Shaming the Devil Selected Multiple Literary Award Finalist
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Top Pen Press Inaugural Title, Shaming the Devil, Named Multiple Literary Award Finalist
HOLLYWOOD, Florida (March 19, 2010) – In February 2009 Top Pen Press introduced the collected fiction of noted poet, author, editor G. Winston James, and thereby set as its mission to establish itself alongside other noteworthy presses at “the pinnacle of POC Queer Publishing.” Just over one year later, James’ collection of twelve fundamentally human, thought-provoking and at times viscerally disturbing stories, evoking comparisons to Greek Tragedy and to the writing of notable authors as diverse as James Baldwin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, William Faulkner and Toni Morrison has been selected as a Finalist in a number of prestigious national literary competitions, thereby setting the bar high for future Top Pen Press titles.
Shaming the Devil: Collected Short Stories was selected from more than thirty nominated titles from a variety of presses, including University of Wisconsin, St. Martin’s, Harper Collins and the renowned literary publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux to become one of the top five Debut Fiction titles in the 22nd Annual Lambda Literary Awards. Similarly, the collection was selected as one of six outstanding titles vying for the prestigious Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction, which was created in 1988 to honor culture-driving fiction from LGBT points of view. The title was also named a Finalist in the category of Gay/Lesbian Fiction for ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Awards which were designed to discover distinctive books from independent publishers.
Top Pen Press publishes work that illuminates, confronts and perplexes perceptions of queer people of color. The goal of the press is to foster greater personal and intellectual investigation and understanding of the complexities of lives outside the heterosexual, American mainstream by publishing meticulously well-written literary novels, short story and essay collections, anthologies, as well as poetry. Top Pen Press seeks to introduce and promote the most provocative and creative writers of these new queer times.
G. Winston James is a Jamaican-born poet, author, essayist and editor. He holds an MFA in Fiction from Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and is the author of the poetry collection The Damaged Good: Poems Around Love and the Lambda Literary Award finalist collection Lyric: Poems Along a Broken Road. James is also co-editor of the historic anthologies, Voices Rising: Celebrating 20 Years of Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Writing and the Lambda Literary Award finalist publication Spirited: Affirming the Soul and Black Gay/Lesbian Identity.
IN STORES NOW
ISBN-10: 0-9770797-0-8
ISBN-13: 978-0-9770797-0-4
Specs: Softcover, 176 pp.
Price: $14.95 USD
Top Pen Press
P.O. Box 223436
Hollywood, FL 33022
Email: toppenpress@gmail.com
Website: www.toppenpress.com
Tags: Book of the Year Award, Ferro-Grumley Award, G. Winston James, Lambda Literary Award, Top Pen Press
