Jenna Byrnes (born August 10, 1981)

Jenna Byrnes could use more cabinet space and more hours in a day. She'd fill the kitchen with gadgets her husband purchases off TV and let him cook for her to his heart's content. She'd breeze through the days adding hours of sleep, and more time for writing the hot, erotic romance she loves to read.

Jenna thinks everyone deserves a happy ending, and loves to provide as many of those as possible to her gay, lesbian and hetero characters. Her favorite quote, from a pro-gay billboard, is "Be careful who you hate. It may be someone you love."

Alex's Appeal, co-authored with Jude Mason, won a 2010 Rainbow Award as Best Gay Paranormal / Horror.

Further Readings:

Alex's Appeal (Kindred Spirits) by Jenna Byrnes & Jude Mason
Publisher: Total-E-Bound Publishing (August 2, 2010)
Amazon Kindle: Alex's Appeal (Kindred Spirits)

A bear of a lawyer in mourning, a handsome young chef who falls head over heels, and a mystery that threatens their happiness are just the beginning of the events at Whisker’s Seaside Inn.

Lawyer Alex Brookfield arrives at Whiskers’ Seaside Inn with a big decision weighing heavily on him. He’s been offered a judgeship, and while it’s an incredible promotion, it would mean leaving the house he shared with his late, long-time partner. Russ died of cancer eight months ago, and although Alex is ready to move on, he isn’t sure about such a big, permanent step.

Logan Emerson is the inn’s chef, and wouldn’t mind cooking up something special with the handsome attorney. He’s not concerned about their fourteen year age difference. He just knows what he likes and isn’t afraid to go after the hunky bear of a man.

Alex heard stories about the inn’s ghosts from its owner, his friend and former lover Ethan Roberts. But he’s totally unprepared for the spirit who shows up his first night there.

Between futile attempts to fend off the frisky young cook, and his offer to help inn co-owner Cade Wyatt come up with a romantic marriage proposal for Ethan, Alex finds his hands, and his bed, quite full.

More Rainbow Awards at my website: elisarolle.com, Rainbow Awards/2010

Curtis Yee & John Berry

Morrell John Berry (born February 10, 1959)  is the United States Ambassador to Australia. He previously was director of the United States Office of Personnel Management. Berry was, according to the Human Rights Campaign, the highest-ranking openly gay official to serve in the executive branch in any U.S. administration. He lives in Washington, D.C. and has a domestic partner since 1997, Curtis Yee. They married on August 10, 2013, at St Margaret's Episcopal Church in Washington.

Berry was born in Montgomery County, Maryland, to parents who worked for the federal government. He completed degrees at the University of Maryland, College Park and Syracuse University and worked in local government and as a legislative aide in state government from 1982 to 1985. From 1985 to 1994, he worked as legislative director for U.S. Representative Steny Hoyer. He held posts in the U.S. Treasury Department, the Smithsonian Institution, and the U.S. Department of the Interior until 2000, and worked as director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the National Zoological Park until 2009, when he was nominated by President Barack Obama as director of the United States Office of Personnel Management. Berry took office after being confirmed by the United States Senate in April 2009, becoming responsible for managing the human resources of the federal government.

Berry was born February 10, 1959, in Rockville, Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. His father served in the U.S. Marine Corps, his mother worked for the U.S. Census Bureau, and he has a brother and a sister. Berry graduated from high school in 1977 and finished a Bachelor of Arts in government and politics from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1980. In 1981, Berry graduated from Syracuse University with a Master of Public Administration.


U.S. Ambassador to Australia John Berry (left) married his partner Curtis Yee (Photo courtesy Australian Marriage Equality).
John Berry (born February 10, 1959)  is the US Ambassador to Australia, the first openly gay U.S. ambassador to a G-20 nation. He previously was director of the United States Office of Personnel Management. Berry was, according to the Human Rights Campaign, the highest-ranking openly gay official to serve in the executive branch in any U.S. administration. He had a domestic partner since 1997, Curtis Yee. They married on August 10, 2013, at St Margaret's Episcopal Church in Washington.

