Julie R. Enszer's Blog, page 9
August 29, 2018
Boston Seminar in February
A few months back Danielle Dumaine emailed me about a proposal for a panel on feminist economics. I was thrilled by her invitation and am now a part of the 2018-2019 series on the History of Women, Gender, & Sexuality in Boston. If you are in the area, mark your calendar and I hope you will join the discussion. More information on the series is available here.[image error]
August 1, 2018
Remembering Beth Brant
[image error]
My pal, Tim Retzloff, maintains a fabulous website Michigan LGBTQ Remember. At the site, Tim posts obituaries of LGBTQ people in or from Michigan who have died. In addition to the obituaries, Tim maintains a blog, Queer Remembering, which has unfolded over the past year and a half with beautiful, meditative posts about the work of history, the engagements of historians, and thoughtful, provocative reflections on Tim’s work as an historian, archivist, activist, and Michigander.
In the spring, inspired by my work on a Sapphic Classic of Beth Brant’s work (a project that will be coming out next year), I asked Tim if he would write and publish an obituary for Brant at the site. He immediately agreed, and, in his Tim-way, upped the game. Tim said, “Yes, but Beth’s life and her work were so important, her obituary should also appear in the newspaper; let’s ask >Between the Lines if they will publish it. And let’s co-write the obituary together.”
We did that together over the past few months. Tim has the obituary here at Michigan LGBTQ Remember and it will be live at Between the Lines later this week and in the August 9th edition in print. [I will add links to the website and a PDF of the print edition when I have them.]
I knew Beth Brant when I lived in Michigan. She was one of the first lesbian-feminist writers I knew personally. She and her partner Denise had me over for dinners. I took a writing workshop with Beth, and we talked for hours about her life as a writer. I very much wanted to be like her and have treasured her books for years. One of my regrets in life is that we did not maintain our relationship. First, I became embroiled in a passionate love affair with the woman known here as the beloved; then we moved away to Colorado. I wrote to her in the last year of her life, but we did not pick up our friendship. I wish that I had stayed in touch with her throughout the years. I wish this was not another story of my failure at friendships. Amid the realities of failures, of losses is the work of remembering. The Sapphic Classic of Beth Brant’s work will be a tool for memory, keeping Brant’s work alive in people’s memories, and tool for new acquaintanceship, for readers who had not previously known Brant’s work. I am excited to be shepherding it into the world.
I appreciate Tim’s work on the obituary. Like most collaborative projects, it is better because of our work together. Michigan’s LGBTQ community is better for Tim’s work on the website, on the blog, and in person. He is a person who shows up every day to engage with meaning and purpose in the world and on behalf of the issues, ideas, and principles in which he believes. Thinking of Tim in these ways, I realize that he and Beth Brant shared much in common in how they moved in the world. They both show up for life and write about it. What pleasure to know them; what joy to be a part of their work!
June 5, 2018
30th Annual Lambda Literary Award Winners Announced
Winners Include Carmen Maria Machado, John Rechy, and
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
NEW YORK, NY – On Monday, June 4th, Lambda Literary, the nation’s leading organization advancing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) literature, announced the winners of the 30th Annual Lambda Literary Awards (the “Lammys”). Comedian Kate Clinton hosted the ceremony at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts in New York City where attendees, sponsors, and celebrities celebrated thirty years of groundbreaking LGBTQ literature.
Roxane Gay and Edmund White were honored with Lambda’s Trustee and Visionary Awards, respectively. Rick Whitaker introduced Edmund White with a tribute composed entirely from sentences found in Mr. White’s books. Accepting the Visionary Award, White shared, “Contained in the word novel is novelty and lesbian and gay writers have been lucky to write about this new world.”
Later, Rebecca Solnit introduced Roxane Gay, who won the Trustee Award. “The word encourage literally means to instill courage, and Roxane’s work is marked by both courage and encouragement,” said Solnit. During her acceptance speech, Gay said “As a woman, as a black woman, as a queer woman, writing has offered me salvation and sanctuary.” She later said, “I want queer writers to create the work that they want to put into the world, regardless if all of the work does or does not meet the expectations of those who read it.”
Other winners of the night included Carmen Maria Machado, John Rechy, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Barbara Browning, Bogi Takács, and more.
“What I want to leave with you tonight,” said Tony Valenzuela during his remarks on his ninth and final year as Lambda Literary Executive Director, “is that, despite our continued challenges, you have a community through Lambda Literary that has your back. I feel deeply grateful to have spent the last nine years with the help of so many of you, to make Lambda Literary into a space where more of us will be seen and can thrive.”
