L.T. Marie (born May 13, 1970)

LT Marie is the author of 5 lesbian romances. All releases are available through www.boldstrokesbooks.com in any format as well as print form. Her third release, Secrets and Shadows is also available on audiobook at audible.com. Her latest release, Beyond the Ridge, was released in January 2015.

Three Days won a 2012 Rainbow Award as Best Lesbian Erotic Romance.

Further Readings:

Three Days by L.T. Marie
Paperback: 264 pages
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books (October 18, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1602825696
ISBN-13: 978-1602825697
Amazon: Three Days
Amazon Kindle: Three Days

Dakota Riley is not looking forward to the next three days in Vegas. Her best friend Riann is getting married there, but Dakota doesn’t like the heat or the fact that she is going to be spending three days with twenty women she can’t stand. All she wants is a little free time and a warm body to fill her bed, that is until her world is upended by the introduction of her best friend’s cousin, the mysterious Shawn Camello.

Shawn Camello has been invited to her cousin Riann’s bachelorette party at the last minute. She is reluctant to go but is persuaded by Riann in the hope that they can become reacquainted after not seeing each other for twenty-five years. The moment she meets the sexy, determined Dakota Riley, she tries avoiding her at every turn. The problem is, everywhere she looks, Dakota is there, and she’s becoming harder and harder to resist.

In a town like Vegas where anything can happen, Shawn and Dakota find that the stakes are love at all costs, and it’s a gamble neither can afford to lose.

More Rainbow Awards at my website: elisarolle.com, Rainbow Awards/2012

Alan Ball & Peter Macdissi

Alan E. Ball (born May 13, 1957) is an American writer, director, and producer for television, film, and theatre. Ball is gay and has been called "a strong voice for [the] LGBT community". In 2008 he made Out magazine's annual list of the 100 most impressive gay men and women. He lives with his partner, Peter Macdissi (who had a recurring role in Six Feet Under as Olivier) in Los Angeles.

Ball is particularly notable for writing American Beauty and True Blood and for creating Six Feet Under, work which earned him an Academy Award, an Emmy, and awards from the Writers, Directors, and Producers Guilds.

Ball was born in Marietta, Georgia, to Frank and Mary Ball, an aircraft inspector and a homemaker. He attended high school in Marietta, and went on to attend the University of Georgia and Florida State University, from which he graduated in 1980 with a degree in theater arts. After college, he began work as a playwright at the General Nonsense Theater Company in Sarasota, Florida.

Ball broke into television as a writer and story editor on the situation comedies Grace Under Fire and Cybill.

Ball has written two films, American Beauty (1999) and Towelhead (2007), the latter of which he also produced and directed. He is also the creator, writer and executive producer of the HBO drama series Six Feet Under and True Blood. He was showrunner for True Blood for its first five seasons.


Peter Macdissi and director Alan Ball at the photocall of "Towelhead" during the 34th US Film Festival in Deauville
Alan E. Ball is an American writer, director, and producer for television, film, and theatre. Ball is gay and has been called "a strong voice for [the] LGBT community". In 2008 he made Out magazine's annual list of the 100 most impressive gay men and women. He lives with his partner, Peter Macdissi, an actor most notably playing long-time recurring character Olivier Castro-Staal on Alan Ball's HBO series Six Feet Under. In 2007, he appeared in Towelhead, a feature film written and directed by Alan Ball.

( Read more... )

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Ball_%28screenwriter%29

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

Daphne du Maurier & Gertrude Lawrence

Daphne, Lady Browning DBE (13 May 1907–19 April 1989), commonly known as Dame Daphne du Maurier, was a famous British novelist, playwright and short story writer. Many of her works were adapted into films, such as one of her most famous books, Rebecca, which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1940 for director Alfred Hitchcock, who would later bring her short story, The Birds, onto the big screen.

A 1993 biography provides extensive information about du Maurier's "Venetian tendencies." Her father was outspokenly homophobic, and even as an adult du Maurier repressed her own homosexual desires. She believed she channeled this "male energy" into her work. In 1947 she met and fell in love with Ellen Doubleday who, however, did not reciprocate. Du Maurier then took up with actress Gertrude Lawrence in a relationship that continued until Lawrence's death in 1952.

