2015-08-09

Crossposts: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/2218089.html

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Ben Zuckerman & Henry Shacter

Tailor Ben Zuckerman (WWD called him "America's Balenciaga") pulled over at a New Jersey gas station, fell in love with the young man pumping the gas and drove away with him. The attractive grease monkey was a boxer between bouts named Harry Schacter. Ben taught him a little about fashion, made him his designing partner and the two gentlemen prospered as a happy couple. (P: From the Palm Beach Journal, January 1965, Ben Zuckerman, Dean of American Fashion, relaxes before he shows his Spring and Summer collection at Martha's, the high end boutique in Palm Beach. Mr Zuckerman had some interesting observations on the state of fashion in 1965. 'I like some of the kooky clothes.' he said, 'They're cute on the girls they are designed for, but they're not for the ladies. I only make lady clothes.' Zuckerman stated as well that he preferred to create for the 'tailored woman' rather than the 'soft romantic'. After 40 years in the business he was still attracting new customers, who often placed orders of over $60,000 a season. One store alone sold over half a million dollars each year of Ben Zuckerman dresses, suits and coats.)

Known as the Master Tailor of Seventh Avenue, Ben Zuckerman was that unique combination of owner and designer. He was a major influence in leading American women toward more dramatic and colorful coats and suits. Zuckerman closed his company in 1968, and died on August 9, 1979 at age 89.

The average wage for Americans in 1958 was $4650, and Ben Zuckerman's outfits, orginally priced around $535 represented about 12% of the average wage earner's yearly income. Ben Zuckerman clothing would have been out of the reach of most Americans.

Ben Zuckerman suit, from the 1960's in a grey checked wool with scalloped pockets and a satin bow at the neck in a complimentary colour.
Ben Zuckerman immigrated to America from Romania to live and work in New York’s garment district. Around 1950 he pulled over at a New Jersey gas station, fell in love with the young man pumping the gas and drove away with him. The attractive grease monkey was a boxer between bouts named Harry Shacter. Ben taught him a little about fashion, made him his designing partner and the two men prospered as a happy couple. Known as the Master Tailor of Seventh Avenue, Ben Zuckerman was that unique combination of owner and designer.

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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

Crossposts: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/2472641.html

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days of love

Marcel Proust & Reynaldo Hahn

Lucien Daudet (June 11, 1878 – 1946) was a French writer, the son of Alphonse Daudet. Although a prolific novelist and painter, he was never really able to trump his father's greater reputation and is now primarily remembered for his ties to fellow novelist Marcel Proust (Remembrance of Things Past). Daudet was also friends with Jean Cocteau. (P: Lucien Daudet in 1943)

The Daudet family was composed of the father, Alphonse, the mother Julia (née Allard), Léon, the older brother, Edmée, and Lucien. Every member of the family wrote books: father, mother, brother, sister, sister-in-law (Marthe Allard under the pseudonym of “Pampille”) and uncle (Ernest Daudet). Lucien himself published about fifteen books.

Cultivated, “very beautiful, very elegant, a thin and frail young man, with a tender and a somewhat effeminate face”, according to Jean-Yves Tadié, Daudet lived a fashionable life which made him meet Marcel Proust. They shared at least a friendship (if not a sexual relationship), which was revealed by Jean Lorrain in his chronicle in the Journal. It is for this indiscretion that Proust and Lorrain fought a duel in 1897.

Lucien Daudet was also a painter. After having taken lessons at the Académie Julian, he was a pupil of Whistler and had an exposition together with Bernheim-Jeune in 1906. His tableaux are not known anymore except by literary allusions to them (correspondence of Proust; catalogue by Anna de Noailles).

Marcel Proust (seated), Robert de Flers (left) and Lucien Daudet (right), ca. 1894 (©4)
Lucien Daudet was a French writer, the son of Alphonse Daudet. He is now primarily remembered for his ties to fellow novelist Marcel Proust. Daudet was also friends with Jean Cocteau. Cultivated, “very beautiful, very elegant, a thin and frail young man, with a tender and a somewhat effeminate face”, according to Jean-Yves Tadié, Daudet lived a fashionable life which made him meet Marcel Proust. They shared at least a friendship, which was revealed by Jean Lorrain in his chronicle in the Journal. It is for this indiscretion that Proust and Lorrain fought a duel in 1897.
Reynaldo Hahn (1874 - 1947) was a Venezuelan, naturalised French, composer, conductor, music critic, diarist, theatre director, and salon singer. In 1894 Hahn met the then-unknown writer Marcel Proust. Their love affair was Proust's first, and Proust later stated that "Everything I have ever done has always been thanks to Reynaldo." Proust began to write it in 1895. Although by 1896 they were no longer lovers, they remained lifelong friends and supporters until Proust's death in 1922.