The Lammys brought out the stars from the worlds of film, television, theatre, journalism, and literature. Presenters this year included Alison Bechdel (MacArthur Fellow and award-winning author of Fun Home); Rebecca Solnit (award winning author and contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine); actor Taylor Trensch (actor, Dear Evan Hansenon Broadway); Pamela Sneed (award winning poet); Kate Bornstein (iconic trans activist and writer), and more.
Lambda Literary’s incoming Executive Director, Sue Landers, was acknowledged from the stage and begins a new chapter in the organization in July.
30
th Annual Lambda Literary Award Winners
Lesbian Fiction
Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado, Graywolf Press
Gay Fiction
After the Blue Hour, John Rechy, Grove Press
Bisexual Fiction
The Gift, Barbara Browning, Coffee House Press
Bisexual Nonfiction
Hunger, Roxane Gay, HarperCollins
Transgender Fiction
Transcendent 2: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction, Bogi Takács (ed), Lethe Press
LGBTQ Nonfiction
How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Haymarket Books
Transgender Nonfiction
Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity, C. Riley Snorton, University of Minnesota Press
Lesbian Poetry
Rock | Salt | Stone, Rosamond S. King, Nightboat Books
Gay Poetry
While Standing in Line for Death, CA Conrad, Wave Books
Transgender Poetry
recombinant, Ching-In Chen, Kelsey Street Press
Lesbian Mystery
Huntress, A.E. Radley, Heartsome Publishing
Gay Mystery
Night Drop, Marshall Thornton, Kenmore Books
Lesbian Memoir/Biography
The Fact of a Body, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, Flatiron Books
Gay Memoir/Biography
Lives of Great Men: Living and Loving as an African Gay Man, Chike Frankie Edozien, Team Angelica Publishing
Lesbian Romance
Tailor-Made, Yolanda Wallace, Bold Strokes Books
Gay Romance
Love and Other Hot Beverages, Laurie Loft, Riptide Publishing
LGBTQ Erotica
His Seed, Steve Berman, Unzipped Books
LGBTQ Anthology
¡Cuéntamelo! Oral Histories by LGBT Latino Immigrants, Juliana Delgado Lopera, Aunt Lute Books
LGBTQ Children’s/Young Adult
Like Water, Rebecca Podos, Balzer + Bray
LGBTQ Drama
The Gulf, Audrey Cefaly, Samuel French
LGBTQ Graphic Novels
My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Emil Ferris, Fantagraphics Books
LGBTQ SF/F/Horror
Autonomous, Annalee Newitz, Tor Books
LGBTQ Studies
Punishing Disease: HIV and the Criminalization of Sickness, Trevor Hoppe, University of California Press
PHOTOS OF THE 30TH ANNUAL LAMBDA LITERARY AWARDS
FOR PRESS SELECTS CLICK HERE
FOR ALL IMAGES CLICK HERE
(More photos will be uploaded throughout the week)
2018 Corporate Sponsors:
Gold Level: HarperCollins Publishers, Ketel One Vodka, Macmillan Publishers, Macy’s, Stone Soup Community Press
Silver Level: Hachette Book Group, HBO, Penguin Random House, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster
Friend Level: Bold Strokes Books, Bureau of General Services Queer Division, Bywater Books, Chronicle Books, YES YES Books
Champion Underwriters
The Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency · KG MacGregor · David McConnell · Kay Percy
Partner Underwriters
Susan & Crystal Atkins-Weathers · Ted Cornwell · David Groff & Clay Williams
John Rochester & Lawrence Fodor · Eddie Sarfaty & Court Stroud
S. Chris Shirley · Tony Valenzuela & Robert Ferrante
Lambda Literary Board of Trustees
President- Amy Scholder, Vice-President- Caroline Young
Treasurer, Darla Baker, Secretary, David Groff
Tamika Butler · Steve Coulter · Mischa Haider · Kimberly Hoover
Ellen LaPointe · Rakesh Satyal · Christine Svendsen · Salem West
2018 New York City Host Committee
Chairs- Rakesh Satyal, Amy Scholder
Members: Ann Aptaker, Leona Clemons-Beasley, Paul Florez, David Gale, Scott Gerace, Serkan Gorkemli, Antonio Gonzalez, Charles Rice-Gonzalez, Amy Hundley, Michele Karlsberg, Elizabeth Koke, Lori Perkins, Adam Rathe, David Shane, S. Chris Shirley, Rocco Staino, Karen Schechner, and Jason Wells.
To learn more, visit www.LambdaLiterary.org.
March 31, 2018
Spring
The last time I saw Stanley was just before hurricane Irma. He was coiled up the bougainvillea next to my office window. Wrapped around a branch near the top, he peer into the large window as though asking for shelter from the impending storm. I felt terrible that I could not provide it. I haven’t seen Stanley since that day, though I think of him often and imagine that he had survived though maybe relocated to another plot with fewer large dogs.
