Dorothy Dunnett (August 25, 1923 - November 9, 2001)

Dorothy Dunnett OBE (née Halliday, 25 August 1923, Dunfermline, Fife – 9 November 2001) was a Scottish historical novelist. She is best known for her six-part series about Francis Crawford of Lymond, The Lymond Chronicles, which she followed with the eight-part prequel The House of Niccolò. She also wrote a novel about the real Macbeth called King Hereafter (1982), and a series of mystery novels centred around Johnson Johnson, a portrait painter/spy.

Dunnett was educated at James Gillespie's High School for Girls in Edinburgh. She started her career as a press officer in the civil service, where she met her husband.

She was a leading light in the Scottish arts world and a renaissance woman. She was a professional portrait painter and exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy on many occasions. She had portraits commissioned by a number of prominent public figures in Scotland. She had a keen interest in opera, was a trustee of the National Library of Scotland, a board member of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, a trustee of the Scottish National War Memorial, and a non-executive director of Scottish Television. In 1992 she was awarded an OBE for her services to literature. Writing in The Times Literary Supplement, Alexander Fiske-Harrison reviewed her final novel in 2000, Gemini, and through that her entire oeuvre of historical fiction: "Although Dunnett’s writing style is not the neutral prose of genre fiction and it can be opaque and hard to read, especially in the early works, at times, this works with the almost melodramatic content to produce a powerful, operatic mixture... It is neither as a literary novelist nor as a historian, but as a writer of historical fiction that Dorothy Dunnett deserves recognition... The publication of Gemini completes an ambitious literary circle."

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Dorothy Dunnett's Books on Amazon: Dorothy Dunnett

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

Dorothy Dunnett (August 25, 1923 - November 9, 2001)

Dorothy Dunnett OBE (née Halliday, 25 August 1923, Dunfermline, Fife – 9 November 2001) was a Scottish historical novelist. She is best known for her six-part series about Francis Crawford of Lymond, The Lymond Chronicles, which she followed with the eight-part prequel The House of Niccolò. She also wrote a novel about the real Macbeth called King Hereafter (1982), and a series of mystery novels centred around Johnson Johnson, a portrait painter/spy.

Dunnett was educated at James Gillespie's High School for Girls in Edinburgh. She started her career as a press officer in the civil service, where she met her husband.

She was a leading light in the Scottish arts world and a renaissance woman. She was a professional portrait painter and exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy on many occasions. She had portraits commissioned by a number of prominent public figures in Scotland. She had a keen interest in opera, was a trustee of the National Library of Scotland, a board member of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, a trustee of the Scottish National War Memorial, and a non-executive director of Scottish Television. In 1992 she was awarded an OBE for her services to literature. Writing in The Times Literary Supplement, Alexander Fiske-Harrison reviewed her final novel in 2000, Gemini, and through that her entire oeuvre of historical fiction: "Although Dunnett’s writing style is not the neutral prose of genre fiction and it can be opaque and hard to read, especially in the early works, at times, this works with the almost melodramatic content to produce a powerful, operatic mixture... It is neither as a literary novelist nor as a historian, but as a writer of historical fiction that Dorothy Dunnett deserves recognition... The publication of Gemini completes an ambitious literary circle."

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Dorothy Dunnett's Books on Amazon: Dorothy Dunnett

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

Persistent Voices: Lynn Hall

Lynn Hall was born November 9, 1937 in Lombard, IL and, due to several family moves, attended schools in Iowa. She married Dean W. Green in May 1960 and divorced in September 1961. Hall worked at a succession of jobs from the mid-50s to the mid-60s. Her first book, The Shy Ones, was written in 1967. She has written dozens of books for children, some juvenile nonfiction, and a number of young adult novels. Many of her works features dogs or horses. Her book, The Leaving, received the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for fiction (1981). Many of her books have received awards and recognition.

