Now the major motion picture "Brokeback Mountain" is being hailed as equally masterful, with performances that are "the stuff of Hollywood history" "(The New York Times)." "Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay" offers readers insight into how this classic short story was turned into an award-winning screenplay and film. "Brokeback Mountain" was originally published in "The New Yorker." It won the National Magazine Award. It also won an O. Henry Prize. Included in this volume is Annie Proulx's haunting story about the difficult, dangerous love affair between a ranch hand and a rodeo cowboy. Also included is the Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe-winning screenplay for the major motion picture, written by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. All three writers have contributed essays on the process of adapting this critically acclaimed story for film. This book is an indispensable tool for film students and aficionados.

    Yet despite the progress of the recent past, gay men still find themselves asking, "Are we really better off?" The inevitable byproduct of growing up gay in a straight world continues to be the internalization of shame, a shame gay men may strive to obscure with a façade of beauty, creativity, or material success. Drawing on contemporary psychological research, the author's own journey to be free of anger and of shame, as well as the stories of many of his friends and clients, The Velvet Rage outlines the three distinct stages to emotional well-being for gay men. Offering profoundly beneficial strategies to stop the insidious cycle of avoidance and self-defeating behavior, The Velvet Rage is an empowering book that will influence the public discourse on gay culture, and positively change the lives of gay men who read it.

    Follow the adventures of a young gay fox trying to be a spy in a foreign palace, where enemies and temptations abound. Received the Ursa Major Award for Best Anthropomorphic Novel of 2005. Warning: contains sexually explicit scenes. Not for sale to underage readers.

    The news shatters the peace of his world and awakens memories that have been dormant for years.

    But he was good at his job until he was bounced off the police force on made up charges.Toshi was caught between two worlds, the quarantined mutated I/S society of his mother's world and the high class world of wealthy human life from his father. Comfortable in neither his heritage or his life, Toshi hides behind duty and clings to what little privacy he has.When Mick accepts the job to keep the reclusive half breed alive, neither man's life will ever be the same again.

    It's a world Bliss wanders through with blinders on, all the while craving more. And she finds it in the most unlikely of places.Embarking on a series of carnal adventures with a notorious bad girl as her guide, Bliss opens herself to every new experience and every taboo. In abandoned warehouses, private fetish clubs, even her own office, Bliss is skating on the thin ice of desire--until her world comes crashing in.Now, broken and wanting, Bliss decides to spend a summer in her birthplace, Jamaica, where she hopes to reconcile with her estranged father and rediscover herself. There, in a land of lush ripeness, of heat, warm breezes, easy smiles, and the family she left behind, Bliss will discover what she didn't know was missing. It's a journey that will awaken every one of her senses and take her to the edge of known pleasure and far beyond it, to a love that is as sexy as it gets, as real as can be, and more surprising than she can imagine--a place of total bliss.

    His wrongful conviction cost him his job, his fiancée, his reputation, and his hope for the future. His name has been cleared, but after everything he’s lost, he doesn’t know how to find his way back to the life that was taken from him. Parker Campbell is raising his 9-year-old niece, Emma, on his own.  Working for a homophobic boss in a gay-unfriendly town, he treads carefully, knowing that his job security has to be his priority when he’s all Emma has. Parker has never considered starting a relationship with another employee… until he hires Nate. It should have been easy to avoid getting involved, since Nate keeps insisting that he's not gay. Parker is used to life not being easy, though, and Nate may find that what he really needs isn't at all what he thought he was looking for. (Restitution is a standalone m/m contemporary gay romance of approximately 60,000 words containing profanity, mature adult content, two men who deserve love, and a happily ever after ending.)

    John Waters, the writer and director of these movies, is a legendary filmmaker whose films occupy their own niche in cinema history. His muse and leading lady was Divine — a 300-pound transvestite who could eat dog shit in one scene and break your heart in the next. In "Hairspray," a "pleasantly plump" teenager, played by Ricki Lake, and her big-hearted hairdresser mother, played by Divine, teach 1962 Baltimore about race relations by integrating a local TV dance show. "Female Trouble" is a coming-of-age story gone terribly awry: Dawn Davenport (again, Divine), progresses from loving schoolgirl to crazed mass murderer destined for the electric chair — all because her parents wouldn't buy her cha-cha heels for Christmas. In "Multiple Maniacs," dubbed by Waters a "celluloid atrocity," the traveling sideshow "Lady Divine's Cavalcade of Perversions" is actually a front for a group of psychotic kidnappers, with Lady Divine herself the most vicious and depraved of all — but her life changes after she gets raped by a fifteen-foot lobster.

    Laurinda Brown's characters explore every aspect of black lesbian life - whether it's first times, illicit trysts, cheating hearts or longtime love.

    Romaine was then thrust to the center of the worldwide media frenzy that descended on Laramie, and she came face-to-face with twisted homophobia when Baptist minister Fred Phelps and his followers picketed Matthew’s funeral with signs reading, “Matt burns in hell.” Upon learning of Phelps’ plan to bring his ministry of hate to support Matt’s killers at their trial, Romaine went into action. Who can forget the image of Romaine and her friends donning seven-foot angel wings so they could encircle Phelps and his gang, leaving the picketers silent and invisible? From that moment forward, Romaine has become a spokesperson for tolerance, acceptance, and nonviolence around the globe, whether as a founder of Angel Action, as a consultant for The Laramie Project (the award-winning play that has been produced hundreds of times and became an acclaimed HBO film starring Christina Ricci as Romaine). In one of their last conversations, Matt told Romaine that he wanted to spend his life helping people realize that they as individuals could make a difference in the world. This is Romaine Patterson’s journey to realizing the truth of that statement.Wyoming native Romaine Patterson got started in activism when her close friend Matthew Shepard was killed. In April of 1999, she founded Angel Action, an organization for peaceful demonstration. Angel Action is now used all over the world as a means of combating hate. She has also served as a regional media manager for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). She continues her work educating youth about hate crimes and has lectured at the University of Wyoming, Georgetown University, Penn State, and others. She currently lives in Brooklyn.

