And the exciting thing: we’re having an Outer Alliance meetup on Sunday at 12:30. Come to the Marriott lobby and meet some of your fellow allies!

Press Pride – Do you have a favorite press that consistently wows you with queer content? Highlight the presses that have made a difference in your life, and link to some of the books that have been particularly inspiring. Don’t forget to let your readers know how to support the press and purchase those publications. You can do a review, an interview, or just a note of thanks.

Personal Pride – Have you experienced something amazing during the process of writing or reading? Did a particular character teach you a lesson? Have you come to any personal realizations through characterization or in the process of writing a novel? Tell us about your experiences with queer fiction; provide an excerpt or a personal story.

Pride in the Process – Write a few lines of queer flash fiction. Post it on your blog as a living acknowledgment of your pride in the genre.

Whatever you choose to do, when you post, let us know by tracking back here or linking on our Google Group. At the end of the week we’ll link back to all the posts!

Keep in mind the Mission Statement of the Outer Alliance, too:

As a member of the Outer Alliance, I advocate for queer speculative fiction and those who create, publish and support it, whatever their sexual orientation and gender identity. I make sure this is reflected in my actions and my work.

Happy Pride Month, everyone!

“Here’s how it works: Authors write a science fiction or fantasy short story which is inspired by a scientific discovery or innovation made or announced within the past year. It can’t be peripherally added: the science must be integral to the story. Writers must include a link to a relevant article or study of the applied science when they submit their stories.”

A panel of 6 amazing judges will vote on the finalists. Two of the six judges (Nicola Griffith and Cat Rambo) are members of Outer Alliance.

There’s $400 of cash prizes to be won, plus subscriptions, books, etc.

Please visit the contest page, read the entry guidelines, see who the judges are, and read about our Kickstarter drive to put the winning stories in print!

Then, enter your story! The contest will be open for entries from April 1 through June 30. Winners will be announced on July 21.

Show us there’s still room for real Science in fiction! Huge thanks to everyone who helped us make the contest happen!

Kyell has won several Ursa Major Awards for his work, and recently won two Rainbow Awards for his novel, Out of Position. His latest book, Shadow of the Father, is being released this weekend at Further ConFusion in San Jose, California. Another novella, Bridges, will be released next month at Furry Fiesta in Dallas, Texas, where Kyell will appear as the Writing Guest of Honor. Bridges is part of a new project called Cupcakes, which Kyell is launching along with some other furry authors.

Kyell has been active in furry fandom and queer speculative fiction for ten years. In addition to his fiction, he also co-produces (with K.M. Hirosaki)  a furry podcast called Unsheathed. When he’s not writing and podcasting, you might find him at cons, or campaigning for gay rights in his current home state of California. He lives in the San Francisco bay are with his partner, Kit Silver.

Kyell blogs on LiveJournal as kyellgold, and maintains a personal website at www.kyellgold.com.

***
OA: Shadow of the Father takes place in Argaea, a fantasy world you’ve written about before. What keeps you coming back there, and do you plan to return in future books?

KG: Whenever I write a story, it involves a host of secondary characters, and the lives of the main characters obviously extend beyond the scope of the story. After writing my first story in that world, I was intrigued enough with the characters to write a “before” novel and an “after” novel. I think one of the appeals of the medieval/Renaissance world is that it is simpler and starker than our modern world. The stakes in any conflict can be higher: literally life and death. Because survival was much less assured than in our contemporary world, because class distinctions were so much more important then, the stories that we write about can be more visceral. The story of Shadow could not be told in a contemporary setting: even a mountain city would not be isolated, with our modern communications; assassination would not be as credible a threat.

I do think the lack of a communications infrastructure is a big part of what I enjoy about that world. It increases the characters’ reliance on each other for information, which lets me explore their motivations in more detail–lies carry more weight. I’m definitely returning to that world–I have a story started that takes place there, and doesn’t involve any previously written characters.

