Ally Blue (born April 7, 1964)

Ally Blue is acknowledged by the world at large (or at least by her heroes, who tend to suffer a lot) as the Popess of Gay Angst. She has a great big suggestively-shaped hat and rides in a bullet-proof Plexiglas bubble in Christmas parades. Her harem of manwhores does double duty as bodyguards and inspirational entertainment. Her favorite band is Radiohead, her favorite color is lime green and her favorite way to waste a perfectly good Saturday is to watch all three extended-version LOTR movies in a row. Her ultimate dream is to one day ditch the evil day job and support the family on manlove alone. She is not a hippie or a brain surgeon, no matter what her kids' friends say.

These Haunted Heights won a 2011 Rainbow Award as Best Gay Contemporary Romance.

Source: http://www.allyblue.com/

Further Readings:

Oleander House (Bay City Paranormal Investigations) by Ally Blue
Series: Bay City Paranormal Investigations
Paperback: 228 pages
Publisher: Samhain Publishing (April 17, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1599983559
ISBN-13: 978-1599983554
Amazon: Oleander House (Bay City Paranormal Investigations)
Amazon Kindle: Oleander House (Bay City Paranormal Investigations)

When Sam Raintree goes to work for Bay City Paranormal Investigations, he expects his quiet life to change-he doesn't expect to put his life and sanity on the line, or to fall for a man he can never have. Book One in the Bay City Paranormal Investigation series. Sam Raintree has never been normal. All his life, he's experienced things he can't explain. Things that have colored his view of the world and of himself. So taking a job as a paranormal investigator seems like a perfect fit. His new co-workers, he figures, don't have to know he's gay. When Sam arrives at Oleander House, the site of his first assignment with Bay City Paranormal Investigations, nothing is what he expected. The repetitive yet exciting work, the unusual and violent history of the house, the intensely erotic and terrifying dreams which plague his sleep. But the most unexpected thing is Dr. Bo Broussard, the group's leader. From the moment they meet, Sam is strongly attracted to his intelligent, alluring boss. It doesn't take Sam long to figure out that although Bo has led a heterosexual life, he is very much in the closet, and wants Sam as badly as Sam wants him. As the investigation of Oleander House progresses and paranormal events in the house escalate, Sam and Bo circle warily around their mutual attraction, until a single night of bloodshed and revelation changes their lives forever. Warning: this title contains explicit male/male sex, intense violence, and graphic language.

These Haunted Heights by Ally Blue
Paperback: 264 pages
Publisher: MLR Press (February 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1608201848
ISBN-13: 978-1608201846
Amazon: These Haunted Heights
Amazon Kindle: These Haunted Heights

The tiny town of Sebastian's Bluff is a photojournalist's dream come true. But Ron Winters doesn't expect the moody, mysterious man next door to get under his skin and stay there. When Drew LaSalle meets Ron, feelings he thought twenty years gone stir to life again. He wants what he could have with Ron. But does he want it enough to get past his own walls and grasp it? Secrets, spirits and tragedy converge as Ron peels back the layers of Drew's past and Drew fights both Ron and his own ghosts on the haunted road to happily ever after.

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

More Rainbow Awards at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, Rainbow Awards/2011

T.T. Thomas (born April 7)

T. T. Thomas has released her second full-length novel, A Delicate Refusal, July 2013. The title is taken from a quote by Edmund Rostand, author of Cyrano, and the novel explores the lives and loves of women in England just as WWI breaks out. It has been referred to as a kind of "Downton Abbey" for lesbians and others!

Her first full-length novel, The Blondness of Honey, was published October 2012. The Blondness of Honey, is an historical romance novel set in the 1890's that explores the love between two women.

In December, 2012, Thomas released a novella, Vivian and Rose, a book "written by" by Laura Hastings, the heroine of Thomas' first full-length novel, The Blondness of Honey.

The third full-length novel, The Girl With Two Hearts (Spring 2014) is the first of a three-part steam punk chronicle and is the story of Queen Victoria's fictional errant niece, Margaret Mary Elizabeth Victoria Anne Dormier.

