Adrianne Brennan

Adrianne Brennan stumbled into her love of writing by accident at the tender age of ten when she was given a creative writing assignment for her science class. The end result was her writing a brief science fiction comedy featuring numerous puns regarding vegetables. Once the writing bug bit, it bit pretty hard, and she has been writing ever since.

Adrianne's works were previously published through Aphrodite's Apples Press and are now available from Freya's Bower, Torquere Press, and Constable & Robinson/Running Press. In addition, she is a member of EPIC, Infinite Worlds of Fantasy Authors, the Midnight Seductions Authors group, and is an alumnus member of Kappa Gamma Psi, a co-ed national professional performing arts fraternity.

An avid reader, Adrianne has been most influenced by various science fiction and fantasy authors including Madeleine L'Engle, Roger Zelazny, Laurell K. Hamilton, LA Banks, Yasmine Galenorn, Michael Ende, Neil Gaiman, and Alan Moore. Like her main character from Blood of the Dark Moon, she professes a love for Iamblichus and Greek philosophy.

The author resides in Boston, Massachusetts with two cats and a car she has aptly named "the TARDIS." She assures her readers that people tell her it looks bigger on the inside.

Blood and Mint Chocolates won a 2009 Rainbow Award as Best Lesbian Novel.

Further Readings:

Blood and Mint Chocolates by Adrianne Brennan
Publisher: Freya's Bower (November 11, 2008)
Amazon Kindle: Blood and Mint Chocolates

Merideth, a vampire and librarian, spends most of her nights researching and book collecting for Clan Gladius within the Order of the Dragon and the Rose. Much to her surprise, the head of Clan Gladius unexpectedly presents her with a luxurious gift: a trip to stay at Hotel Paradisio at Crystal Island!

The heat is on at the island resort under moonlit skies and palm trees. The tropical heat quickly transforms into a scorching hot time that will be seared into Merideth's memory forever when she runs into her long time crush, Kalia. Merideth is presented with a gift from a goddess that allows her to experience in reality her deepest fantasies...which existed before in dreams alone. But can their passion survive the intrigue and potential dangers that await them, or will it only last as long as her vacation?

More Rainbow Awards at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, Rainbow Awards/2009

Doris Grumbach & Sybil Pike

Doris Grumbach (b. July 12, 1918) is an American novelist, biographer, literary critic, and essayist. She taught at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, and was literary editor of the The New Republic for several years. Since 1985, she has had a bookstore, Wayward Books, in Sargentville, Maine, that she operates with her partner, Sybil Pike.

Grumbach was born in New York City to Leonard William and Helen (Oppenheimer) Isaac. She grew up in Manhattan and attended elementary school. A very bright student, she skipped many grades and entered high school at age eleven. She was not prepared socially for this early advancement and did poorly, developing a stammer and losing her self-confidence. She was encouraged by her teachers to take a year off from high school, and when she returned, she was an indifferent student in the classroom but showed talent in theater and in creative writing. In her senior year, she won a citywide short story contest, which helped secure her admission to Washington Square College of New York University. She majored in philosophy and graduated Phi Beta Kappa, receiving her B.A. degree in 1939. She earned her M.A. degree in medieval literature in 1940 from Cornell University.

At Cornell, she met her future husband, Leonard Grumbach, a doctoral student in neurophysiology. They were married on October 5, 1941, and during 1940-41, Grumbach worked for Loew's, Inc./MGM writing subtitles for films distributed abroad. During 1941-42, she was employed as a proofreader for Mademoiselle magazine and then for the journal Architectural Forum in 1942-43, eventually rising to the position of associate editor. When her husband was drafted during World War II, Grumbach joined the Navy in 1943 as an officer in the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service). She served in the Navy from 1943-45.


Doris Grumbach (b. July 12, 1918) is an American novelist, biographer, literary critic, and essayist. She taught at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, and was literary editor of the The New Republic for several years. In 1972, she divorced her husband and began a relationship with Sybil Pike, who became and remains her life partner. Since 1985, she has had a bookstore, Wayward Books, in Sargentville, Maine, that she operates with her partner, Sybil Pike.

American photographer Robert Giard is renowned for his portraits of American poets and writers; his particular focus was on gay and lesbian writers. Some of his photographs of the American gay and lesbian literary community appear in his groundbreaking book Particular Voices: Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Writers, published by MIT Press in 1997. Giard’s stated mission was to define the literary history and cultural identity of gays and lesbians for the mainstream of American society, which perceived them as disparate, marginal individuals possessing neither. In all, he photographed more than 600 writers. (http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/digitallibrary/giard.html)

( Read more... )

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

( Further Readings )

More Particular Voices at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Particular Voices

More Real Life Romances at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

2014 Rainbow Awards Submission: Velvet Rodeo

Gay Poetry
Velvet Rodeo by Kelly McQuain
Publisher: Bloom Books

“‘The tongue I try to master / is a sticky one, forked and full of tricks,’ is the opening of a poem in Velvet Rodeo, and it becomes a point of return for the collection. These poems understand that to tell the truth, one must lie, play tricks, and even dare to say the unbelievable. Careful and exacting, these poems exact a price from a reader. They linger with you long after you have finished reading them.” — C. Dale Young, 2013 poetry judge

Kelly McQuain grew up surrounded by the mountains of West Virginia’s Monongahela National Forest. His poetry has appeared in Painted Bride Quarterly, The Pinch, Assaracus, Kin, Mead, Bloom, Chelsea Station, American Writing and the anthologies Poems for the Writing and Rabbit Ears: TV Poems. Recently his poem, “Camping as Boys in the Cow Field,” was selected by Reginald Dwayne Betts as the winner of Redivider’s AWP poetry contest. McQuain works as a professor in Philadelphia.

