Nicole Kimberling (born September 6, 1969)

Nicole Kimberling lives in Bellingham, Washington with her partner, Dawn Kimberling, two bad cats as well as a wide and diverse variety of invasive and noxious weeds. Her first novel, Turnskin, won the Lambda Literary Award for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. She is also the author of the Bellingham Mysteries.

Hell Cop, co-authored with Astrid Amara & Ginn Hale, won a 2009 Rainbow Award as
Best LGBT Futuristic

Source: http://www.blindeyebooks.com/turnskin/

Turnskin by Nicole Kimberling
Paperback: 259 pages
Publisher: Blind Eye Books; 1st edition (January 1, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0978986121
ISBN-13: 978-0978986124
Amazon: Turnskin
Amazon Kindle: Turnskin

Raised in a remote farming community, Tom Fletcher knows little of his Shifter heritage and less about the dangerous lives that other Shifters lead in the city of Riverside. For Tom the big city is a daydream of opening nights and bright theatre lights. But when Tom meets Cloud Coldmoon-the infamous and handsome heir to a criminal syndicate-everything changes. Suddenly suspected of murder, Tom must flee to the only city where his kind are common. Filled with shapeshifters, con men and mobsters and ruled by the vengeful Coldmoon Family, Riverside is as perilous as it is alluring. Tom seeks refuge in the Turnskin Theatre, where his shape-changing skills can be put to good use on, and off, the stage. Here he has a chance to fulfill his dreams of stardom and romance, but only if he can stay one step ahead of the police and criminals alike- otherwise the next shape he takes could be his last.

Hell Cop by Astrid Amara, Nicole Kimberling and Ginn Hale
Publisher: Loose Id LLC (October 14, 2008)
Amazon Kindle: Hell Cop

Welcome to Parmas City, where demons and sorcerers live among ordinary people and a few tough Hell Cops protect them all. Jay, Argent, and Ben are three of them, and they've just met the men of their hottest dreams.

Next of Kin by Astrid Amara
Jay Yervant is a Hell Cop so powerful that his bare skin incinerates anyone he contacts. Isolated, he is tortured by desire, until he meets Brian, a sensual young man who touches him with impunity. But Jay's burgeoning hope is threatened when a malevolent sorcerer unleashes a host of demonic assassins against Brian. Keeping his lover may cost Jay his life.

Red Sands by Nicole Kimberling
Anthropologist Michael Gold's got problems. His apartment's been ransacked, his dad's missing, and he's been framed for murder. As a half-demon he expects trouble from the city's Hell Cops. Instead, he gets Argent, a man with intimate knowledge of Michael and whom Michael can't penetrate with his psychic powers. So does Argent want to clear him or expose him?

Touching Sparks by Ginn Hale
When photojournalist James Sparks discovers an underworld of sorcery, blood sports and demonic drug traffic, he turns to Detective Ben Moran, a hard-bodied Hell Cop whose touch sends James's pulse racing. But when James uncovers evidence of police corruption he realizes that Moran may be in as much danger as he is.

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

More Rainbow Awards at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, Rainbow Awards/2009

Alice “Nonie” Dubes & Vivian Doyack

Vivian Boyack (born 1923) and Alice ‘Nonie’ Dubes (born 1924) The women met in their hometown of Yale, Iowa, while growing up. Then they moved to Davenport in 1947 where Boyack taught school and Dubes did payroll work. ‘We’ve had our ins and outs, but that’s how it goes’

Reverend Linda Hunsaker presides over the wedding of Vivian Boyack and Alice Dubes in Davenport on September 6, 2014. More than seven decades after beginning their relationship, Vivian Boyack and Alice “Nonie” Dubes got married.

“This is a celebration of something that should have happened a very long time ago,” the Rev Linda Hunsaker told the small group of close friends and family who attended.

Dubes said the two have enjoyed their life together and over the years they have traveled to all 50 states, all the provinces of Canada, and to England twice.

“We’ve had a good time,” Dubes said.

