Free Press, Raphael has published dozens of essays, articles, and stories in a wide range of Jewish publications: Midstream, Hadassah, Psychology and Judaism, The Forward, Reform Judaism, Reconstructionist, Agada, Commentary, The Baltimore Jewish Times, The Detroit Jewish News, Inside, The Jewish Exponent, Jewish Currents, Tikkun, Jerusalem Report, and Shmate.

( Read more... )

Source: http://www.levraphael.com/sglev.html

Quite a complex plot for being barely a novella length story; in a fantasy/futuristic world, once that reverted back to more or less medieval times, Galon is a mage and he is a man’s man. For a mage that is not acceptable, also since mages have to reproduce as much as possible being theirs an hereditary trait. But Galon is not able to renounce to his most basic desires and so he is often in danger, like this time when Anzel arrives to save him.

Anzel is the scion of a wealthy and important family, and the power of his family name protects him even if he is the same as Galon; Anzel helps Galon and offers him shelter and love, something that Galon has never had in all his life.

I’m really surprise on how much the author packed in only 29 pages, she often did some elapses in time, but that didn’t diminish the strength of the story. The strange thing is that, this plot works in 29 pages but it would have been probably worked also in a longer fashion, probably even in an epic fantasy.

There is a latent sensuality in all the story, even if this is definitely not an erotic romance, so that it resembles more a story you can tell for goodnight.

http://www.phaze.com/book.php?title=The+Master%27s+Lover

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

I asked to all the authors joining the GayRomLit convention in Albuquerque in October (http://gayromlit.com/authors.php) a personal favor, a special Ebook Giveaway: every 2 days I will post 1 book from each author, and among those who will leave a comment, I will draw a winner. Very easy and very fast ;-) I will send a PM to the winner, so remember to not leave anonymous comments!

And the ebook giveaway goes to: swquill please contact me

Today author is Eric Arvin (http://daventryblue.blogspot.com/)

Woke Up in a Strange Place by Eric Arvin
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (February 25, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1615817956
ISBN-13: 978-1615817955
Amazon: Woke Up in a Strange Place
Amazon Kindle: Woke Up in a Strange Place

Joe wakes up in a barley field with no clothes, no memories, and no idea how he got there. Before he knows it, he's off on the last great journey of his life. With his soul guide Baker and a charge to have courage from a mysterious, alluring, and somehow familiar Stranger, Joe sets off through a fantastical changing landscape to confront his past. The quest is not without challenges. Joe's past is not always an easy thing to relive, but if he wants to find peace-and reunite with the Stranger he is so strongly drawn to-he must continue on until the end, no matter how tempted he is to stop along the way.

Donald Jess "Don" Bachardy (born May 18, 1934) is an American portrait artist. He resides in Santa Monica, California. (Picture: Bachardy at 19 – Photo by Carl van Vechten (January 1954))

Born in Los Angeles, California, Bachardy was the life partner of writer Christopher Isherwood, whom he met on Valentine's Day 1953, when he was 18 and Isherwood was 48. They remained together until Isherwood's death in 1986. A number of paperback editions of Isherwood's novels feature Bachardy's pencil portraits of the author. A film about their relationship, titled Chris & Don: A Love Story, was released in 2008. (Picture: Christopher Isherwood)

Bachardy studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles and the Slade School of Art in London. His first one-man exhibition was held in October 1961 at the Redfern Gallery in London.

Since that time he has had many one-man exhibitions in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Houston and New York. More recently, he exhibited at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, in 2004–2005.



( Read more... )

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Bachardy

( more pictures )

( Paintings )

( Further Readings )

A 100% Cinderfellas story: Cyrus and Weber met some years before during one of Cyrus’s travel with his friends. A surgeon from San Francisco and a cowboy from Texas is apparently a mismatch, but they click together in a perfect way. Weber thinks the only reason is that they are meeting every few months, so that Cyrus has always the feeling it’s a light escapade; Weber is sure that, if they had to enter in a routine, the novelty will soon wear off and the wealthy surgeon will find a better match.

But when they are over forty and Weber’s career as bull rider is over, he forgets the last time he left Cyrus he was told to not come back if it wasn’t to stay forever; Weber’s need for warm and comfort brings him to Cyrus, and Cyrus is there to welcome him. Weber thinks he will “recharge” his soul and then he will go away, again with the idea that this is the only way his relationship with Cyrus can work. But this time there is a difference, Cyrus’s sister desperately needs a nanny, and Weber has a way with her three kids. Not only Weber is now the hero of the younger members of Cyrus’s family, he is also loved by Cyrus’s parents, sisters and brother, plus sister in law and also Cyrus’s friends… nothing seems to be against the idea of them together as a couple if not Weber’s feeling he is not enough for Cyrus, like a frog with a Prince Charming, only that, for how much kisses Cyrus is giving to Weber he will not turn into a Prince.

It was a nice and simple romance, full of good feelings and family values; maybe some situations were a little too much pink glasses perspective, but well, it was a romance after all, wasn’t it? I really liked Cyrus, how he was persistent in his loving Weber, how he was able to wait and ready to catch his man when it was time.

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=2892

Amazon Kindle: Frog
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (April 24, 2012)

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

James Broughton (November 10, 1913 – May 17, 1999) was an American poet, and poetic filmmaker. He was part of the San Francisco Renaissance. He was an early bard of the Radical Faeries as well as a charter member of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence serving her community as Sister Sermonetta.

A selected collection of his work, All: A James Broughton Reader, edited by Jack Foley, was released in 2007 by White Crane Books.

"The Selected Films of James Broughton" is a DVD compilation of seventeen films on 3 discs, released in 2006 by Facets Multimedia.

Born to wealthy parents, he lost his father early to the 1918 influenza epidemic and spent the rest of his life getting over his high-strung, overbearing mother.