Charities Donation program progress:
303$ Albert Kennedy Trust: http://www.akt.org.uk/
965$ Ali Forney Center: www.aliforneycenter.org/
25$ Audre Lorde Project: http://alp.org/
25$ BiNet US: http://www.binetusa.org/
75$ CARE: careprogram.org/
100$ The Center Colorado: http://www.glbtcolorado.org/
392$ COLORS: www.colorsyouth.org/
30$ Covenant: www.covenanthouseno.org/
75$ Diversity Role Models: http://www.diversityrolemodels.org/
25$ The Diversity Center: http://diversitycenter.org/
317$ Galop: www.galop.org.uk/
150$ GLYS: http://www.glyswny.org/
100$ Human Rights Campaign: http://www.hrc.org/
50$ Huntsville GLBT Advocacy & Youth Services: http://www.glbtays.org/
25$ It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org/
100$ Inland Northwest LGBT Center: www.thelgbtcenter.org/
235$ Lambda Legal: www.lambdalegal.org/
50$ Lambert House: www.lamberthouse.org/
50$ Lancaster LGBT Center: http://www.centralpalgbtcenter.org/
50$ LEAP: http://www.glbtleap.org/
462$ Lost-n-Found Youth: www.lost-n-found.org/
130$ Moveable Feast: http://www.mfeast.org/
25$ Odyssey Youth Center: www.odysseyyouth.org/
25$ Out Youth: outyouth.org/
100$ PFLAG: community.pflag.org/
175$ Point Foundation: www.pointfoundation.org/
100$ Ruth Ellis Center: http://www.ruthelliscenter.org/
575$ SAGE: giveto.sageusa.org/
25$ Terrence Higgins Trust: www.tht.org.uk/
280$ The Trevor Project: www.thetrevorproject.org/
160$ UCAN: www.ucanchicago.org/
25$ WayGay: http://www.waygay.org/
200$ You Can Play: http://youcanplayproject.org/
50$ YouthCare: www.youthcare.org/
997$ Other Funds
TOTAL: 6471$

* 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

2014 Rainbow Awards Submission: No Angel

Gay Romantic Comedy
No Angel by Clare London
Publisher: Amber Quill Press, LLC (June 30, 2014)
Amazon Kindle: No Angel

Felix's life is full, juggling a supportive homelife for his disabled brother, a job as a care home assistant, a brand new boyfriend--and now he's had his arse pinched by a lewd gay ghost on the late night bus!

If only that were the end of it. But Bryn the ghost follows him home and wheedles himself into Felix's life. That includes sharing his shameless opinions on the patronising way Felix treats his brother, on how Felix should eat more food and put some flesh on his bones, and--worst of all--exactly how Felix should be getting down to it with his seriously sexy new boyfriend Mickey! And in between all that, Bryn finds time to leer at Felix himself and make outrageous suggestions on what they'd be doing if Bryn wasn't...well...ghostly.

Felix considers he's a tolerant guy. But the last thing he needs now is to get wrapped up in the mystery of a missing teenage girl, the inhabitants of a local squat, and conversations with a fire-and-brimstone old preacher. Yet with a nudge or six from Bryn, the help of his brother Patrick, and some cosy loving from Mickey, Felix starts to wonder how he ever thought his life was busy before!

Charities Donation program progress:
303$ Albert Kennedy Trust: http://www.akt.org.uk/
965$ Ali Forney Center: www.aliforneycenter.org/
25$ Audre Lorde Project: http://alp.org/
25$ BiNet US: http://www.binetusa.org/
75$ CARE: careprogram.org/
100$ The Center Colorado: http://www.glbtcolorado.org/
392$ COLORS: www.colorsyouth.org/
30$ Covenant: www.covenanthouseno.org/
75$ Diversity Role Models: http://www.diversityrolemodels.org/
25$ The Diversity Center: http://diversitycenter.org/
317$ Galop: www.galop.org.uk/
150$ GLYS: http://www.glyswny.org/
100$ Human Rights Campaign: http://www.hrc.org/
50$ Huntsville GLBT Advocacy & Youth Services: http://www.glbtays.org/
25$ It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org/
100$ Inland Northwest LGBT Center: www.thelgbtcenter.org/
235$ Lambda Legal: www.lambdalegal.org/
50$ Lambert House: www.lamberthouse.org/
50$ Lancaster LGBT Center: http://www.centralpalgbtcenter.org/
50$ LEAP: http://www.glbtleap.org/
462$ Lost-n-Found Youth: www.lost-n-found.org/
130$ Moveable Feast: http://www.mfeast.org/
25$ Odyssey Youth Center: www.odysseyyouth.org/
25$ Out Youth: outyouth.org/
100$ PFLAG: community.pflag.org/
175$ Point Foundation: www.pointfoundation.org/
100$ Ruth Ellis Center: http://www.ruthelliscenter.org/
575$ SAGE: giveto.sageusa.org/
25$ Terrence Higgins Trust: www.tht.org.uk/
280$ The Trevor Project: www.thetrevorproject.org/
160$ UCAN: www.ucanchicago.org/
25$ WayGay: http://www.waygay.org/
200$ You Can Play: http://youcanplayproject.org/
50$ YouthCare: www.youthcare.org/
997$ Other Funds
TOTAL: 6471$

* 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