Boyack said it takes a lot of love and work to keep a relationship going for 72 years.


Reverend Linda Hunsaker presides over the wedding of Vivian Boyack, left, and Alice Dubes, center, in Davenport. Photograph: Thomas Geyer/AP
Vivian Boyack (born 1923) and Alice ‘Nonie’ Dubes (born 1924) The women met in their hometown of Yale, Iowa, while growing up. Then they moved to Davenport in 1947 where Boyack taught school and Dubes did payroll work. ‘We’ve had our ins and outs, but that’s how it goes’ Reverend Linda Hunsaker presides over the wedding of Vivian Boyack and Alice Dubes in Davenport on September 6, 2014. More than seven decades after beginning their relationship, Vivian Boyack and Alice “Nonie” Dubes got married.



( Read more... )

Source: www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/08/ninety-year-old-gay-couple-marries-in-iowa

Ann Chitting & Mary Barber

"At this point — early in the seventeenth century — women step into the picture. The earliest example I know of two women being buried side by side in this way is the monument to Ann Chitting and her friend Mary Barber (from 1606) in the church of St James in Bury in Suffolk." Alan Bray

Both Ann Chitting and Mary Barber were married, and Roger Barber, the husband of Mary Barber, was also buried by her. The friendship between Ann Chitting and Mary Barber evidently had a sufficiently formal and objective character for them to be buried together: "Henry her sonn her body here did place / next to her friend whose soules in heave' imbrace." We know of the monument (now lost) because of the manuscripts of the Suffolk antiquary Henry Chitting. Mary Barber was the niece of Francis Boldero, the servant and official of the lord keeper Sir Nicholas Bacon, the Chipping's family patron.

September 6, 1600 marks the death of Mary Barber of Suffolk, whose tombstone, as Alan Bray proposes, may be the first public inscription in modern Europe explicitly to proclaim an intimate female friendship as eternally significant. After Barber's beloved friend the widow Ann Chitting did in 1606, followed soon thereafter by Mary's husband Roger, Ann's son Henry buried the three together in the church of St. James. Mary lies between Ann and Roger, the inscription declaring that the two women "whole soules in heave' imbrace" had "lived and loved like two most vertuous wights" and thus that "whose bodyes death would sever" the son "unites". In so doing, Henry Chitting joins two politically connected families specifically through the heavenly "imbrace" of female friends.


"At this point — early in the seventeenth century — women step into the picture. The earliest example I know of two women being buried side by side in this way is the monument to Ann Chitting and her friend Mary Barber (from 1606) in the church of St James in Bury in Suffolk." Alan Bray. Both Ann Chitting and Mary Barber were married, and Roger Barber, the husband of Mary Barber, was also buried by her. The friendship between Ann Chitting and Mary Barber evidently had a sufficiently formal and objective character for them to be buried together.

( Further Readings )

Bill Brennan & Jim Verraros

James Conrad "Jim" Verraros (born February 8, 1983) is an American singer/entertainer and native of Crystal Lake, Illinois who is most notable for being one of the top 10 finalists in the first season of American Idol. Because he was raised by deaf parents, he is fluent in American Sign Language.

Verraros quickly became a celebrity in the American gay press because of a controversy that erupted when it was reported that Fox Broadcasting Company made him remove his online journal that included discussion of his homosexuality in the summer of 2002. However, Jim Verraros later stated that "it wasn't because I was gay. It was because they thought I was trying to gain more votes and have that little extra edge." While Verraros was out to fellow contestants and Idol employees, he did not mention his homosexuality on air. Following the end of the show and the subsequent tour, Verraros came out publicly in an article in The Advocate. On September 6, 2009, Verraros married his boyfriend Bill Brennan in a small ceremony in Illinois. They made it legal on July 24, 2011 in New York.

Verraros released his album Unsaid and Understood (2004) through the indie label Red Queen Music - Sound Axis. It won the 2004 Outmusic Award for Outstanding New Recording - Debut Male.

