Mitchell Sayer, a buttoned-down gay attorney at a prestigious Chicago law firm, discovers he has a long-lost twin. But his well-ordered life comes apart at the seams when the separated siblings finally meet, and Mitchell discovers his brother Donald is better known as Kitten Kaboodle, star of the city's most infamous drag revue. Plunged into a chaotic world where he's forced to confront his own fluid masculinity, Mitchell learns that appearances aren't just deceiving - they're even more disturbingly revealing. Building to a riotous climax in which identities blur and destinies go bust, all to the accompaniment of a cabaret pianist, Drag Queen is a rip-snorting romp through wigs and wardrobes, wit and wantonness.

    But his luck turns when he is asked to house-sit wannabe but talentless actress Fawn Farrar's $10 million Beverly Hills estate. Capitalizing on his new position, he is soon befriended by his all-time favorite star, Marina Stetson, a Janis Joplin-esque singer just out of rehab and trying to make a comeback -- and whose husband Jason secretly covets.Adding to the drama is Jason's ex-roommate, the incredibly pretentious Tricia Cox, whose struggles to make it as a talent agent take a wrong turn when she contracts her meal ticket, the talented and beautiful Violet Cyr, to a hip-hop sitcom called "Chillin' with Billy."When Billy turns out to be a talking goat, all hell breaks loose. The trashy, hip young heroes suffer through humiliations galore before they have a chance to make it -- but not before Christian McLaughlin has laid bare in hilarious detail all the foibles and fumbles of a group of happening young people in La La Land in their shameless pursuit of fame, fortune -- and sex.

    Cliffy, black, and Noah, Jewish, are teens of their time, segregated by neighborhood, skin color and opportunity, yet neither boy has ever had a friend like the other.

    . . . Its strength is in its abundance, its desire for language to stir body as well as mind.--Parul Sehgal, The New York Times Book ReviewShe is a writer for the future, in that she defies genre.--Hilton AlsThis notable achievement, traveling from youth to adulthood, is a harrowing account of how Sneed transforms violence and pain into an artist's life.--Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen: An American LyricThere's an eerie sense of timeliness to this book, which features prose and poetry by the writer and teacher Pamela Sneed and is largely -- though not entirely -- about mourning Black gay men killed too soon by a deadly virus.--Tomi Obaro, BuzzfeedOH MY GOODNESS, it was amazing. I was in tears by the end. What starts off as beautiful memoir evolves into incredibly moving poetry, painful and sweet and lovely.--Marie Cloutier, Greenlight Bookstore, Brooklyn, NYBalancing and mixing, with rhyme and reason, love and anger, good and bad, memory and the created present, all to tell the story of a life, a memoir unrestrained, devoid of artificial forms. Honest. Free.--Anjanette Delgado, New York Journal of BooksIn this collection of personal essays and poetry, acclaimed poet and performer Pamela Sneed details her coming of age in New York City during the late 1980s. Funeral Diva captures the impact of AIDS on Black Queer life, and highlights the enduring bonds between the living, the dying, and the dead. Sneed's poems not only converse with lovers past and present, but also with her literary forebears--like James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde--whose aesthetic and thematic investments she renews for a contemporary American landscape.Offering critical focus on matters from police brutality to LGBTQ+ rights, Funeral Diva confronts today's most pressing issues with acerbic wit and audacity. The collection closes with Sneed's reflections on the two pandemics of her time, AIDS and COVID-19, and the disproportionate impact of each on African American communities.Riveting, personal, open-hearted, risky and wise.--Sarah Schulman, author of Conflict Is Not Abuse. . . a tour de force about the collision between a coalescing 1980s 'Black lesbian and gay literary and poetic movement' in New York and the onslaught of AIDS.--Donna Seaman, BooklistPamela Sneed's Funeral Diva is deft, defiant, and devastating.--Tommy Pico, author of FeedFuneral Diva is urgent and necessary reading to live by. This is writing at its finest. Keep this book close to your heart and soul.--Karen Finley, author of Shock TreatmentReminiscent of Audre Lorde's Zami, Pamela Sneed's memoir is, in itself, a healing balm, affirming in its truths and honesty. I cannot remember ever reading a book that illustrates the impact of the AIDS epidemic on our community more poignantly than Funeral Diva.--Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of PatsyPamela Sneed takes enormous risks in this book. She tells the truth with fierce concentration and an abiding sense of purpose."--Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina

    Ceremonies offers provocative commentary on highly charged topics such as Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs of African-American men, feminism among men, and AIDS in the black community.

    It brings together (but is not limited to) estranged lovers, despairing mothers and the avenging spirits of murdered women, in an assortment of words that celebrate queer desire, obsessive longing and a general disregard for "proper" subject matter. Comprising selected work written over the course of a decade, the largely confessional collection has been described as dark and hysterical ... but in a good way.

    His mother tells him he'll be a star one day. 'Twinkle, twinkle,' she says, giving his hair a ruffle.Not everyone shares Julian's dreams of stardom. Television is too much like hairdressing for his father's tastes. A Tasmanian man wants a son for sporting purposes. 'Boys don't like dolls,' he tells Julian, 'They like Dinky Toys.' Not this boy, thinks Julian, who knows better than to tell the truth.Besides, the family already has a sporting hero, Julian's sister Carmel aka 'The Locomotive'. Julian likes his sister, but knows better than to tangle with her bowling arm. It's the same one she uses for punching.Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar is the ultimate feel-good novel, a book that will have the reader laughing out loud on the back of a bus as it follows Julian's bumpy journey through adolescence, fibbing his way through school and a series of dead-end jobs, to find his ultimate calling as creator of ‘The Hog.’ It's as if Crocodile Dundee has crashed Muriel's wedding and run off into the desert with Priscilla.

