Top Pen Press is proud to announce that Shaming the Devil: Collected Short Stories by G. Winston James has been mentioned as one of “The Best LGBT Books of 2009″ by the blog BandofThebes.com in an article for which the blog’s editors “asked a few dozen authors ranging from eminently established prizewinners to emerging kickass wunderkinds to name the best lgbt books of 2009.”  Band of Thebes hopes that ”[i]n turn, their list of favorite reads will become readers’ favorite resource for its staggering scope and illumination of the year’s finest lgbt novels, story collections, essays, memoirs, nonfiction, graphic books, YA, and poetry.” 

In the article, Trebor Healey, award-winning author of A Perfect Scar and Other Stories says of Shaming the Devil, “After reading the stories, I was very impressed and have thought about them a lot ever since. They delve deeply into the inner recesses of the human and the gay heart and they shed light on an aspect of gay life that doesn’t get much light, ie the African-American gay experience with no holds barred.”

See what all of the buzz is about!  Pick up your copy of Shaming the Devil today!

You wolf me in ways
that brisk blood loiters
too briefly
to know

This distension
an agony of requests
for attention

Permission to want
to moisten you
across lips, behind ear
there

Where howling waits
to murder me
liquid, languid

Slender beast
I am begging you
“Break me
with your dark
hair”

Brand me
Sully me at the sty
Crook my knees to hooves
Bay me profligate
Ordain me incautious swine

© June 9, 2009
by G. Winston James

Saints and Sinners Literary Festival for everyone interested in reading, writing and publishing

Posted by mcmontoy May 14, 2009 12:00PM

The Saints and Sinners Literary Festival holds its seventh annual gathering this weekend, headquartered at the Bourbon Orleans Hotel but with various locations throughout the French Quarter. The event — featuring lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered readers, writers, publisher and friends — draws an international audience.

“This year we have people coming from Toronto and Montreal,” said director Paul Willis. “For some reason, there’s a strong contingent from Canada. But we also have people coming from England and Brussels. It validates the fact that there’s nothing else like it in the country. Oh, sure, some conferences might have a panel or a day of GLBT literature, but we are completely devoted to it.”

But, Willis says, “it’s really a festival for everyone. That panel on memoir is not just about writing gay memoir, it’s about writing any kind of memoir. That session about book contracts with Michael Gross from the Authors Guild — that’s not just for gay authors. It’s for any author.”

For the first time, the festival will include a publisher, Bold Strokes Publishing, headed by noted lesbian writer Radclyffe, who will offer aspiring writers a chance to submit a partial manuscript, read a page, and get a book contract. At a time when commercial publishing is facing enormous challenges, a small press like Bold Strokes is “able to expand and grow and keep moving forward,” Willis said.

One panel that’s sure to be entertaining celebrates the publication of “My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them,” with appearances by contributors C. Cleo Creech, Lewis De Simone, Peter Dube, Christopher Hennessy, Collin Kelley and editor Michael Montlack. Cher, anyone?

In addition to readings and workshops, the festival will honor the 2009 winners of the third annual Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize, an unrestricted cash grant of $5,000. They are Elana Dykewomon and Michael Lowenthal. The winner of the third annual playwriting competition is New Orleans writer Michelle Embree, whose “Hand Over Fist,” will be staged tonight at 9 at Marigny Theater, $12 admission. And this year’s inductees into the Saints and Sinners Hall of Fame are Jim Duggins, Michael Thomas Ford, G. Winston James, Radclyffe and Jess Wells.

Book editor Susan Larson can be reached at slarson@timespicayune.com or at 504.826.3457 or nola.com/books.

It’s now been just over a month since my new book, and first book length fiction collection, SHAMING THE DEVIL: COLLECTED SHORT STORIES, was released from Top Pen Press. I couldn’t be happier with the responses I’ve received from readers who’ve referred to the book as “erotic,” “ravishing,” “disturbing” and even “magical.” I am humbled and outrageously happy for the respect this collection is receiving.

I recently began a book tour in support of the title that I’ve dubbed the “Bringing Sexual Back” tour. The first stop was the OutWrite Bookstore and Coffeehouse in Atlanta, GA. What a great venue! What a supportive town!

Over the next couple of weeks and months I’ll be in Oakland and Los Angeles, Ft. Lauderdale, New Orleans, New York, Austin, Washington, D.C. and more. Please check the Events and Author Tours page at Top Pen Press by clicking HERE in order to get the latest lowdown of where and when I will be.