Daphne du Maurier was born in London (although she spent most of her life in her beloved Cornwall), the second of three daughters of the famous actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and actress Muriel Beaumont (maternal niece of William Comyns Beaumont). Her grandfather was the author and Punch cartoonist George du Maurier, who created the character of Svengali in the novel Trilby. These connections gave her a head start in her literary career; Du Maurier published some of her very early work in his Bystander magazine, and her first novel, The Loving Spirit, was published in 1931. Du Maurier was also the cousin of the Llewelyn Davies boys, who served as J.M. Barrie's inspiration for the characters in the play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. As a young child she was introduced to many of the brightest stars of the theatre thanks to the celebrity of her father; notably, on meeting Tallulah Bankhead she was quoted as saying that the actress was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen.


English author and playwright Daphne du Maurier (left) with English actress Gertrude Lawrence at London’s Waterloo Station in this photo from October 1948. (Associated Press file photo)
Gertrude Lawrence (July 4, 1898–September 6, 1952) was an English actress, singer, dancer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in London's West End and on New York's Broadway. Lawrence had a love affair with Beatrice Lilly and an enduring and passionate relationship with British author Daphne du Maurier (May 13, 1907–April 19, 1989). Love letters written between Lawrence and du Maurier were published in a 1993 biography of du Maurier, who outlived Lawrence by many years.

( Read more... )

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

Gertrude Lawrence (July 4, 1898 – September 6, 1952) was an English actress, singer, dancer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in London's West End and on New York's Broadway. Lawrence had a love affair with Beatrice Lilly and an enduring and passionate relationship with British author Daphne du Maurier (May 13, 1907 – April 19, 1989). Love letters written between Lawrence and du Maurier were published in a 1993 biography of du Maurier, who outlived Lawrence by many years. (Picture: Gertrude Lawrence, by Cecil Beaton, bromide print, 1930, 9 5/8 in. x 7 1/2 in. (245 mm x 192 mm), Accepted in lieu of tax by H.M. Government and allocated to the Gallery, 1991, Photographs Collection, NPG x40249)

Lawrence was born Gertrude Alice Dagmar Klasen, of English and Danish extraction, in the Newington area of London Borough of Southwark. Her father was a basso profundo who performed under the name Arthur Lawrence. His heavy drinking led her mother Alice to leave him soon after Gertrude's birth.

In 1904, her stepfather took the family to Bognor on the Sussex coast for the August bank holiday. While there, they attended a concert where audience members were invited to entertain. At her mother's urging, young Gertrude sang a song and was rewarded with a gold sovereign for her effort. It was her first public performance.

In 1908, in order to augment the family's meager income, Alice accepted a job in the chorus of the Christmas pantomime at Brixton Theatre. A child who could sing and dance was needed to round out the troupe, and Alice volunteered her daughter. While working in the production Alice heard of Italia Conti, who taught dance, elocution and the rudiments of acting. Gertrude auditioned for Conti, who thought the child was talented enough to warrant free lessons.

( Read more... )

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Lawrence

( Further Readings )

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

Armistead Maupin, Terry Anderson & Christopher Turner

Armistead Jones Maupin, Jr. (born May 13, 1944) is an American writer, best known for his Tales of the City series of novels, set in San Francisco.

Maupin is married to Christopher Turner, a website producer and photographer whom he saw on a dating website. He then "chased him down Castro Street, saying, 'Didn’t I see you on hotoldermale.com?'" Maupin and Turner were married in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on February 18, 2007, though Maupin says that they had called each other "husband" for two years prior.

Maupin was born to a conservative Christian family in Washington, D.C.. Soon afterwards, his family moved to North Carolina, where he was raised. He says he has had storytelling instincts since he was eight years old. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became involved in journalism through writing for The Daily Tar Heel. After earning his undergraduate degree, Maupin enrolled in law school, but later resigned from it.

Maupin worked at WRAL-TV (Channel 5) in Raleigh, a station then managed by future U.S. Senator Jesse Helms, who also delivered the station's well-known editorial segments throughout his management of the station in the 1960s. Helms nominated Maupin for a patriotic award, which he won. Maupin says he was a typical conservative and even a segregationist at this time and admired Helms, a family friend, as a "hero figure." He later changed his opinions dramatically — "I've changed and he hasn't" — and condemned Helms at a gay pride parade on the steps of the North Carolina State Capitol. Maupin is a veteran of the United States Navy; he served several tours of duty including one in Vietnam during the Vietnam War.


Armistead Maupin is an American writer, best known for his Tales of the City series of novels, set in San Francisco. He is married to Christopher Turner, a website producer and photographer whom he saw on a dating website. He then "chased him down Castro Street, saying, 'Didn't I see you on Daddyhunt.com?’" Maupin and Turner were married in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on February 18, 2007, though Maupin says that they had called each other "husband" for two years prior.