OA: Furry fandom is the butt of many jokes, even amongst other geeks. Why do you think people are so wary of it, and how do you cope with negative reactions?

KG: I’m certainly aware of that reputation, though I’m not sure where it comes from. I think partly it’s partly due to one of the unique aspects of the furry fandom: that the fandom has no media source material. Star Trek fans, Star Wars fans, Harry Potter fans, with all those people you can look at the TV shows, the movies, the books, and you can understand the appeal that drives people to band together around them. Furry fandom is harder to understand because there is no TV show, no movie, no book that is the focal point of the fandom. Even generic “science fiction” fans have Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, Card; “fantasy” fans have Tolkien. Furry fans tend to create their own source material, tailored to their tastes, and that can be a bit hard to understand from the perspective of an outsider looking in.

Additionally, you can’t ignore the fact that the fandom is more openly sexual than most other fandoms. Most of my work is adult, and it’s had a good reception in the fandom, even from straight people who are happy just to skip some of the explicit scenes. There are people in the fandom who avoid anything sexual, and a great amount of non-sexual work, but of course when outsiders are looking for something to represent the fandom, they’ll pick the thing that looks strangest to mainstream society.

That said, I think that negative reaction is not as widespread as perhaps people think. Loud people in any group can affect the perception of that group, and a few loud people mocking furry fans on the Internet does not mean that that attitude is in the majority, nor even widespread. My experience has generally been that people who don’t understand furry fans usually just shrug and leave them alone. I’ve been quite happy to see my books getting some appreciation outside the fandom among gay readers, in Elisa Rolle’s journal, for example, and in her Rainbow Awards (which was a huge surprise), so I haven’t had to deal with a lot of negative reaction at all. When I do, I just ignore it. The need to create our own source material has made the fandom astonishingly creative–mostly, as you note, in the realm of visual art, but writing and music are catching up. There’s even two furry musicals, though neither of them has had much play, and there are about a hundred furry podcasts now. It may not be to everyone’s tastes, but I’d rather focus on all that positive work than on a few critics.

OA: Are there any particular stories you’d recommend to someone who is new to the concept of furry fandom?

KG: Sofawolf Press publishes a journal called “New Fables,” which collects literary-quality furry stories of many different types. That’d be a great place to start. There are a few other books that are close to the fandom: Michael Payne’s The Blood Jaguar (Payne attends furry conventions and is familiar with the fandom) and iBooks’s Furry! (a collection previously published by Sofawolf Press as Best In Show, an anthology of the best stories published in fifteen years of the fandom).

Mainstream books and movies that relate to the fandom–Richard Adams’s Watership Down, Disney’s Robin Hood and The Lion King, Alan Dean Foster‘s Spellsinger series, Cordwainer Smith’s Underpeople stories.

OA: You’ll be launching a new novella called Bridges at Furry Fiesta next month as part your new Cupcakes project. Can you tell us a bit more about Bridges, and the basic concept behind Cupcakes?

KG: Bridges started as a short story about an unusual sexual experience. It’s set in a world contemporary with ours, starting by following a young man (a fox) looking for a date, approached by a flirty fellow named Hayward. Hayward becomes the central character of the story–the whole “quiet, shy person approached by attractive, outgoing person” is a popular romantic fantasy, but it made me curious to build Hayward into a real person, to figure out what his motivation would be for the things he does. The more I wrote about it, the more I became curious about his life, and the wider and more far-reaching the story grew, until it ended up as a novella. So I didn’t want to just post it online, as I do with a lot of my short fiction.

I participate in a writing group, and one of the things our group has noticed is that some of our stories have settled into a novella length, and there are very few outlets for that. We are friends with a couple publishers in the fandom, and it turned out that one of them, FurPlanet, was interested in publishing some shorter works. Novellas fit perfectly. But we wanted to establish a brand associated with our novellas, something that would be kind of fun and would allow our fans to follow our work and discover other people. Cupcakes are a big trend right now, and a favorite of my partner and myself, and we thought that was a perfect description for a shorter, snack-sized story that still had enough substance to it for people to really get into. It also has a bit of a “treat” association with it, something special, and we liked the way that sounded. As a bonus, it gives us an excuse to have cupcakes at the release party.