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

Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time; earlier translated as Remembrance of Things Past). It was published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927.

Proust was born in Auteuil (the southern sector of Paris' then-rustic 16th arrondissement) at the home of his great-uncle, two months after the Treaty of Frankfurt formally ended the Franco-Prussian War. His birth took place during the violence that surrounded the suppression of the Paris Commune, and his childhood corresponds with the consolidation of the French Third Republic. Much of In Search of Lost Time concerns the vast changes, most particularly the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of the middle classes that occurred in France during the Third Republic and the fin de siècle.

Proust's father, Achille Adrien Proust, was a prominent pathologist and epidemiologist, responsible for studying and attempting to remedy the causes and movements of cholera through Europe and Asia; he was the author of many articles and books on medicine and hygiene. Proust's mother, Jeanne Clémence Weil, was the daughter of a rich and cultured Jewish family from Alsace. She was literate and well-read; her letters demonstrate a well-developed sense of humour, and her command of English was sufficient for her to provide the necessary assistance to her son's later attempts to translate John Ruskin.

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

Remembrance of Things Past. Yup, I'm one of Those. The only masterpiece of this book's scale that I reread and reread is Murasaki's “Tale of Genji”. The Shining Prince has only ONE gay encounter with the brother of a woman who refuses to spend the night with our hero...one night of same-sex bliss does not a "gay" novel make, alas. M. Proust may have changed Albert to Albertine; and, like so many French writers and film makers, will (maddeningly) confuse obsession with love; and, as Beckett says: "The Proustian equation is never simple." However, his work is sublime and never ceases to inspire me. It is also a gold mine of phrases worth stealing.... --Vincent Virga

Swann's Way. Proust himself, the narrator, experiences an attraction to the melancholy, unfortunate Swann, but the larger part of this work concerns the heterosexual loves of Swann himself. Besides Proust being gay, there is a lesbian couple mentioned in it, and the overall sensibility of the book is very much about the nature of love, so I declare that it qualifies as Gay Novel. Besides, the prose is so beautiful (try the newer Penguin translations) that I'll take any flimsy excuse to recommend it. It's about as gay as a successful book could be in the 1800s. --Kyell Gold

Most of the doctors writing about inversion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries adopted a related approach by conceptualizing fairies (as well as lesbians or "lady lovers") as a "third sex" or an "intermediate sex" between men and women, rather than as men or women who were also "homosexuals".
Most gay intellectuals writing in Europe and the United States shared this perspective. In the 1860s, Karl Ulrichs, the first German writer (and for decades the only openly "inverted" man) to discuss inversion in a public form, did not define it in the same terms now used for homosexuality, but characterized the Urning (his term for an invert) as representing a "woman's spirit in a man's body". At the turn of the century, many of the next generation of gay intellectuals, including Edward Carpenter in Britain and Magnus Hirschfeld in Germany, adopted a version of this theory, claiming that they were best characterized as a "third sex" or an "intermediate sex" (the loose but popular translation of sexuelle Zwischenstufe), hermaphroditically combining psychic qualities of both the male and female. This was also the distinction made by Marcel Proust in his classic account of inversion, the Sodom and Gomorrah volume of Remembrance of Things Past. --Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 by George Chauncey

Reynaldo Hahn (August 9, 1874 – January 28, 1947) was a Venezuelan, naturalised French, composer, conductor, music critic, diarist, theatre director, and salon singer. Best known as a composer of songs, he wrote in the French classical tradition of the mélodie. The fine craftsmanship, remarkable beauty, and originality of his works capture the insouciance of la belle époque.

In 1894 Hahn met the then-unknown writer Marcel Proust. Their love affair was Proust's first, and Proust later stated that "Everything I have ever done has always been thanks to Reynaldo."

Reynaldo Hahn was born in Caracas, Venezuela, the youngest of twelve children. Reynaldo's father Carlos was an affluent engineer, inventor, and businessman of German-Jewish extraction; his mother, Elena María de Echenagucia, was a Venezuelan of Spanish, (Basque) origin, and as most wealthy families descended from Spanish colonists in that country. The increasingly volatile political atmosphere in South America during the 1870s caused his father to retire and leave Venezuela.