Then, on Tuesday, when the stucco fellows were here working on the house, I saw the small black snake mid-afternoon. He was on the ground moving from the pond to inside the azalea bush. Skinny, probably only a quarter inch in circumference and only a foot and a half long. I thought, I hoped, the spawn of a Stanley.
This week, the calla lily that I bought last spring and dug up in a November and stored in a brown paper bag and then replanted a few weeks ago sent up green shoots from the bulb. I almost feel over when I watered it expecting it to be a sad container of dirt housing a dead bulb. Nope. I will have lilies soon.
Then just today, the plumeria which has been sitting off to the side up on the landing and I was sure was dead, sprouted a new green leaf. Kim tells me that she has seen Stanley and another snake, perhaps a Stella, romping in the yard. Spring is here. All around us, life is growing. Not just plants, wasps and locusts and snakes and across the way new osprey. Spring, Stanley, it’s spring.
March 12, 2018
Publishing Triangle Finalists Announced for 2017
This year’s finalists are:
Finalists for the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction
Abandon Me, by Melissa Febos (Bloomsbury USA)
Afterglow, by Eileen Myles (Grove Press)
Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray, by Rosalind Rosenberg (Oxford University Press)
Mean, by Myriam Gurba (Coffee House Press)
Ms. Gurba won the Publishing Triangle’s Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction in 2008, for Dahlia Season.
Finalists for the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction
Brilliant Imperfection, by Eli Clare (Duke University Press)
The Inheritance of Shame, by Peter Gajdics (Brown Paper Press)
Lives of Great Men, by Chike Frankie Edozien (Team Angelica Publishing)
Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic, by Richard A. McKay (University of Chicago Press)
Finalists for the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry
Lena, by Cassie Pruyn (Texas Tech University Press)
No Dictionary of a Living Tongue, by Duriel E. Harris (Nightboat Books)
Rocket Fantastic, by Gabrielle Calvocoressi (Persea Books)
Some Say, by Maureen N. McLane (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Finalists for the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry
Don’t Call Us Dead, by Danez Smith (Graywolf Press)
Half-Light: Collected Poems, 1965-2016, by Frank Bidart (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Into Each Room We Enter Without Knowing, by Charif Shanahan (Southern Illinois University Press)
When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, by Chen Chen (BOA Editions)
Danez Smith’s collection is also a finalist for the Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature.
Finalists for the Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature
Don’t Call Us Dead, by Danez Smith (Graywolf Press)
A Place Called No Homeland, by Kai Cheng Thom (Arsenal Pulp Press)
Prayers for My 17th Chromosome, by Amir Rabiyah (Sibling Rivalry Press)
Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility, edited by Reina Gossett, Eric A. Stanley, and Johanna Burton (The MIT Press)
Danez Smith’s book is also a finalist for the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry.
Finalists for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction
Elmet, by Fiona Mozley (Algonquin Books)
Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado (Graywolf Press)
Marriage of a Thousand Lies, by SJ Sindu (Soho Press)
Scarborough, by Catherine Hernandez (Arsenal Pulp Press)
Ms. Mozley’s novel was a finalist for the 2017 Man Booker Prize. Ms. Machado’s story collection was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award for fiction, and is also a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction. Ms. Hernandez’s novel was a finalist for the 2017 Toronto Book Awards.
Finalists for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction
The Ada Decades, by Paula Martinac (Bywater Books)
The Disintegrations, by Alistair McCartney (University of Wisconsin Press)
The Heart’s Invisible Furies, by John Boyne (Hogarth/Crown)
Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado (Graywolf Press)
Outside Is the Ocean, by Matthew Lansburgh (University of Iowa Press)
Ms. Machado is also a finalist for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction; her collection of stories was a finalist as well for this year’s National Book Award for Fiction
The winner in each of the seven categories above will receive a prize of $1000. Please join us in congratulating this worthy batch of nominees.
Sarah Schulman Wins Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Prize
Sarah Schulman is the 2018 recipient of the Publishing Triangle’s Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement, named in honor of the legendary editor of the 1970s and 1980s. Schulman is a novelist, nonfiction writer, playwright, screenwriter, and AIDS historian. Among her novels are
The Cosmopolitans
,
The Child
, and
Rat Bohemia
(winner of the 1996 Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction). Her works of nonfiction include
Conflict Is Not Abuse
(winner of last year’s Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction),
The Gentrification of the Mind
, and
Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences
. Schulman’s nineteenth book, the novel
Maggie Terry
, will be published in September 2018 by the Feminist Press.She is on the advisory boards of Jewish Voice for Peace, Research on the Israeli/American Alliance, and Claudia Rankine’s Racial Imaginary Institute, and she is faculty advisor for Students for Justice in Palestine. Besides her two earlier Publishing Triangle Awards and many other prizes, Schulman has also won a Guggenheim in playwriting, a Fulbright in Judaic studies, and two American Library Association Stonewall Awards. A fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University, she is distinguished professor of the humanities at CUNY/College of Staten Island. She also teaches in such non-degree community-based programs as Queer Art Mentorship and Lambda Emerging Writers Retreat.