    This thought-provoking and engaging guide is filled with a wide range of practical information and step-by-step plans for beginning your study and personal practice, including: - Exploring the connection between spirituality and sexuality- Meditating and creating sacred spaces- Finding rituals and deities that are right for you- Manifesting your desires through magic- Living a joyful, purposeful life- Eight original stories inspired by the Wiccan Sabbats- And so much more

    These guys bring out the big guns impressively equipped complete with six-pack and laser pistols. Without a doubt their most powerful weapon is their sex appeal. Patrick Fillion gives what the mainstream comic world has been keeping from us all this time. An incredibly erotic gay universe.

    He wants to go out to a bar he knows over by Doniphan, across the river. Reminds him of a place in Dallas, when he was just out of the service. Even the name's the same-the Wood Shed. The barbecue is Texas-style, he swears, and they've got Lone Star by the bottle, a real treat from the sound of it that will also grow hair on my chest (since nothing else does).I'm on the couch with my feet up. The TV is on with the sound off. And I've got to about page 85 of Farewell to Arms. Trying this summer to read through all of Hemingway and some Henry Miller. I'm as dressed for the night as I'm going to be-white snap-front shirt and a new pair of button-fly levi's, still unwashed, cardboard-stiff, indigo blue, and roomy inside.Mike says I should jump into the stock tank, and let them shrink to fit. This is his idea of a joke. He is a Wrangler man and thinks buttons just slow a man down. Mike also has opinions about underwear. He believes in boxers and thinks my jockeys mark me as the college boy that I am. Not to be taken seriously.I hear Mike come into the room and walk up behind me. He bends over grinning at me, upside down."What happened to your beard?" I say."Got tired of it," he says. It's all gone but a thick, dark moustache, which looks even thicker now over his big smile.He lifts my glasses from my face and rubs his naked cheek against mine. There's a wave of his Mennen Skin Bracer. Then he bends farther, opening the top of my shirt. His hairy chest presses onto my face, skin still moist from the bathroom, and I can feel his wet tongue working its way down to my navel, the snaps on my shirt popping open as he goes. Hemingway hits the floor.He pauses, and I can feel his hands on my fly, working his fingers around the stiff buttons. He's letting his full weight down onto me and muttering something about goddam levi's. Finally, I feel him yanking, and the buttons come undone with a surging ripple effect down the front of my briefs."And what have we here?" Mike is laughing. And I'm already feeling his callused hands reaching into my shorts. He pulls forward farther, and now the damp towel he's got wrapped around him is edging across the bridge of my nose.Mike wastes no time. He's got me in his mouth before I'm half hard. I reach around with my one free arm and start pulling at the towel. He finally lifts upward, and the towel starts to fall away. As I'm looking under it, his dick drops out and slaps onto my face. I touch the end of it with my tongue, and I'm getting syrupy drops of his salty precum.We never make it to the Wood Shed for barbecue and Lone Stars that night. And we don't make any other progress either...

    Welcome to the seductive pictures of Pierre et Gilles. Again and again they show people in kitschy scenarios against a background of flowers and hearts. When they are not snapping portraits of the well-known - most of whom are close friends like Marc Almond or Nina Hagen - and not-so-known, they photograph themselves. Bizarre, and full of obscure significance, the photographs are reminiscent of stills from film melodramas.They are always colourful and presented with beguiling polish. They plunder the repertoire of historical presentation as though they were leafing through a collection of fabrics, and assume identities as though they were part of a mail-order catalogue.Now the latest and most comprehensive collection of the works of these two photographers can be presented to the public - in a format designed by the artists themselves. In matt skin-colour, with a golden edging, the embossed cover is reminiscent of a quilted counterpane and promises a cuddly experience within. Once between the covers one can frolic at will in a soft, artificial world of pictures. This saccharine collection of kitsch encompasses all aspects of homosexuality and offers them in an appetising form even to those who abhor them. A straight challenge is issued to all readers to participate - at least with their eyes - in this unbridled celebration of a life beyond guilt and expiation.

    With his family grown and his husband Zack having decided to become a middle-aged clichA(c) and marry his secretary, Chris Thayer is about to discover that starting life over at 48 is just as complicated, frustrating and thrilling as the first time around. After relocating to the North Carolina beach community of Emerald Isle, Chris finds a new appreciation of his role as the heart of the home to his grown children and becomes involved in the patchwork lives of his neighbors. To his unending surprise, he also finds himself the object of a new man's affections, a rowdy jack-of-all-trades with an unnervingly direct stare. In the same quiet, understated manner that he demonstrated in his critically acclaimed first novel, "Metes and Bounds," Jay Quinn gives the traditional Southern novel a decidedly untraditional twist.Jay Quinn is the founding editor and executive editor of Haworth Press's Southern Tier Editions. He is the author of "Metes and Bounds" and "The Mentor" and has edited "Rebel Yell: Stories by Contemporary Southern Gay Authors." He lives in south Florida.

    From lonely observations, bizarre medical fascinations, emotion, loss, and honesty, Blue on Blue Ground constructs its internal and external worlds.The metaphorical city is also a “body,” a place of exile and restoration, a symbol of hope, a catalyst for connection.  The urban landscape is often the background for the moment or is the moment itself—the world looked at and sorted into words.Though at times dark, there’s love to be found. Perhaps it’s what drives this collection, colors its observations, and leads it to finally announce: “Someone is putting the world back together.”  Blue on Blue Ground wants to look at absolutely everything and believes that complete exploration of the physical and mental selves—fears and desires—is the key to moving and being completely alive in the material world.