Hahn's family moved to Paris when he was three years old. Although he showed interest in his native music of Caracas in his youth, France would "determine and define Hahn's musical identity in later life". The city and its cultural resources: the Paris Opéra, the Paris Opéra Ballet, the Opéra-Comique, in addition to the nexus of artists and writers, proved an ideal setting for the precocious Hahn.

A child prodigy, Reynaldo made his début at the salon of the eccentric Princess Mathilde (Napoleon's niece), accompanying himself on the piano as he sang arias by Jacques Offenbach. At the age of eight, Hahn composed his first songs.

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

Crossposts: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/2156520.html

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days of love

Tove Jansson & Tuulikki Pietilä (plus Vivica Bander)

Tove Marika Jansson (9 August 1914 – 27 June 2001) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish novelist, painter, illustrator and comic strip author. Briefly engaged in the 1940s to Atos Wirtanen, she later during her studies met her future life partner Tuulikki Pietilä. The two women collaborated on many works and projects, including a model of the Moominhouse, in collaboration with Pentti Eistola. This is now exhibited at the Moomin museum in Tampere. (P: Tove Jansson in 1956)

Brought up by artistic parents, Jansson studied art from 1930 to 1938 in Stockholm, Helsinki and then Paris. Her first solo art exhibition was in 1943. At the same time, she was writing short stories and articles for publication, as well as creating the graphics for book covers and other purposes. She continued to work as an artist for the rest of her life, alongside her writing.

Jansson is best known as the author of the Moomin books for children. The first such book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, appeared in 1945, though it was the next two books, Comet in Moominland and Finn Family Moomintroll, published in 1946 and 1948 respectively, that brought her fame.

Starting with the semi-autobiographical Bildhuggarens dotter (Sculptor's Daughter) in 1968, she wrote six novels and five books of short stories for adults.

Tove Jansson was born in Helsinki, Grand Duchy of Finland. Her family, part of the Swedish-speaking (Swedish: finlandssvensk) minority of Finland, was an artistic one: her father Viktor Jansson was a sculptor and her mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson was a graphic designer and illustrator. Tove's siblings also became artists: Per Olov Jansson became a photographer and Lars Jansson an author and cartoonist. Whilst their home was in Helsinki, the family spent many of their summers in a rented cottage on an island near Porvoo, 50 km east of Helsinki.

Tove Jansson & Tuulikki Pietilä with the Moominhouse
Tove Marika Jansson was a Swedish-speaking Finnish novelist, painter, illustrator and comic strip author. Briefly engaged in the 1940s to Atos Wirtanen, she later during her studies met her future life partner Tuulikki Pietilä. The two women collaborated on many works and projects, including a model of the Moominhouse, in collaboration with Pentti Eistola. This is now exhibited at the Moomin museum in Tampere. Jansson is best known as the author of the Moomin books for children.

Vivica Bander & Tove Jansson: A friend of Tove Jansson, Vivica Bandler became known as the director of Lilla teatern, the Swedish theatre in Helsinki. Under her directorship, Lilla teatern gained a reputation across the Nordic countries for its avant-garde repertoire. Bandler is also remembered as the legendary director of the City Theatre of Stockholm, Sweden. Although Bandler lead an openly homosexual life, this didn't reflect very much on her public image. Some of her work was specifically focused on lesbian themes.

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

Tuulikki Pietilä (18 February 1917 – 23 February 2009) was a Finnish graphic artist and professor, born in Seattle, Washington. Pietilä was one of the most influential people in Finnish graphic arts, and her work has been shown in numerous art exhibitions. She worked as a teacher in the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, for many years, and later trained graphic artists and wrote instructional books about graphic arts.

Pietilä began her studies at the Turku drawing school, which she attended from 1933 to 1936, and went on to study at the drawing school of the Finnish art association (1936–1940), the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm (1945–1949) and the Fernand Léger Art Academy in Paris (1949–1953). During her studies, she met her future life partner Tove Jansson; they collaborated on many works and projects, including the Moomin works, in collaboration with Pentti Eistola. These are now exhibited at the Moomin museum in Tampere.

Jansson's and Pietilä's travels and summers spent together on the Klovharu island in Pellinki have been captured on several hours of film, shot by Pietilä. Several documentaries have been made of this footage, the latest being Haru, yksinäinen saari (Haru, the lonely island) (1998) and Tove ja Tooti Euroopassa (Tove and Tooti in Europe) (2004).