The Bill Whitehead Award is given to a female-identified writer in even-numbered years and to a male-identified writer in odd years, and the winner receives $3000.
Schulman will accept this prize at the Publishing Triangle’s annual awards ceremony on April 26, 2018. It will be held at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium, 63 Fifth Avenue, in Greenwich Village, New York, starting at 7 p.m.
PHOTO BY DREW STEPHENS
Sarah Perry to Receive Emerging Writer Award
The Publishing Triangle is pleased to announce that Sarah Perry will receive its Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award. This award is given to an LGBTQ writer who has published at least one book but not more than two. In selecting her for this award, the judges said, “Sarah Perry’s personal story is uniquely fascinating and tragic. From that story, she has produced a work of art: a hybrid of literary genres and narrative strategies which compellingly explore history, grief, and sexuality.” Perry will receive a prize of $1500 with this award.After the Eclipse: A Mother’s Murder, a Daughter’s Search, Sarah Perry’s memoir, was published in 2017 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Perry holds an M.F.A. in nonfiction from Columbia University, where she served as publisher of Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art and was a member of the journal’s nonfiction editorial board. She is the recipient of a writers’ fellowship from the Edward F. Albee Foundation and a Javits fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education. Perry has attended residencies at Norton Island in Maine and PLAYA in Oregon. Her prose has appeared in such publications as Blood & Thunder, Elle.com, and The Guardian. She lives in Brooklyn.
Perry will accept this honor at the Publishing Triangle’s annual awards ceremony. Join us on Thursday, April 26, 2018, at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium, 63 Fifth Avenue, Greenwich Village, New York. The presentations start at 7 p.m.
PHOTO BY R. K. OLIVER
Publishing Triangle Leadership Prize Bestowed on Agent Malaga Baldi
Malaga Baldi is the winner of the Publishing Triangle’s Leadership Award. Created in 2002, this award recognizes contributions to LGBTQ literature by those who are not primarily writers, such as editors, agents, librarians, and institutions. The winner receives $500.
Malaga Baldi worked in a bookstore, at a publishing house, and for two different agencies before founding her own literary agency in 1986. Since then, the Baldi Agency has established a reputation as an eclectic agency specializing in literary fiction, memoir, and cultural history. She is known for her tireless advocacy for her clients and their books. Among the Baldi Agency’s authors are Kate Bornstein, Blanche McCrary Boyd, Mary Cappello, Barbara Carrellas, Raymond Coppinger, Patty Dann, Glenn Kurtz, William Mann, Martin Moran, and Rick Whitaker.
A first novel she agented–Jazz Moon, by Joe Okonkwo–won the Publishing Triangle’s Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction last year. In addition, of the authors listed above, Martin Moran has won the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction (for The Tricky Part, 2006), and among the finalists for our awards have been Kate Bornstein (A Queer and Present Danger–lesbian nonfiction, 2013), Mary Cappello (Called Back–lesbian nonfiction, 2010), and Rick Whitaker (An Honest Ghost–debut fiction, 2014).
Baldi was a founding member of the Publishing Triangle and served on its initial board of directors. She has also served as a judge for various literary prizes. Baldi lives in Manhattan with her wife and their daughter.
Join us in congratulating Malaga Baldi at the Publishing Triangle’s annual awards ceremony on April 26, 2018. It will be held at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium, 63 Fifth Avenue, in Greenwich Village, New York, starting at 7 p.m.
March 6, 2018
30th Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalists
Congratulations to all of the Lambda Literary Award Finalists!
30th Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalists
Note: The number of finalists in a category is determined by the number of submissions in that category.