    Appalachians are known for their love of place, yet many gays and lesbians from the mountains flee to urban areas. Jeff Mann tells the story of one who left and then returned, who insists on claiming and celebrating both regional and erotic identities. In memoir and poetry, Mann describes his life as an openly gay man who has remained true to his mountain roots. Mann first describes his upbringing in Hinton, a small town in southern West Virginia, as well as his realization of his homosexuality, his early experiences of homophobia, his coterie of supportive lesbian friends, and his initial attempts to escape his native region in hopes of finding a freer life in urban gay communities. Mann depicts his difficult search for a romantic relationship, the family members who have given him the strength to defy convention, his anger against religious intolerance and the violence of homophobia, and his love for the rich folk culture of the Highland South. His character and values shaped by the mountains, Mann has reconciled his homosexuality with both traditional definitions of Appalachian manhood and his own attachment to home and kin. Loving Mountains, Loving Men is the compelling, universal story of making peace with oneself and the wider world.AUTHOR INFORMATION---Jeff Mann is a professor of creative writing at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia. He is the author of a collection of poetry, Bones Washed with Wine, and a memoir, Edge.SIDEBAR QUOTE---“The sheer beauty of the prose in the memoir and the language of the poetry is incredible. This is one of the great watershed books of Appalachian literature. Its contribution to the field of Appalachian studies and gay/gender studies is significant.”---Danny L. Miller, coeditor of An American Vein: Critical Readings in Appalachian Literature

    The poems chronicle, among other things, a history of childhood abuse and its after effects, but in a larger sense, they also explore through the lens of myth, art, religion, and popular culture, the underlying and often unacknowledged brutality beneath even mundane events.’’—from the judges’ citation: PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award

    LGBT Studies. "let's begin/ there are mental facts/ as potent physical facts" begins OBEDIENCE, the most recent collection of poems by nationally renowned poet and visual artist kari edwards. A kaleidoscopic rumination on "bodies of resistance" to the relentless erasures of time, OBEDIENCE gathers its materials equally from the physical world and analytical accounts of it to offer a rhythmic disruption of the relative real, a progressive troubling of the phenomenal world, from gross material to the infinitesimal. "what time is it you say/ split between fingertips/ and what bleeds now"--from OBEDIENCE.

    He goes on to analyze pulp novels of the 1960s and 1970s and more recent mainstream works. The second part of the volume is an annotated bibliography describing over 600 books

    Gay and Lesbian Studies. A testimony of sexuality in times of violence, this journey into the intimate language of the male body is freighted with danger and desire and expressed through a dark eroticism reminiscent of Garcia Lorca and Cavafy. "A brilliant poet of two nations, he is a treasure found"--Sandra McPherson. Rigoberto Gonzalez is the author of four books--So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water Until It Breaks (a 1998 National Poetry Series selection), two bilingual children's books, and a novel, Crossing Vines, which was a ForeWord Magazine Fiction Book of the Year. Gonzalez is a Guggenheim Fellow and a member of PEN and the National Book Critics Circle. He is an associate professor of English and Latino studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a contributing editor to Poets & Writers magazine.

    The apparent prohibition of homosexuality in Leviticus and the story of Sodom from Genesis have been made to speak for the whole Hebrew Bible. The oddity of this situation has not been lost on some interpreters who have recognized that the story of Sodom tells us no more about attitudes toward what we call homosexuality than the story of the rape of Dina tells us about attitudes toward heterosexuality.Prof. Jennings says that the well-known eroticism of the Hebrew Bible is not confined to heterosexuality but also includes an astonishing diversity of material that lends itself to homoerotic interpretation. In Part one, Jennings examines saga materials associated with David. It is no innovation to detect in the David and Jonathan's relationship at least the outline of a remarkable love story between two men. What becomes clear, however, is that the tale is far more complex than this since it involves Saul and is set within a context of a warrior society that takes for granted that male heroes will be accompanied by younger or lower status males. Thus the complex erotic connections between David and Saul and David and Jonathan play out against the backdrop of a context of "heroes and pals." The second type of same sex relationship explored has to do with shamanistic forms of eroticism in which the sacral power of the holy man is both a product of same sex relationship and expressed through same sex practice. This section deals with Samuel and Saul and Elijah and Elisha. These are not warriors but persons whose sacral power is also erotic power that may find expression in erotic practices with persons of the same sex.The third type of same sex relationship discusses we now call transgendered persons, especially males, and their erotic relationship to (other) males. Here the book explores the transgendering of Israel by several prophets who use this device to explore the adultery and promiscuity that they wish to attribute to Israel, as well as the story of Joseph.

    Bringing together the essential writing on this topic from the last 25 years, these essays discuss gender in Africa from a multi-disciplinary perspective. With a theoretical and conceptual focus, African Gender Studies will inform debate in African Studies, Women's Studies, History, Sociology and Anthropology.

    A timely and important contribution to the body of recovery literature, Cruise Control provides understanding, empathy and encouragement to gay men seeking healthy sexual expression.

    The breadth of his correspondence is breathtaking, going from precocious childhood letters to those written when he was a member of the secret Cambridge Apostles, and from letters to Leonard and Virginia Woolf, to Maynard Keynes and other members of the Bloomsbury Group, to love letters to Dora Carrington and Duncan Grant. The thousands of letters he wrote retain their vitality to this day, discussing changes in morals, the writing of history, literature and philosophy, politics, war and peace, and the advent of modernism. Strachey believed that one only really comes to know a writer by reading his correspondence, and if these playful, provocative, and eminently sensible letters attest to anything, it is to the soundness of this belief.

    “There are few books for gay men on not only what to look for in Mr. Right but how to become Mr. Right. My book will address both. It is not just about finding him, it is what you do after you find him,” says author Joe Kort. A certified Imago Relationship Therapist, Kort has employed the ideas put forth by Imago founder Harville Hendrix to transform the lives and relationships of the countless gay couples he has worked with in 20 years of private practice. In “Your Sexual Shadow,” one of his new book’s 10 life-altering chapters, Kort unveils a surprising and groundbreaking idea that explores how decoding sexual fantasies can often unlock the mystery to what gay men are looking for in a partner and why. This will be particularly elucidating to men who have been conditioned to believe their sexual fantasies are an obstacle to long-term relationships. How can the secret logic of “dark” sexual desires help you find Mr. Right? “So many of my clients say they have to get better before they find Mr. Right,” reports Kort. “I think that is often a reason to avoid relationships and simply not true.” His new book is a practical guide to set gay men on the path to true love today.Joe Kort is a therapist in private practice since 1985, specializing in gay-affirmative psychotherapy as well as Imago Relationship Therapy, which is a specific program involving communication exercises designed for couples to enhance their relationship and for singles to learn relationship skills. His first book, 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve Their Lives, was a national gay and lesbian bestseller.