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Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuulikki_Pietil%C3%A4

Crossposts: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/2264378.html

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in the spotlight

David Rakoff (November 27, 1964 – August 9, 2012)

David Benjamin Rakoff (November 27, 1964 – August 9, 2012) was a Canadian-born writer based in New York City who was noted for his humorous, sometimes autobiographical non-fiction essays. Rakoff was an essayist, journalist, and actor, and a regular contributor to WBEZ's This American Life. Rakoff described himself as a "New York writer" who also happened to be a "Canadian writer", a "mega Jewish writer", a "gay writer" and an "East Asian Studies major who has forgotten most of his Japanese" writer.

Rakoff died of cancer in Manhattan on August 9, 2012.

David Rakoff was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the youngest of three children. His brother, the comedian Simon Rakoff, is four years older than David and their sister Ruth Rakoff, author of the cancer memoir When My World Was Very Small, is the middle child. Rakoff has said that he and his siblings were close as children. Rakoff's mother, Gina Shochat-Rakoff, is a doctor who has practised psychotherapy and his father, Vivian Rakoff, is a psychiatrist. Rakoff has written that almost every generation of his family fled from one place to another. Rakoff's grandparents, who were Jewish, fled Latvia and Lithuania at the turn of the 20th century and settled in South Africa. The Rakoff family left South Africa in 1961 for political reasons, moving to Montreal for seven years. In 1967, when he was three, Rakoff's family moved to Toronto. As an adult, he said that he identified as Jewish.

Rakoff attended high school at the Forest Hill Collegiate Institute, graduating in 1982. In the same year he moved to New York City to attend Columbia University, where he majored in East Asian Studies and studied dance. Rakoff spent his third year of college at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and graduated in 1986. Rakoff worked in Japan as a translator with a fine arts publisher. His work was interrupted after four months when, at 22, he became ill with Hodgkin's disease, a form of lymphatic cancer which he has referred to as "a touch of cancer". He returned to Toronto for eighteen months of treatment, including chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery.

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

Further Readings:

Don't Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, The Torments of Low Thread Count, The Never- Ending... by David Rakoff
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Anchor; Reprint edition (September 12, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0767916034
ISBN-13: 978-0767916035
Amazon: Don't Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, The Torments of Low Thread Count, The Never- Ending...
Amazon Kindle: Don't Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, The Torments of Low Thread Count, The Never- Ending...

David Rakoff takes us on a bitingly funny grand tour of our culture of excess. Whether he is contrasting the elegance of one of the last flights of the supersonic Concorde with the good-times-and-chicken-wings populism of Hooters Air; working as a cabana boy at a South Beach hotel; or traveling to a private island off the coast of Belize to watch a soft-core video shoot—where he is provided with his very own personal manservant—rarely have greed, vanity, selfishness, and vapidity been so mercilessly skewered. Somewhere along the line, our healthy self-regard has exploded into obliterating narcissism; our manic getting and spending have now become celebrated as moral virtues. Simultaneously a Wildean satire and a plea for a little human decency, Don’t Get Too Comfortable shows that far from being bobos in paradise, we’re in a special circle of gilded-age hell.

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

Crossposts: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/2279346.html

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days of love tb

Michael Gardine & Way Bandy

Way Bandy (August 9, 1941 – August 13, 1986) was an American make-up artist. During the 1970s and 1980s, Bandy was one of the most known and highest paid make-up artist in the fashion industry. Francesco Scavullo later called Bandy "one of the great makeup artists of our time." He shared his quarters with Michael Gardine, a writer, antique dealer and chain smoker. They met at a nightclub in 1973. Gardine had no use for Bandy's strict diet; he was a Kentucky Fried Chicken man himself. The two of them were straight out of The Odd Couple. Bandy was Felix.

Born Ronald Duane Wright in Birmingham, Alabama, Bandy was one of three sons born into a middle-class family. While growing up in Birmingham, he eschewed "traditional masculine things—fishing, hunting, baseball" in favor of sewing and piano lessons. Bandy's love of movie magazines and the stars featured in the pages led him to portrait paintings. Bandy said, "I would make them up the way I thought they should look. That's how I learned about cosmetics—it's a direct outgrowth of my painting."

After high school, Bandy attended Birmingham–Southern College where he was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. After two years, he dropped out to work as a department store model. Bandy later enrolled in Tennessee Technological University where he earned a degree in education. Upon graduation, he got a job teaching high school English in Tennessee and then in Maryland. During this period, Bandy got married. In the summer of 1965, he and his wife visited New York City. Bandy later said, "The minute we arrived I knew I would never go back to my former life. This was a new beginning." Bandy quit his teaching job and he and his wife separated.

