by Claudia Wason
June is LGBTQ Pride Month, and the Library has great resources available 24/7 to keep you busy until next year! Check out a small sample with these great eBook finds!
Summary: “This collection, the first of its kind, gathers original and previously published fiction and poetry from lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer authors from Appalachia. Like much Appalachian literature, these works are pervaded with an attachment to family and the mountain landscape, yet balancing queer and Appalachian identities is an undertaking fraught with conflict. This collection confronts the problematic and complex intersections of place, family, sexuality, gender, and religion with which LGBTQ Appalachians often grapple. With works by established writers such as Dorothy Allison, Silas House, Ann Pancake, Fenton Johnson, and Nickole Brown and emerging writers such as Savannah Sipple, Rahul Mehta, Mesha Maren, and Jonathan Corcoran, this collection celebrates a literary canon made up of writers who give voice to what it means to be Appalachian and LGBTQ.”
Dorothy Allison is a great writer, putting this collection at the top of my list!
GoodReads: 4.67
The Damned Don't Cry—They Just Disappear: The Life and Works of Harry Hervey by Harlan Greene
Summary: “In The Damned Don't Cry—They Just Disappear, literary historian and Lamba Award–winning novelist Harlan Greene has created a portrait of a nearly forgotten southern writer, unearthing information from archives, rare books, film libraries, and small-town newspapers. Greene brings Harry Hervey (1900–1951) to life and explicates his works to reveal him as a hardworking writer and master of many genres, bravely unwilling to conform to conventional values. As Greene illustrates, Hervey's novels, short stories, nonfiction books, and film scripts contain complex mixtures of history and thinly disguised homoerotic situations and themes. They blend local color, naturalism, melodrama, and psychological and sexual truths that provide a view to the circles in which he moved. Living openly with his male lover in Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, Hervey set novels in these cities that scandalized the locals and critics as well. He challenged the sexual mores of his day, sometimes subtly and at other times brazenly presenting texts that told one story to gay male readers, while still courting a mainstream audience. His novels and nonfiction may have been coded and thus escaped detection in their day, but twenty-first century readers can decipher them easily. Greene also discusses Hervey's travel books and successful Hollywood scriptwriting, as well as his use of exotic elements from Asian cultures. The iconic film Shanghai Express, starring Marlene Dietrich, was based on one of his original stories. He also wrote some of the first travel books on Indochina, with descriptions of male and female prostitution and allusions to his own sexual adventures, which still make for sensational reading today. Despite Hervey's output and his perseverance in presenting gay characters and themes as openly as he could, he has not been included in any survey of twentieth-century gay writers. Greene now rectifies this omission, providing the first book-length study of Hervey's life and work and the first scholarly attention to him in more than fifty years. It furthers our understanding of gay life in the South, as well as the impact of gay artists on popular culture in the first half of the twentieth century.”
I’ll admit, I knew nothing of Harry Hervey before reading this description, but this biography sounds fascinating, and I love the film Shanghai Express!
Your New Feeling Is the Artifact of a Bygone Era by Chad Bennett
Summary: “Shirley Temple tap dancing at the Kiwanis Club, Stevie Nicks glaring at Lindsey Buckingham during a live version of “Silver Springs,” Frank Ocean lyrics staking new territory on the page: this is a taste of the cultural landscape sampled in Your New Feeling is the Artifact of a Bygone Era. Chad Bennett casually combines icons of the way we live now—GIFs, smartphones, YouTube—with a classical lover's lament. The result is certainly a deeply personal account of loss, but more critically, a dismantling of an American history of queerness. “This is our sorrow. Once it seemed theirs, but now it's ours. They still inhabit it, yet we say it's ours.” All at once cerebral, physical, personal, and communal, Your New Feeling Is the Artifact of a Bygone Era constructs a future worth celebrating.”
Winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, this collection was too good to pass up!
A Positive View of LGBTQ: Embracing Identity and Cultivating Well-Being by Ellen D. B. Riggle, et al.
Summary: “A Positive View of LGBTQ starts a new conversation about the strengths and benefits of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGTBQ) identities. Positive LGBTQ identities are affirmed through inspiring firsthand accounts. Focusing on how LGTBQ-identified individuals can cultivate a sense of wellbeing and a personal identity that allows them to flourish in all areas of life, the authors explore a variety of themes. Through personal stories from people with a variety of backgrounds and gender and sexual identities, readers will learn more about expressing gender and sexuality; creating strong and intimate relationships; exploring unique perspectives on empathy, compassion, and social justice; belonging to communities and acting as role models and mentors; and, enjoying the benefits of living an authentic life. Providing exercises in each chapter, the book offers those who identify as LGBTQ and those who support and love them, as well as those seeking to better understand them, an opportunity to explore and appreciate these identities.”
This book sounds like a refreshing take on LGBTQ identities, and we all need more positivity!