    She asks him to keep the DVD she's made for her only daughter, Jenna, safe and hidden until Jenna’s 18th birthday. Only then should she watch it – alone.Jack promises to fulfill her wish but is sidetracked when he is betrayed by his closest confidant. The DVD ends up in the hands of felons who reveal the secret it holds and jeopardize Jenna’s future and the promise Jack made to his sister. Unable to trust anyone, Jack knows he must make things right on his own… no matter who gets hurt or killed along the way.This psychological thriller includes the best of the many worlds of fiction – from suspense and mystery to continuous action and twisted romance, readers who enjoyed Kaufman’s One Last Lie will again be unable to put this book down until they find out what truly lurks in the shadow of stone.

    He appeared in at least twenty films as a leading man to many of Hollywood's famous stars, such as Joan Crawford and Marion Davies. As Haines' film career faded, his skills as a self-taught decorator flourished. Soon, he was decorating the homes of the elite crowd of the movie industry, including mogul Jack Warner and director George Cukor. Peter Schifando, a longtime associate of Haines' business partner, Ted Graber, and Jean H. Mathison, who worked with Haines for thirty years, have opened their private collections to bring together more than three hundred photographs and drawings of Haines' fabulous interiors as well as his classic furniture designs, which include the influential Elbow, Hostess, and Seniah chairs.

    Almost thirty years later, at the age of forty-two, he set out to find and face his abuser. The Tricky Part tells the story of this relationship and its complex effect on the man Moran became. He grew up in an exemplary Irish Catholic family-his great aunt was a cloistered nun; his father, a newspaper reporter. They might have lived in the Denver neighborhood of Virginia Vale, but they belonged to Christ the King, the church and school up the hill. And the lessons Martin absorbed, as a good Catholic boy, were filled with the fraught mysteries of the spirit and the flesh. Into that world came Bob-a Vietnam vet carving a ranch-camp out of the mountain wilderness, showing the boys under his care how to milk cows, mend barbed wire fence, and raft rivers. He drove a six-wheeled International Harvester truck; he could read the stars like a map. He also noticed a young boy who seemed a little unsure of himself, and he introduced that boy to the secret at the center of bodies.Told with startling candor and disarming humor, The Tricky Part carries us to the heart of a paradox-that what we think of as damage may be the very thing that gives rise to transformation, even grace.

    When an increase in gun crimes forces Shiiba to work undercover, he must forge an alliance with an "S" or spy, who turns out to be an influential man from the Matsukura Group. But when Shiiba gets a call warning him about his S-seeds of doubt are planted. If he can't trust his S, who can he trust?

    Subtly exploring the roots of fantasy, insecurity, stereotypes, and attraction, Andy Quan emerges as plainly comfortable with himself, his body, and his identity as an Asian man in the notoriously objectifying gay community. This level of comfort shows in the slyly humorous ways he allows the issue to surface in these narratives, where pickups trawling for a passive geisha often get more than they bargained for. Whether narrating the course of a romantic encounter gone bad, detailing the goings-on at an orgy, or smashing the stereotype of the Asian boytoy, Six Positions offers fresh, thoughtful, and creative considerations of gay bodies and acts, while celebrating determined and unadulterated sexual desire.

    The mainstreaming of gay and lesbian identity—as a mass-mediated consumer lifestyle and an embattled legal category—demands a renewal of queer studies that also considers the global crises of the late twentieth century. These crises, which are shaping national manifestations of sexual, racial, and gendered hierarchies, include the ascendance and triumph of neoliberalism; the clash of religious fundamentalisms, nationalisms, and patriotisms; and the return to “moral values” and “family values” as deterrents to political debate, economic redistribution, and cultural dissent. In sixteen timely essays, the contributors map out an urgent intellectual and political terrain for queer studies and the contemporary politics of identity, family, and kinship. Collectively, these essays examine the limits of queer epistemology, the potentials of queer diasporas, and the emergence of queer liberalism. They rethink queer critique in relation to the war on terrorism and the escalation of U.S. imperialism; the devolution of civil rights and the rise of the prison-industrial complex; the continued dismantling of the welfare state; the recoding of freedom in terms of secularization, domesticity, and marriage; and the politics of citizenship, migration, and asylum in a putatively postracial and postidentity age.Contributors. Michael Cobb, David L. Eng, Roderick A. Ferguson, Elizabeth Freeman, Gayatri Gopinath, Judith Halberstam, Janet R. Jakobsen, Joon Oluchi Lee, Martin F. Manalansan IV, José Esteban Muñoz, Tavia Nyong'o, Hiram Perez, Jasbir K. Puar, Chandan Reddy, Teemu Ruskola, Nayan Shah, Karen Tongson, Amy Villarejo

    By detailing individual experiences, Anderson shows how these athletes are emerging from their athletic closets and contesting the dominant norms of masculinity. From the locker rooms of high school sports, where the atmosphere of don't ask, don't tell often exists, to the unique circumstances that gay athletes encounter in professional team sports, this book analyzes the agency that openly gay athletes possess to change their environments.