The album was revamped and picked up by Koch Records and released as Rollercoaster (2005), Verraros' mainstream debut, which garnered several dance floor hits, including the Top 25 Billboard Hot Club/Dance Chart hit "You Turn It On." The album was produced and co-written by Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Gabe Lopez and features four songs co-written by American Idol finalist Angela Peel. The album had a limited release deal through Koch Records.


James Conrad "Jim" Verraros (born February 8, 1983) is an American singer/entertainer and native of Crystal Lake, Illinois who is most notable for being one of the top 10 finalists in the first season of American Idol. Following the end of the show and the subsequent tour, Verraros came out publicly in an article in The Advocate. On September 6, 2009, Verraros married his boyfriend Bill Brennan in a small ceremony in Illinois. They made it legal on July 24, 2011 in New York.

( Read more... )

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

( Further Readings )

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

Geneviève Boucher de la Bruyère & Jacques Fath

Jacques Fath (born Maisons-Laffitte, France, 6 September 1912 – Paris, France, 13 November 1954) was a French fashion designer who was considered one of the three dominant influences on postwar haute couture, the others being Christian Dior and Pierre Balmain.

The son of André Fath, an Alsatian-Flemish insurance agent, Fath came from a creative family. His paternal great-grandparents, Caroline and Theodore-Georges Fath, were a fashion illustrator and writer, and his paternal grandfather, Rene-Maurice Fath, was a landscape painter.

Fath presented his first collection in 1937, working out of a two room salon on Rue de la Boetie. The studio was later moved to a second location on Rue Francois Premier in 1940 before settling into a third location at 39 Avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie in 1944. Among his models was Lucie Daouphars (1921 or 1922–1963), a.k.a. Lucky, a former welder who eventually become the top house model for Christian Dior.

As self-taught designer who learned his craft from studying museum exhibitions and books about fashion, Fath hired a number of young designers as assistants and apprentices, some of which later went on to form their own houses, including Hubert de Givenchy, Guy Laroche, and Valentino Garavani.


Jacques Fath was a French fashion designer who was considered one of the dominant influences on postwar haute couture, the others being Christian Dior and Pierre Balmain. Fath married, in 1939, Geneviève Boucher de la Bruyère. The bride was a former model from an aristocratic family who had been a secretary to Coco Chanel. According to Fath's friend, Princess Giovanna Pignatelli Aragona Cortés, Geneviève, who directed the business side of her husband's firm during his lifetime, was a lesbian.


Lady Alexandra Howard-Johnston (1907-97) was the wife of the Naval Attaché to Paris at the end of the 1940s. She required an extensive wardrobe for the many formal dinners and state functions that she had to attend.
Fath designed this dress for Lady Alexandra to wear for the official visit of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip to Paris in May 1948. Lady Alexandra recalled that when she arrived at the Théâtre de l’Opéra with her husband, the Garde Nationale suddenly sprang to attention. ‘I realised they had mistaken us for the Princess and Duke. That was the effect made by my splendid Fath’ (Victoria & Albert Museum)

( Read more... )

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

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

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

Jane Addams, Ellen Gates Starr & Mary Rozet Smith

Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 – May 21, 1935) was a pioneer settlement worker, founder of Hull House in Chicago, public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader in woman suffrage and world peace. Beside presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, she was the most prominent reformer of the Progressive Era and helped turn the nation to issues of concern to mothers, such as the needs of children, public health, and world peace. She said that if women were to be responsible for cleaning up their communities and making them better places to live, they needed the vote to be effective in doing so. Addams became a role model for middle-class women who volunteered to uplift their communities. She is increasingly recognized as a member of the American pragmatist school of philosophy. In 1931 she became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Throughout her life Addams was close to many women and was very good at eliciting the involvement of women from different classes in Hull House's programs.

Her closest adult companion and friend was Mary Rozet Smith (December 23, 1868 - 1934), who supported Addams's work at Hull House, and with whom she shared a romantic friendship. Together they owned a summer house in Bar Harbor, Maine.

