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 22^nd 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

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!

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.