Gay Journalist Eli Sanders Wins Pulitzer Prize For Story Of Lesbian's Murder

Seattle Stranger reporter Eli Sanders has won the Pulitzer Prize for his story about the woman who survived an attacker who raped and killed her partner. (In 2009 the killer told the court: "God told me to rape and kill those lesbians.") Here's an excerpt from Sanders' article:

The reason for her sitting on the witness stand of a packed and sweltering eighth-floor courtroom at the King County Courthouse on June 8, in jeans and a short-sleeved black blouse, hands clasped over knees, a jury of strangers taking notes, a crowd of family and friends and strangers observing, a bunch of media recording, was to say: This happened to me. You must listen. This happened to us. You must hear who was lost. You must hear what he did. You must hear how Teresa fought him. You must hear what I loved about her. You must know what he took from us. This happened.

Congratulations, Mr. Sanders.

New Blog: Unnecessary Phrases

Yesterday's entry: "blend together." You get the idea.

The Oxford Comma

(Source)

Credited To The Bard

(Source)

Sen. Ruben Diaz Fan Fiction Contest

The New Gay has launched a "Ruben Diaz fan fiction" story writing contest. Rules at the link.

Literature Death Watch

(Source)

Online Magazine For Men Launches

A new online magazine for men (including gays) has launched. From their press release:

Good Men Media today announced the launch of The Good Men Project Magazine, a timely and provocative online publication that explores issues facing modern men and that seeks to answer the question, “What does it mean to be a good man?” The Good Men Project Magazine is part of The Good Men Foundation, a registered 501(3)c charitable organization designed to help at-risk men and boys. The magazine is a cross-platform, multi-media destination featuring compelling writing about parenting, sex, relationships, identity, ethics, humor, and health. The publication’s contributors include top-tier journalists commissioned to provide feature content as well as volunteer writers and bloggers.

Among the magazine's featured contributors is JMG reader and openly gay author Benoit Denizet-Lewis, who debuts on the site with an amusing story about step-moms. Also of note today, an interesting look at learning how to shave, from the perspective of a transman. Bookmark this site, it looks promising.

Fort Lauderale April 9-11: The 2010 Gay & Lesbian Literary Arts Festival

Next weekend I'll be in Fort Lauderale for the 2010 Gay & Lesbian Literary Arts Festival, where I'll join Miami Herald columnist Steve Rothaus and author Steve Petrow for a panel discussion titled "The Art Of Blogging." Fancy! The panel will be moderated by South Florida Gay News columnist and blogger bon vivant, our very own Father Tony.

Festival registration and schedule information. Events take place at the brand new Stonewall Library & Archives, which I'm very excited to finally see. I'm going to be missing next weekend's Saint disco reunion party here in NYC, so I'm going to lean on a certain part-time Lauderdalian to make up for that. I'm very sure that will involve at least one visit to the Ramrod, the best gay bar ever that used to be a Circle-K.

On The "Death" Of LGBT Print Media

Over on Mediaite, Michael Triplett of the National Gay & Lesbian Journalists Association covers the demise of the Washington Blade and other LGBT print titles and what physical gay newspapers have meant to us.

Like other “minority” media, it is easy to underestimate the significance of the LGBT press for the gay community. For many of us, it was the first glimpse into what it meant to be gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender. We opened up those newspapers tentatively, almost afraid of what we would discover about ourselves and the world around us. We turn to the LGBT press to find out what’s happening on our street, to find a church, to find a lawyer, and even find a boyfriend or girlfriend.

I remember poring over the pages of personal ads in the mid-70's Advocate and After Dark, wondering what expressions like "French passive" could possibly mean and why so many of these men described themselves as "artistic" or "generous" - all while recoiling from the quarter-page ads featuring handsome men modeling black sheer harem pants and padded butt and crotch-enhancing underwear. Was I going to have to dress like that? But at the same time I thrilled to the bar and disco ads with their thinly-coded descriptions of dance floor and dark-room shenanigans.

To my embarrassment, I don't recall being particularly interested in the actual writing - that vital reporting of the brave, scary, heady days of our then young movement. Instead, I would memorize the address of places like Uncle Charlie's - you know, just in case I made a wrong turn between Algebra 2 and the cafeteria and found myself in lower Manhattan. In the above-linked article, Triplett discusses what the loss of these writers and reporters may mean for blogs like this one.

