Vincent Meis (born July 26)

Vincent Meis grew up in the middle of a large family in the middle-sized city in the middle of Illinois in the middle of the country. He currently lives in San Francisco and teaches English at the City College of San Francisco. He has also taught in Saudi Arabia, Spain, and Mexico.

Tio Jorge won a 2012 Rainbow Award as Best Bisexual/Transgender Fiction. Down in Cuba won a 2013 Rainbow Award as Best Bisexual/Transgender Fiction and Best Bisexual Novel.

Further Readings:

Tio Jorge by Vincent Meis
Paperback: 310 pages
Publisher: Fallen Bros. Publishing (May 1, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 061562023X
ISBN-13: 978-0615620237
Amazon: Tio Jorge
Amazon Kindle: Tio Jorge

From a wealthy cul-de-sac in Hillsborough, California to a dusty village in Central Mexico, Tio Jorge gives us an emotional portrait of a young woman who cannot move forward until she silences the ghosts of her tragic childhood. On her graduation day from Stanford University, she thinks she sees in the crowd the man accused of her mother’s death sixteen years earlier, but he flees before she can speak to him. Believing he is the key to unlock the mystery of her father who abandoned her, she sets out to track him down, and in the process discovers the Mexican side of her family. Heartened by the love and warmth of her Mexican relatives, she has the courage to confront her mother’s family and seek justice for the man who had been her father’s secret lover.

Down in Cuba by Vincent Meis
Paperback: 342 pages
Publisher: Fallen Bros. Press (May 4, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0615812201
ISBN-13: 978-0615812205
Amazon: Down in Cuba
Amazon Kindle: Down in Cuba

Martin Vandenberg has a routine marriage and an unremarkable career as a professor of Latin American Studies at a small southern California college. To save himself from the ennui of mid life, he heads to Cuba on sabbatical where he will write a book about Cuban icon, José Martí. Soon after arriving in Cuba, he is led into the underground world of Havana’s Malecón where he comes face to face with his long-sheltered sexual feelings. Leo Flores is a young, unemployed artist adept at the Cuban game of love and survival. With both men longing to be free, though in very different ways, the things they do to help each other are also the things that can destroy them.

More Rainbow Awards at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, Rainbow Awards/2012 & 2013

Marguerite Labbe (born July 26, 1974)

Marguerite has been accused of being eccentric and a shade neurotic, both of which she freely admits to, but her muse has OCD tendencies, so who can blame her? Her husband and son do an excellent job keeping her toeing the line, though. Together with her co-author Fae Sutherland, Marguerite has found a shared passion for beautiful men with smart mouths.

When she's not working hard on writing new material and editing completed work, she spends her time reading novels of all genres, enjoying role-playing games with her equally nutty friends, and trying to plot practical jokes against her son and husband. Her son is learning the tricks too quickly and likes to retaliate. You'd think she'd learn.

Bee Among The Clover, co-authored by Fae Sutherland & Marguerite Labbe, won a 2009 Rainbow Award as Best LGBT Historical; Our Sacred Balance won a 2010 Rainbow Award as Best Gay Paranormal / Horror; Playing Ball, co-authored by Shae Connor, Kate McMurray & Kerry Freeman, won a 2014 Rainbow Award as Best LGBT Anthology / Collection.

Further Readings:

Bee Among the Clover by Marguerite Labbe & Fae Sutherland
Paperback: 350 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (February 22, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1615812172
ISBN-13: 978-1615812172
Amazon: Bee Among the Clover
Amazon Kindle: Bee Among the Clover

Roman, a slave to Wulfgar, is less than pleased when the thane acquires a new pet: the beautiful and prideful Aron. Aron has never been with a man and has no wish to be now, but when he is claimed as a thrall to pay his father's debt, his choice in the matter is lost. Captured from Roman-held Londinium four years prior, Roman has learned that life as Wulfgar’s bedslave can still be sweet. He is intrigued, threatened, and ultimately frightened by Aron and his feelings for the young man as they are thrown together by both cunning plan and charmed circumstance. Roman and Aron will form a bond greater than any other claim upon them and determine that whatever the cost, they will find a way to be happy—even if that means risking their lives to find freedom together. Read more about Wulfgar in the spin-off novel Lotus in the Wild.

Our Sacred Balance (Triquetra Trilogy Book 3) by Marguerite Labbe
Paperback: 300 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (January 4, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1935192744
ISBN-13: 978-1935192749
Amazon: Our Sacred Balance (Triquetra Trilogy Book 3)
Amazon Kindle: Our Sacred Balance (Triquetra Trilogy Book 3)

Book 3 of the Triquetra Series

Lovers Kristair and Jacob believe they're done with the supernatural and on the road to a new life. But the supernatural isn't done with them. A stalker is targeting vampires, tearing them from their sanctuaries and leaving them to burn in the sun, and when the vampires of Pittsburgh call upon the ancient Kristair, he cannot refuse them aid despite Jacob's objections.

