Queer Rites: November 2012
While reading Salman Rushdie’s Joseph
‘These Things Happen’ by Richard Kramer
“A lot can happen in a day sometimes,” says Wesley Bowman, one of two teenaged boys at the center of Richard Kramer’s witty and often moving first novel, These Things Happen (Unbridled Books). This opening line, of course, is prescient. A lot does happen in each of the few days that frame this story, in which the adults in Wesley’s life are forced to reevaluate their understanding of themselves.
‘States of Independence’ by Michael Klein and ‘The Pillow Book’ by Jee Leong Koh
Chapbooks are often a prelude,
Shawn C. Nabors: To Love and Be Loved
“I’ve really had to dig deep to bring to the fore situations that society may be afraid to confront like two young black men openly expressing their sexual selves on stage.”
Shawn C. Nabors is a young emerging actor, playwright and poet from Brooklyn. His first play, deliciously titled Cake, will appear Off-Broadway this summer at the American Theatre of Actors. We’ve reached out to Shawn to learn more about the play and his artistic self.
Tory Adkisson, “First Harvest”
This week, a poem by Tory Adkisson.
Adkisson recently earned his MFA from The Ohio State University and recently has had work featured in Cave Wall, Linebreak, and 32 Poems. A Southern California native, he currently lives in Athens, where he attends the PhD program in literature and creative writing at the University of Georgia.
Alex Dimitrov, “You Are The Party I Want To Go To”
This Valentine’s Day, we’re pleased to bring you Alex Dimitrov’s love poem for fellow poet Dorothea Lasky.
Dimitrov’s first book of poems, Begging for It, is forthcoming from Four Way Books in early 2013. He is the recipient of the Stanley Kunitz Prize for younger poets from The American Poetry Review and the founder of Wilde Boys, a queer poetry salon in New York City. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, Yale Review, Slate, Tin House, and Boston Review.
‘A Waste of Time’ by Rick Worley
This is the tale of a big-headed narrator bunny, a sex-n-drug crazed fox, a teddy bear best friend, and ill-fated robot lovers that drink, smoke weed, look at porn, bonk guys and snort things they later regret. Or not.
‘Folsom Street Blues: A Memoir of 1970’s SoMa and Leatherfolk in Gay San Francisco’ by Jim Stewart
Jim Stewart brings together stories, poems and photographs that gives readers of today a glimpse into the early days of the leather community and the beginnings of a post-stonewall gay community in San Francisco.
‘Jack Holmes and His Friend’ by Edmund White
Jack Holmes and His Friend does not re-open Edmund White’s The Boy’s Own Story trilogy, nor, like Fanny (2003), does it venture into the genre of the historical novel. What Jack Holmes and His Friend does do is continue White’s long and distinguished use of semi-autobiography to produce fine literary fiction.