Mine’s the first to come out; there’ll be info about the other projects and the other authors at www.furrycupcakes.com.

OA: Furry fandom tends to involve a lot of artwork. Are there any artists or individual pieces that you think we should check out?

KG:There are a ridiculous number of talented artists in the fandom. As I mentioned, the unique nature of our fandom really encourages creativity and artwork. I can’t possibly give a rundown of all the ones worth watching, nor even all my favorites, but I’ll highlight a couple that would be good places to start.

Blotch is a friend of mine, and one of my favorite artists. “He” illustrated my novel, Out of Position, and the cover is one of my favorite pieces of his. All the work at his online gallery is great, but a couple of my favorites are “Laugh at Life” and “Fly By”.

Sara Palmer and John Cooner have been kind enough to illustrate my books, and have extensive bodies of wonderful work. Sara has a lovely soft touch with marker and colored pencil; John is an excellent cartoonist, a former animator who really understands how to bring characters to life.

oCeLot also does terrific work with color and design. John Jay Doggett does adorable old-timey cartoony pics. Katmomma has great style as well. If you’re looking for more, you can venture to the furry-only art site furaffinity.net and look for some of the above artists (Blotch, oCeLot, John Jay Doggett, Katmomma, Sara Palmer, John Cooner) as well as a couple other of my favorites, Kenket and Kamui and check out the other artists they like and follow. There’s a lot of great work out there.

***

Thanks, Kyell! Join us next Friday for another Spotlight, and in the meantime, why not check out some of Kyell Gold’s books, or even find him in person at Further ConFusion? If you’re not in San Jose, but are interested in meeting other allies at cons, be sure to check the Queer Friendly Cons page, which has been updated a few times in the week since I first posted it. Please keep those suggestions for further additions coming!

January

*First, a convention that’s happening right now: Arisia. This Boston, Massachusetts area con is queer, pagan, poly, and kink friendly, and has a few Outer Alliance members on the guest list. If you show up, you might run into Rose Fox, Jennifer Pelland, and Cecilia Tan. Arisia’s Fan Guests of Honor this year are a queer couple, Kevin Roche and Andy Trembley, and there is even a Queer SF&F panel on Saturday at 2:00 pm.

*Coming up next weekend (22-24 January) in San Jose, California, you can catch OA member Kyell Gold at Further ConFusion, a Furry convention.

February

*In Boston, Boskone 47 is happening on 12-14 February.

*If you can’t make it to Further ConFusion, you’ll have another chance to see Kyell Gold in Dallas, Texas over the weekend of 19-21 February. He’ll be appearing at Furry Fiesta as the Writing Guest of Honor.

*On 26-28 February, Gallifrey One is happening in Los Angeles, California. This convention is devoted to Dr. Who fandom. (Thanks to LJC for the tip!)

March

*OA member Catherine Lundoff will appear at MarsCon 2010 in Minneapolis, Minnesota on the weekend of 5-7 March.

*Last week’s Spotlight subject, Angelia Sparrow will be a guest at MidSouthCon during the weekend of 12-14 March.

May

*OutLantaCon is an LGBTQ SF convention in Atlanta, Georgia happening on 1-3 May. Nicola Griffith and Cecilia Tan will both be guests there. (Thanks to Catherine Lundoff for the tip!)

*WisCon is a feminist SF convention that takes place in Madison, Wisconsin. This year it will happen on the weekend of 27-31 May.

*That same weekend in Baltimore, Maryland, Tanya Huff (whose books have been recommended by multiple OA members in Spotlights past) will be the Guest of Honor at Balticon.