( Read more... )

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berry_(administrator)

( Further Readings )

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

Gray Foy, Leo Lerman and Joel Kaye

Gray Foy (August 10, 1922 - November 23, 2012) an artist of considerable early reputation, who was known in later years as a tastemaker, bon vivant, salonnier, partygoer, party-giver, genteel accumulator and perennial fixture of New York cultural life, died on November 23, at 90, in the 3,500-square-foot, largely lilac-walled apartment in the Osborne, at 205 West 57th Street, where he had lived since the 1960s in congenial Victorian profusion. After the death of his long time partner, Leo Lerman, he married Joel Kaye, who survives him.

For decades, Foy was a quiet if supremely capable avatar of the city’s gracious, aesthetically minded, boldface-named social milieu, a latter-day Gilded Age that flourished in New York in the years before the Stonewall uprising and for some time after, of which Truman Capote was perhaps the best-known embodiment.

With Leo Lerman, his companion of nearly half a century, Foy passed the years in a welter of dinner parties, holiday fetes, black-tie galas and opening nights. This heady whirl is recounted in “The Grand Surprise” (2007), the posthumous journals of Lerman, a writer and editor for Condé Nast publications who died in 1994.

On any given night — first in the crumbling brownstone on upper Lexington Avenue where their romance began in the late 1940s, and later in the apartment in the Osborne, to which the couple moved in 1967 — the Foy-Lerman firmament might include many of these stars: Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, Leonard Bernstein, Paul Bowles, Maria Callas, Mr. Capote, Carol Channing, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Aaron Copland, Marcel Duchamp, Margot Fonteyn, John Gielgud, Martha Graham, Cary Grant, Anaïs Nin, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Edith Sitwell, Susan Sontag, Virgil Thomson, Lionel and Diana Trilling and Anna May Wong. 


Leo Lerman was an American writer and editor who worked for Condé Nast Publications. Lerman also wrote for the New York Herald Tribune, Harper's Bazaar, Dance Magazine, and Playbill. Lerman’s lifelong love was artist Gray Foy, together from 1948 until Lerman's death in 1994. When Lerman died without completing his life story, Gray discovered that Leo had actually kept diary notebooks. Stephen Pascal used these notebooks and other outside materials about Lerman's life to put together the book.


Gray Foy was an artist of considerable early reputation, in later years known as a tastemaker, party-giver, genteel accumulator and perennial fixture of NYC cultural life. “He was the last of a breed,” said Kaye, who married Foy in Manhattan in 2011 and is his only immediate survivor. “A breed of person who was educated and interested in everything that was artistic. He knew every piece of classical music, the words to every song until 1965, architecture, cooking, and the art of conversation.”

( Read more... )

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/nyregion/gray-foy-artist-and-avatar-of-a-gilded-age-dies-at-90.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0

Leo Lerman (May 23, 1914 – August 22, 1994) was an American writer and editor who worked for Condé Nast Publications for more than 50 years. Lerman also wrote for the New York Herald Tribune, Harper's Bazaar, Dance Magazine, and Playbill. (Picture: Leo Lerman by Oliviero Toscani)

Lerman’s lifelong love and partner was artist Gray Foy, together from 1948 until Lerman's death in 1994. When Lerman died without completing his life story, Gray discovered that Leo had actually kept diary-like notebooks. Foy showed them to Stephen Pascal, who used these notebooks and other outside materials about Lerman's life to put together the book. (Picture: Gray Foy)

Foy was an artist. He stopped doing his obsessively detailed drawings years ago, but one hangs at the museum of Modern Art, a gift of Steve Martin. He had just had his first show at the Durlacher Brothers gallery in 1948, and got by with a night job in the art department of Columbia University, when he went to a party Leo Lerman gave for the couturier Peirre Balmain in his basement apartment in 1948, and never left.

Lerman was born in New York City, the son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, Ida (née Goldwasser) and Samuel Lerman. He grew up in East Harlem and Queens, New York. As a child, he accompanied his house-painter grandfather and father on various jobs in upper-class homes. He was openly gay.

( Read more... )

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

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

Robert Hunt & Witter Bynner

Harold Witter Bynner (August 10, 1881 – June 1, 1968) was an American poet, writer and scholar, known for his long residence in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at what is now the Inn of the Turquoise Bear. Bynner settled in Santa Fe, in a steady and acknowledged 30-year homosexual relationship with Robert Hunt. He became a friend of D. H. Lawrence, and traveled with him and Frieda von Richthofen in Mexico; he much later in 1951 wrote on Lawrence, while he and his partner Willard Johnson are portrayed in Lawrence's The Plumed Serpent. Bynner and Hunt had numerous parties at their house, hosting many notable writers, actors, and artists, which guests included Ansel Adams, Willa Cather, Igor Stravinsky, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Robert Frost, W. H. Auden, Aldous Huxley, Clara Bow, Errol Flynn, Rita Hayworth, Christopher Isherwood, Carl Van Vechten, Martha Graham, Georgia O'Keeffe and Thornton Wilder.