    Bi Men: Coming Out Every Which Way confronts head-on the limiting views that bisexuality is a transitional phase of sexual evolution or a simple refusal to accept being either homosexual or straight. This pioneering collection of moving personal essays by bisexual men and those who love them explores what it means to be bisexual in today's monosexually oriented society.The millennial shift in sexual perspectives draws more and more men to come out as being attracted to both women and men. Bisexual and bi-curious men will find comfort and camaraderie in these stories about coming out, its impact on family and marriage, evolving perspectives on bisexuals within the LGBT community, and the building of acceptance and affirmation for bisexuality and polyamory.The nearly three dozen essays in Bi Men: Coming Out Every Which Way are told in the honest words of bisexuals, confirming the validity of their place in the world while illustrating that there are more bi men than anyone ever realized. These diverse and pioneering men's stories reveal a long-disguised and unconventional truththat bisexuality is a valid lifestyle that does not threaten either sexual camp. Each contributor to this collection affirms the innate fluidity of self, sexuality, family, and community, and proclaims that sexuality is truly diverse in its predispositions and creativity.Bi Men: Coming Out Every Which Way separates its essays into four parts: coming out and personal realization of bisexual nature bisexuality's effects on family and marriage an examination of the shifting viewpoints of bisexuality within gay communities ways in which bisexuals can affirm and respect their own desires and celebrate their sexual selves These intimate stories address:biphobia monosexual prejudice the impact on marriage family issues coming out to self, spouse, and family political and community issues religious and spiritual concerns Bi Men: Coming Out Every Which Way is a vibrant, reassuring call to bisexuals, the bi-curious, or anybody who knows and loves a bisexual/bi-curious man, to read and more completely understand the unique issues of being bisexual while providing the ultimate affirmation of bisexuality's existence.

    Shurin's position—the sharply etched immediacy of his experience—is unabashedly that of a sexually active gay man in contemporary America, yet—and, in fact, because of—the exactitude of his insights into this subject matter, the risks and revelations of his vision extend our own sense of what it means to be human. His deft reflections show us how much the involuntary expression of language is suffused with cultural intent, how much the rhythms of the past permeate the present—and how many lost friends, lovers, opportunities, can be heard in the music of the current moment, if we listen with the kind of lyric attention that Shurin brings to language. Formally, the poems in Involuntary Lyrics press every aspect of poem's surface tensions into the service of a music that extends our appreciation of the ways a poem can mean. Shurin shifts between the taut and the tangential in his elastic use of the line, but always deploying to full advantage the line's end as fulcrum to catch the shifting center within every poetic proposition. Because Shurin uses the end words from Shakespeare's sonnets, the cadence of these poems is charged with an elegiac longing, a classical resonance that only heightens the power of Shurin's socially conscious, subversively sensual subject matter. At each line's turn, Shurin balances the trace memory of poetic history against the charged physicality of contemporary event.

    LGBT Studies. BC Poetry in Transit selection (poem displayed on Vancouver city buses). Poems from THE SLEEP OF FOUR CITIES selected as Poems of the Day on US websites Verse Daily and Poetry Daily. Powered by lush imagery and lyricism, the poems in THE SLEEP OF FOUR CITIES use the city as a metaphor for the complexity of self. This book invites the reader to take a journey through multiple cities cities of memory, of desire, of imagination, of discovery, of loss with only the map of language as a guide. The cities in this book are not always easily unlocked they are at once tangible and invisible; they exist both inside and outside the speakers of the poems. Throughout the book, these speakers seek to discover what is within their grasp and what, like water, will slip through their fingers. "She has created an enchanted universe where senses quiver, and colors are so saturated, they're almost hallucinogenic. But beauty draws the reader close, only to plunge into emotional risk: everything is transient and uncertain. Even nostalgia is uncomfortable, like 'working a new glove, ' as if memories had arrived in the wrong size There's no complacency here; Currin's bold lyric poems startle readers awake." Foreword Reviews "Currin's poetry attends us, lighting the ball at midnight, where first love and first terror are arm-in-arm, waiting in their figurative, gesticulating disguises to welcome us to a primitive happiness." Rain Taxi Review of Books"Jen Currin's THE SLEEP OF FOUR CITIES comes into Canadian poetry with the same electric intimacy as Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon brought to the drawing rooms of Europe a century ago, and with a similar omnipresent dimensionality burning on the shore between touch and cognition. Currin's poems are reminiscent of Don Domanski's or John Ashberry's, except that with Currin's every link between every seemingly random image is precisely contained by a rigorous set of story-telling rules. Think Marilyn Bowering's Autobiography meets Erin Moure in a gallery of brilliantly coloured painterly surfaces with their roots in wisdom literature and folk-tale magic, and you have a hint of it. With this volume, an entire tradition, with its roots in Latin American and Eastern European poetry, all shaped with the rigour of the New York School in which Currin trained, has the potential to inspire and define a generation. There hasn't been a debut like this since Margaret Atwood's The Journals of Susannah Moodie " A rc Poetry "'My mask hangs by a threat, ' writes Jen Currin, and indeed an air of menace suffuses these brilliantly erotic and dangerous poems. Currin is a startling new talent who bears watching." John Ashbery"

    Khaled El-Rouayheb argues that this apparent paradox is based on the anachronistic assumption that homosexuality is a timeless, self-evident fact to which a particular culture reacts with some degree of tolerance or intolerance. Drawing on poetry, biographical literature, medicine, dream interpretation, and Islamic texts, he shows that the culture of the period lacked the concept of homosexuality.

    What makes this book unique is that Gebhardt writes from a Christian perspective as well as from a gay perspective. Gebhardt provides readers with insight into such topics as everyday living, medical issues, relationships, self-exploration, and death. He also includes prayers that relate to compassion and a global understanding of the disease--a disease that continues to spread, 20+ years after it was first identified.

    Bringing together all three of his collections - Family dancing (a finalist for both the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Prize), A place I've never been and The marble quilt - this edition affirms David Leavitt's mastery of the short-story form.

    They’ve each sworn to kill the other, and have battled many times without either of them winning. But when a spell gone wrong links them through bonds of shared blood and sex, the game stops abruptly and with no clear winner.Trying to stay alive, they learn to guard each other's back against old and new enemies alike. The game takes a new turn as the memories of what they shared under the spell become too hard to ignore and they succumb to lust - or could it be more than that?

