![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Kate O'Brien (3 December 1897 – 13 August 1974), was an Irish novelist and playwright.Kathleen "Kate" Mary Louie O'Brien was born in Limerick City at the end of the 19th century. Following the death of her mother when she was five, she became a boarder at Laurel Hill convent. She graduated from the newly established University College, Dublin and then went to work at the Manchester Guardian. After the success of her play Distinguished Villa in 1926, she took to full-time writing and was awarded the 1931 James Tait Black Prize for her debut novel Without My Cloak. She is best known for her 1934 novel The Ante-Room, her 1941 novel The Land of Spices, and the 1946 novel That Lady. Many of her books deal with issues of female sexuality — several of them explore gay/lesbian themes — and both Mary Lavelle and The Land of Spices were banned in Ireland. She also wrote travel books, or rather accounts of places and experiences, on both Ireland and Spain, a country she loved, and which features in a number of her novels. She lived much of her later life in England and died in Canterbury in 1974; she is buried in Faversham Cemetery.
The Glucksman Library at the University of Limerick currently holds a large collection of O'Brien's personal writings. In August 2005, Penguin reissued her final novel, As Music and Splendour (1958), which had been out of print for decades. The Kate O'Brien Weekend, which takes place in Limerick, attracts a large number of people, both academic and non-academic.
In the film, Brief Encounter (1945), Celia Johnson speaks about collecting "the latest Kate O'Brien."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_O%27Brien
( Further Readings )
Samuel James "Sam" Champion (born August 13, 1961) is the weather anchor of ABC's Good Morning America and weather editor of ABC News. Champion and his partner of several years, Rubem Robierb, announced on October 5, 2012 that they were engaged. They married on December 21, 2012. "The great thing about our relationship is that it developed outside of the noise of our professional worlds, without last names, without labels. It was just Sam and Rubem," Robierb told Out. "We started to say the words 'wedding' or 'marriage' after about six months. On New Year’s Eve 2012, exactly a year after we met, I got down on my knees, nervous as hell, and asked him, 'Will you marry me?' ”
Champion told Out how he met Rubem and on New Year’s Eve 2011. "I was party hopping, as you do in Miami, and we kept running into each other and locking eyes. Eventually he asked for my number, and a few days later we met for a date," Champion explained. "Fast-forward a year, and we are at the same New Year’s party. The host silences the room to make a toast, and I'm thinking, Oh no, this is where everyone has to talk about what they’re grateful for, and I’m unprepared. But then Rubem stands up and I look at him and realize he is proposing."
I asked to all the authors joining the GayRomLit convention in Atlanta in October (
Accidental Chemistry (Second Chances) by Susan Laine 
A Luminous Touch (Senses and Sensations) by Susan Laine
Very classical seasonal romance with a bromance subtheme. Adam awakes in an hospital bed with a caring boyfriend by his side, Joe. He is in pain, but the soothing presence of Joe is helping a lot, and Adam thinks how lucky he is to have such an handsome and caring man by his side. The problem is Adam doesn’t remember Joe and he doesn’t remember anything else of his past life. Doctors are confident the memory will be back and Adam doesn’t worry too much. But as soon as Joe brings him home, their home, Adam finds out he is not Joe’s boyfriend, but his best friend since forever. They are not together and moreover Adam is straight, and with a girlfriend, while Joe is gay and single. But why Adam feels like he is in love with Joe, and why Joe is protective of Adam to a level that it seems almost jealousy?
Only with an English setting and probably only an English author, or at least one that knows very well the customs of that country, can write a story about tea, crumpets and supernatural being. Location is an small, cold, but homey cottage, the central piece of the story is the restoration of two small Elizabethan portraits too many people want and only one has the right to have.