Lesbian Fiction
Difficult Women, Roxane Gay, Grove Press
Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado, Graywolf Press
Marriage of a Thousand Lies, SJ Sindu, Soho Press
Not One Day, Anne Garréta, Deep Vellum Press
Something Better than Home, Leona Beasley, Eleven Light City Press
Things to Do When You’re Goth in the Country, Chavisa Woods, Seven Stories Press
We Were Witches, Ariel Gore, Feminist Press
The Year of Needy Girls, Patricia A. Smith, Kaylie Jones Books
Gay Fiction
After the Blue Hour, John Rechy, Grove Press
The Clothesline Swing, Ahmad Danny Ramadan, Nightwood Editions
The End of Eddy, Édouard Louis, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Fimí Sílè Forever, Nnanna Ikpo, Team Angelica
The Heart’s Invisible Furies, John Boyne, Hogarth
Less, Andrew Sean Greer, Lee Boudreaux Books
Outside Is the Ocean, Matthew Lansburgh, University of Iowa Press
This Is How It Begins, Joan Dempsey, She Writes Press
Bisexual Fiction
The Gift, Barbara Browning, Coffee House Press
Homecoming Queens, J.E. Sumerau, Sense Publishers
Next Year, for Sure, Zoey Leigh Peterson, Scribner
Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, Andrea Lawlor, Rescue Press
The Penalty for Holding, Georgette Gouveia, Less Than Three Press
Transgender Fiction
The Black Emerald, Jeanne Thornton, Instar Books
Long Black Veil, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Crown
Nerve Endings: The New Trans Erotic, Tobi Hill-Meyer (ed), Instar Books
Resilience: Surviving in the Face of Everything, Amy Heart, Sugi Pyrrophyta, and Larissa Glasser (eds.), Heartspark Press
Transcendent 2: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction, Bogi Takács (ed), Lethe Press
LGBTQ Nonfiction
After Silence, Avram Finkelstein, University of California Press
Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left: A History of the Impossible, Malik Gaines, NYU Press
Body Horror: Capitalism, Fear, Misogyny, Jokes, Anne Elizabeth Moore, Curbside Splendor
Born Both: An Intersex Life, Hida Viloria, Hachette Books
How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Haymarket Books
Mean, Myriam Gurba, Coffee House Press
Out for Queer Blood: The Murder of Fernando Rios and the Failure of New Orleans Justice, Clayton Delery, Exposit Books
Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community, John Chaich and Todd Oldham, AMMO Books
Bisexual Nonfiction
Hunger, Roxane Gay, HarperCollins
Truth Be Bold: Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS, Julene Tripp Weaver, Finishing Line Press
What the Mouth Wants, Monica Meneghetti, Caitlin Press Inc.
Transgender Nonfiction
Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity, C. Riley Snorton, University of Minnesota Press
Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray, Rosalind Rosenberg, Oxford University Press
Lou Sullivan: Daring to Be a Man Among Men, Brice Smith, Transgress Press
Surpassing Certainty, Janet Mock, Atria Books
What About the Rest of Your Life, Sung Yim, Perfect Day Publishing
Lesbian Poetry
Blind Girl Grunt, Constance Merritt, Headmistress Press
Common Place, Sarah Pinder, Coach House Books
Good Stock Strange Blood, Dawn Lundy Martin, Coffee House Press
Kohnjehr Woman, Ana-Maurine Lara, RedBone Press
My Ariel, Sina Queyras, Coach House Books
Rock | Salt | Stone, Rosamond S. King, Nightboat Books
Rummage, Ife-Chudeni A. Oputa, Little A
Silk Poems, Jen Bervin, Nightboat Books
Gay Poetry
Don’t Call Us Dead, Danez Smith, Graywolf Press
Into Each Room We Enter without Knowing, Charif Shanahan, Crab Orchard Series in Poetry
Nature Poem, Tommy Pico, Tin House Books
Proprietary, Randall Mann, Persea Books
Royals, Cedar Sigo, Wave Books
So Far Afield, Frederick Speers, Nomadic Press
When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, Chen Chen, BOA Editions Ltd.
While Standing in Line for Death, CA Conrad, Wave Books
Transgender Poetry
a place called No Homeland, Kai Cheng Thom, Arsenal Pulp Press
Full-Metal Indigiqueer, Joshua Whitehead, Talon Books
Mucus in My Pineal Gland, Juliana Huxtable, Wonder / Capricious
Of Mongrelitude, Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Wave Books
recombinant, Ching-In Chen, Kelsey Street Press
Lesbian Mystery
Fever in the Dark, Ellen Hart, Minotaur
The Girl on the Edge of Summer, J.M. Redmann, Bold Strokes Books
Huntress, A.E. Radley, Heartsome Publishing
The Last First Time, Andrea Bramhall, Ylva Publishing
Murder Under the Fig Tree: A Palestine Mystery, Kate Jessica Raphael, She Writes Press
Odd Numbers, Anne Holt, Scribner
Repercussions, Jessica L. Webb, Bold Strokes Books
A Quiet Death, Cari Hunter, Bold Strokes Books
Gay Mystery
Boystown 10: Gifts Given, Marshall Thornton, Kenmore Books
Long Shadows, Kate Sherwood, Riptide Publishing
Love is Heartless, Kim Fielding, Dreamspinner Press
The Mystery of the Curiosities, C.S. Poe, DSP Publications
Night Drop, Marshall Thornton, Kenmore Books
Ring of Silence, Mark Zubro, MLR Press
Street People, Michael Nava, Korima Press
Tramps and Thieves, Rhys Ford, Dreamspinner Press
Lesbian Memoir/Biography
Abandon Me: Memoirs, Melissa Febos, Bloomsbury, Inc.