Every True Pleasure: LGBTQ Tales of North Carolina by Wilton Barnhardt
Summary: “Some of North Carolina's finest fiction and nonfiction writers come together in Every True Pleasure, including David Sedaris, Kelly Link, Allan Gurganus, Randall Kenan, and more. Within the volume—featuring writers who identify as gay, trans, bisexual, and straight—are stories and essays that view the full spectrum of contemporary life though an LGBTQ lens. These writers, all native or connected to North Carolina, show the multifaceted challenges and joys of LGBTQ life, including young love and gay panic, the minefield of religion, military service, having children with a surrogate, family rejection, finding one's true gender, finding sex, and finding love. One of the only anthologies of its kind, Every True Pleasure speaks with insight and compassion about living LGBTQ in North Carolina and beyond.Contributors include Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, Brian Blanchfield, Belle Boggs, Emily Chavez, Garrard Conley, John Pierre Craig, Diane Daniel, Allan Gurganus, Minrose Gwin, Aaron Gwyn, Wayne Johns, Randall Kenan, Kelly Link, Zelda Lockhart, Toni Newman, Michael Parker, Penelope Robbins, David Sedaris, Eric Tran, and Alyssa Wong.”
As soon as David Sedaris’ name came up, I knew this collection had to be added to my list!
Travels in a Gay Nation: Portraits of LGBTQ Americans by Philip Gambone
Summary: “For two years, Philip Gambone traveled the length and breadth of the United States, talking candidly with LGBTQ people about their lives. In addition to interviews from David Sedaris, George Takei, Barney Frank, and Tammy Baldwin, Travels in a Gay Nation brings us lesser-known voices—a retired Naval officer, a transgender scholar and “drag king,” a Princeton philosopher, two opera sopranos who happen to be lovers, an indie rock musician, the founder of a gay frat house, and a pair of Vermont garden designers. In this age when contemporary gay America is still coming under attack, Gambone captures the humanity of each individual. For some, their identity as a sexual minority is crucial to their life's work; for others, it has been less so, perhaps even irrelevant. But, whether splashy or quiet, center-stage or behind the scenes, Gambone's subjects have managed—despite facing ignorance, fear, hatred, intolerance, injustice, violence, ridicule, or just plain indifference—to construct passionate, inspiring lives. Finalist, Foreword Magazine's Anthology of the Year Outstanding Book in the High School Category, selected by the American Association of School Libraries Best Book in Special Interest Category, selected by the Public Library Association.”
David Sedaris and George Takei – need I say more!
An Archive of Hope: Harvey Milk's Speeches and Writings by Harvey Milk, et al.
Summary: “Harvey Milk was one of the first openly and politically gay public officials in the United States, and his remarkable activism put him at the very heart of a pivotal civil rights movement reshaping America in the 1970s. An Archive of Hope is Milk in his own words, bringing together in one volume a substantial collection of his speeches, columns, editorials, political campaign materials, open letters, and press releases, culled from public archives, newspapers, and personal collections. The volume opens with a foreword from Milk's friend, political advisor, and speech writer Frank Robinson, who remembers the man who started as a Goldwater Republican and ended his life as the last of the store front politicians who aimed to give ‘em hope in his speeches. An illuminating introduction traces GLBTQ politics in San Francisco, situates Milk within that context, and elaborates the significance of his discourse and memories both to 1970s-era gay rights efforts and contemporary GLBTQ world making.”
Harvey Milk should be on everyone’s reading list!
Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context by Vern L. Bullough
Summary: “Explore the early history of the gay rights movement! In the words of editor Vern L. Bullough: “Although there was no single leader in the gay and lesbian community who achieved the fame and reputation of Martin Luther King, there were a large number of activists who put their careers and reputations on the line. It was a motley crew of radicals and reformers, drawn together by the cause in spite of personality and philosophical differences. Their stories are told in the following pages.” Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context illuminates the lives of the courageous individuals involved in the early struggle for gay and lesbian civil rights in the United States. Authored by those who knew them (often activists themselves), the concise biographies in this volume examine the lives of pre-1969 barrier breakers like Harry Hay, Henry Gerber, Alfred Kinsey, Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon, Jim Kepner, Jack Nichols, Christine Jorgensen, Jose Sarria, Barbara Grier, Frank Kameny, and 40 more. To anyone with an interest in the history of the gay/lesbian rights movements in the United States, these names will be familiar, but did you know that in addition to their groundbreaking activism: Prescott Townsend was a Boston Brahman Dorr Legg was a Log Cabin Republican Harry Hay was at one time a member of the Communist party Jim Kepner was a boy preacher Troy Perry was removed from the ministry of his church for homosexuality--and then founded the gay-friendly Metropolitan Community Church Reed Erickson--a transsexual millionaire who gave millions to the cause--kept a pet leopard called Henry Barbara Gittings set up a kissing booth at the American Library Association convention and urged attendees to kiss a gay or lesbian! Before Stonewall is a perfect ancillary text for any gay/lesbian studies course, but more to the point, no one interested in these heroic figures and the movements they ignited should be without this book, which received an honorable mention in the 2004 Stonewall Book Awards.”
Film
If you need a break from reading, check out the Library’s
Films on Demand Database which has selections for Pride Month featured at the top of the page. Below is just one of the great films available!
The Play Within: An LGBTQ Documentary
Summary: “This film presents the premiere of the stage adaption of the award winning film, The Play Within, an emotional and issue-focused fictional drama based on the lives of two real people—Matthew Shepard and Tyler Clementi—and their tragic, untimely deaths. After the play, an audience talkback allows for an exploration of this experience. This is followed by a wide-ranging discussion by psychiatrists, social service providers, clergy, and others who illuminate the history, evolution, and current circumstances that face the LGBTQ community.”
Happy reading and viewing!
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