Way Bandy was an American make-up artist. During the 70s & 80s, Bandy was the most known and highest paid make-up artist in the fashion industry. Francesco Scavullo later called Bandy "one of the great makeup artists of our time." His partner was Michael Gardine, a writer, antique dealer and chain smoker. They met at a nightclub in 1973. Gardine had no use for Bandy's strict diet; he was a Kentucky Fried Chicken man himself. The two of them were straight out of The Odd Couple. Bandy was Felix.

AIDS Quilt

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

( Further Readings )

Crossposts: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/3146073.html

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gayromlit

GRL: Stephani Hecht

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 Stephani Hecht: Stephani Hecht is a happily married mother of two. Born and raised in Michigan, she loves all things about the state, from the frigid winters to the Detroit Red Wings hockey team. Go Wings! You can usually find her snuggled up to her laptop, creating her next book or gorging on caffeine at her favorite coffee shop.

When she’s not running around like crazy, trying to get her kids to their various activities, she’s currently working on numerous projects. In the coming months, she has several books coming out with eXtasy Books in both The Lost Shifter Series and Drone Vampire Chronicles, plus a few additional projects that are still in the development stages.

Further Readings:

Cry For Me My Little Raven (Lost Shifter Book 32) by Stephani Hecht
Publisher: eXtasy Books (June 8, 2015)
Amazon Kindle: Cry For Me My Little Raven (Lost Shifter Book 32)

Kidd, who just found out he was a Raven shifter, is barely making ends meet. With a group of like-minded Ravens, they have to find enough food to eat and survive in this whole new scary world that they've found themselves thrust into. Try as hard as Kidd can, he is at the bottom of his roads and he has nobody to turn to.

Clarkston just moved to the feline coalition months before. When he and his group of soldiers stumble upon a group of friendly, young Ravens, they have no choice but to take them back to HQ. The fact that Clarkston feels immediately attracted to Kidd has nothing to do with the situation...honest.

Will these two be able to overcome hate and be together or will they be torn apart, left to love each other from afar.

Crossposts: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/3146732.html

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rainbow awards 2015

2015 Rainbow Awards Submission: Tyler Knoll's Just for Fun by A.B. Gayle

Tyler Knoll's Just for Fun by A.B. Gayle
Gay Romantic Comedy
Publisher: Wayward Ink Publishing (July 10, 2015)
Amazon Kindle: Tyler Knoll's Just for Fun

Tyler Knoll was born one wild, stormy night in April 2013.
Of course, Tyler might tell you he was born twenty years earlier, but should we believe anything he says? That’s for you to decide.
In Tyler’s first adventure—like many a gay man before him—he was SNARED by gay porn, wallowing in tales of bigger, stronger, harder….
Then his fickle mind was seduced and SHREDDED by the prospect of BDSM and slavery.
When a Big Misunderstanding SLASHED at Tyler’s sanity, almost costing him his life, he turned to another genre for his salvation. But even this encounter proved potentially hazardous—not from freezing temperatures, but at the hands of irate fans.
Finally, tired and SCREWED by his all his trials and tribulations, he discovers—like many storybook heroes before him—that sometimes Mr. Right is closer than we think.

2015 Rainbow Awards Guidelines: http://www.elisarolle.com/rainbowawards/rainbow_awards_2015.html

Crossposts: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/3146975.html

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rainbow awards 2015

2015 Rainbow Awards Submission: A Story of Now by Emily O'Beirne

A Story of Now by Emily O'Beirne
Lesbian Contemporary Romance
Paperback: 388 pages
Publisher: Ylva Verlag e.Kfr. (July 15, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 3955333450
ISBN-13: 978-3955333454
Amazon: A Story of Now
Amazon Kindle: A Story of Now

Nineteen-year-old Claire Pearson knows she needs a life. And some new friends. But brittle, beautiful, and just a little bit too sassy for her own good sometimes, she no longer makes friends easily. And she has no clue where to start on the whole finding a life front, either. Not after a confidence-shattering year dogged by bad break-ups, friends who have become strangers, and her constant failure to meet her parents sky-high expectations. When Robbie and Mia walk into Claire's work they seem the least likely people to help her find a life. But despite Claire's initial attempts to alienate them, an unexpected new friendship develops. And it's the warm, brilliant Mia who seems to get Claire like no one has before. Soon, Claire begins to question her feelings for her new friend.

2015 Rainbow Awards Guidelines: http://www.elisarolle.com/rainbowawards/rainbow_awards_2015.html