Tag: saints and sinners

Featured S&S Author No. 1

I love this photo that I took:

of author William J. Mann

One of the reasons that I, and so many others, mourn the demise of independent GLBT bookstores is because of experiences like the one I had when I was introduced to the writing of Bill Mann. I went into Houston’s Crossroads bookstore one day, where the biography Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines was prominently featured on a display table.

I’d never heard of William Haines (or, at that time, William J. Mann), so without Crossroads, I might not have found this story of a man who was the number-one leading box office star in America in 1930. The reason I–and maybe you–never heard of Haines is because he walked away from a career in show business rather than pretend he wasn’t homosexual and living with his partner, Jimmie Shields. Considering that in 2007, the Hollywood closet still exists, with its doors tightly shut, Haines’s story is an amazing one of courage and honesty.

That book led me to the novels and other work of Bill Mann, including some of these:

You can read descriptions of all the books on Mann’s web site.

I was fortunate enough to attend his master class at Saints and Sinners, in which he talked about the unique challenges facing those who want to write biographies and memoirs. I also got him to sign my brand new copy of his latest novel:

Having met the men in this novel in The Men From the Boys, and caught up with them again in Where the Boys Are (the cover of which remains one of my all-time favorites ever), I was eager to see how they’re doing in Men Who Love Men. It’s good to know they’re still around, grappling with love, romance, friendship, and commitment as they settle into their mid-thirties and forties. Now that I know Mann has done right by them, I can get back to work on my own novels.

I love today

Seriously, I love today. I’ve been writing, and I took a break to print out instructions for e-galleys from Haworth for Moonlight and Roses because Tim and I need to make sure our fourteen lovely writers’ work is accurate by May 30. Then Fedex showed up with the galleys from When You Don’t See Me, which are due back to Kensington on May 31.

May I just say that there is nothing on this planet I’d rather be doing than writing, editing, and reading galleys? I may not be rich, but I love my work.

As a bonus? A third FARB sighting was sent in by another quick photographer in the French Quarter. Apparently, Famous Author Rob Byrnes is neither Asian nor Equine. He’s still as handsome as ever, but…different…somehow.
see Farb No. 3 here

It’s the heat AND the humidity

I know people who live in other parts of the country often shake their heads at Southerners and think we’re lazy. We really aren’t. Things just have to move at a slower pace down here because it’s too damn hot, and especially in our coastal cities, too muggy, to run around like mice hamsters on crack. I think it’s because we do approach life a little slowly that we give more time to conversation and storytelling, and those are things I treasure about being a Southerner.

You’re probably going to get weary of all my NOLA babbling, but there’s just SO MUCH I want to talk about, not to mention SO MANY PHOTOS. I’m spreading it out over many posts as I take breaks from writing, plus there’s a lot to process. The speakers I heard at Saints & Sinners were lovely. The parties were fun. Just hanging out with (alphabetically) David, Lisa, Marika, Mark, Shannon, and Tim (and sometimes Dash!) was amazing. We talked about family, friends, books, writing, traveling, feelings, experiences–it was funny and serious and enlightening. The party at Pat and Michael’s with Greg and Paul and Marika and all the other guests was also good conversation. I met so many new people over my five days, and there are some of them I want to talk about in more detail.

In addition to all the good conversation, some of the things that I enjoyed about being in New Orleans with Lisa (Midwest) and David (Northeast) were:

Hearing David mimic their tour guide, who seems to have put on quite a show as he escorted them around New Orleans. Clearly, he was a man who made the most of a captive audience.

Seeing Lisa eat her first grits. (And the grits are good at the Clover Grill!)

Watching them come to regard palmetto bugs in the true Southern way: as simply another pesky fact of life and better off ignored.
here be photos

When writers collide (and a FARB sighting)

I have to confess that I don’t know a lot about the Algonquin Round Table or the group of twenty-plus individuals who were part of it. (I still haven’t seen Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle.) The first big names that come to mind if I think of the Round Table are Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, and Tallulah Bankhead. In fact, until a few minutes ago when I was researching Edna Ferber, I didn’t realize she was one of the Algonquin regulars. I know this is a gap in my literary history, but there’s just never enough time to catch up on the trillions of things I don’t know.

read more about the trillions of things I don’t know

How is it possible?

I was at some event at Saints & Sinners over the weekend, where I began to speak with sadness about how Famous Author Rob Byrnes was unable to attend the festival.