Afterglow, Eileen Myles, Grove Press
The Fact of a Body, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, Flatiron Books
Kiss Me Again, Paris: A Memoir, Renate Stendhal, IF SF Publishing
The Pox Lover: An Activist’s Decade in New York and Paris, Anne-christine d’Adesky, The University of Wisconsin Press
Gay Memoir/Biography
A Sinner in Mecca: A Gay Muslim’s Hajj of Defiance, Parvez Sharma, BenBella Books
Creep: A Life, a Theory, an Apology, Jonathan Alexander, Punctum Books
House Built on Ashes, José Antonio Rodríguez, University of Oklahoma Press
In the Province of the Gods, Kenny Fries, University of Wisconsin Press
Keeping On Keeping On, Alan Bennett, BBC Books
Lives of Great Men: Living and Loving as an African Gay Man, Chike Frankie Edozien, Team Angelica Publishing
Night Class: A Downtown Memoir, Victor Corona, Soft Skull Press
The World Broke in Two: Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster, and the Year that Changed Literature, Bill Goldstein, Henry Holt and Company
Lesbian Romance
Close to Home, Rachel Spangler, Bywater Books
Crescent City Confidential, Aurora Rey, Bold Strokes Books
Goldenrod, Ann McMan, Bywater Books
Tailor-Made, Yolanda Wallace, Bold Strokes Books
Vagabond Heart, Ann Roberts, Bella Books
Venus and Lysander, Yoshiyuki Ly, Solstice Publishing
Wishing on a Dream, Julie Cannon, Bold Strokes Books
You Make Me Tremble, Karis Walsh, Bold Strokes Books
Gay Romance
At the Corner of Rock Bottom & Nowhere, L.A. Witt, Self-Published
Come to The Oaks: The Story of Ben and Tobias, Bryan T. Clark, Cornbread Publishing Inc.
Love and Other Hot Beverages, Laurie Loft, Riptide Publishing
Midlife Crisis, Audra North, Riptide
Six Neckties, Johnny Diaz, Amazon CreateSpace
Stealing Home, Tom Mendicino, Kensington Publishing / Lyrical Press
Wild, Adrienne Wilder, Self-Published
Working It, Christine d’Abo, Riptide Publishing
LGBTQ Anthology
¡Cuéntamelo! Oral Histories by LGBT Latino Immigrants, Juliana Delgado Lopera, Aunt Lute Books
Greetings from Janeland: Women Write More About Leaving Men for Women, Candace Walsh & Barbara Straus Lodge, Cleis Press
Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy from Transgender Writers, edited by Cat Fitzpatrick & Casey Plett, Topside Press
Power & Magic: The Queer Witch Comics Anthology, Joamette Gil, P&M Press
Queer Africa 2: new stories, Makhosazana Xaba & Karen Martin, Modjaji Books
To My Trans Sisters, Charlie Craggs, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Trans Homo…Gasp! Gay FTM and Cis Men on Sex and Love, Avi Ben-Zeev and Pete Bailey, Transgress Press
Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility, edited by Reina Gossett, Eric A. Stanley, and Johanna Burton, The MIT Press
LGBTQ Children’s/Young Adult
Ashes to Asheville, Sarah Dooley, Putnam
Autoboyography, Christina Lauren, Simon & Schuster
Dreadnought: Nemesis – Book 1, April Daniels, Diversion Books
Girls Like Me, Nina Packebush, Bedazzled Ink
Keith Haring: The Boy Who Just Kept Drawing, Kay Haring (Author) & Robert Neubecker (Illustrator), Dial Books
Like Water, Rebecca Podos, Balzer + Bray
The Sidekicks, Will Kostakis, Harlequin Teen
We Now Return to Regular Life, Martin Wilson, Dial Books
LGBTQ Drama
Composure, Scott C. Sickles, Produced by the Workshop Theater
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Tom MacRae, Jonathan Butterell & Dan Gillespie Sells, Samuel French
The Gulf, Audrey Cefaly, Samuel French
How Black Mothers Say I Love You, Trey Anthony, Playwrights Canada Press
Indecent, Paula Vogel, Theater Communications Group
LGBTQ Erotica
His Seed, Steve Berman, Unzipped Books
The Master Will Appear, L.A. Witt, Self-Published
Mistletoe Mishap, Siri Caldwell, Brussels Sprout Press
Unspeakably Erotic, D.L. King, Cleis Press
Witches, Princesses, and Women at Arms, Sacchi Green, Cleis Press
LGBTQ Graphic Novels
Condo Heartbreak Disco, Eric Kostiuk Williams, Koyama Press
Fetch: How a Bad Dog Brought Me Home, Nicole J. Georges, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/Mariner
My Brother’s Husband, Volume 1, Gengoroh Tagame, Pantheon
My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Emil Ferris, Fantagraphics Books
Spinning, Tillie Walden, Macmillan/First Second Books
LGBTQ SF/F/Horror
An Excess Male, Maggie Shen King, HarperCollins
An Unkindness of Ghosts, Rivers Solomon, Akashic Books
Amberlough, Lara Donnelly, Tor Books
Autonomous, Annalee Newitz, Tor Books
I Stole You, Kristen Ringman, Handtype Press
Night Visitors, Owen Keehnen, OutTales Publishing
The Lost Daughter Collective, Lindsey Drager, DZANC Books
The Prey of the Gods, Nicky Drayden, HarperCollins
