"Two (2) Generations": September 12

One of our authors for the September Perfectly Queer "Two (2) Generations" is Edmund Zagorin. He writes under the name Elizeya Quate.

Elizeya Quate is an invitation to dance and/or denounce the equals sign as a self-negating sham. His first novelish-in-stories, "The Face of Our Town," presents Elwood Munn, a morbid barista in the small Midwestern town of Velton. Elwood obsesses over bar trivia, mocks infant worship and reflects on the paradox of pervasive loneliness in our hyper-connected world. The book delivers a delightful awkwardness that may ring only too familiar to anyone who has attempted to twentysomething during the era of the Internets.

https://www.facebook.com/events/923574211078104/

Our First Event at Dog Eared Books was a huge success!

For our "Award-Winning Authors" panel, Willy Wilkinson and Vincent Meis drew a crowd of almost 50 people! For the first time, we had more attendees than chairs. It was so exciting. You can watch videos of the readings on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/perfectlyqueerreadings/

It was so fulfilling to see that we can bring a crowd of folks into a bookstore in the Castro to hear queer authors read. We are looking forward to working with Dog Eared Books to bring authors into the neighborhood to share their works with us.

Read Queer Authors!

Award-Winning Author Vincent Meis

Award-Winning Author Vincent Meis will present his latest work, "Deluge," at our August 8 event. (https://www.facebook.com/events/1741912596068410/) 

He grew up in Decatur Illinois and attended Tulane University in New Orleans. Vincent has lived most of the last forty years in the San Francisco Bay Area. He worked as an English as a Second Language teacher and did a few stints in other countries, including Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Spain. In the 1980s and 90s, he published a number of pieces in The Advocate, LA Weekly, In Style, and Our World. His four novels have been inspired by travels, all set at least partially in foreign countries: Eddie’s Desert Rose (2011), Tio Jorge (2012), and Down in Cuba (2013) and Deluge (2016). Tio Jorge received a Rainbow Award in the category of Bisexual Fiction in 2012. Down in Cuba received two Rainbow Awards in 2013.

Award-Winning Author Willy Wilkinson

One of our Award-Winning Authors for August is Willy Wilkinson​.

He is an award-winning writer, public health consultant, cultural competency trainer, public speaker, and spoken word performer. Willy is the author of the Lambda Literary Award-winning book "Born on the Edge of Race and Gender: A Voice for Cultural Competency," which illuminates trans experience from a Chinese American and mixed perspective, and transforms the memoir genre into a cultural competency tool. He is the recipient of a National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association award, and the Transgender Law Center Vanguard Award, and is recognized on the Trans 100.

Here is the link to our Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1741912596068410/

New Digs (Again)

Like many in San Francisco these days, Perfectly Queer has found itself a little peripatetic of late, which means, yes, we have a new (new) home--Dog Eared Books Castro--and here we hope to stay for many a moon. We certainly feel welcome!: dogearedbooks.com/castro

So, starting with the August Perfectly Queer book reading--Award-Winning Authors for August facebook.com/events/1741912596068410/--we'll be setting up wine and desserts, handing out door prizes, and providing a bookstore venue for lots more terrific Queer authors reading books you need to buy.  But, more about August in later blogs.  [Watch this space.]

DEB Castro brings a bookstore back to the Castro, for which many citizens are very thankful to owner Kate Rosenberger, manager Alvin Orloff, and staff.  And, just to prove that life is spiral--if not cyclical, DEB Castro is located in the same spot as another, iconic Castro bookstore, A Different Light, at 489 Castro, conveniently located next door to Cliff's Hardware, across from Strut, and just down the street from the Castro Theater.  What a gayborhood!

DEB Castro is hosting other readings too, such as Trebor Healey in late September and Martin Hyatt and Anne Raeff in early November so make their website one of your favorites and stay tuned.

See you in August!

 

Videos from "The Long and the Short of It"

Our July event, "The Long and the Short of It," at Books Inc. Opera Plaza drew over 25 people and turned out to be a real crowd pleaser (just as we expected it would be). If you were unable to be there, you can still view the videos of our three readers (Michael Alenyikov, Jim Provenzano, and Na'amen Gobert Tilahun) on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/perfectlyqueerreadings/

For our August event, Perfectly Queer will return to the Castro at the recently-opened Dog Eared Books (489 Castro Street, site of the former Different Light Books). Here is the link to our Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1741912596068410/

Award-winning authors Willy Wilkinson and Vincent Meis will read from the most recent works. See you Monday, August 8, 7:00 pm at Dog Eared Books!

Ivan & Misha, 40 Wild Crushes, and The Root: Books at July 2016 Perfectly Queer

  

In Ivan and Misha, a novel in linked stories by Michael Alenyikov, events swirl around fraternal twins and their father, Louie, as they make their way from Soviet-era Kiev to New York City in the late nineties and early aughts. Socially adrift, father and sons search for meaning in their divergent romantic relationships. Louie embarks on a traditional heterosexual dating relationship late in life, Ivan is sexually opportunistic and omnivorous, and Misha is torn between his family and the prospect of a committed gay relationship. The brothers’ search for connection leads them through a multitude of subcultures, all depicted in vivid detail.

40 Wild Crushes: Stories by Lambda Literary Award Winner Jim Provenzano is comprised of new and previously stories, as well as excerpts from Provenzano’s forthcoming novels. He presents teenage lust in summer theatre, cheating boyfriends on “The Tonight Show,” a transgender performer on the rise, and an escapee from a pumpkin farm—among other vivid characters and stories. Varying from terse accounts of an anti-gay assault to a post-9/11 moment of resolution, Provenzano shares a diverse array of contemporary experiences in rural Ohio and New York City, at funerals and wrestling matches, inside Manhattan cathedrals and Paris museums.  

The Root by Na’amen Gobert Tilahun is a dark, gritty urban fantasy debut set in modern-day San Francisco, filled with gods, sinister government agencies, and worlds of dark magic hidden just below the surface. When a secret government agency trying to enslave you isn’t the biggest problem you’re facing, you’re in trouble. A darkness is coming, something no one has faced in living memory. It eats. It hunts. In The Root, a dark and surging urban fantasy, two worlds must come together if even a remnant of one is to survive.