The irony of the fall of the Advocate and the Blade is that LGBT journalism is booming, at least when it comes to citizen journalism. From Pam Spaulding’s Pam’s House Blend and John Aravosis’ AmericaBlog to Andy Towle’s Towleroad and Joe Jervis’ JoeMyGod, LGBT voices are everywhere in the political and LGBT blogosphere. This citizen journalism takes many forms, from the progressive political coverage by Spaulding and Aravosis to the popular coverage by Towle and Jervis that mixes pictures of Levi Johnston in Playgirl and 80s disco videos with news about Proposition 8 and hate crimes. But the constant thread is that they rely on the mainstream press—and legacy LGBT media—to keep their operations running. They rely on reporters like Kerry Eleveld, the Washington correspondent for the Advocate, and Lou Chibbarro Jr. and Chris Johnson of the Blade to cover the ins-and-outs of the LGBT agenda at the White House and Congress.

He's completely right, of course. I have greatly depended on the timely and found-nowhere-else reporting of the Washington Blade and Advocate. Any loss of original reporting by the LGBT press means less content for this here website thingy, or at the least, less content provided with the unique gay perspective.

While I occasionally write for print LGBT publications, most of my original writing here on JMG tends to be event coverage (rallies, marches, protests, vigils, etc) or items about my personal life that I (perhaps solipsistically) think might be interesting or relevant. With diminished hard news coverage from real gay reporters, this or any LGBT news blog will suffer - how much it will hurt remains to be seen. It worries me.

Swag Tuesday

For today's Swag Tuesday we've got Joel Derfner's memoir Swish: My Quest To Become The Gayest Person Ever and What Happened Instead, which is just out in paperback. This new edition features a foreword by Elton John, who says, "Swish is the best book about being gay that I've ever read. But it's not just about being gay; it's about being human."

Taking on some of the gayest things a person can do, SWISH is sure to entertain. From Dorothy Parker to religion to Tallulah Bankhead to therapy, Joel sheds a bright lavender light on gay life in our world at large. Among other themes, chapters include:

* On Casual Sex – Joel wakes up his inner slut in the Internet age and is shocked (shocked!) to find the life unfulfilling
* On Cheerleading – Joel cheers loud and proud with Cheer New York, (an adult cheerleading squad of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Straight people.)
* On Camp Camp – Despite a disastrous Jewish Community Center Day Camp experience in youth, Joel enrolls in Camp Camp, a weeklong summer camp in Maine for the LGBT community.
* On Dating – After a series of awful dates, Joel begins a blog he entitles “The Search for Love in Manhattan,” where he narrates his dating experiences—the good, the bad, and the scary.
* On Teaching Aerobics – Joel teaches aerobics to, among other people, patients at The Dorothea Dix Home for Assisted Living.
* On Go-Go Dancing –Joel navigates the seedier side of gay life as a sex object by dancing in his underwear for money from strangers.

Perhaps the most compelling essay is the last chapter, “On Exodus,” in which Joel infiltrates a reparative therapy group in North Carolina, where he finds himself among individuals trying to cure their gayness. You’ll be just as surprised as Joel was to see what he learns there. Provocative and at times moving, SWISH is at once a hilarious look at contemporary ideas about gay culture and a poignant exploration of identity that will speak to all readers—gay, straight, and in between.

You should definitely read Joel's story about Elton John trying to track him down. When we gave away the hardback version of Swish last year, I had this to say:

Joel's was one the first blogs I ever read, back before the start of JMG, and he's now a pal of mine who I've had the pleasure of sharing the stage with at several readings. You may remember his last book, the well-received Gay Haiku. I started reading Swish on a recent flight to Florida and was actually sorry to have the plane land, I was that engrossed in it. It's hilarious, touching, and profound - often in the same sentence.

Swish is available now at booksellers nationwide. Enter to win your copy by commenting on this post. Only enter once and please remember to leave your email address in the text of your comment. Entries close on midnight Wednesday, west coast time. Publicists: If you'd like to take part in Swag Tuesday on JMG, please email me.

The End Of Cursive

In the digital age, the teaching of how to write in cursive is fading from public schools. Some parents complain that nobody even gives grades in penmanship anymore (always my worst grade, after, uh, conduct), but teachers consider cursive a lost cause.