In Part 1, Dormier is an ambulance driver and motorcycle messenger in the Second Boer War in Africa. In Part 2, Dormier joins the conflicts and skirmishes in Belgium, which were the precursor to WWI. In Part 3, Dormier takes her place in the royal court...and behind German lines as a spy. Known to her fellow drivers simply as Dormier, the royal runaway has a mind of her own, some powers inherited from her late mother and a special gift from her deceased father.

( Read more... )

Further Readings:

A Delicate Refusal by T. T. Thomas
Paperback: 294 pages
Publisher: Bon View Publishing (July 25, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0983918082
ISBN-13: 978-0983918080
Amazon: A Delicate Refusal
Amazon Kindle: A Delicate Refusal

England, 1914. Two friends, brought together by circumstance and a mutual attraction that threatens to be torn apart by fears, family secrets and mysterious afflictions, face an even bigger adversary in the face and form of a world war. As World War I begins, England tries to maintain its “splendid isolation” policy, but the British people are quietly enduring their own misgivings, facing their own fears and wondering how long they can bear witness to carnage without a response. Into this milieu of intrigue and uncertainty, two women begin a most unusual love affair. Theirs is a love sustained by hope and encouraged by letters, but threatened by their own private fears and the worldwide anxieties covering the earth like a dark shroud. As all of Europe drives itself to the brink of destruction, can an uncommon love survive the concussive blasts of doubt and deceit, of estrangement and misunderstanding? Who lives to love? Who lurks in the background watching the affair from the distance of déjà vu? And who presents “a delicate refusal” to become a tragic hero? From T.T. Thomas, author of The Blondness of Honey, Golden Crown Literary Society Finalist, Historical Romance category, comes the latest novel, A Delicate Refusal (June 2013).

More Rainbow Awards at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, Rainbow Awards/2013

Taylor V. Donovan (born April 7)

Taylor V. Donovan is a compulsive reader and author of m/m romantic suspense. She is optimistically cynical about the world; lover of history, museums and all things 80s. She is crazy about fashion, passionate about civil rights and equality for all and shamelessly indulges in mind-numbing reality television.

When she is not making a living in the busiest city in the world or telling the stories of gorgeous men hot for one another, Taylor can be found raising her two daughters and two terribly misbehaved furry babies in the mountains she calls home.

Disasterology 101 won a 2013 Rainbow Award as Best Gay Contemporary Romance, The William Neale Award for Best Gay Contemporary Romance.

Further Readings:

Disasterology 101 by Taylor V. Donovan
Paperback: 398 pages
Publisher: MLR Press (July 17, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1608208818
ISBN-13: 978-1608208814
Amazon: Disasterology 101
Amazon Kindle: Disasterology 101

Kevin Morrison had it all. A house he worked hard for, a loving wife, and three beautiful children. But it wasn't until his marriage ended that he realized what the void he'd felt almost all his life meant. Coming out as a gay man at thirty-six is not an easy feat, but he is determined to be true to his heart. Meeting a man who shares his values, and is good with his children would be a bonus, but when the guy arrives in a uniquely wrapped package, and has very specific handling instructions, Kevin needs to decide if he's up for that kind of love. Obsessed with order and symmetry, and a paralyzing fear of germs, Cedric Haughton-Disley has lived with isolation and loneliness as long as he can remember. Desperate to be normal, he makes some much-needed changes in his life. If he can commit to his treatment, he might very well be able to procure some quality of life... even if that's all he can get, as finding love and having a relationship are only possible in Cedric's wildest dreams. But when a chance encounter leaves Cedric wishing for more, he decides to take a leap of faith, and pursue the guy he wants. Together the two men make an unlikely match. Cedric needs organization, and Kevin represents chaos. In order to stay together they both need to compromise, but will they be able to deal with Cedric's issues and the potential disaster, or let it break them apart

More Rainbow Awards at my website: elisarolle.com, Rainbow Awards/2013

David Haugland & Richard Schmiechen

Richard Schmiechen (July 10, 1947 - April 7, 1993), a film producer who won an Academy Award in 1984 for the documentary "The Times of Harvey Milk," died on April 7, 1993, at Midway Hospital. He was 45.

The cause was AIDS, said David Haugland, his companion and business partner.

