Edmund White

You are currently browsing articles tagged Edmund White.

Mary Literary Launch Party

February 26, 2010 in Literature by smhayhurst | No comments

_MG_3375

The bow tied editor and publisher of ‘Mary,’ a literary quarterly, William Johnson, hosted a launch party Sunday at Duplex for the most recent issue. Johnson, who we met at the Fine and Dandy launch party in June, spoke with Homo-Neurotic last month about the DUMBO-based magazine that features gay writing and art. Check out excerpts from the magazine after the jump, including an interview with gay hip-hop artist Last Offence (Facebook page, Myspace page), the coverboy for this issue who joined the handsome crowd in attendance.

Nick Burd makes ‘OUT 100′

November 16, 2009 in Print by Antonio Cerna | No comments

Photographed by Jason Bell in New York City

Photo: Jason Bell for OUT

HN friend and contributor, Nick Burd, makes the OUT 100 List this week. Full disclosure, Nick Burd is perhaps one of the smartest and chillest guys we’ve ever met– so we’re really excited for him. Read more about Burd’s novel, “The Vast Fields of Ordinary” here. Purchase a copy here

When Burd’s coming-of-age (and coming-out) novel The Vast Fields of Ordinary debuted in May it proved anything but typical—The New York Times hailed it as “fascinating and dreamy” and “the best kind of first novel.” An alum of the University of Iowa, the New School, and the indie rock band Burn Disco Burn, 29-year-old Burd (right) is a program manager at the literary/human rights organization PEN American Center and is now at work on a new novel he calls “a noirish tale about a gay grifter in Recession-era New York City.”

Other HN favorites include Brad Goreski (”Rachel Zoe Project”), Michael Urie (”Ugly Betty”), poet Mark Doty, Adam Lambert (”American Idol”), Edmund White, Felice Picano, Andrew Holleran, Pedro Almodóvar and, of course, the charming Neil Patrick Harris. [Source: OUT]

GANYMEDE #5

September 21, 2009 in Print by Antonio Cerna | No comments

Ganymede_5_Portolio

THE 344 | The latest issue of “Ganymede” — NYC’s literary/art print journal “by and for gay men” — includes essays by Edmund White, poetry by founder John Stahle, a serialized novel by Scott Hess titled “Bergdorf Boys” (a “dark” and “witty” novel about NYC’s gay party boys) and images from Parisian photographers. Periodicals like this one (”Ganymede” is published 4 times a year) are rare anymore. Partially, because the publishing industry in general is suffering, but also because fewer and fewer of us take the time to enjoy (relish even) the activity of reading words on paper. Further, most magazines aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. Many “books” — industry speak for mags — that target gay men in particular are cramped full of advertising, or stories that are outdated by the time they arrive in the mail. Perhaps this is why John Stahle’s publication contains a healthy combination of the new (i.e., “Bergdorf Boys”) and the old (a 1917 short story by Susan Glaspell). It is easy to see how these premier issues would become collectors items — they’re timeless, in a way, and timely at the same time.

Queer Literati @ Lambda Literary Awards (EXCLUSIVE)

May 29, 2009 in Literature by smhayhurst | 1 comment

_mg_6733

Authors Andrew Holleran, Felice Picano, and Edmund White -- founders of the legendary Violet Quill Club -- honored @ Lambda Literary Awards Thursday night in New York (Photo: SMHayhurst)

_09

_033 _058

_103 _mg_6812

Some of the biggest names in GLBT literature held court at the 21st annual Lamba Literary Awards hosted by Scott Nevins on Thursday night. Their names may not be familiar but their literary impact cannot be underscored enough. Everyone from past Lammy winners like Lambda Board Chair Christopher Rice, to our current obsession Dennis Cooper, to Edmund White, to one of our favorites Andrew Holleran, to Felice Picano, to Scott Heim, to up-and-coming new voices like Shawn Ruff and my friend and NYTimes columnist Bob Morris. If you’ve never read any of the nominated books, I suggest you take a look at the winners list. You won’t be disappointed. Who says 20-somethings don’t read? We saw plenty of young faces. And pictures don’t lie. Photos by Homo-Neurotics SMHayhurst and Shutterbug.