The decline of cursive is happening as students are doing more and more work on computers, including writing. In 2011, the writing test of the National Assessment of Educational Progress will require 8th and 11th graders to compose on computers, with 4th graders following in 2019. "We need to make sure they'll be ready for what's going to happen in 2020 or 2030," said Katie Van Sluys, a professor at DePaul University and the president of the Whole Language Umbrella, a conference of the National Council of Teachers of English. Handwriting is increasingly something people do only when they need to make a note to themselves rather than communicate with others, she said. Students accustomed to using computers to write at home have a hard time seeing the relevance of hours of practicing cursive handwriting. "They're writing, they're composing with these tools at home, and to have school look so different from that set of experiences is not the best idea," she said. Text messaging, e-mail, and word processing have replaced handwriting outside the classroom, said Cheryl Jeffers, a professor at Marshall University's College of Education and Human Services, and she worries they'll replace it entirely before long.

Occasionally I'll complain that I do so little writing with a pen that it feels like I'm losing the ability. Even a monthly rent check now feels laborious.

Swag Tuesday

Courtesy of Kensington Publishing and the author, today's Swag Tuesday prize is an autographed copy of Straight Lies, the latest novel from Lambda Literary Award winner Rob Byrnes.

STRAIGHT LIES is the story of a pair of small-time gay criminals who learn about a sex tape proving that the world's hottest openly gay celebrity is actually heterosexual. What should be a simple plan -- retrieve the tape, blackmail the celebrity, and live happily ever after -- gets complicated when the tape is left in the back of a cab. That sets in motion a madcap crime caper involving a tabloid gossip editor; a lesbian realtor and her spoiled girlfriend; a cop who is also an Internet predator, an alcoholic ex-cabbie, a boy toy whose IQ might be smaller than his waist size; a shallow social climber who has never crossed a bridge he didn't burn, and Tori Spelling.

We have three autographed copies of Straight Lies to give away. Enter to win by commenting on this post. Only enter once and please remember to leave an email address that you check frequently. Entries close at midnight on Wednesday, west coast time. Publicists: if you'd like to take part in Swag Tuesday on JMG, please email me.

2009 Lambda Literary Noms Announced

The nominations for the 2009 Lambda Literary Awards are out. Our pal Joel Derfner just got a nomination in for his book Swish: My Quest To Become The Gayest Person Ever, which you may recall was a hotly desired swag prize here on JMG last year. Congrats to Joel! Check out the rest of the nominations here.

Let's Talk About Pep, Baby

Last night Aaron and I attended the book launch party for Sandy "Pepa" Denton's memoir of her life in Salt-N-Pepa, the five-time Grammy winning rap trio that rocked the airwaves and dancefloors of the world beginning in 1985, selling over 13 million albums along the way. As you can see, both Sandy (Pepa ) and Cheryl James (Salt) look fantastic all these years later. (Deidra "Spinderella" Roper was not in attendance.) They were totally charming and kind and I even got to tell them that the gold record for Push It hung on the wall of my office in Miami.

Last night's event doubled as a fundraiser for LIFEBeat, the music industry's HIV/AIDS activism group, and a cause that Salt-N-Pepa strongly supported throughout their career. In 1991, their smash single Let's Talk About Sex was one of the first pop songs that explicitly referenced safer sex. An alternate version, Let's Talk About AIDS, was released to radio stations and was included as a b-side to the single.

Pepa's memoir, Let's Talk About Pep, featuring an introduction from Queen Latifah and an epilogue from Missy Elliot, is now available on Amazon and at booksellers nationwide. And as a peppery Swag Wednesday giftie, I have an autographed copy to give away. Comment on this post to enter and remember to leave an email address you check frequently.

Final Filth Recap

Big hugs to all my sweet peeps who came out for last night's final installment of Reading For Filth at Rapture Books: Little David, Dr. Jeff, Eddie, George, Chris, Craig, Wolf and everybody else. Thanks to the lesbian performers last night was easily the filthiest Filth that every filthed. (And usually it's the men who talk about fisting and watersports.)

I read The Mommy Box, a story that appeared on JMG in five episodes in late 2004, but was later taken down for another project. It's a story that is very uncharacteristic of my previous shows: tough material, grim resolution. And while it had a moment or two of comic relief, I had a hard time getting through some of it and my performance suffered for it, dammit.