Armistead Maupin, Terry Anderson,Toni Collette, and Patrick Stettner - 2006 Sundance Film Festival - "Night Listener" Portraits
Armistead Maupin's former partner of 12 years, Terry Anderson, was once a gay rights activist, and co-authored the screenplay for The Night Listener. Maupin lived with Anderson in San Francisco and New Zealand. Ian McKellen is a friend and Christopher Isherwood was a mentor. When he was about 30, he began what would become the Tales of the City series as a serial in a Marin County-based newspaper, the Pacific Sun, moving to the San Francisco Chronicle after the Sun's San Francisco edition folded

( Read more... )

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

The characters of Armistead Maupin's "Tales of The City" are utterly beautiful in their flawed state of discovery and evolving. They start with Mary Ann Singleton, who, while on vacation in San Francisco, just stays. Here again, I loved the writer's style and the way he brought the characters to life. I read them from start to finish in about a month and I cried like a baby when I read the very last one. --Johnny Miles

Maybe the Moon by Armistead Maupin is a great story about a dwarf actress whose claim to fame was starring in an ET-like movie. I’ve always loved stories/books/movies about those who (like myself!) came to Hollywood to make it in some way. Most of us, of course, don’t make it or have many strange twists and turns on that journey, and this is such a story. The heroine, Cady, is a take-no-prisoners little person who somewhere in the book refers to herself as a “fat baby with tits and pubic hair.” It’s hard not to love a character like that. I found this a somewhat more serious and touching novel than the “Tales of the City” series, just a beautiful piece of work. --Jim Arnold

Back in the late 1970s a friend gave me a copy of Armistead Maupin’s novel “Tales of the City”, which set me onto a course of coming out as a gay man and writing about gay lives. As I made my way through other gay books by other gay writers, I also made my way through Maupin’s thrilling six-volume odyssey of his family of queer characters at 28 Barbary Lane in San Francisco. These books were lent to friends and passed along to other friends, who lent them to other friends. There were phone calls and discussions at bars and dinner parties on which book we liked best and what character was our favorite. The series ended in 1989, with Michael “Mouse” Tolliver HIV-positive, and in 1989 many of us believed that this was not a good sign; within the eleven-year publishing period of “Tales of the City” and its sequels, life in the gay community had significantly changed because of the impact of AIDS. “Michael Tolliver Lives”, published in 2007, reunites us with Michael almost two decades later, now approaching 55, buoyed by a drug cocktail and “glad to belong to this sweet confederacy of survivors.” This book made me burst into tears of joy — a rare feat. Written in the first person — from Michael’s point of view — “Michael Tolliver Lives” at times feels more like a memoir than a novel to me, perhaps because I harbor the belief that Mouse is an old friend I haven’t heard from in a while (and delighted to find is still around). I could not put this book down, tugged by the glow and melodrama of memories — both Maupin’s and my own. --Jameson Currier

Reading the Tales of the City series when I was a teenager made me want to be a writer. I felt such loss when I finished a book, because the characters had become part of me. I internalized Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, to the point that I still sometimes talk like him. I felt Mary Ann Singleton´s angst when she felt like she couldn´t connect to others upon moving to San Francisco, and I sobbed when characters starting dying of AIDS. To this day, it is my greatest dream to create a world as richly textured and believable as the one Maupin created at 28 Barbary Lane. --Bill Konigsberg

The Tales of the City books, like The Front Runner, were eye-openers and touchstones for me as a young gay man coming to grips with his own identity. Reading this last entry in the series, Michael Tolliver Lives, really resonated with me and touched me, since I am not far behind Michael himself and have experienced many, if not most, of his same joys and sorrows. --Rick R. Reed

What I wouldn’t give to live at 28 Barbary Lane – which is actually saying a lot, considering I hated the fashion of the seventies. I mean really…could they have discovered a more revolting color palette to choose from? I don’t think so! But I’d suffer it all over again to live upstairs with Michael, Mary Ann, & Mona at Mrs. Madrigal’s. Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin was the first book I ever read where I was able to see myself, unapologetically staring back at me from the page. The ever-hopeless romantic, trying on new men – praying one of them would fit – never giving up, no matter how many times I wound up heartbroken and alone. While I haven’t tried on quite as many guys as Mouse did, I still to this day can’t seem to drive that wishful-thinking-someday-my-prince-will-come-mentality out of my own ditzy head. I keep trying, but no matter how much sarcasm I put on, it doesn’t seem to help. Go figure? Tales is fun, light, at times wickedly funny, and helped me justify a tiny little piece of my own identity as a gay man by showing me I wasn’t so alone after all. --Ethan Day

