Janet Mock (born March 10, 1983)

Janet Mock (born March 9, 1984 in Honolulu, Hawaii) is an American trans woman rights activist, author and the former staff editor of People magazine's website. ock lives in New York City with her boyfriend, photographer Aaron Tredwell.

Mock was born Charles in Honolulu, Hawaii and grew up in Hawaii and Oakland, California. At age 16, she was a sex worker. She was the first person in her family to go to college. She has a bachelor's degree in fashion merchandizing from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and a master's degree in journalism from New York University. She came out as a trans woman in 2011 in an article in Marie Claire entitled "I Was Born a Boy." However, in 2014, while promoting her book Redefining Realness, she said she did not choose the article's title and found it to have many problems. She chose the name "Janet" after Janet Jackson.

Mock creates transgender-specific programs and education for the LGBTQ youth center of the Hetrick-Martin Institute, which operates Harvey Milk High School, a high school for LGBT teens in New York City.

In 2012, she started a Twitter hashtag to empower transgender women, called #GirlsLikeUs, which received attention from several queer-media sites.

Also in 2012, she gave the Lavender Commencement keynote speech honoring LGBT students at the University of Southern California. She also served as co-chair, nominee and presenter at the 2012 GLAAD Media Awards.

She has also submitted a video about her experiences as a transgender woman to the "It Gets Better" project, and written about transgender issues for the Huffington Post and xojane.

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

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More LGBT History at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Persistent Voices

Jerriese "JJ" Johnson (May 8, 1954 - March 10, 1995)

Jerriese ("JJ") Daniel Johnson (May 8, 1954, Gainesville, Georgia - March 10, 1995, New York, New York) was a Gospel Singer, Musical Director, Actor, Composer. He had a B.A. in Drama and Music, Berry College, Rome, Georgia (1972-76) and studied at California Institute of Performing Arts and Harlem School of Ballet. (Photo: courtesy K. Dean Hubbard)

He was Founder and Director of East Village Gospel Choir, New York.

JJ, as he was known to one and all, started singing in church when he was three years old. He played piano at age seven and performed with his own band when he was fifteen.

After graduating in drama and music from Berry College in Rome, Georgia, he attended the California Institute of Performing Arts and studied ballet at the Harlem School of Ballet. He spent most of his adult life in New York City.

The first performance of the East Village Gospel Choir was November 23, 1986 in New York at the Middle Collegiate Church, where Jerriese served as Elder and Deacon. JJ continued as the choir's director until his death from complications related to AIDS on March 10, 1995. The night before his death, he held choir rehearsal in his apartment. The choir's last song with JJ was "Amazing Grace."

The choir, now known as the Jerriese Johnson East Village Gospel Choir, is directed by Freeman Palmer at Middle Collegiate Church.

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Source: http://www.artistswithaids.org/artforms/music/catalogue/johnsonj.html

( Further Readings )

More LGBT History at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Gay Classics

William Douglas (September 25, 1953 - March 10, 1996)

William Douglas, "Bill," Choreographer, dancer, teacher (b at Amherst, NS 25 Sept 1953; d at Montréal, Qué 10 March 1996). Douglas was best known for the elegant, intelligent and sensual formality of his 30 choreographies - much of it achieved with the collaboration of contemporary composers and lighting designers. His dance works, crafted over a decade from 1986 to 1996, also reflected a Cartesian fascination with vortices, honed during early studies and work in architectural design and drafting.
While attending Carleton University's School of Architecture, Ottawa, from which he graduated in 1978, Douglas danced in student productions with the Ottawa Dance Centre Workshop. He continued to dance professionally in Canada with the TORONTO DANCE THEATRE (1978-83), the Judy JARVIS Dance Company (1980), the Toronto Independent Dance Enterprise (1982), DANCEMAKERS (1980-83) and EDAM (1983). (Photo: courtesy of José Navas)

In 1981 he went to New York City, founded William Douglas and Dancers and began a 10-year study of technique and composition at the Merce Cunningham Studio, supported by numerous study and project grants from the CANADA COUNCIL and the Ontario Arts Council. Returning to Montréal in 1991, he founded William Douglas Danse and capped his teaching career as a permanent guest professor of technique and composition in the Dance Department of the University of Québec.

