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

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.