Mr. Schmiechen's most recent film, made with Mr. Haugland, was "Changing Our Minds: The Story of Dr. Evelyn Hooker." The film, about the psychologist who disproved the theory that homosexuality is a mental disorder, was nominated for an Oscar as best documentary feature.

He produced "The Times of Harvey Milk," a portrait of the San Francisco Supervisor who was shot and killed in 1978 by a disgruntled predecessor. The film, which was directed by Robert Epstein, also won two Emmys and a Peabody Award and was shown as part of the New York Film Festival in 1987.

Richard Kurt Schmiechen was born in St. Louis on July 10, 1947, and was brought up in Pekin, Ill. He was a graduate of Grinnell College in Iowa and attended film school at Columbia College in Chicago. Before producing and directing his own documentaries, he was a film editor for the director James Ivory on "Roseland" and he worked with the documentarians David and Albert Maysles.

Among Mr. Schmiechen's other film and television credits are "Nick Mazzuco: Biography of an Atomic Vet," about a soldier who witnessed 23 atomic-bomb tests during the 1950's; "The Portrait," based on Tina Howe's play "Painting Churches"; "Arboreal Aviators," a documentary on the tropical rain forest, and "The Jungle Flying Machine."


Richard Schmiechen was a film producer who won an Academy Award in 1984 for the documentary "The Times of Harvey Milk," which was directed by Robert Epstein, and won also two Emmys. Schmiechen's most recent film, made with David Haugland, his companion and business partner, was "Changing Our Minds: The Story of Dr. Evelyn Hooker." The film, about the psychologist who disproved the theory that homosexuality is a mental disorder, was nominated for an Oscar as best documentary feature.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/10/obituaries/richard-schmiechen-producer-of-harvey-milk-film-dies-at-45.html

( Further Readings )

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

Ethel Collins Dunham & Martha May Eliot

Martha May Eliot (April 7, 1891 – February 14, 1978), was a foremost pediatrician and specialist in public health, an assistant director for WHO, and an architect of New Deal and postwar programs for maternal and child health. During undergraduate study at Bryn Mawr College she met Ethel Collins Dunham (1883 - 1969), who was to become her life partner. After completing their undergraduate education, the two enrolled together at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1914.

Eliot's first important research, community studies of rickets in New Haven, Connecticut, and Puerto Rico, explored issues at the heart of social medicine. Together with Edwards A. Park, her research established that public health measures (dietary supplementation with vitamin D) could prevent and reverse the early onset of rickets.

Martha May Eliot was a scion of the Eliot family, an influential American family that is regarded as one of the Boston Brahmins, originating in Boston, whose ancestors became wealthy and held sway over the American education system in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her father, Christopher Rhodes Eliot, was a Unitarian minister, and her grandfather, William G. Eliot, was the first chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis. The poet, playwright, critic, and Nobel laureate T.S. Eliot was her first cousin.

In 1918, Eliot graduated from medical school at Johns Hopkins University. As early as her second year of medical school, Dr. Eliot hoped to become "some kind of social doctor." She taught at Yale University's department of pediatrics from 1921 to 1935. For most of these years, Dr. Eliot also directed the National Children's Bureau Division of Child and Maternal Health (1924–1934). She later accepted a full-time position at the bureau, becoming bureau chief in 1951. In 1956, she left the bureau to become department chairman of child and maternal health at Harvard School of Public Health.


@The Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University. Martha May Eliot (left) and Ethel Collins Dunham, 1915
Martha May Eliot was a foremost pediatrician and specialist in public health, an assistant director for WHO, and an architect of New Deal for maternal and child health. During undergraduate study at Bryn Mawr College she met Ethel Collins Dunham, who was to become her life partner. In the 1970s they wrote day after day: "Dearest, it was hard to say goodbye and I shall miss you terribly.. Ever and ever so much love, my darling"; "How I count the time until you do arrive. I miss you my darling".