    For 15-year-old Sam, a wanna-be punk rocker who writes bad haiku poetry, his middle-class suburban life feels like a prison. Mistaking lust for fate, Sam becomes obsessed with Clay, a 17-year-old surfer, outwardly cool but equally adrift. The violence and tumult of Clay's search for identity propels him, with desperately confused Sam in his wake, through the hardest decisions and obstacles of their young lives.24-year-old Blair Mastbaum graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in fine arts. He was a fashion model for six years, and now lives in Beverly Hills, where he is hard at work on his second novel.

    Arriving at the remote rural farm, and immediately drawn into the dysfunction of the family s relationships, Tom is blindsided by his lost partner s legacy of untruth. With the mother expecting a chainsmoking girlfriend, and the older brother hellbent on preserving a facade of normalcy, Tom is coerced into joining the duplicity until, at last, he confronts the torment that drove his lover to live in the shadows of deceit. The lover the friend, the son, the brother, the nameless dead man has left behind a fable woven of false-truths which, according to his own teenage diaries, were essential to his survival. In this same rural setting, one young man had once destroyed another young man who loved yet another. Like an ancient tragedy, years later, this drama will shape the destiny of Tom. In a play that unfolds with progressively blurred boundaries between lust and brutality, between truth and elaborate ?ction, Bouchard dramatizes how gay men often must learn to lie before they learn how to love. Throughout 2011 and 2012, "Tom at the Farm" was produced in Quebec and France, as "Tom a la ferme," and in Mexico, as "Tom en la granja." Award-winning Quebec director Xavier Dolan adapted the play for the screen in 2013, with Caleb Landry Jones in the leading role."

    It is an exploration of intimacy, identity, and the courage it takes to be who you really are.

    Her adventures in getting over take her from SF to NYC, from dyke bars to telemarketing outfits, casinos to free clinics. With the signature poet's voice that has won her awards and acclaim, Liebegott investigates the conjoined hearts of hope and addiction in an unforgettable story of what it means to be young and broke in America.Praise for Cha-Ching!"Cha-Ching! is a rush - the clatter of youth on the angry move, the rattling of dreamy gambles in crappy apartments, the desperate crash of falling for someone despite the million reasons why and the bang! bang! bang! of our tender hearts."—Daniel Handler, author of Why We Broke Up"Cha-Ching! is so raw with need that I found myself itching that addict's itch to chase the seemingly impossible."—Karolina Waclawiak, deputy editor of The Believer and author of How to Get Into the Twin Palms"An open-hearted, deeply romantic story about a fucked-up dyke, her pit bull, her search for love, her tenuous grasp on hope, a pretty girl and the literal spin of the wheel."—Sarah Schulman, author of The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination"In the game of American-life-on-the-go hopscotch, Ali Liebegott's heroine Theo just jumped a square ahead of Dean Moriarty. . . . The author's fine writing about gambling is as good as I ever read, including Dostoevski's and the Barthelme Bros. In the end, love, in whatever twisted, pallid form, a love that has little to do with sexuality, is the only answer. . . .Wonderful book."—Andrei Codrescu, author of So Recently Rent a World: New and Selected Poems

    He is the author of The Darker Fall and Want and teaches at the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

    Malloy assigned us the "What I Want To Be When I Grow Up" paper earlier that year in her 1st hour English, my mind had been made up. . . I, Bradley James Dayton, will be a famous actor someday! Meet Bradley Dayton--a wickedly funny high school senior whose woefully uncool life always seems to be full of drama, even in the sorry little suburb of Hazel Park, Michigan. It's 1987, the era of big hair, designer jeans, and Dirty Dancing. George Michael has "Faith" and Michael Jackson still has a nose. Brad, on the other hand, has a thing for acting, and while his friends are trying to get laid, Brad's trying to land the lead in Okla-homo! and practicing the Jane Seymour monologue from "Somewhere in Time. " Sure, he'd like to get laid too, but while Brad has known he was gay forever, the rest of "Hillbilly High" is not so forthcoming. Brad's already lost one best friend, Jack, who dropped out of marching band to step into the closet. But lately, things are looking up. Not only has Brad made Homecoming Top Five, but Richie, a new, totally cute member of drama club, definitely seems to be sending signals--and he's not the only one. Before senior year ends, Brad will know more about love, lust, and friendship than he ever thought possible. Because if all the world's a stage, he's ready to be in the spotlight. . .

    I always responded, 'Why would I change? Being me is the easiest person to be.' I was lying. It wasn't. At the Beijing Olympic Games, he made history with an unforgettable dive, the first to ever score perfect tens from all four judges, and won gold for Australia. Grinning with pride from front pages around the world, there was no hint of the personal demons that had led this supremely talented young dynamo to quit diving less than two years before. Joyously out and proud, Matthew was a role model for his courage both in and out of the pool. Yet the crippling self-doubt and shadow of depression that had plagued him all his life forced him into premature retirement, at one point reduced to circus diving to earn money. Even after Beijing and being ranked No 1 in the world, those closest to Matthew could not guess that beneath that cheeky, fun-loving exterior he was painfully aware of how easily it could unravel. In the lead-up to the London Olympics, when injury threatened his hopes, he will have to find the strength again to balance his striving for perfectionism with the fear of his self-doubt taking hold again. Told with the honesty and courage he is admired for, Twists and Turns is an inspiring story of a true champion, in and out of the pool.

    "I have this compulsion to live no matter what..".