*Imaginales is a book and original illustration fair in Epinal, France, which will also take place on 27-30 May. The chair, Stéphanie Nicot, is one of France’s leading trans rights campaigners. (Thanks to Cheryl Morgan for this tip!)

June

*Angelia Sparrow will be appearing at Hypericon in Nashville Tennessee on the weekend of 4-6 June.

*That same weekend in Dallas, Texas, Catherine Lundoff will be a guest at A-Kon.

July

*CONvergence is happening on 1-4 July in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Catherine Lundoff will be there, too!

*ReaderCon is yet another Boston Area convention, but this one eschews media other than books. Jennifer Pelland usually turns up at this one, and Cecilia Tan has in the past as well.

*Finncon is happening 16-18 July in Finnland, and will feature Ellen Kushner and Pat Cadigan. (Thanks again to Cheryl Morgan for the tip!)

August

*Diversicon hasn’t put up its 2010 dates yet, but this Minneapolis, Minnesota convention exists to celebrate diversity in SF fandom.

*Au Contraire is the New Zealand National Science Fiction Convention for 2010. It’s happening the weekend before this year’s WorldCon, so that people can go to both in one trip. 27-29 August in Wellington, New Zealand. (Thanks to Anna for the tip!)

September

*Memphit Fur Meet 2010 will be happening on the weekend of 3-5 September in Memphis, Tennessee. This is another small, Furry convention, and Angelia Sparrow may attend it if she isn’t traveling to Atlanta, Georgia.

*Dragon*Con (3-5 September in Atlanta, Georgia) is one of the larger convention in the US, and full of elaborate costumes.

*That same weekend, but on another continent,  the 68th WorldCon, AussieCon 4 is happening in Melbourne, Australia.

October

*Gaylaxicon, a con devoted entirely to queer speculative fiction, will take place in October in Montreal, Canada.

November

*OA member Elizabeth Bear will be the Guest of Honor at Darkover XXXIII in Timonium, Maryland on the weekend of 26-28 November.

This is just the tip of the convention iceberg, so please tell us about your favorite queer friendly conventions in the comments, and about which ones you plan to attend (I’m personally planning to attend Boskone and ReaderCon). I’ll be sure to update this page with more convention links if you tell me about them. With any luck, maybe we can all meet some of our fellow allies in person this calendar year!

Nicola’s first novel, Ammonite, won the Premio Italia, Lambda, and Tiptree awards. She went on to win the Nebula, Spectrum, World Fantasy Award and  5 more Lambdas before joining the Lambda Literary Foundation Board of Trustees in June of 2009. In addition to writing 5 novels, a memoir, and several shorter works, she also co-edited (with Stephen Pagel) the Bending the Landscape series of LGBTQ science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies. She keeps a blog at http://asknicola.blogspot.com/.

Originally from the UK, Nicola now lives in Seattle with her partner, Kelley Eskridge, with whom she recently started Sterling Editing (an editing, mentoring, and coaching service for writers). Both Nicola and Kelley will be appearing alongside futuristic heavy metal band, BloodHag, on October 24th at Olympia Washington’s first SciFiFest.

You’ve won six Lambda Literary Awards, and now you’re on the Lambda Literary Foundation board. Can you weigh in on the controversy surrounding the new nomination guidelines? How did the board come to the decision to only accept nominations for books by people who identify as LGBT, and why is that a good choice for the Lammies?

I’m a brand new member of the board; I joined in June.  Not long before that, the board adopted a new mission statement.  “The Lambda Literary Foundation seeks to elevate the status of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people throughout society by rewarding and promoting excellence among openly LGBT writers who use their work to explore LGBT lives.”  This influenced the award guidelines.  Our explicit mission is to honour and reward openly LGBT writers.  It’s that simple.

Publishing, though, is changing.  The position of LGBT people in society at large is changing.  I have no doubt that LLF’s mission will also change.

The Nomination window for the Lammies is open right now. Who can nominate, and where should nominators go to submit their favorite LGBT books?