While their quest becomes more dangerous, tempers flare when Jacob tries to make Kristair understand the limitations of being human again. As they struggle to reach a balance between them, the other vampires become restless, eager to find the person responsible for the deaths of their own so they can vent their rage.

But the enemy is closer than they ever imagined and carries a personal grudge against them. Their mental link gone and spiritual strength halved, Jacob and Kristair must conquer Kristair's newfound helplessness and learn to communicate with each other before their enemy destroys everything they've fought so hard to win.

Playing Ball by Shae Connor, Kate McMurray, Kerry Freeman & Marguerite Labbe
Paperback: 270 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (September 25, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1627981756
ISBN-13: 978-1627981750
Amazon: Playing Ball
Amazon Kindle: Playing Ball

Baseball—America's favorite pastime—provides a field wide open for romance. A Home Field Advantage may not help when Toby must choose between the team he’s loved all his life and the man he could love for the rest of it. In 1927, Skip hides his sexuality to protect his career until he meets One Man to Remember. Ruben and Alan fell victim to a Wild Pitch, leaving them struggling with heartache and guilt, and now they've met again. And on One Last Road Trip, Jake retires and leaves baseball behind, hoping to reconnect with Mikko and get a second chance at love.

Home Field Advantage by Shae Connor
One Man to Remember by Kate McMurray
Wild Pitch by Marguerite Labbe
One Last Road Trip by Kerry Freeman

More Rainbow Awards at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, Rainbow Awards/2009, 2010 & 2014

Alexis Rassine & John Lehmann

Alexis Rays (Alexis Rassine), dancer (born Kaunas Lithuania 26 July 1919, died 25 July 1992) was a classical dancer of no mean ability, whose destiny was to help prop up the Sadler's Wells Ballet in London at a time when all life and particularly the arts was in grave peril.

Born Alexis Rayes in 1919 in Kaunas, Lithuania, his beginnings are obscure. When still a child it would appear his parents migrated to Cape Town, where he grew up, studied ballet, and inherited a South African passport. In the late Thirties, still a teenager he contrived to arrive in Paris, where he became a pupil of the renowned Olga Preobrajenska.

While studying he made his stage debut at the Bal Tabarin, the spectacular Paris night-club. Unable to obtain entrance to the Paris Opera Ballet he set his sights on London, arriving penniless like an orphan. Because he was talented and boys were scarce in the ballet world, he found teachers who would give him free tuition, and he would go from one studio to another: in the mornings to Stanislas Idzikowsky, in the evenings to Igor Schwezoff, earning a crust wherever he might. He seemed to have no roots and little hope for the future.

He offered himself to Madam Rambert but stayed briefly - at that time the company existed precariously with dancers earning pin money. He then joined a touring ensemble known as the Trois Arts Ballet, with whom he gained stage experience and learned fragments of the classical repertoire.


Rosamond Lehmann with her brother John and Lytton Strachey
Early on in his career, Alexis Rassine formed a deep friendship with the eminent editor and author John Lehmann, with whom he lived until Lehmann died in 1987. Christopher Isherwood recorded in his Diaries that when he visited Lehmann in 1947 they were already together and in the Lehmann Family Papers held at Princeton University, Rassine's name appears the first time in 1940.  In his last years Rassine became somewhat remote, living a solitary life in the Sussex cottage left to him by Lehmann.

( Read more... )

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-alexis-rassine-1537962.html

Rudolf John Frederick Lehmann (born Bourne End, Buckinghamshire, 2 June 1907; died London, 7 April 1987) was an English poet and man of letters, and one of the foremost literary editors of the twentieth century, founding the periodicals New Writing and The London Magazine.

The fourth child of journalist Rudolph Lehmann, and brother of Helen Lehmann, novelist Rosamond Lehmann and actress Beatrix Lehmann, he was educated at Eton and read English at Trinity College, Cambridge. He considered his time at both as "lost years".

After a spell as a journalist in Vienna, he returned to England to found the popular periodical New Writing (1936–1940) in book format, which proved a great influence on literature of the period and an outlet for writers such as Christopher Isherwood and W. H. Auden. Lehmann included many of these authors in his anthology Poems for Spain which he edited with Stephen Spender. With the onset of the Second World War and paper rationing, New Writing's future was uncertain and so Lehmann wrote New Writing in Europe for Pelican Books, one of the first critical summaries of the writers of the 1930s in which he championed the authors who had been the stars of New Writing - Auden and Spender - and also his close friend Tom Wintringham and Wintringham's ally, the emerging George Orwell. Wintringham reintroduced Lehmann to Allen Lane of Penguin Books, who secured paper for The Penguin New Writing a monthly book-magazine, this time in paperback. The first issue featured Orwell's essay Shooting an Elephant. Occasional hardback editions combined with the magazine Daylight appeared sporadically, but it was as Penguin New Writing that the magazine survived until 1950.