Source: http://special.lib.umn.edu/findaid/xml/CLRC-783.xml (Something About the Author. The Gale Group, 1995)

Sticks and Stones by Lynn Hall
Hardcover: 220 pages
Publisher: Wilcox & Follett Book Co; First Printing/Pages Riped edition (January 1977)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0695802372
ISBN-13: 978-0695802370
Amazon: Sticks and Stones

A seventeen-year-old boy's life is nearly destroyed when a rumor that he is homosexual is started in his new high school.

If I had not come across Lynn Hall‘s book when I was struggling to define my own sexuality, I might not have survived to write this essay of my own experiences. In it I had Ward Alexander and the knowledge that there was someone else like me in the world; I wasn‘t the only one. Would my experience have been different if the original ending had united Tom and Ward? Not necessarily, but it would have shown me that men could commit to one another in romantic relationships built on love, trust and mutual respect. If I could return and tell my teenage self what I know now, I‘d assure him that the isolation and social ostracizing that he‘d experienced helped him become the person, and the artist, that he is today. I‘d tell him to have enough confidence to look his tormentors in the eye and say, ―I‘m gay, so what?‖ and disempower their accusations. I have told this much of my story to my youngest brother, who is coming to terms with his own sexuality. It is both a challenge and an honor to assist him where I can while allowing him the space to learn on his own.

I am astounded at how much has changed since the early 80s when I‘d first read Sticks and Stones. Literature plays such a minor role in our community now, when it used to be the primary means of uniting and informing our community. I grew up in the brief span between pulp fiction and the representation of gays and lesbians in the media at large, and certainly before the Internet allowed us to connect in ways we‘d never dreamed of. Despite those advances, kids continue to struggle with their own questions and suffer the cruelty of their peers. Gay kids are still three times more likely to attempt suicide, develop substance abuse, and run away from home. It is up to us as a community to present positive role models in young adult literature so they know they are not alone, and that there are many ways for them to grow into gay adults. --Sean Meriwether, The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered

Jay B. Laws (1958 - November 9, 1992)

Jay B. Laws passed away on Nov. 9, 1992, at age 34.

Author and playwright, he won awards for his play A Night for Colored Glass and his first novel, Steam.

Laws died tragically early, having only two or three published works to his credit. Steam ranks among the most brilliant horror novels of all time and, certainly wins the blue ribbon as the finest gay horror novel ever written. Eerie and disturbing, Laws’ haunted bath house serves as a personification of the early AIDS epidemic and, even today, is practically guaranteed to send chills up and down your spine. --Hal Bodner

Jay B. Laws only managed to publish two novels before he became an AIDS casualty in the early 90’s; it is heartbreaking to even think about the incredible work he could have produced had he not been taken so young. Steam, his first novel, is set in San Francisco while AIDS ravages the community there, and is centered around a haunted bathhouse. Everything in this book resonates, even twenty years later; the characters are realistic and heartbreaking, the story itself is a nail-biter, and Laws’ use of language extraordinary. He managed one more novel before he became too sick (the equally sublime The Unfinished), and was well on his way to becoming the gay Stephen King. Rest in peace, Jay, and thank you for sharing your extraordinary gifts with us. --Greg Herren

My reading in those days (1991) consistently turned to Picano, Rechy, White, Holleran, etc. Took a chance on an unknown, Jay B. Laws...the cover of the book, "Steam" brightly sensuous and foreboding at the same time. The storytelling was brilliant, frighteningly believable, a horror story that still, even after all these years occasionally haunts...darkly. --George Seaton

Steam was the winner of a first novel contest sponsored by Alyson Books (back when founder Sasha Alyson ran it); he chose the staff of A Different Light Bookstore in San Francisco, which I then managed, as "readers" for the contest; we considered 15, maybe 20 submissions - word of such contests didn't spread as widely, in those pre-Internet days, as it would now - and, pretty unanimously, settled on Jay's work. We knew that the story was set in SF, which contributed to the staff's enthusiasm, but we didn't know that the author was a local, who visited the bookstore often, a charming, funny fellow who exhibited none of the haunted, haunting emotions of his two fine novels. --Richard Labonte

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