    This collection of essays on Wittig's work is the first sustained examination of her broad-ranging literary and theoretical works in English. A major feminist theorist on a par with Julia Kristeva, Helene Cixous, and Luce Irigaray, Wittig relocated to teach in the U.S. while maintaining an intellectual presence in Europe before her unexpected death in January 2003. On Monique Wittig includes twelve essays, including three previously unpublished pieces by Wittig herself. Their contents run the gamut of Wittig's corpus, from the political, to the theoretical, to the literary, while representing French, Francophone, and U.S. critics: Diane Griffin Crowder looks at the U.S. feminist movement, Linda Zerilli considers gender and will philosophically, and Teresa de Lauretis examines the development of lesbian theory. Together, these essays situate Wittig's work in terms of the cultural contexts of its production and reception. This is the first book to appear on Wittig following her death, and an indispensable tool for feminist scholars.

    The main character, Ice, has a reputation of being a daring stick-up kid, but when he lands in an upstate New York prison, his reputation comes into question after an unforgettable encounter in his cell with a prison thug.

    Gay and Lesbian studies. "Erotic, irreverent, mournful, political, Arroyo's lyrics and narratives surprise, often by juxtaposing literary erudition and popular culture within the same stanza. The result is a hybrid poetics all his own. Read his arguments, direct addresses, dream poems, elegies, family narratives, and love poems to experience an incisive, original mind exploring the square roots of restlessness.'"--Robin Becker.

    This book draws upon the archive of the Gay and Lesbian Association and incorporates first-hand documents from the time as well as essays by participants in the events and later commentators.

    Don't let the bastards see that you care. They were standing in line at Police Headquarters in Los Angeles, waiting to be fingerprinted. The twenty-two year old writer had just been arrested on a vag-lewd charge. Or, to put it more clearly, he had been busted for being gay. Entrapment, police stings, and unauthorized raids were still the acceptable tactics for catching and imprisoning gays in America in the mid-20th Century. The gay world, regarded as criminal or sick, was a scorned minority with its own private vocabulary, but no voice politically, forced to rely on intuition, courage, and laughter to survive. What led up to this arrest, and the struggle to live it down afterwards, lies at the core of this very frank, and sometimes hilarious, memoir. The Tall Boy include close-ups of some of the legendary theatre and film figures Gregg came to know and work with, among them Elia Kazan and Tennessee Williams, Agnes de Mille, Gower Champion, Joshua Logan, Colette, Gian Carlo Menotti, Sir John Gielgud, Jean Cocteau and Scan Connery. Just as colorful are the profiles of less celebrated figures--Ma Coyle, cheerleader to a generation of gay boys, Raymond, the smoldering icon at the Hollywood hotel, and Marty, the good-looking lesbian with whom Gregg set up housekeeping in an effort to go straight. Jess Gregg does not hold back in telling of the struggles and peril of those days. Neither does he stint on the fun and adventure. Or the progress. The 20th Century proved to be revolutionary; the walls that came tumbling down were not just social and cultural, but sexual.

    In this exhaustive guide you will find (among many other things):Tips on lighting and music The Ten Commandments of orgies How to be an inclusive host (or an attitude-free guest) Do-it-yourself dungeons What to wear Gang bangs made simple Menu suggestions Ten theme parties you can tryJust think—no more boring Saturday nights!Simon Sheppard is a smart slut pornographer whose previous books include Kinkorama, Hotter Than Hell and In Deep. He lives in San Francisco, where they do this sort of thing.

    Gay Hegemony/ Latino Homosexualities is an interdisciplinary project that weaves ethnographic interviewing with the analysis of texts and material culture to study the intersection of gayness with Latinidad.

    But their relationship was torn apart by Terrell's father and his pastor causing the two young men to travel different roads in their lives. Now, as they near their fortieth birthdays, each seeks to confront the pains and truths that have shaped his journey: Otis returns home, having endured years of hardship in search of the peace that has eluded him for so long. During his stay he finds he must confront his father who had turned his back on him; the lover who denied him and the minister who brought about his downfall, and most of all a surprise that awaits him. Then there is Terrell who finds that in spite of the 'perfect' life he chose to live, his marriage to Karen and his dedication to his two kids, there can be no peace without reconciling the differences that determines his sexual identity. 'This Place of Men' is the first book in the 'This Place of Men' trilogy.

    A small town school teacher and a high society London doctor have more in common than they think especially when destiny puts these two unlikely lovers together in Sweet Medicine, Oklahoma.

    Harry takes care of him.

    Issues include:• Defining terminology (What a tranny? What’s gay baiting?)• Exploring family issues ("Should I come out to my parents on Thanksgiving?" "How can I support a lesbian couple who want to have children?")• How to support gay rights around the worldA timely and much-needed guide, 50 Ways demonstrates positive ways for both straight and gay people to respond to everyday discrimination and misunderstandings, bringing the world closer to the true meaning of equality.A powerful call-to-action series, "Action Guides," was launched with the New York Times bestselling MoveOn’s 50 Ways to Love Your Country, followed by NCWO’s 50 Ways to Improve Women’s Lives. The third book in the series—50 Ways to Support Lesbians and Gays—features 50 personal, inspiring essays with "Action Guide" sidebars collected by bestselling Meredith Maran and series editor Angela Watrous.

    This is the first book to examine same-sex weddings and same-sex couple suicides in India today, discussing these phenomena both in the context of the international debate on gay marriage, and in the context of past and present Indian and Euro-American cultural representations of same-sex union.

