Event: Three-in-One Books Launch Party

Date: Tuesday, November 1
Time: 19.00 - 21.00
Place: Gay's The Word 66 Marchmont Street, WC1N 1AB London, United Kingdom

The Three Books are out and they want to celebrate!!! Join then for an evening of readings and screenings. There'll be readings from all three books, as well as screenings of short films, courtesy of Peccadillo Pictures. Becky Mayhew will be reading from Lost Souls, her brilliant book of short stories about women on the edge. Beldan Sezen has flown in especially from Amsterdam to read from her graphic book, Zakkum. And Simon Savory, one of the stars of the soon to be released feature film Stud Life, will read from Lou Dellaguzzo's The Hex Artist. There'll be free booze and free nibbles, so it's kind of a win-win situation. Places are limited to about 30 people (40, if really cosy), so please RSVP here or send them an email to hi@treehousepress.co.uk Directions and everything you need to know about Gay's the Word Bookshop is here: http://freespace.virgin.net/gays.theword/find_us.htm

The Hex Artist Lou Dellaguzzo with photographs by Josh McNey   In “Pegasus on the Turnpike” Dale, barely out of high school, fights his way off the family farm, steals his dad's pick-up, and heads for Philly. He meets a trucker, Rick, at his first stop. and the older man invites Dale to share his motel room. What might sound like a porn scenario becomes a tender and meticulous study of freedom and companionship in Lou Dellaguzzo's skillful hands. More erotic angst is part of the mating ritual in “Secret Shoppers” when Freddie and Jack hook up in a bookstore. In the title story, Aaron is cooking breakfast and plotting his way out of an abusive relationship, even if he has nowehere to go. How will it all end?! In all three stories the dialogue is electric, and the characters - an investigation into what it means to be a young gay man trying to connect with other men in the world. Read an interview with Lou Dellaguzzo. order The Hex Artist

Lost Souls Becky Mayhew with photographs by Paul G. Vine "Roses", "Shelves", and "Ramona" are three stories about three very different women... a school teacher, a librarian, and a florist. The school teacher in "Ramona" is obsessed with her fearless student while her marriage is on rocky ground. In "Shelves", the librarian narrator judges men by the books they take out, but will go to bed with them anyway! And the florist, in the more experimental and atmospheric "Roses" grapples with reality and her love for a stranger she's been watching in a cafe across the road. Becky Mayhew is a new and exciting voice. We are proud to be publishing her first book of short stories. Read an interview with Becky Mayhew. order Lost Souls

Zakkum Beldan Sezen Beldan's winning graphic stories (comics) "Demons" and "Fear City" and "A Girl Called Halt" can be seen on her website.   We are delighted to be publishing Beldan’s first full-length comic book. Zakkum (“oleander” in Turkish) is a graphic murder mystery about family, loyalty, love, cultural etiquette and taboos. The narrator, an artist in her early 30s, lives in Amsterdam. A letter arrives one day from her favourite aunt in Istanbul with a cry for help, only to be followed soon after with news of the aunt’s death. Alarmed by this unusual coincidence, she sets off to investigate a possible murder in a city she knows only from childhood holidays and a recent love affair. Family secrets, poisonous plants, and a blinding dislike for her uncle, lead the narrator to jump to the wrong conclusion! Humorous and moving, Zakkum is a unique story and a refreshing glimpse into gay life in Istanbul. Read an interview with Beldan Sezen. order Zakkum

Sara Seale (? - October 30, 1978)

A.D.L. MacPherson (died 1978) was a British writer of romance as Sara Seale and Jane MacPherson from 1932 to 1976. Seale was one of the first Mills & Boon's authors published in Germany and the Netherlands.

Sara Seale, the pen name for Jane MacPherson and/or A.D.L. MacPherson, published over 35 novels, many of which revisited a theme of an orphaned heroine who finds happiness. She also employed blind or disfigured (but still handsome) heroes as standard characters. Seale reportedly passed away in 1978.

Seale was a hugely successful author for Mills & Boon, starting her career in the 1930's and continuing for several decades. She reached the pinnacle of her career in the 1940s and 1950s. As with other M&B authors, Seale found great financial success, earning several thousand pounds a year for her writing (£2,370 in 1949, £3,105 in 1952). Like her fellow authors, Seale's earnings were a combination of royalties from her novels and payments for serialization rights from various women's magazines.

The chapter notes to Joseph McAleer's Passion's Fortune indicate that Seale's works were so popular that readers purchased both the serialized versions in magazines and the books when released. He aided the reading public by ensuring that her work appeared with the same title in both formats (there were often different titles given to the two versions). While Seale's success as a serialized author was great, McAleer notes in several places of his work that her relationship with the process, including famous and dominant Woman's Weekly editor, Winifred "Biddy" Johnson, was often contentious. Johnson, who largely invented the still-popular Marriage in Name Only (MINO) plot device, capitalized on Seale's skill with this type of story.

She was also one of the early authors the publisher distributed in the newly-opened post-World War II markets of Germany and the Netherlands.

As a Harlequin Presents author, Sara Seale wrote two books. Writing for the Harlequin Romance imprint, she published 35 titles.

Sara Seale's Books on Amazon: Sara Seale

Source: http://www.romancewiki.com/Sara_Seale

( Vintage Covers )

Particular Voices: Hubert Kennedy (born October 30, 1931)

Hubert Kennedy (b.1931) is an American author and mathematician.

Kennedy was born in Florida and studied mathematics at several universities. From 1961 he was professor of mathematics, with research interest in the history of mathematics, at Providence College (Rhode Island), He spent three sabbatical years doing research in Italy and Germany.

Kennedy came out as gay on the cover of the magazine The Cowl, and, along with Eric Gordon, was part of the first Gay Pride parade in Providence, Rhode Island, which was held on June 26, 1976.

In 1986 Kennedy moved to San Francisco, where he continued his historical research, now in the beginnings of the gay movement in Germany. Since 2003 he has been in a home for assisted living in Concord, California. He has over 200 publications in several languages, from an analysis of the mathematical manuscripts of Karl Marx and a revelation of Marx's homophobia, to theoretical genetics and a proof of the impossibility of an organism that requires more than two sexes in order to reproduce. In addition, Dr. Kennedy has written biographies of the Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano and the German homosexual emancipationist/theorist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, and has edited the collected writings of Ulrichs. His translations of the boy-love novels of the German anarchist writer John Henry Mackay and his investigations of the writings of Mackay have helped establish Mackay's place in the gay canon.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Kennedy

( Hubert Kennedy, 1994, by Robert Giard )