In 1889 she and her college friend and intimate partner, Ellen Gates Starr, co-founded Hull House in Chicago, Illinois, the first settlement house in the United States.


Jane Addams was a pioneer settlement social worker, public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader in women's suffrage and world peace. Addams became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Her closest adult companion was wealthy philanthropist Mary Rozet Smith, who supported Addams's work at Hull House, and with whom she shared a romantic friendship. "Mary Smith became and always remained the highest and clearest note in the music that was Jane Addams' personal life".

( Read more... )

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

Ellen Gates Starr (March 19, 1859, near Laona, Illinois – February 10, 1940, in Suffern, New York) was an American social reformer and activist. (P: Chicago Daily News collection located at the Chicago History Museum. Ellen Gates Starr, 19 March 1914)

Ellen Starr was born in Laona, Illinois. She was a student at the Rockford Female Seminary (1877–78), where she met Jane Addams; their friendship lasted many years, although some historians have suggested that Starr was a lesbian who had a particularly close relationship with Addams. Starr taught for ten years in Chicago before joining Addams in 1888 for a tour of Europe. While in London, they were inspired by the success of the English Settlement movement and became determined to establish a similar social settlement in Chicago.

They returned to Chicago and co-founded Hull House as a kindergarten and then a day nursery, an infancy care centre, and a center for continuing education for adults. Starr was also active in the campaign to reform child labor laws and industrial working conditions in Chicago. She was a member of the Women's Trade Union League and helped organize striking garment workers in 1896, 1910, and 1915. However, by belief she was firmly anti-industrialisation, idealizing the guild system of the Middle Ages and later the Arts and Crafts Movement. She taught such writers as Shakespeare, Dante and Robert Browning in the slums of Chicago to children who could not afford school education. She practiced her preachings about community labour to the extent of traveling to Britain to learn bookbinding. She was arrested at a restaurant strike.


Chicago Daily News collection located at the Chicago History Museum. Ellen Gates Starr and Mrs. F. R. Lillie (Frances Williams Crane), 19 March 1914
Ellen Gates Starr (March 19, 185 – February 10, 1940) was an American social reformer and activist. She was a student at the Rockford Female Seminary (1877–78), where she met Jane Addams; their friendship lasted many years, although some historians have suggested that Starr was a lesbian who had a particularly close relationship with Addams. Starr taught for ten years in Chicago before joining Addams in 1888 for a tour of Europe. They returned to Chicago and co-founded Hull House.

( Read more... )

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Gates_Starr

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

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

Thomas Hermanns & Wolfgang Macht

Thomas Hermanns (born 5 March 1963) is a German TV-presenter, director, TV-author and comedian. He is known for his comedy-show Quatsch Comedy Club. Hermanns has been in a relationship for 14 years with Wolfgang Macht. On 6 September 2008 Hermanns and Macht married.

Hermanns was born in Bochum. During his childhood he lived in Nuremberg. After school he studied theatre. In 1992, Hermanns started the comedy show Quatsch Comedy Club. The show has been on German channel ProSieben since 1996. In 2003 the show moved to the Theatre Friedrichstadtpalast in Berlin.

Hermanns has written and produced different comedy shows on TV, including Zapped (1998), Back to Life (2000) and Paranoid (2004) for Michael Mittermeier, Gayle Tufts and Cora Frost. Hermanns was a director for Grease and Es fährt ein Zug nach Nirgendwo. Hermanns wrote for the TV series Lukas (1997–1999), Meine beste Freundin (2000) with Mariele Millowitsch and Doris Kunstmann and for Sing, wenn du kannst! (2002) at the theatre Schmidts Tivoli in Hamburg.

Hermanns was TV moderator of Red Nose Day and Popclub on channel ProSieben. In May 2005 and 2006 Hermanns was moderator of Countdown Eurovision. In December 2005 Hermanns worked with Sky du Mont and Bettina Zimmermann as moderators of the Bambi award on German channel ARD. He was also the moderator of the Vorentscheidung Eurovision Song Contest, and was spokesperson for this event from 2005 to 2008.