    African American Studies. LGBT Studies. Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Poetry. WHERE THE APPLE FALLS resides at the intersections between woman and female--both human and environmental--and the concepts to which she is often linked: death, rebirth, victim, sexual/perverse. Seasons are crucial: from the birth of Spring through Autumn's final harvest, the work suggests a recasting of the farmer; a reclamation of both the fall and redemption/death/(re)birth on her own terms. Finally, WHERE THE APPLE FALLS highlights the resilience of strength. Even strength denied does not die. Instead, it continues to grow in power, waiting for its calling. WHERE THE APPLE FALLS reminds us to imagine, encourages us to answer the call, to revel in the beauty and possibility that we all embody, to consider our direction and route. In her debut collection WHERE THE APPLE FALLS, Samiya Bashir demands we listen and hear the symphony of stories that 'sail on the ochre cushion of these moonlit poems.' In 'Moon Cycling, ' she writes: 'Don't come by my door/ Smellin' fresh like that/ Sizzling like summer/ Steak medium rare/ I'll think you are/ My supper.' But she opens the door and her words and images grab us and never let go. She challenges ideas of edginess, religion, beauty, sexuality and imagination. Bashir's language is vivid and compelling in lines like 'Crooked back bowed into the new black moon.' There's remarkable womanness, vulnerability, pain and insight in these lines...WHERE THE APPLE FALLS can at times be a difficult read, as many poems are dense and complex. But here is a new and provocative voice comfortable in the skin of her poems, secure in her poetic vision. --Black Issues Book Review Bashir's first book of poems is a moving blend of personal narrative and lyric grace. Poems that deal with the legacy of slavery are haunting, such as the intimacy and danger in 'Floating Down the Delaware': 'Black skin rots cerulean blue. The/ two bodies were found on Thursday/ night. No wonder I can't keep track/ of time.' Bashir's finely crafted lines touch on migration, faith, urban life and the lives of women, never letting their reach slacken. --Curve Magazine [E]xpand[s] the range of questions American poetry can and should ask. Bashir zooms in on exquisite details--from childhood rituals to her lover's lips--then her topics explode outward as she grapples with war, violence against women, and the legacy of slavery. A tendency to make lists sometimes dilutes Bashir's voice, but overall, her writing is precise with rage, intelligence, and tenderness shimmering through. --Girlfriends Magazine

    Until he reached his mid-20s, the author felt alienated from other Jews, ambivalent about his homosexuality; or as he puts it, "twice strange ... in each [community], different, lesser, ashamed." A son of Holocaust survivors, Raphael grew up in an unmistakably Jewish but nonreligious home. However, as an adult he initiated his own affiliations with Judaism: He had a bar mitzvah at age 30, went to Israel twice, and fell in love with a Jewish man. It was "coming out as a Jew," he writes, that "ultimately made it possible for me to come out as a gay man and then work at uniting the two identities." Attesting to his journey is the contrast between his confused childhood and the joyful domestic life he now shares with his lover, Gersh, and their two sons.

    Composed while he was still a struggling writer, they offer a brilliant eyewitness account of Europe on the brink of war and an intimate look at the early career of a major literary figure. Because Isherwood destroyed his diaries from these years, these letters—published for the first time and edited and introduced by Lisa Colletta—provide one of the few records of this part of his life not filtered through the lens of time and memory. They contain requests for money and books, descriptions of his travels, stories of his friends W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender, reactions to the critical reception of his Berlin Stories, and a tense account of his failed attempt to save his lover Heinz from conscription into the Nazi military. The final letters in this volume document Isherwood’s journey to Los Angeles, where he permanently settled. Also included are thirty images from Isherwood’s personal photo album and reproductions of postcards from his international travels. Warm, confiding, and sometimes quite caustic, the letters also reveal a closer affection between the young Isherwood and his mother than his biographers have portrayed. While Isherwood acknowledged that it took him a long time to come to terms with his mother’s influence on his life, the letters in Kathleen and Christopher dispute the prevalent idea that theirs was a relationship rife with conflict. Isherwood’s everyday correspondence, written in extraordinary times, reveals a complex yet wholly recognizable and very close bond between mother and son. She was for him, in turns, an agent, a sounding board, and an unbreakable connection to England. Lisa Colletta is assistant professor of English at Babson College. She is the author of Dark Humor and Social Satire in the Modern British Novel.

    Now a successful, middle-aged New York City writer, he is still searching for that elusive man of his dreams.After a bizarre yet comical attempt at suicide Curtis becomes a reluctant patient of the aging and eccentric psychiatrist Dr. Magda Tunick. Her gruff and unethical approach to therapy relentlessly pushes Jenkins to explore the real reasons why he hasn't found love and helps him to discover the important qualities he desires in a man.Eager to help Curtis on his quest to find his true soul mate is his irreverent and unpredictable mother, Mrs. J., and his incorrigible best friend and soap opera writer, Quinn.Will Curtis discover who and what he truly wants in his life? While he barely survives dates that are funny, frightening, sexy and even shocking, Curtis may just uncover the fortitude to find Mr. Right (or even Mr. Pretty Close).

    Except, this time, everything goes horribly wrong... One Protector, wounded and broken in spirit in the ensuing massacre, spends decades searching desperately for the reincarnations of his loved ones. But his Seer's Eyes have been blinded, so he cannot recognize their auras. He meets a Crusader in Egypt who might be his reincarnated wife. To be certain, he must taste the young knight's blood to read his past-life memories. However, this act uncovers a deadly secret that rocks the foundations of his world.

    In fact, Abu Nuwas remains largely untranslated into ANY European language, for the same reason: he is, by European standards, shocking. More than that, there are many who consider him the greatest poet who ever wrote in Arabic.

    In Best of Best Gay Erotica 2, editor Richard Labonte brings together the most daring, intense, and memorable stories from the past five years of the series, by such celebrated authors as Simon Sheppard, J. T. LeRoy, Matt Bernstein Sycamore, and Andy Quan.