( Read more... )

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_May_Eliot

Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time by Elisa Rolle
Paperback: 760 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (July 1, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1500563323
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
Amazon: Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time

Days of Love chronicles more than 700 LGBT couples throughout history, spanning 2000 years from Alexander the Great to the most recent winner of a Lambda Literary Award. Many of the contemporary couples share their stories on how they met and fell in love, as well as photos from when they married or of their families. Included are professional portraits by Robert Giard and Stathis Orphanos, paintings by John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini, and photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnson, Arnold Genthe, and Carl Van Vechten among others. “It's wonderful. Laying it out chronologically is inspired, offering a solid GLBT history. I kept learning things. I love the decision to include couples broken by death. It makes clear how important love is, as well as showing what people have been through. The layout and photos look terrific.” Christopher Bram “I couldn’t resist clicking through every page. I never realized the scope of the book would cover centuries! I know that it will be hugely validating to young, newly-emerging LGBT kids and be reassured that they really can have a secure, respected place in the world as their futures unfold.” Howard Cruse “This international history-and-photo book, featuring 100s of detailed bios of some of the most forward-moving gay persons in history, is sure to be one of those bestsellers that gay folk will enjoy for years to come as reference and research that is filled with facts and fun.” Jack Fritscher

Harry Hay & John Burnside

Henry "Harry" Hay, Jr. (April 7, 1912 – October 24, 2002) was a labor advocate, teacher and early leader in the American LGBT rights movement. He is known for his roles in helping to found several gay organizations, including the Mattachine Society, the first sustained gay rights group in the United States.

Hay was exposed early in life to the principles of Marxism and to the idea of same-sex sexual attraction. He drew upon these experiences to develop his view of homosexuals as a cultural minority. A long time member of the Communist Party USA, Hay's Marxist history led to his resignation from the Mattachine leadership in 1953.

Hay conceived of the idea of a homosexual activist group in 1948. After signing a petition for Progressive Party presidential candidate Henry A. Wallace, Hay spoke with other gay men at a party about forming a gay support organization for him called "Bachelors for Wallace". Encouraged by the response he received, Hay wrote out the organizing principles that night, a document he referred to as "The Call". However, the men who had been interested at the party were less than enthused the following morning. Over the next two years, Hay refined his idea, finally conceiving of an "international...fraternal order" to serve as "a service and welfare organization devoted to the protection and improvement of Society's Androgynous Minority". He planned to call this organization "Bachelors Anonymous" and envisioned it serving a similar function and purpose as Alcoholics Anonymous. Hay met Rudi Gernreich in July 1950. The two became lovers, and Hay showed Gernreich The Call. Gernreich, declaring the document "the most dangerous thing [he had] ever read", became an enthusiastic financial supporter of the venture, although he did not lend his name to it (going instead by the initial "R"). Finally on November 11, 1950, Hay, along with Gernreich and friends Dale Jennings and lovers Bob Hull and Chuck Rowland, held the first meeting of the Mattachine Society in Los Angeles, under the name "Society of Fools". The group changed its name to "Mattachine Society" in April 1951, a name chosen by Hay at the suggestion of fellow Mattachine member James Gruber, based on Medieval French secret societies of masked men who, through their anonymity, were empowered to criticize ruling monarchs with impunity.


John Burnside (November 2, 1916 – September 14, 2008) was the inventor of the teleidoscope, the darkfield kaleidoscope and the Symmetricon, and, because he rediscovered the math behind kaleidoscope optics, for decades, every maker of optically correct kaleidoscopes sold in the US paid him royalties. He was the partner of Harry Hay for 40 years, from 1962 until Hay's death in 2002. He lived in San Francisco, California, until his death from complications of brain cancer on September 14, 2008.

( Read more... )

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

John Lyon Burnside III (November 2, 1916 – September 14, 2008) was the inventor of the teleidoscope, the darkfield kaleidoscope and the Symmetricon, and, because he rediscovered the math behind kaleidoscope optics, for decades, every maker of optically correct kaleidoscopes sold in the US paid him royalties. He was the partner of Harry Hay for 40 years, from 1962 until Hay's death in 2002. He lived in San Francisco, California, until his death from complications of brain cancer on September 14, 2008.

An only child born in Seattle, he was raised by his mother after his father left the family; being poor, she periodically placed her son in the care of orphanages.

He served briefly in the Navy, and settled in Los Angeles in the 1940s.