I was completely captivated by Maupin’s Tales of the City — a series of books revolving around the inhabitants of an apartment building in San Francisco run by an eccentric landlady, Anna Madrigal, who regards her tenants as her adopted children. Every character, Michael (Mouse) Tolliver, Mary Ann Singleton, Anna’s daughter Mona etc., come to vivid and endearing life within the pages. The series was addictive and hard to give up, and was the inspiration behind my own foray into this crazy world of writing. Many years later Maupin wrote Michael Tolliver Lives when an aging Michael, loving and living with a younger man, finds his past catching up with him as he is forced to face the complexities of his family’s, and long-lost friends’, issues. --J.P. Bowie

There is no denying that Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin is a gay classic, and it works so well because it shows gay people interacting with the straight community rather than being apart from it. The whacky residents of Barbary Lane can be followed through seven books, although you should be warned that as the books move into the eighties they become a bit more sombre when the impact of AIDS is first known. --Sean Kennedy

Does every gay man start their gay reading with TALES OF THE CITY by Armistead Maupin? Possibly the answer is yes, and I think that’s a wonderful thing. It’s funny but real, risky but ultimately safe (like a mother’s approving hug), and it captures a moment in time that is the foundation of contemporary gay society. For any gay man who realizes and respects how significant the 70s were for gay life, owning this book is just as important as owning CAN’T STOP THE MUSIC by the Village People or cherishing those Tom of Finland drawings. --Geoffrey Knight

( Armistead Maupin, 1989, by Robert Giard  )

( Further Readings )

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

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

James Lear aka Rupert Smith (born May 13, 1960)

The Author: Rupert Smith, alias James Lear, was a big fan of Wayne County when he was a kid, and went to see her London shows when he first moved to London in the punk era. When she came back to London as Jayne in the 80s, he got to know her by hanging around at the bar after shows and encouraging her to tell him stories about her life. Jayne is a natural raconteur, a candid autobiographer and a witty commentator on the times that she’s lived through, and eventually she agreed to collaborate on a book that would get all her tales down on paper. Man Enough to be a Woman was the first book with his name on the cover, but it’s Jayne’s show all the way.
 
His second book, Physique, arose out of another long friendship, this time with the photographer and writer John S. Barrington. Rupert Smith remembered his male nude photography from magazines he’d “read” in his teens, and decided to track him down for a profile in Square Peg magazine in 1986. That’s when he discovered that there was much more to him than sexy pictures; he’d led an outrageous bohemian existence, knew and photographed Jean Cocteau and John Lennon and, to top it all, was married with children and grandchildren.

Since the publication of Physique, Rupert Smith has received many letters from men who were witnesses to that extraordinary period of history before the legalisation of homosexuality, when photographers like Barrington and the magazines that they published were a lifeline to isolated gay people. He has continued researching the subject, and will be turning it into another book in the next couple of years.
 
( Read more... )

http://www.rupertsmith.org.uk/

The Back Passage by James Lear
Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Cleis Press; First edition (May 5, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1573442437
ISBN-13: 978-1573442435
Amazon: The Back Passage
Amazon Kindle: The Back Passage

Agatha Christie, move over! Hard-core sex and scandal meet in this brilliantly funny whodunit.

A seaside village, an English country house, a family of wealthy eccentrics and their equally peculiar servants, a determined detective — all the ingredients are here for a cozy Agatha Christie-style whodunit. But wait — Edward “Mitch” Mitchell is no Hercule Poirot, and The Back Passage is no Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Mitch is a handsome, insatiable 22-year-old hunk who never lets a clue stand in the way of a steamy encounter, whether it’s with the local constabulary, the house secretary, or his school chum and fellow athlete Boy Morgan, who becomes his Watson when they’re not busy boffing each other. When Reg Walworth is found dead in a cabinet, Sir James Eagle has his servant Weeks immediately arrested as the killer. But Mitch’s observant eye pegs more plausible possibilities: polysexual chauffeur Hibbert, queenly pervert Leonard Eagle, missing scion Rex, sadistic copper Kennington, even Sir James Eagle himself. Blackmail, police corruption, a dizzying network of spyholes and secret passages, watersports, and a nonstop queer orgy backstairs and everyplace else mark this hilariously hard-core mystery by a major new talent.