Thomas Hermanns (born 5 March 1963) is a German TV-presenter, director, TV-author and comedian. He is known for his comedy-show Quatsch Comedy Club. Hermanns has been in a relationship for 14 years with Wolfgang Macht. On 6 September 2008 Hermanns and Macht married. Hermanns has written and produced different comedy shows on TV, including Zapped (1998), Back to Life (2000) and Paranoid (2004) for Michael Mittermeier, Gayle Tufts and Cora Frost.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hermanns

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

Violet Oakley, Elizabeth Shippen Green, Jessie Willcox Smith & Henrietta Cozens

Elizabeth Shippen Green (September 1, 1871 – 1954) was an American illustrator. She illustrated children's books and worked for many years for Harper's Magazine.

Green studied with the painters Thomas Anshutz and Robert Vonnoh at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (1889–1893). She then began study with Howard Pyle at Drexel Institute where she met Violet Oakley and Jessie Willcox Smith.

As educational opportunities were made more available in the 19th-century, women artists became part of professional enterprises, including founding their own art associations. Artwork made by women was considered to be inferior, and to help overcome that stereotype women became “increasingly vocal and confident” in promoting women's work, and thus became part of the emerging image of the educated, modern and freer “New Woman”. Artists "played crucial roles in representing the New Woman, both by drawing images of the icon and exemplifying this emerging type through their own lives.” In the late 19th-century and early 20th century about 88% of the subscribers of 11,000 magazines and periodicals were women. As women entered the artist community, publishers hired women to create illustrations that depict the world through a woman's perspective. Other successful illustrators were Jennie Augusta Brownscombe, Jessie Wilcox Smith, Rose O'Neill, and Violet Oakley.

Green was a member of Philadelphia's The Plastic Club, an organization established to promote "Art for art's sake". Other members included Elenore Abbott, Jessie Willcox Smith, and Violet Oakley. Many of the women who founded the organization had been students of Howard Pyle. It was founded to provide a means to encourage one another professionally and create opportunities to sell their works of art.


"The Journey": illustration for a series of poems by Josephine Preston Peabody, entitled "The Little Past", which relate experiences of childhood from a child's perspective. Published in Harper's Magazine, December 1903. Restored digital file from original oil painting.

( Read more... )

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Shippen_Green

Jessie Willcox Smith (September 6, 1863 – May 3, 1935) was one of the most prominent female illustrators in the United States during the Golden Age of American illustration. She was a prolific contributor to respected books and magazines during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She illustrated stories and articles for clients such as Century, Collier's, Leslie's Weekly, Harper's, McClure's, Scribners, and the Ladies' Home Journal. She had an ongoing relationship with Good Housekeeping, including the long-running Mother Goose series of illustrations and creating all the covers from 1915 to 1933. Among the more than 60 books that Smith illustrated were Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and An Old-Fashioned Girl, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Evangeline, and Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses.

Jessie Willcox Smith was born in the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was the youngest girl born to Charles Henry Smith, an investment broker, and Katherine DeWitt Willcox Smith. Jessie attended private elementary schools and at the age of sixteen she was sent to Cincinnati, Ohio to live with her cousins and finish her education. She trained to be a teacher and taught kindergarten in 1883, but found that the physical demands of working with children too strenuous for her; Due to back problems, she had difficulty bending down to their level. Persuaded to attend one of her friend or cousin's art classes, Smith realized she had a talent for drawing.

