GayRomLit Ebook Giveaway: Eric Arvin - Woke Up in a Strange Place

I asked to all the authors joining the GayRomLit convention in Atlanta in October (http://gayromlit.com/grl-authors) a personal favor, a special Ebook Giveaway: twice a week I will post 1 book from each author, and among those who will leave a comment, I will draw a winner. Very easy and very fast ;-) I will send a PM to the winner, so remember to not leave anonymous comments!

And the ebook giveaway goes to: aljons

Today author is Eric Arvin: Eric Arvin resides in the same sleepy Indiana river town where he grew up. He graduated from Hanover College with a Bachelors in History. He has lived, for brief periods, in Italy and Australia. He has survived brain surgery and his own loud-mouthed personal demons, though that is still a daily battle. Eric is the author of THE REST IS ILLUSION, SUBSURDITY, SUBURBILICIOUS, SIMPLE MEN, GALLEY PROOF, WOKE UP IN A STRANGE PLACE, and various other sundry and not-so-sundry writings. He intends to live the rest of his days with tongue in cheek and eyes set to roam.
Website: http://ericarvin.blogspot.com
Most recent title: SuburbaNights
Publishers: Dreamspinner Press, Seventh Window, Day & Knight Books

Woke Up in a Strange Place by Eric Arvin
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (February 25, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1615817956
ISBN-13: 978-1615817955
Amazon: Woke Up in a Strange Place
Amazon Kindle: Woke Up in a Strange Place

Joe wakes up in a barley field with no clothes, no memories, and no idea how he got there. Before he knows it, he's off on the last great journey of his life. With his soul guide Baker and a charge to have courage from a mysterious, alluring, and somehow familiar Stranger, Joe sets off through a fantastical changing landscape to confront his past. The quest is not without challenges. Joe's past is not always an easy thing to relive, but if he wants to find peace-and reunite with the Stranger he is so strongly drawn to-he must continue on until the end, no matter how tempted he is to stop along the way.

2013 Rainbow Awards Submission: Allen McGill - Vicky Banning

Vicky Banning by Allen McGill
Publisher: JMS Books LLC (February 17, 2013)
Amazon Kindle: Vicky Banning

Vicky Banning is many things to many people, making friends with smooth aplomb, but quick to recognize chicanery and deceit. Drug pushers and crooked politicians come under her scrutiny and -- posing as a Madam, then as a reporter from The New York Times, complete with a Streisand Brooklyn accent -- she manages to charm them into jail time.

Having started life as a pampered child, Vicky views the world as her playground and causes havoc at her "finishing school" in Boston before she returns to her parents' grand home in Newport, Rhode Island. There she meets her future husband who, with British stiff upper-lip, leads her into the exciting world of show business and travel.

Gay lovers Roger and Steve become Vicky's closest friends. But even they don't know her completely. She keeps mum on her efforts to smuggle endangered children out of Europe to the U.S. during WWII, and their aftermath.

Whether she is nearly arrested at Mardi Gras for impersonating an undercover policeman in drag, or masquerading as one of her many alternate personalities of the Countess of Comedians, or simply playing the grandmother while helping a boy keep his dog, Vicky lives life to the fullest. Join this fabulous lady on a zany romp through a whirlwind world of show biz and shenanigans!

Christine Jorgensen (May 30, 1926 – May 3, 1989)

Christine Jorgensen (May 30, 1926 – May 3, 1989) was a European-American who was the first person to become widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery—in this case, male to female. (Picture: Jorgensen on the cover of Christine Jorgensen Reveals, her only interview released (1958) that was released as an album. A theatrical show of the same name depicts the 1957 one-hour interview of Jorgensen by Nipsey Russell.)

Jorgensen was born George William Jorgensen, Jr., the second child of George William Jorgensen Sr., a carpenter and contractor, and his wife, the former Florence Davis Hansen. Jorgensen grew up in the Bronx area and was self-described as having been a "frail, blond, introverted little boy who ran from fistfights and rough-and-tumble games".

Jorgensen graduated from Christopher Columbus High School in 1945 and shortly thereafter was drafted into the Army.

After being discharged from the Army, she attended Mohawk College in Utica, New York, the Progressive School of Photography in New Haven, Connecticut, and the Manhattan Medical and Dental Assistant School in New York City, New York. She also briefly worked for Pathé News.

Returning to New York after military service and increasingly concerned over (as one obituary called it) her "lack of male physical development", Jorgensen heard about sex reassignment surgery, and began taking the female hormone ethinyl estradiol on her own. She researched the subject with the help of Dr. Joseph Angelo, a husband of one of Jorgensen's classmates at the Manhattan Medical and Dental Assistant School. Jorgensen intended to go to Sweden, where at the time the only doctors in the world performing this surgery were located. During a stopover in Copenhagen to visit relatives, however, she met Dr. Christian Hamburger, a Danish endocrinologist and specialist in rehabilitative hormonal therapy. Jorgensen stayed in Denmark, and under Dr. Hamburger's direction, was allowed to begin hormone replacement therapy. She then got special permission from the Danish Minister of Justice to undergo a series of operations. Jorgensen's testicles were removed first and a year later, still in Denmark, she had a penectomy. Jorgensen then returned to the U.S and eventually obtained a vaginoplasty when the procedure became available there. The vaginoplasty was under the direction of Dr. Angelo, with Harry Benjamin as a medical advisor.

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

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