A book may be nominated only by its publisher or author.  The full guidelines are here.

If you have a favourite novel, nag the author and/or publisher to submit.  If they can’t afford the postage and fees (it costs $30 and five copies per title), pass the hat.  That’s what community is for: to support each other.  Sometimes that takes cold, hard cash.

I wish LLF could make the submission process free, but we have to cover our administrative costs.  This year, Richard Labonte is coordinating the awards process. I think he’ll do a knockout job.  We’ll have finalists in all 22 categories early next year.  (The f/sf shortlist is a great way to select titles for your TBR pile–and to persuade your library to order.)  The big gala ceremony will be in New York in May, during BEA.

You met your partner at the Clarion workshop, and have since won the Nebula, World Fantasy, and James Tiptree Jr. awards, so clearly you know your way around speculative fiction. Have you ever found interactions within the genre difficult because of your orientation? Have you got any suggestions about how fandom might become more welcoming to a diverse spectrum of fans?

I haven’t written an sf novel since Slow River (though of course I co-edited the Bending the Landscape series and have written short fiction–the most recent, “It Takes Two,” is due out any day in Eclipse 3, ed. Jonathan Strahan, which has an absolutely knockout lineup).  I have a big old sword-swangin’ fantasy/alternate history all planned out but simply haven’t found the time to work on it.  My focus now is on my novel about Hild of Whitby (set in seventh century England).  I keep a blog about the process here: http://gemaecca.blogspot.com/.

I’ve never had a minute’s problem being a dyke in f/sf world.  I enter a room expecting to be treated at least as well as anyone else, and so I am.  Some people occasionally say clumsy things but generally they mean well.  Conversation over a beer usually clears things up.  I’ve never had a problem, either, in editorial terms–never had a problem selling novels or stories stuffed with dykes to the trade press.  In my experience publishers just don’t care who your characters have sex with, as long as they’re really well written characters.

However I have had problems with an agent (I fired her) and the critical reception of my work.

My first agent was Fran Collin.  After I’d already got an offer for my first novel, Ammonite, from Malcolm Edwards at HarperCollins UK, Fran took me on and got an offer from St. Martin’s and Avon for a US hard/soft deal.  Two slight snags.

One, they wanted me to change the title:

“No one knows what it means!” the editor said.

“Then they should fucking look it up,” I said.

Two, they wanted me to lose 20 percent of the text:

“Which 20 percent?” I said.

“We don’t care,” the editor said.  “But it exceeds the optimum product size for a first novel.”

“You show me where the book sags and I’ll think about it.”

They couldn’t.  I turned down the offer.

Then Fran got an offer from Del Rey.  (For nearly twice the money St. Martin’s/Avon had offered, woo-hoo!)  The book won the Lambda Literary Award and the Tiptree (and got short-listed for a bunch of other things, like the Arthur C. Clarke Award: I smiled a lot).  So when it was time to outline my second novel, my hopes were high.  I wrote an ambitious (my friends called it career-suicidal) proposal (sex! sewage! tense & POV games!) and sent it to Fran.  She phoned me:

“This isn’t a selling outline,” she said.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Well, okay, look.  I understood why Marghe in Ammonite had sex with a girl–it was a women-only planet, she didn’t have a choice, poor thing–but why does Lore have to have a girlfriend?”

“Because she’s a dyke, Fran.”  And I fired her.  My new agent, Shawna McCarthy, had no trouble selling Slow River, again to Del Rey.  The reviews were stellar.

The reviews for Ammonite had been mixed.  The mainstream press loved it.  But the genre press was a bit puzzled.  Take, for example, the Locus review, which opined that it was all very nice, but, oh, how much powerful it might have been if only Marghe had had a brother we could have identified with…  Also, several of the Grand Old Men of the genre were rather dismissive: Ah, they’d say, yes, not bad–for a minor work from a sad little sub-genre.  To which I replied: Eat my fucking shorts.

