2014 Rainbow Awards - Cover Contest

We have 30 covers in the poll, the list of covers is:

1 - Paradise at Main and Elm ( Adrian Nicholas )
77 - Queers ( Theo Fenraven )
89 - The Tin Box ( Anne Cain )
98 - London Calling ( Kevin Pruitt )
115 - The House on Hancock Hill ( Brooke Albrecht )
119 - Slide ( GD Leigh )
120 - Stitch ( Eli Easton )
123 - Out of Hiding ( Paul Richmond )
148 - Gathering Storm ( Alexa Land )
207 - Bitter Waters ( Elizabeth Legget )
212 - Love Lessons ( Kanaxa )
230 - The Mating of Michael ( AngstyG )
245 - Perfect Imperfections ( Reese Dante )
247 - Hell & High Water ( L.C. Chase )
263 - Not In The Stars ( Freddy MacKay )
267 - In Your Eyes ( Reese Dante )
280 - A Case of Possession ( Lou Harper )
296 - Blood’s Voice ( Rue Volley )
302 - Behind the Curtain ( Anne Cain )
305 - Splinters ( Thorny Sterling )
326 - A Heart for Robbie ( AngstyG )
330 - Omorphi ( Reese Dante )
385 - Balefire ( TreeHouse Studio )
395 - Into the Wind ( Anne Cain )
398 - Silent ( Dani Alexander )
402 - The Silence of the Stars ( Aaron Anderson )
444 - Home The Hard Way ( Amber Shah )
446 - That Certain Something ( Fereday Design )
447 - Lessons on Destroying the World ( Aaron Anderson )
454 - Pray The Gay Away ( Sara York )

To vote for the covers you like you can use the following form: http://www.elisarolle.com/rainbowawards/covers.php (you have to vote for at least 3 covers otherwise the vote is void; no limit on how many covers you can vote)

The poll will remain open for 2 weeks until November 15.

Hal Bodner (born November 15)

Hal Bodner is the author of the best selling gay vampire novel, Bite Club. He tells people he was born in East Philadelphia because so few people know where Cherry Hill, New Jersey is located. The first person he saw in his life was C. Everet Coop, future US Surgeon General, who delivered him. Thus, Hal was ironically destined to become a heavy smoker.

He moved to West Hollywood in the 1980s and has rarely left the city limits during the past twenty years. Hal is so WeHo-centric that he cannot find his way around Beverly Hills, the next town over.

Hal has been an entertainment lawyer, a scheduler for a 976 sex telephone line, a theater reviewer and the personal assistant to a television star. For awhile, he owned Heavy Petting, a pet boutique where all the movie stars shopped for their Pomeranians. Currently, he owns an exotic bird shop.

He has never been a waiter.

He lives with assorted dogs, and birds, the most notable of which is an eighty year old irritable, flesh-eating military macaw named after his icon - Tallulah. He often quips he is a slave to fur and feathers and regrets only that he isn't referring to mink and marabou. He does not have cats because he tends to sneeze on them.

Rapidly approaching middle-age (assuming that more than a few hundred year old people are still around), he remembers Nixon.

( Read more... )

Further Readings:

Bite Club: A West Hollywood Vampire Novel by Hal Bodner
Series: West Hollywood Vampire Novels
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Alyson Books (June 1, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1555839037
ISBN-13: 978-1555839031
Amazon: Bite Club: A West Hollywood Vampire Novel
Amazon Kindle: Bite Club: A West Hollywood Vampire Novel

Oh, Bloody Mary!

Welcome to the Bite Club -- where the only requirement for membership is death.

West Hollywood, California. The Creative City. Liberal and welcoming. Free from discrimination and hatred. A safe place to live if you're gay. But West Hollywood isn't safe anymore...

Someone in town has a macabre passion for beautiful young men. Healthy, gym-toned male bodies keep turning up -- tortured, drained of blood, missing parts and quite, quite dead.

Weho City Coroner Becky O'Brien is helpless to stop the accumulation of corpses. At the end of her investigative rope, she calls upon an old college friend, Christopher Driscoll, who is something of an expert on serial killers. Rushing to her aid, Chris arrives in town with his quirky boyfriend Troy in tow. Prowling the dark alleys and cruisy bars of WeHo in search of the psychotic fiend, the trio soon realizes that something possibly not human has taken up residence in Boys' Town -- something with an insatiable hunger for the flesh and blood of hot young men.

Sexy, scary and very, very funny, Bite Club is a macabre black comedy that'll have you screaming bloody murder.