Before he was three, "Sunny Jim" experienced a transformational visit from his muse, Hermy, which he describes in his autobiography, Coming Unbuttoned (1993):

I remember waking in the dark and hearing my parents arguing in the next room. But a more persistent sound, a kind of whirring whistle, spun a light across the ceiling. I stood up in my crib and looked into the backyard. Over a neighbor’s palm tree a pulsing headlamp came whistling directly toward me. When it had whirled right up to my window, out of its radiance stepped a naked boy. He was at least three years older than I but he looked all ages at once. He had no wings, but I knew he was angel-sent: his laughing beauty illuminated the night and his melodious voice enraptured my ears…. He insisted I would always be a poet even if I tried not to be….Despite what I might hear to the contrary the world was not a miserable prison, it was a playground for a nonstop tournament between stupidity and imagination. If I followed the game sharply enough, I could be a useful spokesman for Big Joy.

In the book, Broughton remarks on his love affairs with both men and women. Among his male lovers was gay activist Harry Hay. (Picture: Harry Hay)

( Read more... )

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Broughton

( James Broughton and Joel Singer, 1988, by Robert Giard )

( Further Readings )

Nice novella, a variation of the Cinderfellas meets Prince Charming theme mixed with Blue Collar vs White Collar. Mason is a good boy, he is helping his mother raising his younger brothers and sisters, he is working the night shift so that his mother can work by day while he is looking after the kids, he left school at 16 years old to take a full time job even if he was not a bad student. In few words he is almost perfect, caring, handsome, maybe not so driven by the need to better himself, but that can be also a plus in some situations.

Mark is exactly at the opposite: from a very wealthy family, he is always trying to prove himself to his parents; the only rebellion is that he decided to not become a lawyer like they wanted but he instead opened a chess parlor, even if his parents own the building where he has his business. But even if they know Mark is gay, they have simply decided to ignore it, and Mark is always hiding his true feelings to them, arriving to the point to almost go back into the closet.

When Mason meets Mark, the fact that an cultured and handsome man like Mark is willing to give him a chance is prize enough for Mason to not question Mark’s request of being “discreet”; I didn’t like very much the attitude of both men: Mark since at almost thirty years old it would be time to grow a backbone and oppose to his parents; Mason since it seemed to me he has no self-esteem, he doesn’t consider himself much, and so, even if Mark is not treating him with the right respect, he doesn’t see any reason to comply.

Both Mason and Mark have to grow a little and to break the bond with their family; Mason only a little, his mother is wonderful, but Mason has to start to think to his future, and Mark for sure has to stop to try the easy way and go out into the real world and fight for what he wants.

http://www.breathlesspress.com/marks-opening-gambit

Amazon Kindle: Mark's Opening Gambit
Publisher: Breathless Press (April 5, 2012)

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

Ali Vali - Balance of Forces
Paperback: 264 pages
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books (October 18, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 160282567X
ISBN-13: 978-1602825673
Amazon: Balance of Force: Toujours Ici
Amazon Kindle: Balance of Force: Toujours Ici

Kendal Richoux’s life began during the reign of Egypt’s only female pharaoh. After accepting the opportunity to drink the elixir of the sun, Kendal becomes immortal and the Genesis Clan’s slayer. History has taught her the dangers of getting too close to anyone who hasn’t harnessed the power of time. After many years, she returns to New Orleans to finish a job she’s trained for all her life. It’s time for her to face her brother Henri, and it will have dire consequences to mankind if she fails. Piper Marmande believes Kendal has come to take over the company her family has built over generations. As Kendal prepares for the most important battle of her long life, Piper does her best to uncover every one of Kendal’s secrets, making herself a distraction Kendal can’t afford as she hunts Henri and Ora, the vampire who seduced him to a life of darkness.

Larry Closs - Beatitude
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Rebel Satori Press (October 18, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1608640299
ISBN-13: 978-1608640294
Amazon: Beatitude
Amazon Kindle: Beatitude

New York City, 1995: Harry Charity is a sensitive young loner haunted by a disastrous affair when he meets Jay Bishop, an outgoing poet and former Marine. Propelled by a shared fascination with the unfettered lives of Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation, the two are irresistibly drawn together, even as Jay's girlfriend, Zahra, senses something deeper developing. Reveling in their discovery of the legendary scroll manuscript of Kerouac's On the Road in the vaults of the New York Public Library, Harry and Jay embark on a nicotine-and-caffeine-fueled journey into New York's smoky jazz joints, dusty rare-book shops and thriving poetry scene of slams and open-mike nights. An encounter with "Howl" poet Allen Ginsberg shatters their notions of what it means to be Beat but ultimately and unexpectedly leads them into their own hearts where they're forced to confront the same questions that confounded their heroes: What do you do when you fall for someone who can't fall for you? What do you do when you're the object of affection? What must you each give up to keep the other in your life? Beatitude features two previously unpublished poems by Allen Ginsberg.

Kergan Edwards-Stout - Songs for the New Depression
Paperback: 270 pages
Publisher: Circumspect Press (October 25, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0983983704
ISBN-13: 978-0983983705
Amazon: Songs for the New Depression
Amazon Kindle: Songs for the New Depression

2011 INDIE LIT AWARD FINALIST. Gabriel Travers knows he's dying; he just can't prove it. Despite his doctor's proclamations to the contrary and rumors of a promising new HIV drug cocktail, all it takes is one glance into the mirror to tell Gabe everything he needs to know. His ass, once the talk of West Hollywood, now looks suspiciously like a Shar-Pei, prompting even more talk around town. Back in his 20's, life had been so easy. Caught up in the 1980's world of LOVE! MONEY! SEX!, Gabe thought he'd have it all. But every effort to better himself ended in self-sabotage, and every attempt at love left him with only a fake number, scrawled on a realtor's notepad. The only happiness he could remember was in high school, where he'd met Keith, his first love. Only Keith had recognized the goodness within, and knew of the brutal attack Gabe had faced, the effects of which still rule his life today. Now almost 40, and with the clock ticking, Gabe begins to finally peel back the layers and tackle his demons - with a little help from the music of the Divine Miss M and his mom's new wife, a country music-loving priest.