Ah, but I’ve written about all this a lot, most recently in “War Machine, Time Machine” and “As We Mean to Go On,” both written with Kelley, both available for free.

If I had to sum up my dyke-in-publishing trajectory I’d say that the farther up the hierarchy I climb–from Del Rey mass market paperback to Nan A. Talese hardcover–the less reviewers mention the fact that my protagonists are always lesbians.

The f/sf community, while good at learning inclusiveness, when pushed, needs to work just a little harder.  The default is still straight and white (and male and able-bodied, etc.).  The genre still has a tendency to Other us queers.  But the Othering game does, to some degree, take two to play.  I refuse the game.  Mostly, it works.  For the other times, we have each other: we can educate and befriend and, when all else fails, name and shame.  Meanwhile, we need to be visible–which The Outer Alliance is doing brilliantly.  We need to ordinary people and extraordinary writers.

Your latest big project is Sterling Editing, which you just started with your partner, Kelley Eskridge. Judging by the sheer number of awards you’ve accumulated, you have serious writing chops. How does that translate into editing, and why did you choose to pursue this route?

Why do I do this? Because I can. Because it gives me joy.

I’ve been teaching since I was four, when I taught my little sister to tie her shoes (and then to make a bow and arrow–but that’s another story).  All through my 20s I was a women’s self-defense teacher.  I gave my first talk about story–what it is, how it works–to a class of nine-year-olds the month my first short story hit the shelves. (I still have some of their thank-you letters.)  I taught my first writing class three months later at the local women’s center, to eight women: one very young, one white-haired, the rest in their 30s and 40s. Three months after that, I was teaching a weekend course for SF writers.  I’ll teach anything to anybody.  I can’t help it.

When I came to Atlanta from the UK (I was 29), I reverted to teaching self-defense for a while.  (An all day date-rape class delivered to 70 Girl Scouts and their mothers was particularly memorable.)  Then, in 1993, just as my first novel was published, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.  Teaching self-defense became impossible.  Instead, I fell back on giving guest lectures and creative writing workshops (for local arts centers, for local colleges–anyone who asked).

My second novel came out in 1995 and Kelley and I moved to Seattle.   About this time, I began to edit the Bending the Landscape series of original anthologies.

It was a revelation.  I edited first-time authors, giants in the literary field who were trying their hand at writing speculative fiction, and some stalwarts of the f/sf field who were being brave and stepping outside their comfort zone.  I was astounded at how satisfying it was to help a writer lift a sleek 8,000 word story from a 14,000 word swamp.  I swelled with pride when I explained why something should be in first person and the writer said “Oh!” and then rewrote her submission piece into the best story of her life.

Teaching, coaching, and editing, then, are part of who I am.  The beauty of Sterling Editing is that I don’t have to travel.  Writers come to me (by email and phone and occasionally in person): writers who are a joy to work with, whose craft I can improve, whose careers I can nurture.  I’m also discovering the pleasure of working with those who don’t consider themselves writers, people who nonetheless have a story–their own, or another’s–to tell.

Yes, Sterling Editing work does use time and energy which could be spent on my novels–but it helps my writing in the long run. I learn from teaching.  It thrills me to the core of my being.  I like to connect with other artists and pass on my skills.  I need it.

Of course some of us can’t afford to pay for editing services, no matter how much we might want to. Are there any free or cheap writing resources you’d recommend for people who are serious about improving their craft, but sadly short on cash?

The single best way for a writer to learn is to read.  I don’t mean s/he should read books on how to write, but s/he should read novels.  Read everything.  Read poetry and short stories and nineteenth century epics.  Read every twentieth century sf novel you can get your hands on.  Read historical fiction.  Read Booker Prize winners.  (Oh, oops, the gatekeepers are finally admitting they’re the same thing…)  Read ravenously and with joy.

As writers, we are what we read.  It’s the font from which all springs.