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

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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

Connie Kurtz & Ruthie Berman

Ruthie Berman and Connie Kurtz are American LGBT rights activists. As a couple, they successfully sued the New York City Board of Education for domestic partner benefits, winning such benefits for all New York City employees. (©Ruthie Rosenfeld Design. Ruthie & Connie: Every Room in the House, 2002 (©16))

Both women were born in Brooklyn, Berman in 1934 and Kurtz in 1936; they met in the late 1950s and became friends. Both were married to men and had children at the time. Kurtz moved to Israel with her family in 1970, and when she returned to visit America in 1974, she and Ruthie fell in love. They divorced their husbands and became a couple.

In 1988, Berman was a health and physical education teacher at a Brooklyn high school. She and Kurtz sued the New York City Board of Education for domestic partner benefits in 1988, eventually winning in 1994. The couple went on the talk shows The Phil Donahue Show and Geraldo to talk about the case, and came out of the closet on Donahue in 1988.

Berman and Kurtz started branches of Parents, Friends and Family of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) in Florida and New York, and in 2000, they began serving as co-chairs of the New York State NOW Lesbian Rights Task Force. They also founded The Answer is Loving Counseling Center (they are both certified counselors) and worked there for over twenty years. They were married on July 26, 2011, in New York. Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum officiated.

In 2002 a documentary titled Ruthie and Connie: Every Room in the House was made about their lives, directed by Deborah Dickson. The film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2002, and won six best documentary awards within a year. The Ruth Berman and Connie Kurtz Papers are held in the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruthie_Berman_and_Connie_Kurtz

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

Gary Nixon & Mel White

James Melville "Mel" White (born July 26, 1940) is an American clergyman and author. White was a behind-the-scenes member of the Evangelical Protestant movement through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, writing film and television specials and ghostwriting auto-biographies for televangelists such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Billy Graham. After years of writing for the Christian right, he came out as gay in 1994. Since 1982 he is in a relationship with Gary Nixon. Mel and Gary met and fell in love at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, where Mel served on the vestry and Gary sang baritone in the Coventry Choir. Gary was a property manager for the Weyerhaeuser Corporation, in charge of corporate properties across Southern California. During that brief window of opportunity when the California Supreme Court made same sex marriages legal, Mel and Gary returned to All Saints Church where they were married, June 18, 2008.

In 1962, White graduated from Warner Pacific College. That same year, he married his wife Lyla. They had two children, one of whom is the actor/comedian and screenwriter Mike White.

After receiving his BA from Warner Pacific College, then graduating with an MA in communications from the University of Portland, White followed with graduate work in communications and film at University of Southern California, UCLA, and Harvard. He received his Doctorate of Ministry from, and was a professor of communications and preaching for over a decade at, Fuller Theological Seminary. During this time he also worked as an evangelical pastor.


©Andrew Wilds Photography, Courtesy of Mel White. Mel White kissing Gary Nixon on their 30th anniversary (©15)
Mel White is an American clergyman and author. After years of writing for the Christian right, he came out as gay in 1994. Since 1982 he is in a relationship with Gary Nixon. Mel and Gary met and fell in love at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena where Mel served on the vestry and Gary sang baritone in the Coventry Choir. When the California Supreme Court made same sex marriages legal for a brief period, Mel and Gary returned to All Saints Church where they were married, June 18, 2008.

( Read more... )

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

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

GRL: W.S. Long

Starting from June 1, 2015, I will daily feature authors attending the three conventions I will join, Euro Pride in Munich (July), UK Meet in Bristol (September) and GRL in San Diego (October).

For the GRL in San Diego, October 15-18, 2015, today author is W.S. Long: A military brat, who joined the military himself, W.S. Long now practices law during the day, but at night reads and writes male-male romance. When he's not writing, W.S. Long travels and dreams of traveling far off distant lands with his mild-mannered college professor husband.

Everyone should have a little romance in his or her life.

Further Readings:

The Nephilim's Promise by W.S. Long
Publisher: JMS Books LLC (April 12, 2015)
Amazon Kindle: The Nephilim's Promise

Eli is immortal. Almost immortal, anyway. His father is an archangel he never knew, while his mother was a human. When another angel asks him to save a human male in Ancient Egypt, his life is forever changed.

When Micha comes into his life, Eli is no longer alone, but Micha’s untimely death leads Eli to search for his eternal love through reincarnations of Micha over the centuries. Based on a medium’s tip, Eli finds Joshua Milbanks, eighteen years old and homeless, kicked out of foster home because he is gay.

When Eli saves Joshua from a bullet, Joshua doesn’t know what to think, but he cannot deny he is drawn to Eli. Is Joshua Micha reincarnated? Or will Eli continue to be lonely without his eternal love?