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

Monique Truong (born May 13, 1968)

Monique Truong was born in Saigon in 1968 and moved to the United States at age six. She graduated from Yale University and the Columbia University School of Law, going on to specialize in intellectual property. Truong coedited the anthology Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry and Prose. Her first novel,The Book of Salt, a national bestseller, has been awarded the 2003 Bard Fiction Prize, the Stonewall Book Award-Barbara Gittings Literature Award, and the Young Lions Fiction Award, among other honors. Granting Truong an Award of Excellence, the Vietnamese American Studies Center at San Francisco State University called her "a pioneer in the field, as an academic, an advocate, and an artist." Truong now lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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


Further Readings:

The Book of Salt: A Novel by Monique Truong
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (June 15, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0618446885
ISBN-13: 978-0618446889
Amazon: The Book of Salt: A Novel
Amazon Kindle: The Book of Salt: A Novel

The Book of Salt serves up a wholly original take on Paris in the 1930s through the eyes of Binh, the Vietnamese cook employed by Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Viewing his famous mesdames and their entourage from the kitchen of their rue de Fleurus home, Binh observes their domestic entanglements while seeking his own place in the world. In a mesmerizing tale of yearning and betrayal, Monique Truong explores Paris from the salons of its artists to the dark nightlife of its outsiders and exiles. She takes us back to Binh's youthful servitude in Saigon under colonial rule, to his life as a galley hand at sea, to his brief, fateful encounters in Paris with Paul Robeson and the young Ho Chi Minh.

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

Blog Tour: Black Balled by Andrea Smith & Eva LeNoir

Black Balled by Andrea Smith and Eva LeNoir
Paperback: 282 pages
Publisher: Meatball Taster Publishing; 1 edition (May 7, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 098613855X
ISBN-13: 978-0986138553
Amazon: Black Balled
Amazon Kindle: Black Balled

Two dominant males, two worthy adversaries, in a business that takes no prisoners, will soon learn that fate refuses to be ignored . . .

My name is Troy Babilonia, but I'm best known as Babu, a renowned literary critic with my own online column. I'm followed by thousands! I'm a living god in the literary world. I have no filter, and for that, my flock of humble followers are forever grateful. If it weren't for me, they wouldn't know what to read. I have zero tolerance for the weak-minded attention seekers, nor do I have respect for the self-proclaimed geniuses of the Indie world. My advice to all Indie authors is to never break the cardinal rule in this cut-throat business. Ever.

My name is L. Blackburn and I'm an Indie author. My extraordinary genius was loved and worshiped throughout the literary world, until one egocentric critic tried to obliterate my career. It seems I broke some fucking "cardinal rule," and now I'm paying the price for it. But I don't plan on going down without a fight.

After all, when a predator goes after your cub, it's time to go for the throat--and maybe more...much more.

( Excerpt )

Andrea Author Bio: Andrea Smith is a USA Today Best-Selling Author.

An Ohio native, currently residing in southern Ohio. The Past Tense Future Perfect trilogy is Ms. Smith's first self-published work. Having previously been employed as an executive for a global corporation, Ms. Smith decided to leave the corporate world and pursue her life-long dream of writing fiction.

Ms. Smith's second series, The 'G-Man Series' consists of four novels and a novella. Her 'Limbo Series' is her first venture into a blend of romantic/suspense, mystery with steamy scenes and a paranormal edge.

Ms. Smith also publishes New Adult fiction under the pen name of Graysen Blue.

Andreas Social Media Links:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Andrea-Smith/e/B00A1MLQGY/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndreaSmithAuthor?fref=ts
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6869343.Andrea_Smith?from_search=true
Website: http://www.andreasmithauthor.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GManAuthor
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/amsmith41/



Eva LeNoir Author Bio: Eva LeNoir grew up travelling with her parents to various countries in the world. Reading was her constant companion during her travels and her ability to adapt to different cultures fed her mind with endless possibilities. The characters swimming in her head are always from various horizons with a multitude of dreams and aspirations. However, all of these voices always have one thing in common: The women are strong and independent. A true believer in the female cause, Eva's wish is to portray the women in her books as the leaders. She sees them walking hand in hand with their partners and not be the sheepish followers of the male gender. But most of all, Eva LeNoir wants to offer her readers a moment of pleasure as they dive into the world of her mind's creation. Email: eva.lenoir.author@gmail.com

Eva’s Social Media Links:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Eva-LeNoir/e/B00ALA48JI/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1430271936&sr=1-1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Eva-LeNoir-Author/473540982679612?fref=ts
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6575734.Eva_LeNoir?from_search=true
Website: http://eva-lenoir.com/



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