Think about your favourite novel, the one you return to time and again, the one you read when you’re ill or tired or stressed out of your mind.  That’s the book that helped form the writer you are today.  So when you get stuck, when you don’t know how to achieve something–write an action scene, switch point of view, convey information without boring your reader rigid–go to your comfort read and find out how your favourite author did it.  It’s free if you use the library–and think of the joy you’ll take in the process.

***

Thanks, Nicola! Join us again next Friday for another Spotlight. In the meantime, why not take a look the editcast videos on the Sterling Editing website, or make sure you favorite LGBT author has been nominated for a Lammie? And if you’re in the Olympia, Washington area, don’t forget to check out SciFiFest!

We probably should have been promoting this idea a bit earlier than now, but we managed to come up with the 9/1 Pride Day and its stunning collection of blog posts pretty quickly…so we should be able to do something comparable again. Members who have a post on this day can share the link to it in the Forum (I will add a topic for them) or by way of the Google Group list, and we will gather the links together in a blog post as well, like we did on the Pride Day.

Over 200 members.

Over 3,000 pageviews.

What can I say? Gosh, I’m a bit speechless. I still haven’t completely caught up on the posts, but at last check we were at 81. Traffic to the site has exploded; we saw our numbers soar! Twitter was abuzz.

I don’t think I anticipated such an impressive response with our first event, figuring… well, it was a first event. But I like to be surprised!

All the success is due to the remarkable people that make up the Outer Alliance. Reading the posts from yesterday, I definitely got a little teary-eyed. Straight advocates posting thoughtful reflections, queer writers talking about the state of publication and their struggles, and, of course, some truly remarkable writing. Thanks to everyone who posted, to those who read, to those who spread the word, to those who happy danced along with me.

If you didn’t have a chance to post, it’s not too late. Just link to the post from yesterday here. There are over eighty voices that can speak for you. Or with you. I suppose “with you” is really more of the idea.

At any rate, there are more things to come! Look for more announcements in the weeks to follow. We’ve done a mighty thing, friends. Instead of sowing discord, we’ve raised our hands in celebration of what we are, who we support, and what we believe.

Bravo!

Just got this. It looks like a great opportunity for queer writers of all stripes and persuasions to meet, drink some free wine, eat some fab free food, chat–and even sell books. Think of it as a mini-festival. I wish I could be there.

Dear LGBT authors:

The Board of Directors of the Lambda Literary Foundation and Ed Hermance, owner of Giovanni’s Room, would like to invite you to read at our first “Read-a-thon”. The event, to be held at 7:30pm on Saturday November 21, 2009, at Giovanni’s Room in Philadelphia, will be a benefit for both the Foundation and the bookstore. We’d like to invite LGBT authors to read from a recent or classic book and answer questions for approximately 15 minutes each. 100% of the proceeds from the event will go to the two beneficiaries. We will be serving donated wine and snacks during the marathon reading. While the foundation and the bookstore can’t offset any expenses authors might incur participating in this benefit, we can possibly arrange housing in local homes. Both the Foundation and Giovanni’s Room will be very grateful for your help in these trying economic times. While this is a fundraising event, we’re hoping it will be a lot of fun for a community of people who treasure our words and writers.

The Lambda Literary Foundation is dedicated to raising the status of openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people throughout society by rewarding and promoting excellence among LGBT writers who use their work to explore LGBT lives. The Foundation sponsors the annual Lambda Literary Awards and held its first Writer’s Retreat in 2007.

Giovanni’s Room, located at 12th & Pine in Center City Philadelphia, is the oldest LGBT bookstore in the USA. The store is faced with a financial challenge as their front wall of their historic structure is being replaced. The queer community of Philadelphia, rather than lose their cherished bookstore, is organizing fund-raising events through the fall to ensure the store’s survival.

We hope that we’ve enticed you to participate at this, sure to be wonderful, event. If you would like to read, or have any questions/comments/suggestions, please contact Scott Cranin at scranin@tlavideo.com or 267-765-9840.