LGBTQ Studies
Behind the Mask, Alfredo Mirandé, University of Arizona Press
The Ethics of Opting Out, Mari Ruti, Columbia University Press
Lavender and Red, Emily Hobson, University of California Press
Punishing Disease: HIV and the Criminalization of Sickness, Trevor Hoppe, University of California Press
Time Slips, Jaclyn Pryor, Northwestern University Press
Unmaking Love, Ashley T. Sheldon, Columbia University Press
The War on Sex, David M. Halperin and Trevor Hoppe, Duke University Press
Welcome to Fairyland, Julio Capó Jr., University of North Carolina Press
February 28, 2018
Big Lives
The mother of electrician working at the house had a stroke. She is in her seventies and the caregiver for her husband who has advance Alzheimer’s disease. The electrician tells me this by way of explaining why he did not arrive until afternoon. I murmur some notes of sympathy, which I feel sincerely. One of the women at the temple had a stroke. A friend broke up a relationship. Then another. More people than I can count have lost beloved pets (lots of lesbians so great news for the animals in shelters: lesbians are coming you hopeless cases!). Then there are the people doing ambitious projects: losing weight, quitting smoking, going to grad school, writing books, doing ground-breaking research. All around us all are people leading big lives. Lives that fill them with wonder and excitement, joy and pain. Lives that sometimes seem unbearable in the losses, their challenges, their circumstances. Lives that also seem quite amazing in their possibilities, in the ways people make them meaningful, in the ways people make purpose and joy.
I am awed by the big lives around me, but the humanity people bring to their work, to their life. I am watching the locusts hatch. They start so small, less than the length of a fingernail, they grow so fast. Sometimes in the morning I listen; I think I can hear them chewing all that is green around them. I am awed by the Spanish moss that grows on the trees. Roots in the air. The banana palms are rebounding from the freeze earlier this year. The days are hot and sunny, though it will cool this weekend. There is a particular sun at the close of the day, still hot, still bright, but fading. I love that sun. The fish are spawning, and we are only a few months from pollywogs. Plants died, but all of the succulents survived. They are flowering. This is the big life I want: the plants, the moss, the locusts, the trees, the blooming succulents. Mary Oliver’s one wild life. This is what I am doing with it.
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February 22, 2018
Being Liked and Wanting to Like
I have been thinking a lot about being liked and the desire to be liked. In so many contemporary conversations, this idea of being liked is greeted with some derision, rightly so, of course, feminism teaches us that one of the aspects of women’s gender roles is wanting to please other people, wanting to be liked. I agree with that, and I agree, of course, with discourses about co-dependence which further constrain our sense of self with wanting to please other people, too often at the expense of ourselves.
At the same time, that desire to like and to be liked continues. It feels baked into my consciousness; into how I understand the world. I can recognize that it is gendered; I can try to eliminate it, but there is something primal and emotional about the desire that exists in the very core of my being. That reality does cause me to despair about the possibilities for transformation and elimination of gender roles and the oppression associated with them. To not give into the despair, I am also aware that the reality of the primacy of liking, which is really simply affection and connection between two people, is also a part of what makes us fully and wholly human. Liking, having and share connection and affection, brings profound meaning and value to our lives.
When I think about people that I want to like me, which I tend to think about as a small and circumscribed group, that is to say, I by no means want the whole world to like me, I realize that in addition to wanting this group of people to like me, I also want to like them. That is there is a sense of reciprocity in being liked. I want you to like me and I want to like you. That seems to me to be the magic of it, when there is reciprocity. When I like you and you do not like me, that feels pretty crappy and likewise, when you like me and I do not like you, I feel like a heel. Magic of social connection only happens with the liking is mutual.