Dorien Grey - The Peripheral Son
Paperback: 252 pages
Publisher: Zumaya Boundless (October 31, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1936144107
ISBN-13: 978-1936144105
Amazon: The Peripheral Son
Amazon Kindle: The Peripheral Son

Investigating the disappearance of a freelance writer doing simultaneous exposes on both the boxing profession and construction unions, PI Dick Hardesty finds himself handed a Gordian Knot, with no sword to cut it. A plethora of motives and suspects, and a dearth of solid evidence sorely test both Dick's skills and his patience.

Nick Chivers - Witch Hunt
Paperback: 200 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (October 31, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1613721846
ISBN-13: 978-1613721841
Amazon: Witch Hunt
Amazon Kindle: Witch Hunt

Mike thought he could escape his past. He renounced his crown as High Mage of The Council, had the Bands of Binding placed on him, and tried to start over as a normal human. It didn't work. And now a part of that past wants him dead, and Mike is running for his life. With his best friend, Andrew, and Andrew's soulbound partner along for the ride, Mike can't help but feel lonely until he meets Rick, an all-around gorgeous man who might just be the wrong guy-again-especially since Mike can't shake an ex-lover who's hoping for a second chance. It's a lot to deal with as demonic forces pursue him from Mongolia to Brazil, but Mike has to make it to the safety of The Council if he doesn't want to be the prize trophy at the end of this witch hunt.

Darcy Abriel - Silver
Paperback: 264 pages
Publisher: Samhain Publishing; Reprint edition (November 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1609283120
ISBN-13: 978-1609283124
Amazon: Silver: Humanotica, Book 1
Amazon Kindle: Silver: Humanotica, Book 1

Born to freedom. Molded into submission. Pleasure is her only weapon. No matter what the law decrees, Entreus is no one’s chattel. And he’s determined that no other humanotic—part human, part robot—spends one more second under the stranglehold of the power-mad government machine. That means doing whatever it takes to advance the cause for freedom. Even seduce a government minister’s favorite toy, a newly minted trinex named Silver. Silver was a free woman until she committed the ultimate sin—pretending to be male to gain entrance to an exclusive science academy. Her punishment: modification. Now she is equal parts female, male and machine. The property of the secretive, charismatic Lel Kesselbaum, whose appetites push her new sexual abilities to heights of pleasure that make her wonder who is master, who is slave. Until Entreus bargains his body in exchange for a secret meeting that rekindles her longing for freedom. Yet helping the fiery revolutionary execute his plan isn’t so simple, especially when she discovers her master’s secret—a secret that leaves her heart torn between two men. And one step in the wrong direction could mean death for them all.

Erastes - Junction X
Paperback: 200 pages
Publisher: Cheyenne Publishing (November 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 193769206X
ISBN-13: 978-1937692063
Amazon: Junction X
Amazon Kindle: Junction X

Set in the very English suburbia of 1962 where everyone has tidy front gardens and lace curtains, Junction X is the story of Edward Johnson, who ostensibly has the perfect life: A beautiful house, a great job, an attractive wife and two well-mannered children. The trouble is he's been lying to himself all of his life. And first love, when it does come, hits him and hits him hard. Who is the object of his passion? The teenaged son of the new neighbours. Edward's world is about to go to hell. "Both a haunting tale of sexual obsession and a stunning portrait of an ordinary man caught up in the throes of an illicit love and teetering on the brink of self-destruction, told with pinpoint psychological insight and mouth-watering prose, this is a splendid example of the storyteller's art, reminiscent of James Baldwin." - Victor J. Banis, author of The Man from C.A.M.P.

Fyn Alexander - Knightly Love
Publisher: Loose Id LLC (November 1, 2011)
Amazon Kindle: Knightly Love

In the days when men sought to rescue damsels in distress, Sir Benedict Childerley’s only desire is to rescue Lord Robin Holt from an arranged marriage. Lord Robin, a sweet, gentle boy from a wealthy family, wants a knight in shining armor. When they meet Sir Ben is not charging in a white steed, but on his back unconscious after a jousting accident. Temporarily banished to a Welsh monastery, Lord Robin tends the knight’s injuries, and despite this ignominious first encounter, Lord Robin quickly realizes that the handsome knight is the only man who can win his heart. Sir Ben, the bastard son of a rich lord, is willing to fight an army in order to keep his beloved boy.

Aleksandr Voinov - Counterpunch
Paperback: 184 pages
Publisher: Storm Moon Press LLC (November 4, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1937058182
ISBN-13: 978-1937058180
Amazon: Counterpunch
Amazon Kindle: Counterpunch

'Fight like a man, or die like a slave.' Brooklyn Marshall used to be a policeman in London, with a wife and a promising future ahead of him. Then he accidentally killed a rioter whose father was a Member of Parliament and had him convicted of murder. To ease the burden on the overcrowded prison system, Brooklyn was sold into slavery rather than incarcerated. Now, he's the "Mean Machine", a boxer on the slave prizefighting circuit, pummelling other slaves for the entertainment of freemen and being rented out for the sexual service of his wealthier fans. When Nathaniel Bishop purchases Brooklyn's services for a night, it seems like any other assignation. But the pair form an unexpected bond that grows into something more. Brooklyn hesitates to call it "love"--such things do not exist between freemen and slaves--but when Nathaniel reveals that he wants to help get Brooklyn's conviction overturned, he dares to hope. Then, an accident in the ring sends Brooklyn on the run, jeopardizing everything he has worked so hard to achieve and sending him into the most important fight of all-the fight for freedom.

