1st Annual Gay and Lesbian Literary Arts Festival

I'll be returning to south Florida again in 2009, to appear at this new literary arts festival!

The first annual Gay and Lesbian Literary Arts Festival is scheduled for April 24-25 2009, and will take place at ArtServe and Stonewall Library & Archives, at 1350 East Sunrise Blvd in Fort Lauderdale, in the Auditorium and auxiliary conference rooms. The festival will feature at least 5 current and prominent GLBT literary arts figures, with an opening reception with the artists, readings, book signings, discussion panels, presentations, workshops, exhibits and social functions.

The festival organizers have put together a great video to promote the event:

Stonewall Library and Archives

After event note: This was a wonderful evening, with standing room only. I had a marvelous time making a few comments and reading from several different books. Photos here, and video here.

It's a pleasure and an honor to announce that I'll be participating in the 2008 Stonewall Library and Archive's Distinguished Author Series. From their material about the 2007 series:

"As part of this public program, Stonewall hosts lectures and book signings by prominent LGBT authors or by authors who have written books of particular interest to the LGBT community. During 2007, our roster of acclaimed writers included James Sears, Lillian Faderman, Gypsey Teague, John McNeill, Alison Bechdel, Richard McCann and Felice Picano."

This year's series begins with historians Michael Sherry and Richard Leopold, followed by Andrew Holleran in February. I will appear on March 19. The lecture is a combination of reading, remarks and Q&A and begins at 7 p.m. I'm planning to include in my comments my sincere belief that genre fiction, especially romance, is the literary representation of our every day emotional and sexual lives, and the validation of our human hopes and dreams as lived out as queer (using the big umbrella word) people. This event is free and made possible by donors to Stonewall.

I hope that those of you in the South Florida area will be able to join me for the evening!

www.stonewall-library.org

Stonewall, 1717 North Andrews Avenue, Fort Lauderdale.(954) 763-8565

Hayward Main Library

After event note: We had a great reading and post-reading discussion. My photos here. The Hayward Public Library's photos here.


Thanks to the organization of Jake Anderson-Minshall, the LGFBAT will be reading at two libraries in the next couple of months. The tour members are:

Gabrielle Goldsby
JLee Meyer
Diane & Jacob Anderson-Minshall
Anna Furtado
Ursula Steck
And moi, of course

On Saturday, March 15, we’ll be at the Hayward Main Library, starting at 2 p.m. Given the afternoon timeframe, it seems like a G-rated reading from the new edition of Christabel is in order. I haven’t ever read from Christabel, so I’m really looking forward to it.


Breaking news: Jaime Clevenger will be joining the tour for the Hayward Library reading, reading from All Bets Off!

San Francisco Public Library Main

Wow! A great turn out for this event. After a long work day and in the middle of the week about 30 or so avid fans of lesbian fiction turned out to hear our group read. Photos from the event are at Flickr. (As always, no log in is required to view or comment on the photos.)

Unfortunately, unexpected events kept Anna Furtado and JLee Meyer from joining us, and they were very much missed.

Reading at this event therefore were:
Gabrielle Goldsby read from Such a Pretty Face
Diane & Jacob Anderson-Minshall each read from Blind Leap
Ursula Steck read from Laura's War

I read the short story "Filled to Overflowing" from In Deep Waters 1. A reader in the audience was kind enough to film my portion of the event. You can watch the video at YouTube, including the out take of me looking for my glasses.