Choreographies completed during his New York sojourn took on the character of short studies of human nature, often performed with live music: Archipelago (1986); ...and the Air (1987); E/motional/ogic (1988), which was directed and produced in a film documentary by Lisa Cochrane in 1995; and Carved in Flesh (1990). It was with the bold high-energy trio We Were Warned (1992), created with new music composer Reid Robins, that Douglas won the choreography prize from the IV Rencontres choréographiques internationales de Seine Saint-Denis in France, and went on to tour numerous Canadian and European dance festivals. The trio was followed by an accumulation cycle: the quartet Apollo (1993), quintet The Golden Zone (1994), sextet Love Is a Stranger (1995), and finally the septet Heroes (1996).


Jose Navas in a William Douglas's ballet

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Source: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/william-douglas

( Further Readings )

More LGBT History at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Gay Classics

It Happened Today: March 10

Holly Hughes (born March 10, 1955): http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/3091555.html

Holly Hughes is an American performance artist. She began as a feminist painter in New York but is best known for her connection with the NEA Four, with whom she was denied funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, and for her work with the Women's One World Cafe. Her plays explore sexuality, body images and the female mind. She is the recipient of several awards including the Lambda Book Award and an Obie Award. She teaches fine arts at the University of Michigan School of Art & Design.

Janet Mock (born March 10, 1983): http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/3494450.html

Janet Mock (born March 9, 1984) is an American trans woman rights activist, author and the former staff editor of People magazine's website. ock lives in New York City with her boyfriend, photographer Aaron Tredwell. In November 2012, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project gave Mock their Activist Award. Mock was included in the Trans 100, the first annual list recognizing 100 transgender advocates in the United States, and gave the keynote speech at the launch event, March 29, 2013 in Chicago.

Jerriese "JJ" Johnson (May 8, 1954 - March 10, 1995): http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/3494684.html

Jerriese ("JJ") Daniel Johnson (May 8, 1954 - March 10, 1995) was a Gospel Singer, Musical Director, Actor, Composer. It seemed that Jerriese knew nearly everybody in the East Village. JJ's compassionate energy carried over into activism for peace and human rights as well. Like his beloved fellow Georgian, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., JJ fought with his life to overcome hatred, intolerance and exclusion, using the weapons of love, acceptance and inclusion – as well as music.

John Rechy (born March 10, 1934): http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/1450674.html

John Rechy is an American author. In his novels he has written extensively about homosexual culture in Los Angeles and wider America. Drawing on his own background, he has also contributed to Chicano literature, especially with his novel The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez, which is taught in Chicano literature courses in the United States. His work has often faced censorship due to its sexual content, but books such as City of Night have been best sellers, and he has many literary admirers.

William Douglas (September 25, 1953 - March 10, 1996): http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/3494971.html

William Douglas, "Bill," Choreographer, dancer, teacher (b. Amherst, NS 25 Sept 1953; d. Montréal, Qué 10 March 1996). Douglas was best known for the elegant, intelligent and sensual formality of his 30 choreographies - much of it achieved with the collaboration of contemporary composers and lighting designers. His dance works, crafted over a decade from 1986 to 1996, also reflected a Cartesian fascination with vortices, honed during early studies and work in architectural design and drafting.

2014 Rainbow Awards Submission: Waiting for the Violins

Lesbian Historical
Waiting for the Violins by Justine Saracen
Paperback: 264 pages
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books (March 18, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1626390460
ISBN-13: 978-1626390461
Amazon: Waiting for the Violins

Antonia Forrester, an English nurse, is nearly killed while trying to save soldiers fleeing at Dunkirk. Embittered, she returns to occupied Brussels as a British spy to foment resistance to the Nazis. She works with urban partisans who sabotage deportation efforts and execute collaborators, before résistante leader Sandrine Toussaint accepts her into the Comet Line, an operation to rescue downed Allied pilots. After capture and then escape from a deportation train headed for Auschwitz, the women join the Maquis fighting in the Ardenne Forests. Passion is the glowing ember that warms them amidst the winter carnage until London radio transmits the news they’ve waited for. Huddled in the darkness, they hear the coded message, “the long sobs of the violins” signaling that the Allied Invasion is about to begin.