Burnside and his partner Hay formed a group in the early 1960s called the Circle of Loving Companions that promoted gay rights and gay love. In 1966 they were major planners of one of the first gay parades, a protest against exclusion of homosexuals from the military, held in Los Angeles. In 1967, they appeared as a gay couple on the Joe Pyne television show.

In the late 1970s, they founded, along with Don Kilhefner and Mitch Walker, the Radical Faeries.

Burnside married Edith Sinclair in Los Angeles, the pair had no children. Burnside later met Harry Hay in 1962 at ONE Incorporated; the two fell in love and became life partners. Burnside died Sunday, September 14, 2008 at the age of 91.


Harry Hay and John Brunside, 1989, by Robert Giard

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Burnside_(inventor)

( Read more... )

Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time by Elisa Rolle
Paperback: 760 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (July 1, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1500563323
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
CreateSpace Store: https://www.createspace.com/4910282
Amazon (Paperback): http://www.amazon.com/dp/1500563323/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Amazon (Kindle): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MZG0VHY/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

Days of Love chronicles more than 700 LGBT couples throughout history, spanning 2000 years from Alexander the Great to the most recent winner of a Lambda Literary Award. Many of the contemporary couples share their stories on how they met and fell in love, as well as photos from when they married or of their families. Included are professional portraits by Robert Giard and Stathis Orphanos, paintings by John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini, and photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnson, Arnold Genthe, and Carl Van Vechten among others. “It's wonderful. Laying it out chronologically is inspired, offering a solid GLBT history. I kept learning things. I love the decision to include couples broken by death. It makes clear how important love is, as well as showing what people have been through. The layout and photos look terrific.” Christopher Bram “I couldn’t resist clicking through every page. I never realized the scope of the book would cover centuries! I know that it will be hugely validating to young, newly-emerging LGBT kids and be reassured that they really can have a secure, respected place in the world as their futures unfold.” Howard Cruse “This international history-and-photo book, featuring 100s of detailed bios of some of the most forward-moving gay persons in history, is sure to be one of those bestsellers that gay folk will enjoy for years to come as reference and research that is filled with facts and fun.” Jack Fritscher

George Dureau (December 28, 1930 - April 7, 2014)

Artist George Dureau is best known for his male figure studies and narrative paintings in oil and charcoal and for his black-and-white photographs, which often feature street youths, dwarfs, and amputees.

He has had solo exhibitions of his work at galleries and museums in Paris, London, Houston, Los Angeles, Portland, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C., among other places. He even lived in New York for several months in 1966. But he is quintessentially a New Orleanian. He was born in the city and, except for brief hiatuses, has lived there his entire life.

As critic Kenneth Holditch observed some time ago, Dureau's art is "entwined with that mixture of contradictory elements that constitutes the carnal atmosphere of his native city. Perhaps this accounts to some extent for the paradoxes so distinctly a part of his best work: the joyful and painful, the beautiful and ugly, the spiritual and sensual, and most significant of all the real in sharp juxtaposition to that which is vividly imagined. Dureau looks at life in its grandeur and grossness and his keen eye and sure hand do not wink or tremble at either extreme."

Dureau was born on December 28, 1930 to Clara Rosella Legett Dureau and George Valentine Dureau and was reared by his mother, grandmother, and aunts, one of whom taught him to paint. He attended Louisiana State University, where he received a B.A. in fine arts in 1952. After serving in the United States Army, he briefly attended Tulane University, where he studied architecture. He worked as an advertising and display manager for New Orleans department stores until he was able to support himself as an artist.



( Read more... )

Citation Information
Author: Summers, Claude J.
Entry Title: Dureau, George
General Editor: Claude J. Summers
Publication Name: glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture
Publication Date: 2002
Date Last Updated December 17, 2002
Web Address www.glbtq.com/arts/dureau_g.html
Publisher glbtq, Inc.
1130 West Adams
Chicago, IL 60607
Today's Date December 28, 2011
Encyclopedia Copyright: © 2002-2006, glbtq, Inc.
Entry Copyright © 2002, glbtq, Inc.

( more pictures )

( George Dureau, 1992, by Robert Giard )

( Further Readings )

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

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