In 1884 or 1885, Smith attended the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art and Design) and in 1885 attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia under Thomas Eakins and Thomas Anshute's supervision. It was under Eakins that Smith began to use photography as a resource in her illustrations. Although Eakins' demeanor could be difficult, particularly with female students, he became one of her first major influences. In May 1888, while Smith was still at the Pennsylvania Academy, her illustration Three Little Maidens All in a Row was published in the St. Nicholas Magazine. Illustration was a professional avenue that women could employ to make a living as an artist at the time. At this time, creating illustrations for children's books or of family life was considered an appropriate career for woman artists because it drew upon maternal instincts. Fine art that included life drawing was not considered lady-like. Illustration became a viable career partly due to improved color printing processes and the resurgence in England in book design. Smith graduated from PAFA in June 1888 and joined the first magazine for women, the Ladies' Home Journal the same year, where she had an entry-level position in the advertising department finishing rough sketches, designing borders, and preparing advertising art for the magazine. She illustrated the book of poetry New and True (1892) by Mary Wiley Staver.


Photograph of Violet Oakley and Jessie Willcox Smith facing the camera and Elizabeth Shippen Green and Henrietta Cozens , who are partially hidden, c. 1901, Violet Oakley papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Illustrators Jessie Wilcox Smith and Elizabeth Shippen Green, and Muralist Violet Oakley, took over the Red Rose Inn, a picturesque estate in Villanova, on Philadelphia's Main Line. They made a pact to live together forever - until one of them created havoc by marrying (Elizabeth Shippen Green in 1911). The three illustrators received the "Red Rose Girls" nickname. They later lived, along with Henrietta Cozens, in a home in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia that they named Cogslea after their four surnames (Cozens, Oakley, Green and Smith).

( Read more... )

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessie_Willcox_Smith

Green-Wood Cemetery was founded in 1838 as a rural cemetery in Kings County, New York. It was granted National Historic Landmark status in 2006 by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

There is buried Violet Oakley (June 10, 1874 – February 25, 1961), who, in 1902, received the largest public mural commission for an American woman until that time, at the Pennsylvania state capitol in Harrisburg. She lived in a “Boston marriage” with three other female artists (nicknamed the Red Rose Girls).

Oakley and her two friends, the artists Elizabeth Shippen Green and Jessie Willcox Smith, all former students of Pyle, were named the Red Rose girls by him. The three illustrators received the "Red Rose Girls" nickname while they lived together in the Red Rose Inn in Villanova, Pennsylvania from 1899 to 1901. They later lived, along with Henrietta Cozens (1862 - 1940), in a home in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia that they named Cogslea after their four surnames (Cozens, Oakley, Green and Smith).

Violet Oakley was the first American woman to receive a public mural commission. During the first quarter of the twentieth century, she was renowned as a pathbreaker in mural decoration, a field that had been exclusively practiced by men. Oakley excelled at murals and stained glass designs that addressed themes from history and literature in Renaissance-revival styles.

Oakley was born in Bergen Heights (a section of Jersey City), New Jersey, into a family of artists. Her parents were Arthur Edmund Oakley and Cornelia Swain. Both of her grandfathers were member of the National Academy of Design. In 1892, she studied at the Art Students League of New York. A year later, she studied in England and France, under Raphaël Collin and others. After her return to the United States in 1896, she studied briefly at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts before she joined Howard Pyle's famous illustration class at Drexel Institute. She had early success as a popular illustrator for magazines including The Century Magazine, Collier's Weekly, St. Nicholas Magazine, and Woman's Home Companion. The style of her illustrations and stained glass reflects her emulation of the English Pre-Raphaelites. Oakley's commitment to Victorian aesthetics during the advent of Modernism led to the decline of her reputation by the middle of the twentieth century.


Violet Oakley Studio on the NRHP since September 13, 1977. At 627 St. George's Road in Mount Airy neighborhood of NW Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission marker is in front of this house, 621. The next house on the street is 631. There is a private drive between the 2, so the actual studio may be behind this building (if the apparent contradiction of the sources is forced to be resolved)

( Read more... )

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Oakley

( Further Readings )

More Real Life Romances at my website: www.elisarolle.com

GRL: Jet Mykles

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 Jet Mykles: As far back as junior high, Jet used to write sex stories for friends involving their favorite pop icons of the time. To this day, she hasn't stopped writing sex, although her knowledge on the subject has vastly improved.