J.L. Merrow - Wight Mischief
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Samhain Publishing (September 4, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1609288033
ISBN-13: 978-1609288037
Amazon: Wight Mischief
Amazon Kindle: Wight Mischief

A stranger could light up his world...or drive him deeper into darkness. Will Golding needs a break from his usual routine, and he’s been looking forward to a holiday helping Baz, his friend-with-benefits, research a book about Isle of Wight ghosts. When an evening beach walk turns into a startling encounter with Marcus Devereux, Will can’t get his mind off the notoriously reclusive writer’s pale, perfect, naked body. And any interest in ghostly legends takes a back seat to the haunting secrets lying in Marcus’s past. Marcus, painfully aware of his appearance, is accustomed to keeping to himself. But the memory of tall, athletic Will standing on the beach draws him out from behind defenses he’s maintained since age fourteen, when his parents were murdered. While his heart is hungry for human contact, though, his longtime guardian warns him that talking to anyone—particularly a journalist like Baz—is as dangerous as a day in the sun. As Baz gets closer to the truth, the only thing adding up is the sizzling attraction between Will and Marcus. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that someone wants to let sleeping secrets lie…or Will and Baz could end up added to the island’s ghostly population.

I asked to all the authors joining the GayRomLit convention in Albuquerque in October (http://gayromlit.com/authors.php) a personal favor, a special Ebook Giveaway: every 2 days I will post 1 book from each author, and among those who will leave a comment, I will draw a winner. Very easy and very fast ;-) I will send a PM to the winner, so remember to not leave anonymous comments!

And the ebook giveaway goes to: kristipublicist please contact me

Today author is Michele L. Montgomery (http://www.michelelmontgomery.com/)

Dammit! by Michele L. Montgomery
Publisher: Seventh Window Publications (April 4, 2012)
Amazon Kindle: Dammit!

Escaping the past isn’t easy, especially when the scars left behind are a constant reminder that trust and love can hurt.

Michael McKnight knows what it means to be on the run from memories. Years ago, after fleeing an abusive relationship, he was brutally stabbed and left for dead. His only savior had been a compassionate stranger he’d only gotten a glimpse of before slipping into the blackness that claimed him.

For Michael, recovery was an arduous and hard fought return to some semblance of normalcy. He rebuilds his life, spending his waking hours buried in work and fighting to forget the past. And his life seems to be going well until he finds out that his cousin Wayne is being held captive in a mental asylum for being gay. So he buys a plane ticket and flies out to rescue his cousin.

But the weather is against Michael, keeping him grounded and talking to a man who claims that he’d once saved his life and is willing to help him rescue his cousin. Can this man be for real or is something more sinister in the works?

Cheryl L. Clarke is a writer, educator and lesbian Black feminist activist, born in Washington DC in 1947.

Raised in Washington DC, some of her earliest work reflected the troubled times of the 1960s and the rebellions that ripped through the District of Columbia following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Clarke is the author of four collections of poetry from Firebrand Books: Narratives: Poems in the Tradition of Black Women (originally self-published in 1981); Living as a Lesbian, Humid Pitch and Experimental Love.

She also published After Mecca---Women Poets and the Black Arts Movement (Rutgers University Press), the first study of its kind in a field that traditionally only recognizes Black male poets; Days of Good Looks {Carroll & Graf Publishing), a collection of poems and essays and Corridors of Nostalgia a collection of poetry.

Cheryl Clarke has served on the editorial collective of Conditions, an early lesbian publication and has been published in numerous anthologies and journals including: Home Girls, The Callaloo Journal and Black Scholar.

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheryl_Clarke

( Cheryl Clarke and Jewelle Gomez, 1987, by Robert Giard  )

John Henry Mackay (6 February 1864 – 16 May 1933) was an individualist anarchist, thinker and writer. Born in Scotland and raised in Germany, Mackay was the author of Die Anarchisten (The Anarchists) (1891) and Der Freiheitsucher (The Searcher for Freedom) (1921). Mackay was published in the United States in his friend Benjamin Tucker's magazine, Liberty. He was a noted homosexual.

Mackay was born in Greenock on February 6, 1864. His mother came from a prosperous Hamburg family. His father was a Scottish marine insurance broker who died when the child was less than two years old. at which point mother and son returned to Germany, where Mackay grew up.

Mackay lived in Berlin from 1896 onwards, and became a friend of scientist and Gemeinschaft der Eigenen co-founder Benedict Friedlaender.

Mackay died in Stahnsdorf on May 16, 1933, ten days after the Nazi book burnings at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft. Adolf Hitler had become Reichskanzler on January 30, 1933, and all activities of the German homosexual emancipation movement soon ceased. Allegations that Mackay's death may have been a suicide have been disputed: Mackay died on 16 May 1933 in the office of his doctor, only a few houses from his own, apparently of a heart attack. He was also suffering from stones in his bladder. -- Kennedy, Hubert. Anarchist of Love: The Secret Life of John Henry Mackay

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_Mackay

( Further Readings )

The Book: Tommy is twenty-nine, lives and loves in London, and has a morbid fear of the c word (commitment), the b word (boyfriend), and the f word (forgetting to call his drug dealer before the weekend). But when he begins to feel the urge to become a father, and the pressure from his boyfriend to make a real commitment to their relationship, Tommy starts to wonder if his chosen lifestyle can ever make him happy.

Faced with the choice of maintaining his hedonistic, drugged-out, and admittedly fabulous existence or chucking it all in favor of a far more sensitive, fulfilling, and—let's face it—slightly more staid lifestyle, Tommy finds himself in a true quandary. Through a series of adventures and misadventures that lead him from London nightspots to New York bedrooms and back, our boy Tommy manages to answer some of life's most pressing questions—even those he never thought to ask.

Amazon: Tommy's Tale: A Novel
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: It Books (October 21, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0060989270
ISBN-13: 978-0060989279

The Author: Alan Cumming, OBE (born 27 January 1965), is a Scottish stage, television and film actor, singer, writer, director, producer and author. His roles have included the Emcee in Cabaret, Boris Grishenko in GoldenEye, Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler in X2: X-Men United, Mr. Elton in Emma, and Fegan Floop in the Spy Kids films. He has also appeared in independent films like The Anniversary Party, which he co-wrote, co-directed and co-starred in; and Ali Selim's Sweet Land, for which he won an Independent Spirit award as producer.