More Spotlights at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Lists/Gay Novels

André Piva & Carlos Tufvesson

Carlos Tufvesson is a renowned fashion designer in Brazil. He attended Domus Academy, in Milan, Italy. In 2000, he opened a space in Ipanema: One side his atelier, the other a store front. In 2001, he released his fist prêt-à-porter collection during the Semana Barra Shopping, a precursor event to Fashion Rio. In 2004 Tufvesson introduced his work internationally at the São Paulo Fashion Week.

Tufvesson, who is openly gay, is well known for his activism in Brazil, especially for activities benefiting HIV/AIDS causes, but also for equal rights to access marriage, as it is administered and extended by the state. Architect André Piva is his life-partner, and both are well-recognized personalities, both by the LGBT community as well as the carioca society (i.e. the Who is who list in the city of Rio de Janeiro).

On November 15, 2011, he married his 16 years partner, Andre Piva, during a ceremony including friends and many personality of the Rio's society. Glorinha Pires Repello, Carlos's mother, said: "This marriage was a battle, a political act against prejudice"


Carlos Tufvesson is a fashion designer in Brazil. Tufvesson is well known for his activism, especially for activities benefiting HIV/AIDS causes, but also for equal rights to access marriage, as it is administered and extended by the state. Architect André Piva is his partner, and both are well-recognized personalities, both by the LGBT community as well as the carioca society: they married in 2011 after being together for 16 years "This marriage was a battle, a political act against prejudice"



( Read more... )

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

( Further Readings )

More Fashion Designers at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Art

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

John Bates & John Siggins

John Bates (born 1938 Ponteland, Northumberland) was a fashion designer who was part of the boutique scene that blossomed in London in the 1960s. He and his partner, John Siggins, his company's former PR, moved to Wales in 2002 and Bates began to paint. His subjects are people, always done from life. 'When we used to go to parties,' says Bates, 'John would work the room but I'd fade into the wall and watch. He'd tell me to stop staring. But it's not staring. It's looking hard. It's what a painter does. A designer must do the same. You can tell a garment designed on the body and one done on a dummy. The former has movement, life. The other doesn't.'

They live in some seclusion in a converted farmhouse in Carmarthenshire. There they garden, exercise, do lots of dog-walking, and entertain as lavishly as they did when they had a swish apartment in London and Bates drove a white Rolls-Royce.

Bates apprenticed under Gerard Pipart at Herbert Sidon. From 1959 he began designing under the name Jean Varon.

Bates' work as Jean Varon in the 1960s was particularly modernistic. He designed dresses with bare midriffs, sheer panels, and very short hemlines, and as early as 1962 was designing high-fashion plastic garments. In 1965, one of his dresses with a mesh midriff was chosen as the Dress of the Year and donated to the Fashion Museum, Bath, which in 2006 held a major retrospective show of his work.


John Bates was a fashion designer who was part of the scene that blossomed in London in the 1960s. He and his partner, John Siggins, his company's former PR, moved to Wales in 2002 and Bates began to paint. His subjects are people, always done from life. They live in some seclusion in a converted farmhouse in Carmarthenshire. There they garden, exercise, do lots of dog-walking, and entertain as lavishly as they did when they had a swish apartment in London and Bates drove a white Rolls-Royce.


Evening ensemble, 1979
Black jersey evening dress trimmed with beaded tassels, with embroidered shoulders. The high necked bodice, with a mandarin collar and puffed sleeves, is cut away immediately below the bust with a draped, wrap-around trained skirt "tied" to the bodice front and draping around the hips.The skirt extends into a long pointed train with a tassel at the end.
Accessorised with patterned nylon tights and black patent leather shoes with metal heel

( Read more... )

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bates_%28designer%29

( Further Readings )

More Fashion Designers at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Art

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

Rainbow Awards pre-party and 8th anniversary (Day 15)

November 2014 marks the 8th anniversary since I opened my first journal on LJ, and the 6th anniversary of the Rainbow Awards and we will have again a 1 month long big bash party. 119 authors, all of them in the 2014 Rainbow Awards, have donated an ebook and I will use them for a Treasure Hunt. Every day, for all November, I will post 4 excerpts (a random page of the book). No reference to title, or author, or publisher. You have to match it with the book ;-) comment on the blog (do not leave anonymous comments, if you post as anonymous, leave a contact email (comments are screened)), you can comment 1 time for more matchings (you can even try for all 4 books if you like, so 4 chances to win every day). Until the end I will not say which matching is right, so you will have ALL month to try. No limit on how many books you can win, the more you try the better chance you have to win. End of November, among the right matchings, I will draw the winners. So now? let the game start!

If at the end of the treasure hunt there will be still unmatched excerpts the giveaway will go to the one who matched more books.

( The books are: )

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Today excerpts are:

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