Bynner was born in Brooklyn, New York, and brought up in Brookline, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1902. Initially he pursued a career in journalism, and edited McClure's Magazine. He then turned to writing, living in Cornish, New Hampshire until about 1915.

In 1916 he was one of the perpetrators, with Arthur Davison Ficke, a friend from Harvard, of an elaborate literary hoax. It involved a purported 'Spectrist' school of poets, along the lines of the Imagists, based in Pittsburgh. Spectra, a slim collection, was published under the pseudonyms of Anne Knish (Ficke) and Emanuel Morgan (Bynner). Marjorie Allen Seiffert, writing as Elijah Hay, was roped in to bulk out the 'movement'.


Witter “Hal” Bynner was an American poet, writer and scholar, known for his long residence in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at what is now the Inn of the Turquoise Bear. He moved there in 1922 and he and his partner, Robert Hunt, entertained artists and literary figures such as D.H. Lawrence, Georgia O'Keeffe, Carl Sandburg, Ansel Adams, Willa Cather, Igor Stravinsky, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Robert Frost, W.H. Auden, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Martha Graham, and Thornton Wilder. He became a friend of D.H. Lawrence, and traveled with him and Frieda Weekley in Mexico; he much later, in 1951, wrote on Lawrence, while he and his partner are portrayed in Lawrence's The Plumed Serpent.


Witter Bynner & Robert Hunt's ashes were buried beneath a carved stone weeping dog at the house where they lived on Atalaya Hill in Santa Fe, now used as the president's home for St. John's College.

( Read more... )

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

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

Mark Doty & Alexander Hadel

Mark Doty (born August 10, 1953) is an American poet and memoirist, and the winner of the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008. From 1995 until 2010, his partner was the writer Paul Lisicky. They were married in 2008 and divorced in 2013. He currently lives with his partner Alexander Hadel in New York City and in the hamlet of The Springs in East Hampton, New York.

Doty was born in Maryville, Tennessee. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and received his Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont.

His first collection of poems, "Turtle, Swan," was published by David R. Godine in 1987; a second collection, "Bethlehem in Broad Daylight," appeared from the same publisher in 1991. While some poems in these two volumes are concerned with gay identity and the encroachment of the AIDS epidemic, the two books are largely centered on an autobiographical exploration of family, in which the poet examines the forces that have shaped his adult consciousness.

His third book, "My Alexandria" (University of Illinois Press, 1993), is entirely informed by the AIDS epidemic. In 1989, Doty's partner Wally Roberts tested positive for HIV.[1] The collection, written while Roberts had not yet become ill, contemplates the prospect of mortality, desperately attempting to find some way of making the prospect of loss even momentarily bearable. "My Alexandria" was chosen for the National Poetry Series by Philip Levine, and won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. When the book was published in the U.K. by Jonathan Cape, Doty became the first American poet to win the T.S. Eliot Prize, Britain's most significant annual award for poetry.


Mark Doty is an American poet and memoirist, and the winner of the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008. From 1995 until 2010, his partner was the writer Paul Lisicky. They were married in 2008 and divorced in 2013. He currently lives with his partner Alexander Hadel in New York City and in the hamlet of The Springs in East Hampton, New York. He is the inaugural judge of the White Crane/James White Poetry Prize for Excellence in Gay Men's Poetry and for the 2013 Griffin Poetry Prize.


Mark Doty, at far left, and Paul Lisicky on a boardwalk near their Fire Island Pines home. Doug Kuntz for The New York Times
Paul Lisicky is an American novelist and memoirist. From 1995 until 2010, his partner was the writer Mark Doty. Doty is an American poet and memoirist, and the winner of the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008. They were married in 2008 and divorced in 2013. "Mark and I have separated after 16 years together. We're still close, of course, and maybe there's something to say about all that. Maybe one could have a real life romance, and there could be more life to come beyond that"

( Read more... )