His London stage appearances include Hamlet, the Maniac in Dario Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist, for which he received an Olivier Award, the lead in Martin Sherman's Bent, and as Dionysus in The National Theatre of Scotland's The Bacchae. On Broadway he has appeared as Mac the Knife in The Threepenny Opera, the Emcee in Cabaret, for which he won the Tony in 1998, and Design for Living. Cumming also introduces Masterpiece Mystery! for PBS. He currently appears as Eli Gold on The Good Wife, for which he has been nominated for two Emmys, two SAGs, a Satellite Award and Critics' Circle Award.

He has also written a novel, Tommy's Tale, had a cable talk show (Eavesdropping with Alan Cumming) and produced a line of perfumed products labelled "Cumming". He has contributed opinion pieces to many publications and performed a cabaret show I Bought A Blue Car Today. Retaining his British citizenship, Cumming became a naturalized U.S. citizen on November 7, 2008.

Cumming lives in New York City with his husband, graphic artist Grant Shaffer, and their dogs, Honey and Leon. The couple dated for two years before entering into a civil partnership at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London, on January 7, 2007. Cumming and Shaffer remarried in New York on January 7, 2012, the fifth anniversary of their London wedding.

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Top Gay Novels List (*)

First Decade (2000-2009): http://www.elisarolle.com/ramblings/top_100_gay_novels_2.htm

Second Decade (2010-2019): http://www.elisarolle.com/ramblings/top_100_gay_novels_2.2.htm

*only one title per author, only print books released after January 1, 2000.

Note: I remember to my friends that guest reviews of the above listed books (the top 100 Gay Novels) are welcome, just send them to me and I will post with full credits to the reviewer.

Other titles not in the top 100 list: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/top50MM

Nancy Garden (born May 15, 1938 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American author of children's and young adult literature.

She is best known for her novel, Annie on My Mind (1982), which was critically acclaimed but attracted controversy because of its lesbian characters, Annie and Liza who fall in love. It was one of the first teen novels to feature lesbian characters in a positive light. In 1993, it was banned by the Kansas City school system and burnt in demonstrations. It was returned to shelves only after a First Amendment lawsuit by students in 1995. It is #48 on the American Library Association's list of 100 Most Frequently Banned or Challenged Books, 1990-2000.

Garden earned a B.F.A. (1961) and an M.A. (1962) from Columbia University School of Dramatic Arts. Through school and for several years after college, Garden worked in theater, supplementing the work with odd jobs in offices. She later taught school and worked as an editor of children's literature. She has also written non-fiction, mystery and fantasy for children and young adults. Other titles also feature GLBT characters. In 2001, Garden received the Robert B. Downs Award for Intellectual Freedom from the University of Illinois' Graduate School of Library and Information Science. In 2003, the American Library Association awarded her the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing books for teens. Garden's review of young adult titles have appeared in the Lambda Literary Foundation's Lambda Book Report.

She currently divides her time between Massachusetts and Maine, with partner Sandy Scott, their golden retriever, Loki, and their cats.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Garden

ANNIE ON MY MIND by Nancy Garden is a must read! If you want literature, if you want great writing, this book is for you. And if you’re a girl who thinks you might like other girls, this compelling love story will resonate. I aspire to write like Nancy Garden. She is lyrical and this novel is beautifully realized. Winner of many awards. Deservedly so. --Lee Bantle

( Nancy Garden, 1997, by Robert Giard  )

María Irene Fornés (born May 14, 1930) is a Cuban-American avant garde playwright and director who is associated with the establishment of the Off-Off-Broadway movement in the 1960s. Fornes themes focused on poverty and feminism. In 1965, she won her first Distinguished Plays Obie Award for Promenade and The Successful Life of 3. She was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize with her play And What of the Night?. Other notable works include Fefu and Her Friends, Mud, Letters from Cuba and Sarita.

Fornés was born in Havana, Cuba, and emigrated to the United States at the age of 14, with her mother, Carmen Collado Fornés and sister, Margarita Fornés Lapinel, after her father, Carlos Fornés, died in 1945. She became a U.S. citizen in 1951. When she first arrived in America, Fornés worked in the Capezio factory. Dissatisfied by this work, she took classes to learn English. Later, she became a translator. At the age of 19, she formed an interest in painting and began her formal education in abstract art. During this time, she studied with artist Hans Hofmann in New York City and Provincetown, Massachusetts.

In 1954, Fornés moved to Europe to study painting. There, she was greatly influenced by a French production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot even though she never read the play nor did she understand French. This event shifted her creative ambitions towards playwriting.

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Irene_Forn%C3%A9s

( María Irene Fornés, 1990, by Robert Giard  )

Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa (September 26, 1942 – May 15, 2004) was considered a leading scholar of Chicano cultural theory and Queer theory. She loosely based her most well-known book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza on her life growing up on the Mexican-Texas border and incorporated her lifelong feelings of social and cultural marginalization into her works.

Anzaldúa was born in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas on September 26, 1942 to Urbano Anzaldúa and Amalia Anzaldúa née García. Gloria Anzaldúa's great-grandfather, Urbano Sr., once a precinct judge in Hidalgo County, was the first owner of the Jesús María Ranch on which Anzaldúa was born. Anzaldúa's mother grew up on an adjoining ranch, Los Vergeles ("the gardens"), which was owned by her family, and met and married Urbano Anzaldúa when both were very young. Anzaldúa is a descendant of many of the prominent Basque and Spanish explorers and settlers to come to the Americas in the 16th and 17th centuries. The surname Anzaldúa is of Basque origin.

Anzaldúa began menstruating when she was only three months old, a symptom of the endocrine condition that caused her to stop growing physically at the age of twelve. Anzaldúa eventually underwent a hysterectomy to deal with uterine, cervical, and ovarian abnormalities. Reflecting upon her illness, she announced "I was born a queer."