However dark my piece was, the rest of the performers were a riot and I think the audience had a blast. Kudos to Joe Birdsong and his staff for a great run and here's hoping their plans to move Reading For Filth to a larger venue come to fruition. Rapture is having some great events before their April 24th "transition" (closing), so please drop by while you still can. They've got some major performers lined up over the next week or so.

BELOW: I'm throwing the other photo from the night out to tattooed love boy Jonny Tingle (his real name), who opened the show with his hilarious and erotic story Peter & The Wolf. I know you want a pic of Eric Leven too, but he's feeling overexposed on JMG these days. I kid, I kid.

Tonight:: Get Filthy

Please consider dropping by tonight's final installment of Dean Johnson's Reading For Filth: Queer Writers Read About Queer Sex at Rapture Books at 200 Avenue A in the East Village. The show starts at 8PM.

Tonight I'll be performing a piece that appeared on JMG several years ago, but was taken down in 2005. It's a tough story and quite different than the stuff I usually perform, so hopefully I can get through it. Also performing tonight is Eric Leven, Jonny Tingle, Chadwick Moore, Eileen Myles, and Kari Krome.

Filthy Reminder: Tomorrow 8PM

Final Filth: April 16th

Next Wednesday, April 16th, I'll be performing again at Rapture Book's Dean Johnson's Reading For Filth: Queer Writers Read About Queer Sex series. Joining me will be your favorite hairy hottie Eric Leven (left) in our fourth show together.

Sadly, this will be the last installment in the series for now, as Rapture Books will be closing on April 24th. Owner Joe Birdsong has promised to seek other venues for the unique shows that made Rapture a vibrant community space in its mere two years of existence. I'll announce the rest of the show's bill when I know it. Please consider attending.

Arthur C. Clarke, 90

Science fiction legend, the world's most famous futurologist, and gay man Sir Arthur C. Clarke has died at the age of 90 in Sri Lanka, his adopted home for the last 50 years. I began devouring Clarke's novels at the age of 12 when a friend pointed out that the spacey lyrics of David Bowie's 1971 song Oh! You Pretty Things were a reference to the plot of Clarke's novel Childhood's End. Intrigued, I checked the book out of the school library and it remains one of my all-time favorites to this day. Overlords! Scary!

By the end of high school I had read and reread almost all of Clarke's work, with special fondness for The Nine Billion Names Of God, The Sentinel (which is the short story that later became 2001: A Space Odyessy), and Rendevous With Rama, which will finally be made into a movie this year.

Clarke was known to be gay, but always remained coy with the press, never officially coming out. In his later years he was fond of saying, "At my age, now I'm just a little bit cheerful." In 1997, the Sunday Mirror claimed that Clarke had paid young boys for sex, a story that was later disproven by the Sri Lankan police, but still forced Clarke to postpone his knighthood ceremony with Prince Charles. With the stipulation that they not be published until 50 years after his death, his "Clarkives" should tell the story of his gayness, finally, even though it's a widely accepted fact among fans.

It was Clarke who in 1945 invented the concept of geostationary satellites in a paper titled Extra-Terrestrial Relays — Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage? When others later attempted to patent the concept, their applications were denied when Clarke's writing was cited as "prior art." When satellites are launched today, they are put into Clarke Orbit. Obviously, without satellites, most of today's communications, weather, and defense technologies would not be possible. Credit Sir Arthur C. Clarke, a gay man.

Daily Show To Get Funny Again

Our long national reality show nightmare is officially over.

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Striking Hollywood writers are going back to work. The Writers Guild of America said its members voted Tuesday to end their devastating, three-month strike that brought the entertainment industry to a standstill.

Writers will be back on the job Wednesday after voting in Beverly Hills and New York.

"At the end of the day, everybody won," Leslie Moonves, chief executive officer of CBS Corp., told The Associated Press. "It was a fair deal and one that the companies can live with, and it recognizes the large contribution that writers have made to the industry."

Moonves was among the media executives who helped broker a deal after talks between the guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents studios, collapsed in acrimony in December.

Residuals for TV shows and movies distributed online was the most contentious issue in the bitter dispute involving the 12,000-member union and the world's largest media companies and other producers.

Under a tentative contract approved Sunday by the union's board of directors, writers would get a maximum flat fee of about $1,200 for streamed programs in the deal's first two years and then get 2 percent of a distributor's gross in year three.

The CEOs of Fox and Disney lead the strike resolution team. Because we need more episodes of Hannah Montana, STAT!