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

It’s so easy to fall into hyperbole when writing about books, but I firmly believe that Mark Doty’s Heaven’s Coast is one of the most beautiful books ever written. A memoir about the AIDS-related death of his partner Wally Roberts in 1993, Doty explores love, loss, and grief with the tender yet thorough tenacity of a poet. As a result of his journey he comes to accept the reality of death, and even find value in it: “Could we ever really know anything that wasn’t transient, not becoming more itself in the strange, unearthly light of dying?” Anyone who is facing grief or has ever known grief could profit from reading this book. --Wayne Courtois

( Mark Doty, 1992, 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

UK Meet: Sandra Lindsey

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 UK Meet in Bristol, September 11-13, 2015, today author is Sandra Lindsey: Sandra lives in the mountains of Mid-Wales and draws inspiration from the gorgeous surroundings, rich history, and everyday quirks of modern rural life.

Further Readings:

Lashings of Sauce
Paperback: 270 pages
Publisher: JMS Books LLC (August 2, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 161152380X
ISBN-13: 978-1611523805
Amazon: Lashings of Sauce
Amazon Kindle: Lashings of Sauce

We Brits love our sauce, whether it's what we lash on our food, read on our seaside postcards, or write in our stories. Come and enjoy a buffet of tasty LGBTQ treats!

From marriages to reunions, via practical jokes and football matches, to weresloths and possibly the oddest Tarts and Vicars party in the world, join us as we celebrate the UK Meet in the best way we know: telling the story.

As a follow-up to the critically acclaimed British Flash and Tea and Crumpet anthologies, our talented writers bring you sixteen stories about gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and genderqueer characters enjoying what Britain and mainland Europe have to offer, with their wonderfully diverse range of cultures and landscapes and some incredibly colourful and quirky people.

Contributors include: Tam Ames, Becky Black, Anne Brooke, Charlie Cochrane, Rebecca Cohen, Lillian Francis, Elin Gregory, Clare London, Sandra Lindsey, JL Merrow, Emily Moreton, Josephine Myles, Zahra Owens, Jordan Castillo Price, Elyan Smith and Robbie Whyte. Edited by: UK MAT (UK Meet Acquisitions Team: Alex Beecroft, Charlie Cochrane, Clare London, JL Merrow and Josephine Myles).

GRL: Della Van Hise

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 Della Van Hise: Della Van Hise is a native of Florida, transplanted to California at the age of 21, who has subsequently sunk her roots into the high desert near Joshua Tree National Park. She has not personally seen any aliens since around 1992, but there is rumored to be a secret UFO base underneath her house.

Della's writing started around age 11, when she would bang out some of the very earliest "fan fiction" on an old Smith Corona typewriter. No, not an electric one. A real antique, made of metal and heavier than a wet coffin. Her first professional novel was best-selling KILLING TIME - the controversial Star Trek novel which was recalled and re-edited in 1984. None of the rumors were true, of course. It was just a Star Trek book - but apparently a good enough work that the first "reboot" movie borrowed heavily from the plot and structure.

More recently, Della has written extensively in the non-fiction genre, with titles such as QUANTUM SHAMAN: DIARY OF A NAGUAL WOMAN and SCRAWLS ON THE WALLS OF THE SOUL. "Quantum Shaman" focuses heavily on the author's metaphysical explorations and experiences, while "Scrawls" is a continuation of those journeys many years later. If you enjoyed the works of Carlos Castaneda or Don Miguel Ruiz, you'll enjoy the non-fiction works of Della Van Hise.

In addition, Della has written professionally for Tomorrow Magazine and other prominent science fiction publications. Her most recent fiction works include Ragged Angels (an award-winning vampire novel); Year of the Ram (a space-faring gay romance); and COYOTE - a romantic science fiction novel combining the mystical aspects of martial arts, coming of age, and personal sacrifice.

Further Readings:

Dangerous Playthings: A twisted tale of love among the ruins by Della Van Hise
Publisher: Eye Scry Publications (April 12, 2015)
Amazon Kindle: Dangerous Playthings: A twisted tale of love among the ruins

It's been centuries since the Earth was struck by a comet known as Denizen. In the aftermath, an immortal named Merkinder has taken upon himself the task of teaching small groups of ragged children the arts of survival and civility in their new world. Willow LeBlanc is one of his apprentices - but as Merkinder is rapidly discovering, this wayward orphan may very well break his immortal heart.

Told is a poetic and literary voice, DANGEROUS PLAYTHINGS is a story that will haunt you for centuries to come.