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Anzaldua

Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands. Smart and tough and beautiful. An original warrior princess. --Sarah Black

( Gloria Anzaldua by Robert Giard  )

( Further Readings )

Jasper Johns, Jr. (born May 15, 1930) is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.

Born in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns spent his early life in Allendale, South Carolina with his paternal grandparents after his parents' marriage failed. He then spent a year living with his mother in Columbia, South Carolina and thereafter he spent several years living with his aunt Gladys in Lake Murray, South Carolina, twenty-two miles from Columbia. He completed high school in Sumter, South Carolina, where he once again lived with his mother. Recounting this period in his life, he says, "In the place where I was a child, there were no artists and there was no art, so I really didn't know what that meant. I think I thought it meant that I would be in a situation different than the one that I was in." He began drawing when he was three and has continued doing art ever since.

Johns studied at the University of South Carolina from 1947 to 1948, a total of three semesters. He then moved to New York City and studied briefly at the Parsons School of Design in 1949. In 1952 and 1953 he was stationed in Sendai, Japan during the Korean War.


Numbers in Color (1958–59)

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper_Johns

( Further Readings )

Rodger Allen McFarlane (February 25, 1955 – May 15, 2009) was an American gay rights activist who served as the first paid executive director of the Gay Men's Health Crisis and later served in leadership positions with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Bailey House and the Gill Foundation.

McFarlane was born on February 25, 1955 in Mobile, Alabama and was raised on the family's soybean and chicken farm in Theodore, Alabama. The 6-foot, 7-inch McFarlane played football in high school, where he was "a monster, a legend", who was "big enough to get past the gay thing" playing football and could then "go jump rope with the girls." He attended the University of South Alabama. He enlisted in the United States Navy in 1974, serving on a submarine as a nuclear reactor technician. Following his military service, McFarlane moved to New York City, where he worked as a respiratory therapist.

In the early 1980s, McFarlane walked into the offices of Gay Men's Health Crisis, offering to serve as a volunteer. He began a crisis counseling hotline that originated on his own home telephone, which ultimately became one of the organization's most effective tools for sharing information about AIDS. Shortly thereafter, he was named as the first paid executive director of GMHC, helping create a more formal structure for the nascent organization, which had no funding or offices when he took on the role. Larry Kramer, the playwright and gay rights activist who was one of the six founders of Gay Men's Health Crisis in 1982, became a friend of McFarlane's, describing that by the time of his death, "the G.M.H.C. is essentially what he started: crisis counseling, legal aid, volunteers, the buddy system, social workers" as part of an organization that serves more than 15,000 people affected by HIV and AIDS.

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodger_McFarlane

( Further Readings )

Proteus: very interesting stories about a 60 going 70 college professor and the clever student who is trying to seduce him; Edmund is unapologetically clear with the reader that he likes man, and he likes to savor the visual beauty of his young students, but he is also very firm in his decision to not ever give up to the temptation to “taste” them. Not even when Roy does everything in his power to convince the older man that his interest in Edmund is sincere. Edmund has not given up the idea of a long term relationship, but he cannot see it with a man under 40, and so Roy is no game. But their barter in classroom and out of it, is engaging and to a deeper lever than only physical, and so in a way, Edmund has a special relationship with Roy, a relationship that for him is maybe more satisfying than the mere act of sex.

Roomies: a beautiful short stories about three gay men sharing an apartment without being in a ménages a trois. All three of them with enough money to be alone, it’s not clear why they are rooming together, if not maybe since that is a sure way to not be alone. Love can be forever, but most often than not, it doesn’t last to their own experience, while instead their friendship is well-tested and they know each other good and bad sides. And they like each other. Probably between some of them it’s even possible that physical attraction could lead to something, but they don’t want to put in danger their balance. And please notice that I didn’t say love, not since there is not love among them, on the contrary, I absolutely think they love each other, probably more than if they had sex.

Photographic Memories: a short psychological thriller who would have been perfect for an Hitchcock movie. Kyle is the witness at a trial again a gay basher, but while he wants the killer of his friend to be convicted, he is not sure the man under trial is the one. Kyle has some proofs, problem is that, those proofs are not enough to condemn the other man as they are not enough to clear this one. Will Kyle’s conscience be stronger that his emotion? Will he be able to do the right thing, and above all, what is the right thing?

Facing the Music: a bittersweet tale about two very religious men who fall in love with each other. To Max and Joey what they are feeling is a sin, what they are doing is condemning them to eternal hell, but their love is too strong. The story is not a tragic one, the author chose to give them hope, but it’s barely escaping a more dramatic ending; maybe the author wanted the reader to be aware that could have been an option, that Max and Joey are not heroes, but men and like that they are scared and weak. Their only strength is the love for each other, and that is probably also their salvation, a more true salvation than the one their congregation is preaching to them.

Kevvy: this is the story of an unrealized threesome and of two possible closed gay man who probably in 10 years or so will realize they have lost part of their real life; Kevin, Arthur and Mitchell were high school friends, Kevin and Mitchell misfits, the gay kid and the rebel, and Arthur the good boy, the one who wanted to be original, but that, in the end, didn’t have the courage to be. According to me he associated with Kevin and Mitchell because it was the easy way, he can claim to be “cool” since he didn’t care of what everyone was thinking, but if it really came to the point he had to be pointed out for something, he hadn’t done anything.

Polygon: a polyamory story on the trend of Desperate Housewives; a girandole of couple where partners change bed like they would change dancing partner, only that not always they end in bed with someone of the opposite sex. It seems Paradise, isn’t it? Only that not all of them are strong enough to bear it, and someone will not see the end of the dance.

Since the Reunion: a strange little story about a man attending his 25 years High School Reunion party. For most of the story it appears he is regretting he did, but then you realize that the Reunion is the moment he finally came to terms with his own life. Maybe helped by the example of Cora, an homeless woman who once was the best promising of them all.