    Christian fundamentalists had already configured the gay male population most visibly affected by AIDS as apocalyptic signifiers or signs of the "end times." Their discourse grew out of a centuries-old American apocalypticism that included images of crisis, destruction, and ultimate renewal. In this book, Thomas L. Long examines the ways in which gay and AIDS activists, artists, writers, scientists, and journalists appropriated this apocalyptic rhetoric in order to mobilize attention to the medical crisis, prevent the spread of the disease, and treat the HIV infected.Using the analytical tools of literary analysis, cultural studies, performance theory, and social semiotics, AIDS and American Apocalypticism examines many kinds of discourse, including fiction, drama, performance art, demonstration graphics and brochures, biomedical publications, and journalism and shows that, while initially useful, the effects of apocalyptic rhetoric in the long term are dangerous. Among the important figures in AIDS activism and the arts discussed are David Drake, Tim Miller, Sarah Schulman, and Tony Kushner, as well as the organizations ACT UP and Lesbian Avengers.

    What unfolds is a tale of compulsion and unrequited love, of the building of dreams, and their destruction. Set in Europe, this story reveals a portrait of the inner workings of love and passion.

    With equal parts sensitivity and irreverence, the anthology speaks to the broad range of gay experiences. From stories of coming out, coming of age, self-representation and family to sex and love in the time of AIDS, from living in the closet to loving in a post-gay world, this book highlights the complexities of gay life. Fresh Men 2 is a groundbreaking collection that also embodies a wide spectrum of literary tastes, from works rich in experimental, transgressive elements to more conventional, traditionally crafted stories.

    With his keen sense for intimate moments, Roffman now brings us closer to the irresistable and boyish Brian. Still full of innocence, he is captured by Roffman's lens as he discovers his own body and those of his friends.

    Wong, Arthur Laurents, Simon Doonan, Stephen Fry, Marc Shaiman, and Michael Musto share endearing anecdotes and stories about when they, their families, and everyone else knew they were gay.

    The centerpiece of the volume’s tripartite structure is a meditation on the events surrounding 9/11 and its aftermath. In his poems, Liu explores what a twenty-first century American “poetry of witness” might look like and protests the charge that the poetic generation to which Liu belongs is stymied by a kind of jaded amorality. Whether taking on public spectacle or contemplating the fallout of a private life, these meditations move forward and backward through time, seeking spiritual consolation within a material world.

    The ski resort wasn't the same after Dante went back to the Navy, so Rory got on with his life, leaving to travel, doing odd jobs and saving up for his dream of owning a ranch. Now he has everything he wanted; the ranch, a good income from the tourists that come to play cowboy, and his Colorado mountains close to hand. The only thing missing is someone to share it with, until by some twist of fate, Dante comes back into his life, revisiting his own happy memories. Can Rory convince Dante to stick around, putting their time in Purgatory to rest once and for all?

    Especially when his hero from childhood -- the champion Renegade -- takes a special interest in him. In time, Synn learns he was only brought into the company because Renegade desired him. If he wants to succeed he has to submit to Renegade. If this wasn't bad enough Synn learns little by little that Renegade has a dark past when it comes to his former lovers. Synn walks a tightrope between pursuing his wrestling ambitions, and trying not to become Renegade's next victim.

    Susan Ackerman's innovative work carefully examines the stories' sexual and homoerotic language and suggests that its ambiguity provides new ways of understanding ideas of gender and sexuality in the ancient Near East and its literature.In exploring the stories of Gilgamesh and Enkidu and David and Jonathan, Ackerman cautions against applying modern conceptions of homosexuality to these relationships. Drawing on historical and literary criticism, Ackerman's close readings analyze the stories of David and Gilgamesh in light of contemporary definitions of sexual relationships and gender roles. She argues that these male relationships cannot be taken as same-sex partnerships in the modern sense, but reflect the ancient understanding of gender roles, whether in same- or opposite-sex relationships, as defined as either active (male) or passive (female). Her interpretation also considers the heroes' erotic and sexual interactions with members of the opposite sex.Ackerman shows that the texts' language and erotic imagery suggest more than just an intense male bonding. She argues that, though ambiguous, the erotic imagery and language have a critical function in the texts and serve the political, religious, and aesthetic aims of the narrators. More precisely, the erotic language in the story of David seeks to feminize Jonathan and thus invalidate his claim to Israel's throne in favor of David. In the case of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, whose egalitarian relationship is paradoxically described using the hierarchically dependent language of sexual relationships, the ambiguous erotic language reinforces their status as liminal figures and heroes in the epic tradition.

    Gene-tweaked to make them the size of big dogs, they've becom exotic pets. Few people care if wild tigers are gone, but aged billionaire Cass Vandermeer owns tracts of Tasmania, where a few real tigers still battle to survive. In the last wilderness, Alec Fitch and Sonny Moran are rangers at war with gene smugglers and poachers.

    TORRES (b. 1965) obtained his A.B. Literature from De La Salle University, M.A. Literature (English) from the Ateneo de Manila University, and Ph.D. Literature (with High Distinction and Gold Medal for Outstanding Dissertation) from DLSU. He served as DLSU's Literature Department Vice-Chair in 1992-1995, Chair in 1996-1997, and Graduate Program Coordinator in 2002-2003. At present, he is an Associate Professor of Literature and Writer-in-Residence at DLSU. He is also the Associate Director for Fiction of DLSU's Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center.Jerry started writing stories at 19. His short story “The Rebel” won first prize in the First DLSU Annual Awards for Literature in 1986. He attended the National Writers Workshop in Dumaguete City in 1993 and was awarded a faculty writing fellowship for fiction (Bro. Blimond Pierre Chair of Rhetoric) by the Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center in 1996-1997. Of his short story “Coming Out,” the late Dr. Edilberto K. Tiempo said: “‘Coming Out’ is a sad story. At the story’s end, the critical reader gets the impression that henceforth Stephan will be hopping from one male bed to another.” Jerry has also done translations of works by Anna Akhmatova, C.P. Cavafy, Siegfried Sassoon, George Ives, Isagani R. Cruz, Rosario Cruz-Lucero, Eric Gamalinda, Rene Villanueva, and Nicolas Pichay. His first bookPink Men in Love and Other Stories (UST Publishing House) came out in 2005.