Look for me this summer as I take my new novel, "The Penalty for Holding," on the road. This Saturday, June 3, I’ll be among the vendors at "LOFT Pride 2017" – the LOFT’s third annual Pride celebration – from noon to 5 p.m. at 252 Bryant Ave. in White Plains. This is a fun event, with food, music, a costume contest, a pet parade and more – rain or shine.
Then join me June 13 at Bloomingdale’s White Plains from 5 to 8 p.m. at the "Fashion Food Faire," presented by T. Fraser Productions. I'll be "modeling" an outfit at Bloomie's La Provence restaurant. But also check out my table where I'll sign copies of "The Penalty for Holding" as well as "Water Music," the first book in my series "The Games Men Play."
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Read MoreThree years ago, I took my novel “Water Music” – the first in my series “The Games Men Play” – to the New York Rainbow Book Fair and had a blast.
The ninth annual Fair – held on Saturday at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice – proved no less exhilarating. (Pic at right, by Gina Gouveia.) ...
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Read MoreYours Truly (and Humbly) is excited to be back at the Rainbow Book Fair in Manhattan Saturday, April 29. The noon to 6 p.m. event, billed as “the largest LGBT book event in America,” is always a day of thought-provoking readings and absorbing encounters with readers.
Three years ago, I had a blast at the event with “Water Music,” the first novel in my series “The Games Men Play,” about power, dominance, rivalry and jealousy. The well-received “Water Music” (Greenleaf Book Group) tells the story of four gay athletes and how their professional rivalries color their personal relationships.
Now I’m back at the Fair with “The Penalty for Holding” (Less Than Three Press, May 10), about a gay, biracial quarterback’s search for identity, acceptance, success and love amid the brutal beauty of the NFL. ...
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Read MoreCulture vulture that I am, I somehow missed the cultural appropriation wars that have erupted. That’s what you get for going on vacation and unplugging.
First, novelist Lionel Shriver apparently set off a firestorm at the Brisbane Writer’s Festival with a defense of artists using other people’s races, ethnicities, sexualities, etc. in their creations. Then Claudio Gatti outed the comfortable Roman translator Anita Raja as the author of the pseudonymous Elena Ferrante novels about the friendship between two poor Neapolitan girls.
Meanwhile, Bristol University cancelled a production of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Aida,” because students protested white people playing Egyptians and Ethiopians. ...
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Read MoreIt is a truth universally acknowledged that an author of good fortune – or, let’s face it, no fortune at all – must be in want of an audience. And so I repaired once again, dear readers, to The DC Center for the LGBT Community’s OutWrite Book Festival in Washington, this time to read from my novel “The Penalty for Holding” – about a gay, biracial quarterback’s quest for love in the NFL. It is slated to be published next year by Less Than Three Press.
But this was also a busman’s holiday as well, as I had in mind visiting two exhibits I longed to see – “The Greeks: Agamemnon to Alexander the Great,” at the National Geographic Museum through Oct. 10, and “Will & Jane: Shakespeare, Austen and the Cult of Celebrity,” at the Folger Shakespeare Library through Nov. 6. What is it that the late Nora Ephron said: “Everything is copy”? Everywhere I went reminded me of what it means to be a writer. ...
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Read MoreRecently, Ken Valenti – a colleague from our days at the Gannett newspapers – graciously asked me if I would read at a gathering of his group For the Love of Words at R Patisserie Café & Tea Boutique in New Rochelle, N.Y., a most collegial coffeehouse. Naturally, I said yes. What writer doesn’t love the sound of her own words, her own voice?
As usual, I practiced my go-to selection from “Water Music,” the first novel in my series “The Games Men Play,” in which tennis player Alí Iskandar becomes involved in an international incident that draws him into the circle of his soon-to-be lover, tennis star Alex Vyranos. (Given the R-rated nature of the novel, there are not many easily available go-to sections.)
But something happened as I prepared to leave for the reading: I turned on the TV to learn of the Brussels bombing. ...
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Read MoreFirst it was Playboy doing away with nude pinups. Now the 2016 Pirelli calendar has eschewed the naked ladies – well, mostly – for something different, courtesy of photographer Annie Leibovitz.
Think Patti Smith as imagined by John Singer Sargent, Fran Lebowitz as a latter-day Georges Sand and model Natalia Vodianova with her youngest in a pose that despite her bare leggy-ness echoes a Raphael Madonna and Child.
Besides Vodianova, other examples of fleshiness are a topless Serena Williams, back to the camera in a heroic lunge; and Amy Schumer in panties and heels, comfortable with her stomach rolls as she holds a paper cup. ...
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