Amazon: Kaleidoscope
Amazon Kindle: Kaleidoscope
Paperback: 362 pages
Publisher: Silver Publishing (December 15, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1614953503
ISBN-13: 978-1614953500

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

I asked to all the authors joining the GayRomLit convention in Albuquerque in October (http://gayromlit.com/authors.php) a personal favor, a special Ebook Giveaway: every 2 days I will post 1 book from each author, and among those who will leave a comment, I will draw a winner. Very easy and very fast ;-) I will send a PM to the winner, so remember to not leave anonymous comments!

And the ebook giveaway goes to: qbeeqt please contact me

Today author is Ethan Day (http://www.ethanday.com/)

A Token of Time by Ethan Day
Paperback: 428 pages
Publisher: MLR Press (April 20, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1608206505
ISBN-13: 978-1608206506
Amazon: A Token of Time
Amazon Kindle: A Token of Time

The murder of Zachary's lover and a mysterious connection to the recently deceased legendary matinee idol, Marc Castle challenged everything Zachary knew to be true - to believe that the impossible, was possible. On the run from his family, Zachary Hamilton was cursed with a gift he neither wanted nor asked for. The recent murder of his lover unleashed a chain of events revealing Zachary's connection to the recently deceased legendary matinee idol, Marc Castle. Attempting to unravel the mystery behind the movie star, Zachary encountered an ancient relic shrouded in history and folklore, leading to a discovery so shocking it altered his very existence -- challenging everything Zachary knew to be true -- to believe that the impossible, was possible.

Joe LeSueur was a decorated soldier when he moved to New York in 1949, at the age of twenty-five. He held jobs as an editor, critic, and screenwriter. He died in 2001 in East Hampton.

In 1951 Joe LeSueur moved into an apartment in New York City with Frank O'Hara, who would be his roommate and sometime lover for the next 11 years.

Joe LeSueur lived with Frank O'Hara until 1965, the years when O'Hara wrote his greatest poems, including 'To the Film Industry in Crisis', 'In Memory of My Feelings', 'Having a Coke with You', and the famous Lunch Poems-so called because O'Hara wrote them during his lunch break at the Museum of Modern Art, where he worked as a curator. (The artists he championed include Jackson Pollock, Joseph Cornell, Grace Hartigan, Jane Freilicher, Joan Mitchell, and Robert Rauschenberg.) The flowering of O'Hara's talent, cut short by a fatal car accident in 1966, produced some of the most exuberant, truly celebratory lyrics of the twentieth century. And it produced America's greatest poet of city life since Whitman.

Joe LeSueur died on May 14, 2001. The New York Times obituary remembers him as: Man of letters. Dear friend of the late Patsy Southgate and Frank O'Hara. Loved by many whose lives he touched.

I am lonely for myself
I can't find a real poem
if it won't happen to me
what shall I do
--Frank O'Hara, from, "At Joan's", 1959

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Emma Goldman (June 27 [O.S. June 15] 1869 – May 14, 1940) was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century.

Born in Kovno in the Russian Empire (present-day Kaunas, Lithuania), Goldman emigrated to the US in 1885 and lived in New York City, where she joined the burgeoning anarchist movement. Attracted to anarchism after the Haymarket affair, Goldman became a writer and a renowned lecturer on anarchist philosophy, women's rights, and social issues, attracting crowds of thousands. She and anarchist writer Alexander Berkman, her lover and lifelong friend, planned to assassinate industrialist and financier Henry Clay Frick as an act of propaganda of the deed. Although Frick survived the attempt on his life, Berkman was sentenced to twenty-two years in prison. Goldman was imprisoned several times in the years that followed, for "inciting to riot" and illegally distributing information about birth control. In 1906, Goldman founded the anarchist journal Mother Earth.

In 1917, Goldman and Berkman were sentenced to two years in jail for conspiring to "induce persons not to register" for the newly instated draft. After their release from prison, they were arrested—along with hundreds of others—and deported to Russia. Initially supportive of that country's Bolshevik revolution, Goldman quickly voiced her opposition to the Soviet use of violence and the repression of independent voices. In 1923, she wrote a book about her experiences, My Disillusionment in Russia. While living in England, Canada, and France, she wrote an autobiography called Living My Life. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, she traveled to Spain to support the anarchist revolution there. She died in Toronto on May 14, 1940, aged 70.

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Goldman

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Magnus Hirschfeld (May 14, 1868 – May 14, 1935) was a German physician and sexologist. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which Dustin Goltz called "the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights."

Hirschfeld was born in Kolberg (now Kołobrzeg, Poland) in a Jewish family, the son of a highly regarded physician and 'Medizinalrat' Hermann Hirschfeld. In 1887-1888 he studied philosophy and philology in Breslau, then from 1888-1892 medicine in Strasbourg, Munich, Heidelberg, and Berlin. In 1892 he took his doctoral degree. After his studies, he traveled through the United States for eight months, visiting the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and living from the proceeds of his writing for German journals. Then he started a naturopathic practice in Magdeburg; in 1896 be moved his practice to Berlin-Charlottenburg.

Magnus Hirschfeld's career successfully found a balance between medicine and writing. After several years as a general practitioner in Magdeburg, in 1896 he issued a pamphlet Sappho and Socrates, on homosexual love (under the pseudonym Th. Ramien). In 1897, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee with the publisher Max Spohr, the lawyer Eduard Oberg, and the writer Max von Bülow. The group aimed to undertake research to defend the rights of homosexuals and to repeal Paragraph 175, the section of the German penal code that since 1871 had criminalized homosexuality. They argued that the law encouraged blackmail, and the motto of the Committee, "Justice through science", reflected Hirschfeld's belief that a better scientific understanding of homosexuality would eliminate hostility toward homosexuals.

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Hirschfeld

( Further Readings )

Armistead Jones Maupin, Jr. (born May 13, 1944) is an American writer, best known for his Tales of the City series of novels, set in San Francisco.

Maupin is married to Christopher Turner, a website producer and photographer whom he saw on a dating website. He then "chased him down Castro Street, saying, 'Didn’t I see you on Daddyhunt.com?'" Maupin and Turner were married in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on February 18, 2007, though Maupin says that they had called each other "husband" for two years prior.

