05.01.08 -- The buzz: PlanetOut, Inc. announced
that it was selling its magazine and book publishing businesses
-- including The Advocate, Out, and Alyson Books
-- to Regent Releasing for $6 million. Regent is an affiliate
of the Here! cable network. 
Film director Stephen Daldry, who arrives on Broadway with a musical
version of his film Billy Elliot, has expressed interest
in adapting another one of his films, The Hours, based
on Michael Cunningham’s novel, into an opera.
Musician Rufus Wainwright has been commissioned to write an opera
by the New York Metropolitan Opera.
Ang Lee and Focus Features are planning a feature film based on
the gay-themed memoir Taking Woodstock, by Elliot Tiber
with Tom Monte. A paperback tie in with the movie, expected in
2009, will also coincide with the 40th anniversary of Woodstock.
Tony-winner
(Take Me Out) Richard Greenberg’s new play, The
Injured Party, debuted last month in Los Angeles at South
Coast Repertory.
Harper Perennial will publish a new collection of short fiction
by Dennis Cooper, Ugly Man, in the Summer of 2009.
Knopf will publish Emma Donoghue's Lesbian Plots: From Geoffrey
Chaucer to Sarah Waters.
Ballantine will publish Rita Mae Brown's Pure Gold, a
memoir about the animals in the author’s life.
Performance artist Terry Galloway's Mean Little Deaf Queer,
about being gay and disabled, will be published by Beach Press
in the Spring of 2009.
Beacon will also publish Kate Clinton’s untitled book project
in the Spring of 2009.
Patrick Conlon's The Essential Hospital Handbook will
be published by Yale University Press in the Spring of 2009.
Atlantic Books will publish Edmund White's biography Rimbaud:
The Double Life of a Rebel.
Bowen Press, the young adult division of HarperCollins, will publish
Tom Dolby's Secret Society, about a group of Manhattan
teens who are inducted into an elite secret society headquartered
on the Upper East Side, in the Summer of 2009.
Editors Vince Liaguno and Chad Helder are revealing the table
of contents of their new queer-themed horror anthology Unspeakable
Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet one day at a time
during the month of May on their blog for Dark Scribe Press.
King & King, a children’s picture book with positive
gay role models, was withdrawn from two British elementary schools
under pressure from Muslim parents.
Activist and author Larry Kramer sent a critical letter to the
head of the literary organization PEN American Center blasting
the association for featuring few LGBT authors at an international
literature festival it hosted. Kramer also took aim at PEN Board
member Michael Cunningham.
Rob Weisbach is stepping down as President and CEO of Weinstein
Books to pursue other publishing opportunities.
Keith Kahla, who has been at St. Martin’s Press for 20 years,
has been promoted to Executive Editor.
Longtime New Yorker Charles Flowers is relocating to Los Angeles
along with establishing a west coast beachhead of the Lambda Literary
Foundation.
Playwright Robert Patrick is honoring the life of Joe Cino, owner
of former Caffe Cino, with a solid bronze plaque to be mounted
on the site of the Caffe, now the home of Po Restaurant at 31
Cornelia Street in New York. Fifty years ago Joe Cino rented a
storefront in New York City’s Greenwich Village in order
to open a coffee house, which eventually morphed into what is
now regarded as the birthplace of the Off Off Broadway movement
and the American Gay Theatre Movement.
Rapture Café & Books in the East Village in New York
closed April 24, 2008. The store will continue to host reading
events at other locations.
Owners Jim Deva and Bruce Smyth of Little Sister’s Book
& Art Emporium in Vancouver, who challenged Canada’s
Customs agents and censorship laws, has put the bookstore up for
sale. Michael
Walker and the DREAMWalker Group are now producing a regular newsletter
of interest to LGBT writers and is open for submissions and suggestions.
Visit the Web site at www.dreamwalkergroup.com
for more details.
The New York Public Library now has a LGBT blog at www.lgbt.nypl.org.
Things to add to your calendar: The 20th Lambda
Literary Awards ceremony will be held May 29 in West Hollywood,
on the eve of Book Expo’s opening weekend in Los Angeles.
Michael Corbett will be master of ceremonies and guest presenters
include Bernard Cooper, Felice Picano, Torie Osborn, Michael Nava,
Lillian Faderman, Chad Allen, Peter Paige, Denise Penn, Anne Stockwell,
and Calpernia. Guest performers will be the Gay Men’s Chorus,
Tim Miller, and the Gay Mafia.
Gayfest NYC, a festival of new plays and musicals, will run from
May 14 to June 15, 2008.
The annual Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans
will be May 8 – 11, 2008.
The Second Tuesday Lecture Series on May 13 at the LGBT Center
in New York City will feature writers Perry Brass, Laura Antoniou
and Michael Luongo discussing "The Literature of Porn."
Kudos: Martin Duberman was a finalist for the
Pulitzer Prize in Biography for The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein
and Alex Ross was a finalist in the General Nonfiction category
for The Rest Is Noise.
Making the New York Public Library’s list of 25 books to
remember from 2007 were Hotel de Dream by Edmund White
and The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt.
Maureen Brady, Joan Larkin, Stephen McCauley, and Tim Miller will
be inducted into the Saints and Sinners Hall of Fame at this year’s
Literary Festival in New Orleans. Also to be announced are the
winners of the Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists’
Prize – an unrestricted cash grant of $5,000 established
by Jim Duggins. This year’s honorees are Michelle Tea and
Ronald L. Donaghe.
Gaylaxicon 2009 will be October 9-11, 2009 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Margaret Weis, Andy Mangels, and Lawrence Schimel will be the
guests of honor.
Publishing Triangle Nods: Joan Larkin was presented
The Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry for My Body.
There was a tie for The Thom Gunn Award for Gay Male Poetry. The
winners were Steve Fellner for Blind Date with Cavafy
and Daniel Hall for Under Sleep. Myriam Gurba received
The Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction for Dahlia Season.
The Ferro Grumley Awards for LGBT Fiction were presented to Peter
Cameron for Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You and
Ali Liebegott for The IHOP Papers. Janet Malcom was presented
The Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction for Two Lives:
Gertrude and Alice. Michael Rowe received The Randy Shilts
Award for Gay Nonfiction for Other Men's Sons. The Publishing
Triangle Leadership Award was presented to Richard Labonté
and Carol Seajay. Katherine V. Forrest received The Bill Whitehead
Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Open Calls: GotCast.com
is casting a new game show titled My Gay BFF, about the friendships
between straight women and their gay best friends. Visit the Web
site for more details and audition information.
-- Jameson Currier
Jameson Currier is the author of the novel, Where
the Rainbow Ends, and a collection of short stories, Desire
Lust Passion Sex. His short fiction can also be found
in the anthologies Men on Men, Best American Gay
Fiction, Best Gay Erotica, Mammoth
Book of Gay Erotica, Making Literature Matter, Rebel
Yell, and Circa 2000, among others. His story “Snow,” published
in the first issue of Velvet
Mafia, was selected for Best
Gay Erotica 2003 and Best
American Erotica 2004.
New Fiction Online: "Alibis" Excerpted
from Desire Lust Passion Sex
Website: JamesonCurrier.com