An ardent fan of fantasy and science fiction sagas, Jet prefers to live in a world of imagination where dragons are real, elves are commonplace, vampires are just people with special diets and shape-shifters live next door. In her own mind, she's the spunky heroine who gets the best of everyone and always attracts the lean, muscular lads. She aids this fantasy with visuals created through her other obsession: 3D graphic art. In this area, as in writing, Jet's self-taught and thoroughly entranced, and now regularly uses this art to illustrate her stories or her stories to expand upon her art. Only recently, through the wonders of the digital age, has Jet, a self-proclaimed hermit, been able to really share this work with others.

In real life, Jet lives in southern California with her life partner, his daughter and father and too many cats. She has a bachelor's degree in acting, but her loathing of auditions has kept her out of the limelight. So she turned to computers and currently works in product management for a software company, because even in real life, she can't help but want to create something out of nothing.

Further Readings:

Noble (Indigo Knights Book 4) by Jet Mykles
Publisher: Loose Id LLC (September 16, 2014)
Amazon Kindle: Noble (Indigo Knights Book 4)

Donny “Foxy” Foxley is hot. Noble knows it. All those screaming teen girls know it. And so does the production company with their millions staked on the teen idol's dreamy good looks.

So when the supposedly straight movie star comes onto him, Noble is floored. Never one to ignore the allure of a pretty young man, Noble can't resist and doesn't even try. Why should he? Even if it has to be a secret, he’d be crazy to pass up a night of sexytimes with the one man everyone wants.

But one night turns into two, then blossoms into a friendship with the potential for so much more. If that’s what Noble was after, which he's not. But Foxy gets under Noble’s skin until he cares way too much. Because there can never be anything but sex between them. To the world, Foxy is straight and Noble is anything but.

2015 Rainbow Awards Submission: Andrew's Promise by Nic Starr

Andrew's Promise by Nic Starr
Gay Contemporary Romance
Paperback: 200 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (August 12, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1634763130
ISBN-13: 978-1634763134
Amazon: Andrew's Promise
Amazon Kindle: Andrew's Promise

Heroes: Book Two

Young mechanic Andrew Campbell’s life couldn’t be better. He is about to restore a Ford Mustang with his dad before heading off on the ultimate cross-country road trip with his best friend, Tanner McKenzie.

But tragedy strikes, and Andrew’s life is shattered. Worried his family will be torn apart if he doesn’t step in, Andrew makes a tough choice between following his heart and doing what he needs to do to protect his little brother.

When Andrew pushes Tanner away, Tanner heads off on the planned trip alone. Once Tanner leaves town, his life takes a different path, and it’s ten years before he returns. Now a firefighter, he’s never forgotten his first love, and no one has ever taken Andrew’s place in his heart. He’s determined to see if Andrew feels the same way. He just hopes Andrew’s excited to see him, hopes that he’s available―and finally out―after all this time.

They might not have been ready to deal with emerging feelings years ago, but now might be the time for their second chance at love.

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

2015 Rainbow Awards Submission: His Soldier by Anna Lee

His Soldier by Anna Lee
Gay Contemporary Romance
Paperback: 218 pages
Publisher: Totally Bound Publishing (March 6, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1784304654
ISBN-13: 978-1784304652
Amazon: His Soldier
Amazon Kindle: His Soldier

Sometimes you find love where you least expect it. For Sergeant Ryder Brooks that’s writing letters home to Dean Anders, his Army pen pal. After a tragedy, as a way of honoring his brother and trying to cope, Dean becomes an Army pen pal to Sergeant Ryder Brooks. The two connect through letters and phone calls for a year, falling in love and making plans to meet when Ryder finishes his tour. However, in an effort to save one of his men who stepped on a mine, Ryder loses his leg. Broken and depressed, he doesn’t think Dean will want him. But once Dean learns what has happened, he immediately goes to Ryder, determined to help him heal and show him that he loves him no matter what. Ryder has a long road of recovery ahead of him, but with Dean’s support, he realizes that his life isn’t over, it’s just beginning—if he’ll only give them a chance.

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