I have been thinking about this while writing about someone who I really wanted to like–and who I wanted to like me–and with whom I never had that connection, that magic, that reciprocity in spite of the few interactions that we had. It is a challenge to write with great affection and verve about someone who I admire, who I respect, but who I never really liked in those personal interactions. I keep writing though and know in the end it will work out because of the respect and the intellectual abstraction of the importance of her work, but with each word, I am aware of the sense of loss, the sense of missing the like and the reciprocity of the like.
So, too, am I aware of the importance of lifting up and praising women with the power to resist being liked, women who are difficult, women who are by disposition, by choice, by defiance unlikable.
Who have you wanted to like but been unable to conjure those feelings? Who do you know who lives beyond likability? What can we learn about gender and sociality from these people?
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February 18, 2018
Love, Afterwards
This weekend, two stories about widows. One from the Rabbi on Friday night about a man in Pensacola who crafted a ceremony with members of his temple to remove his wedding ring a year after his spouse died. The Rabbi emphasized that the ritual was for this particular man and that he chose the time period of one year. The ritual was not prescriptive, that is, not everyone need wait a year to remove the ring or must remove the ring after a year. Nor need everyone have a ceremony. Rather the story was about creating ritual to mark transitions in our lives within communities.
Yesterday, a friend recounted a story of two women. One widowed when her partner of many years died. A long-ago paramour called immediately after the death. The two are now together quite happily.
Two very different ways that people make their way in the world after the death of a beloved other. I am thinking about both of these stories this weekend and about how people find love and lose love and make life afterward. Lately I have also been thinking about the big lives that people lead. How we only see small parts of them. Every day, we see slivers of peoples lives in the work we do together, the casual interactions we have with many people each day. Meanwhile is person is living a big life filled with love and loss and illness and tragedy and joy and suffering and annoyance and pain and peevishness and lust and sex and honesty and lies. I marvel at how people carry on each day with this big lives and how little I know of each.
I tell my beloved, if I die, she must go out of Florida to find another one to love. I tell her, do not settle for the women around you, go out and seek love from the wide world. You can bring her back here, of course, to our home. The last part is of course a lie. I will haunt her, the new love. I will overflow the toilets, set fires in the kitchen, send plagues of locusts, drain the propane and diesel from the tanks. I want her to love afterwards, of course, but not quickly. Not easily. Removing my ring from her finger will take more than a rabbi, more than a ceremony, more than a community.
December 31, 2017
Seven Questions to End 2017 with Clarity and Start 2018 with Intention
Questions from the On Being blog
1. What was one of the moments I was most proud of this year? What does that tell me about what I want to spend my energy/time/money on next year?
In January, JP Howard organized a celebration of Pat Parker’s Work corresponding with the release of The Complete Works of Pat Parker; it happened at the incredible Lesbian Herstory Archives. It was magical. As we left there was a thin layer of snow on the streets of Brooklyn. I was proud to be a part of the moment and the community gathered. Sinister Wisdom was part of the glue that made it all happen.
2. Who really enriched my life this year in a big way? Who is someone I am wanting to get to know better in the year ahead?
The person with whom I welcomed 2017 (if I recall correctly, we were both asleep when the clock struck midnight) and the person with whom I will welcome 2018. Everyday she makes my life beautiful.
We continue to enjoy meeting people in our new area.
3. It was a year of resistance for many people. What did I resist most effectively? What did I surrender to?
I am working to resist despair, though I cannot say I resisted it effectively. Surrendering myself to doing the work of the world that presents itself.
4. Who did I feel most jealous of this year? What is that person up to that I want to bring more of into my own life?
This is not flattering, but I continue to be jealous of people with academic jobs. Sustaining the work outside of the academy is difficult.
5. When was I most physically joyful in 2017? How can I get there more in 2018?
Repairing the fence in anticipation of the hurricane. Early mornings. Sweating under the rising sun. Brandishing the hammer. I do not need to prep eat that in 2018, but more yoga would be good.
6. What is one question that you found yourself asking over and over again this year? What version of an answer are you living your way into?
What changes historical narratives about lesbians, making them more central to the fundamental functions of US democracy? What new stories might capture our imagination? What old stories might be reinvigorated to serve us now? What books do we need to read now?
7. And finally, in honor of Krista Tippett’s beautiful modeling: What makes me despair and what gives me hope right now?
Politics make me despair. And bullies. And memories of what people said about Tibe. Interns who come in and work for Sinister Wisdom give me hope. And the butterflies and dragonflies of summer. And the succulents that are thriving in pots on the land. And Tibe’s friendship with our new beloved Samantha.
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