Maupin was born to a conservative Christian family in Washington, D.C.. Soon afterwards, his family moved to North Carolina, where he was raised. He says he has had storytelling instincts since he was eight years old. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became involved in journalism through writing for The Daily Tar Heel. After earning his undergraduate degree, Maupin enrolled in law school, but later resigned from it.


Armistead Maupin and Christopher Turner

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistead_Maupin

The characters of Armistead Maupin's "Tales of The City" are utterly beautiful in their flawed state of discovery and evolving. They start with Mary Ann Singleton, who, while on vacation in San Francisco, just stays. Here again, I loved the writer's style and the way he brought the characters to life. I read them from start to finish in about a month and I cried like a baby when I read the very last one. --Johnny Miles

Maybe the Moon by Armistead Maupin is a great story about a dwarf actress whose claim to fame was starring in an ET-like movie. I’ve always loved stories/books/movies about those who (like myself!) came to Hollywood to make it in some way. Most of us, of course, don’t make it or have many strange twists and turns on that journey, and this is such a story. The heroine, Cady, is a take-no-prisoners little person who somewhere in the book refers to herself as a “fat baby with tits and pubic hair.” It’s hard not to love a character like that. I found this a somewhat more serious and touching novel than the “Tales of the City” series, just a beautiful piece of work. --Jim Arnold

Back in the late 1970s a friend gave me a copy of Armistead Maupin’s novel “Tales of the City”, which set me onto a course of coming out as a gay man and writing about gay lives. As I made my way through other gay books by other gay writers, I also made my way through Maupin’s thrilling six-volume odyssey of his family of queer characters at 28 Barbary Lane in San Francisco. These books were lent to friends and passed along to other friends, who lent them to other friends. There were phone calls and discussions at bars and dinner parties on which book we liked best and what character was our favorite. The series ended in 1989, with Michael “Mouse” Tolliver HIV-positive, and in 1989 many of us believed that this was not a good sign; within the eleven-year publishing period of “Tales of the City” and its sequels, life in the gay community had significantly changed because of the impact of AIDS. “Michael Tolliver Lives”, published in 2007, reunites us with Michael almost two decades later, now approaching 55, buoyed by a drug cocktail and “glad to belong to this sweet confederacy of survivors.” This book made me burst into tears of joy — a rare feat. Written in the first person — from Michael’s point of view — “Michael Tolliver Lives” at times feels more like a memoir than a novel to me, perhaps because I harbor the belief that Mouse is an old friend I haven’t heard from in a while (and delighted to find is still around). I could not put this book down, tugged by the glow and melodrama of memories — both Maupin’s and my own. --Jameson Currier

Reading the Tales of the City series when I was a teenager made me want to be a writer. I felt such loss when I finished a book, because the characters had become part of me. I internalized Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, to the point that I still sometimes talk like him. I felt Mary Ann Singleton´s angst when she felt like she couldn´t connect to others upon moving to San Francisco, and I sobbed when characters starting dying of AIDS. To this day, it is my greatest dream to create a world as richly textured and believable as the one Maupin created at 28 Barbary Lane. --Bill Konigsberg

The Tales of the City books, like The Front Runner, were eye-openers and touchstones for me as a young gay man coming to grips with his own identity. Reading this last entry in the series, Michael Tolliver Lives, really resonated with me and touched me, since I am not far behind Michael himself and have experienced many, if not most, of his same joys and sorrows. --Rick R. Reed

What I wouldn’t give to live at 28 Barbary Lane – which is actually saying a lot, considering I hated the fashion of the seventies. I mean really…could they have discovered a more revolting color palette to choose from? I don’t think so! But I’d suffer it all over again to live upstairs with Michael, Mary Ann, & Mona at Mrs. Madrigal’s. Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin was the first book I ever read where I was able to see myself, unapologetically staring back at me from the page. The ever-hopeless romantic, trying on new men – praying one of them would fit – never giving up, no matter how many times I wound up heartbroken and alone. While I haven’t tried on quite as many guys as Mouse did, I still to this day can’t seem to drive that wishful-thinking-someday-my-prince-will-come-mentality out of my own ditzy head. I keep trying, but no matter how much sarcasm I put on, it doesn’t seem to help. Go figure? Tales is fun, light, at times wickedly funny, and helped me justify a tiny little piece of my own identity as a gay man by showing me I wasn’t so alone after all. --Ethan Day

I was completely captivated by Maupin’s Tales of the City — a series of books revolving around the inhabitants of an apartment building in San Francisco run by an eccentric landlady, Anna Madrigal, who regards her tenants as her adopted children. Every character, Michael (Mouse) Tolliver, Mary Ann Singleton, Anna’s daughter Mona etc., come to vivid and endearing life within the pages. The series was addictive and hard to give up, and was the inspiration behind my own foray into this crazy world of writing. Many years later Maupin wrote Michael Tolliver Lives when an aging Michael, loving and living with a younger man, finds his past catching up with him as he is forced to face the complexities of his family’s, and long-lost friends’, issues. --J.P. Bowie

There is no denying that Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin is a gay classic, and it works so well because it shows gay people interacting with the straight community rather than being apart from it. The whacky residents of Barbary Lane can be followed through seven books, although you should be warned that as the books move into the eighties they become a bit more sombre when the impact of AIDS is first known. --Sean Kennedy

Does every gay man start their gay reading with TALES OF THE CITY by Armistead Maupin? Possibly the answer is yes, and I think that’s a wonderful thing. It’s funny but real, risky but ultimately safe (like a mother’s approving hug), and it captures a moment in time that is the foundation of contemporary gay society. For any gay man who realizes and respects how significant the 70s were for gay life, owning this book is just as important as owning CAN’T STOP THE MUSIC by the Village People or cherishing those Tom of Finland drawings. --Geoffrey Knight

( Armistead Maupin, 1989, by Robert Giard  )

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( Further Readings )