Charities Donation program progress:
25$ YouthCare: www.youthcare.org/
25$ Point Foundation: www.pointfoundation.org/
25$ CARE: careprogram.org/
25$ Lost-n-Found Youth: www.lost-n-found.org/
25$ Lambda Legal: www.lambdalegal.org/
50$ Wes for Youth: wesforyouth.privacemail.com/
83$ COLORS: www.colorsyouth.org/
125$ Cancer Research Institute: www.cancerresearch.org/
132$ Galop: www.galop.org.uk/
140$ SAGE: giveto.sageusa.org/
160$ UCAN: www.ucanchicago.org/
300$ Ali Forney Center: www.aliforneycenter.org/
TOTAL: 1115$*

* more than 150$ is a direct donation from a supporter of the Rainbow Awards who isn't submitting; while some authors were more than generous, arriving to donate 5 times the suggested amount, being the submission fee a non mandatory and voluntary direct donation, we were struggling to raise the same amount as last year and there is who decided to cover part of it. I thank you for all you are doing, and if you wish to donate to the above links, please drop me a note with your donation and I will update the total.

2014 Rainbow Awards Guidelines: reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/4162490.html

The William Neale Award for Best Gay Romance: Hard Tail by J.L. Merrow

I greatly enjoyed this small town romance, the British flavor was delightful, so different from the more popular US/western romance, and yet, despite the common European background with me, the reader, so particular and original to make it a very interesting and whole reading experience, well beyond the "simple" romance.

Tim is in a precarious situation, downsized and looking for a job, after years of living the high-speed life of the City (London), he is plunged in the sleepy Southampton, no so glamorous like Brighton, not so small like other seaside small town, basically average, like Tim's opinion of his own persona. But there Tim is also far from his previous life, and maybe the constrictions that had him denying his homosexuality. With a new life in front of him, and new opportunities, Tim is also ready to admit his interest in Matt, and why not, trying to do something about it.

The novel is pretty much centered around Tim, Matt is a very nice character, but we have little chance to understand his reasons; maybe this is a reflection of Matt as a character, he is shy and silent, not really the chatty type. He could be more imposing than Tim from a physical perspective, but if I have to tag them, the domineering character is Tim, even if maybe he doesn't realize it. From being almost a wallpaper flower to his older brother, who is everything with an "er" at the end than Tim, Tim has to take the front stage and being there for Matt when Matt needs him. Being strong for him, when he has never been the same for himself.

Of all the character, I love Wolverine the cat, probably cause he was an orange tabby like my own cat, and like him, Wolverine decided Tim, and Tim's home, were his next home, and not viceversa; he found someone, and something he liked, and he decided to take it, home and owner, in one package.

Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Samhain Publishing (April 2, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1619210576
ISBN-13: 978-1619210578
Amazon: Hard Tail
Amazon Kindle: Hard Tail



More Reviews by Author at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Reviews

Gay Romance Challenge: March 2014

Here is the Bestsellers List on Amazon I'm referring to for the challenge:

Bestsellers in Gay Fiction

And here is the actual situation (in bold the books I read with link to the review and marked as New the books entering the Challenge this month):

1) A Single Man: A Novel by Christopher Isherwood
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F8HRQJS/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Review:
2) Death and Judgment: A Commissario Gui... by Donna Leon
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003ZUY18Y/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Review:
3) Floodgates by Mary Calmes
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IRBXJNE/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Review:
4) Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004ELAH5O/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Review:
5) Trouble & the Wallflower by Kade Boehme
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IPL4F4S/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Review:
6) Timber Pack Chronicles by Rob Colton
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IPUMQ0O/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Review:
7) The Runaway Cat (Book 2 Cloverleah Pa... by Lisa Oliver
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ITZ0SQO/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Review:
8) Memorizing You by Dan Skinner
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DUXS4Z2/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Review: http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/4144020.html
9) Drawing Straws: Erik (Handcuffs and L... by Sean Michael
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IS8KC5E/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Review:
10) Fireproof by Hollis Shiloh
Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IQR9172/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Review:

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