A person–I don’t even know who he was–turned and said, “Famous Author Rob Byrnes IS here.”

I rolled my eyes and said, “In spirit, yes. He’s everywhere. Like herpes, but different. However, the actual FAMOUS AUTHOR Rob Byrnes is not here IN THE FLESH.”

The stranger got quite testy with me and said, “You’re wrong.”

Wrong? Wrong? Did he not realize he was speaking to AN ARIES?

“I doubt it,” I said dismissively (whatever David Puterbaugh says about using adverbs) and turned away.

“I saw him. In the Quarter. Ask anyone. Famous Author Rob Byrnes IS HERE THIS WEEKEND.”

(It really annoys me when people other than me, dooce, and Andy from the Timothy James Beck books speak Uppercase.)

“Whatever,” I said, because it remains the snappiest comeback of all time. Then, being Miss Smug of the World, I added loudly, “If anyone has photographic proof that Famous Author Rob Byrnes is IN NEW ORLEANS at Saints & Sinners, let them deliver it to my e-mail. I’ll publish it ON MY LIVEJOURNAL.”

WHY did I do that to myself? The photos are rolling in.

More to come…

Live from New Orleans

Have you missed me? The correct answer is a resounding, YES!

Tim and I are not willing to pay our hotel another $20 a day so that we can have wireless, when the City of New Orleans offers it free. However, we haven’t been able to get access from inside the hotel. I’m playing hooky from Saints & Sinners to get ONLINE from CC’s Coffeehouse on the corner of Royal and St. Philip. Because if I’d gone much longer without Internet access and LiveJournal I might have had to be hospitalized. Tim, who’s being more responsible and attending a panel, may bring his laptop and join me later.

As always, I’ve fallen in love with New Orleans. You don’t have to be a big party girl to succumb to the city’s countless charms. But it does help to be staying in a fabulous hotel–well, minus the Internet issue and the post-prom teens who turned Tim into the Terrifying Monster from the Land of I-Want-To-Sleep.

Last night we went to a little soiree in a fabulous apartment with a view, two wonderful hosts, and a small group of GLBT publishing’s finest and funnest. In fact, the evening was so nice that Tim and I didn’t mind that we had to practically crawl on all fours to the door so we wouldn’t pass out when we looked down from the outdoor walkway. There’s something really comforting about having a friend and writing partner with whom one can share neuroses like fear of heights.

I’d like to say the less literal high point of the trip was the grits from the Clover Grill, but I got there too late and had to settle for hash browns. Anyway, it would be a lie, no matter how terrific the grits, because OMG, I’ve met David and Shannon and Lisa and Marika and gotten to hang out with Mark again (GREAT master class with author Jim Grimsley, sitting on the front row with Mark like teacher’s pets/acolytes). Whatever expectations I had before meeting D/S/L/M and reuniting with Mark have not been met–they’ve been exceeded. Later tonight after beignets and cafe au lait at the Cafe Du Monde, I’ll get my dog fix when we meet Marika’s handsome Dash.

On the way to CC’s, I saw a little boy sitting in the lotus position on top of his father’s parked car, looking very Buddhalike. A woman waiting on a stoop asked if he could tell her future, and he said, “Yes. Work. Work. Work. And more work.” While the woman laughed, his father sighed and said, “Same future as me.” It’s hard to think about working as I sit at my corner window and watch pretty girls in straw hats and white linen dresses walk by, men holding hands with their boyfriends, and people just inhaling the magic of the Quarter.

But I do need to get some work done. There’ll be lots of photos and other such things to come. For now, I just wanted to check in, read some of your journals/blogs, and say again that Paul J. Willis knows how to host a literary festival and that Greg Herren is one super friend for all he’s done–even above and beyond helping us find THE SOURCE of BBQ Fritos. Those of you who aren’t here? The Crescent City beckons with a whisper of Next year.

Oh. And David and Shannon may even sober up eventually. 😉


Yesterday’s breakfast in Jackson Square Park, where my conversation with an elderly black man made me nostalgic for days of old. Until his cell phone rang and he had to leave, but he gave me his Times Picayune newspaper first. New world meets old world…


Looking in a window and thinking of Audrey Hepburn looking in a window…


Painting in the window of the Rodrique Gallery.


Flowers for tomorrow for all you mothers.