I look forward to seeing folks.

G.

Today, more than almost any other day, I awoke feeling as if something profound had shifted in this country, the world and in myself. It’s perhaps a sad commentary on my previous lack of faith that I did not believe that the day of an African-descended President of the United States would come so soon in my lifetime. So little did I believe it that I voted for Hillary Clinton during the primaries, assuming that Barack (though clearly special) could not (would not) be elected by a white majority U.S. citizenry–not when whites were already contending with African-Americans excelling in areas outside of talk shows, music and sports such as basketball and track and field.

“They are still mad,” I told myself over Venus and Serena dominating tennis with only one eye and one hand on the court while designing clothes, acting and doing all manner of other things besides (seemingly) committing themselves singularly to the sport that has made them queens. “They still don’t know how to wrap their minds around this phenomenon,” I believed in reference to Tiger Woods so completely monopolizing the once sacredly white world of golf. “Hell, they’re still smarting over O.J. having once had enough money to successfully defend himself and introduce reasonable doubt to a jury of his ‘peers’.”

“These white people are not gonna let this black man become President! Not if it means that we black and brown people will even more fully come to believe that we are worthy of more than the forty acres and a mule (the land of opportunity) we heard rumors about, but to which we were never in a wholesale, unprejudiced way given access. They are not going to risk us becoming agitated the way we were after we first watched Roots on t.v.”

Such were my thoughts.

How fortunate, then, that others (of all races) were more hopeful and visionary than I. Hillary Clinton’s loss afforded me the opportunity to throw the weight of my support behind Senator Barack Obama in a way that I never have for any other Presidential candidate–donating to the campaign, volunteering, diving into the fundamentals of civics and the political process in a way that at moments felt compulsive and far out of control.

Sure, I bit my nails as the returns came in. Certainly, I was afraid that Republicans would somehow steal this election as they have (in my opinion) others in recent history. I pictured myself (had Barack lost after leading in the polls for weeks) kneeling down on the sidewalk in Downtown Hollywood, Florida, crying and having to breathe really deeply in order to keep myself from becoming Grimace–purple, tear drop shaped, and on a violent rampage–before going home to finally pack my bags and leave this country that at moments has appeared increasingly Godforsaken and darkened by lack of compassion and greed.

But, despite my worst fears, Senator Barack Obama is now President-elect Barack Obama, and I am humbled by the errors of my thinking and the distance America has come. I am a good deal more than well pleased.

After spending 4 1/2 hours in line yesterday in order to cast my vote for Senator Obama, it comes as no surprise to me that–as is true of most of the people around me on line yesterday in Hollywood, FL–the whole world recognizes the positive change that Barack Obama represents.

I urge everyone to vote early if you can and to encourage those you know to stay the course (no matter how long it takes) until their votes have been cast and counted.

Gallup Polls conducted in 70 countries representing more than 2 billion of the world’s adult citizens reveal a nearly 4-to-1 preference for Sen. Barack Obama over Sen. John McCain among those who say they know enough to have an opinion. Citizens in Europe are the most likely to state a preference for the next president of the United States, while citizens in Asia are the least likely. Only Georgia and the Philippines prefer McCain to Obama.

While this is a site dedicated to the promotion of writing and art, I won’t pretend that I am not a political person and writer. Further, I am one whose support is now firmly behind Sen. Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

In his appearance on Larry King, I thought Chris Rock did a great–if comedic–job speaking to folks from all walks of life about why Obama should be our next president.

Sadly, Reginald Shepherd — poet, essayist, anthologist and blogger – passed away on the night of Wednesday, September 10th.  An incredibly talented writer and thinker, I met him in 2002 when he generously participated in the inaugural Fire & Ink Festival for LGBT People of African Descent.  Reginald was forty-five years old and died of cancer.  He will be sorely missed by many.

Come hear G. Winston James read from The Damaged Good and Voices Rising at In the Life Atlanta!

SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 2008
10am — 12 noon

Fire & Ink Hosts the ITLA Literary Café
With Laurinda Brown (Highest Price for Passion), Michael Christopher (Unspeakable), G. Winston James (The Damaged Good; Voices Rising), E. Patrick Johnson (Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South—An Oral History) and Fiona Zedde (Hungry for It).

 
W Hotel Atlanta Midtown
188 14th St. NE
Atlanta, GA 30309