MORE PICS POST-JUMP.

Cute Boys @ ‘Ugly Man’ Book Launch

May 28, 2009 in Literature by smhayhurst | 4 comments

_mg_6251
_mg_6198 _mg_6212
_mg_6215 _mg_6200

Thanks to the queer and queer-friendly literartti who joined us last night for the Ugly Man book launch sponsored by Homo-Neurotic and Harper-Perennial.  Author Dennis Cooper flew in from Paris to sign books but the party primarily remained outside in the smoking section, also known as the corner of E 4th and 2nd Ave., just beyond the awning of The Boiler Room. Inside, revelers were treated to a special performance by burlesque madame, Jo Boobs. At first titillated by her sultry moves, the primarily gay audience seemed to lose a bit of interest when they realized it featured actual tits. Jake Silbermann who plays Noah on As The World Turns and lit-star Edmund White were also there.

Be sure to check out our interview with Cooper last week; it’ll tickle your pickle.

Photos by SMHayhurst.

Andrew Holleran’s ‘Dancer from the Dance’

February 20, 2009 in Literature by Antonio Cerna | 3 comments

dancer-from-the-dance

O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

Those are the closing lines from which Andrew Holleran’s novel “Dancer from the Dance” takes its name. And for those who pretend to read, this is a novel every self-respecting homo-neurotic should at least be familiar with. Holleran introduced me to New York City. That is, to a certain kind of New York–the glamorous (or so I imagined), underground queer scene of the late 70’s.

Along with Edmund White (A Boy’s Own Story) and Larry Kramer (Faggots), Andrew Holleran completed the trifecta (like it or not) of influential gay writers in the years immediately after Stonewall. They broke new ground by showcasing the very lives that many other authors hoped to suppress or ignored all together.

Holleran’s novel however, was very different. “Dancer from the Dance” is both literary and campy; both critical and glamorizing. In that way, Holleran’s “Dancer” is similar to Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” (you’ve heard of him haven’t you?). Holleran once said about his novel, ”It’s criticizing something at the same time as making it so alive that you want to be part of it.”

Don’t expect to see David Leavitt and Edmund White at the queer publishing awards

March 27, 2008 in Literature by Antonio Cerna | 2 comments

UPDATED: It’s red carpet season for the queer book industry. Both the Lambda Literary Foundation and the Publishing Triangle will give out awards to the most notable GLBT books published in 2007. But don’t expect designer-clad celebrities, ravenous paparazzi, lavish after parties, or a red carpet for that matter. Still despite the lack of glamour, both Lambda and Triangle bring attention to authors and writing (especially books by smaller publishers) that many may have overlooked. The ceremonies may be staid, but the works they represent are stellar – even if books by two of the best known queer-lit icons – David Leavitt and Edmund White – aren’t nominated.

‘Hotel de Dream’ by Edmund White

October 4, 2007 in Literature by Antonio Cerna | No comments

QUEER LITTLE BOY TART | Apparently Ed White writes fiction. Although you’d be hard pressed to realize this reading his interviews alone. He’s famously “into” himself. And for someone who’s done everything with everyone, who can fault him.

Painted boy Bobby Kendall in James Bidgood's "Pink Narcissus"

In ‘Hotel de Dream,’ White “slips into the shoes” of a tubercular Stephen Crane as he dictates the story of 16-year-old rent boy, Elliot, to his common law wife, and former lady of the night, Cora. If the tale sounds outlandish, it is, writes Niel Bartlett in the Guardian: “a 21st-century gay writer writing about a 19th–century straight man with a terminal disease writing about a straight man falling in love with a queer teenager with a terminal disease.” Whew.

However fabricated, “Hotel de Dream” is well researched and thoughtful according to Morris Dickstein of Book Forum, “it is an ingenious, fully imagined, and utterly winning piece of work.”

“I was very interested in the idea of a straight man looking at gay life,” White tells New York Magazine.

“An echo chamber of allusion,”describes Sophie Gee in the International Herald Tribune, the novel is “intoxicatingly hedonistic and fearsomely bleak.” Yet it’s in the The Painted Boy—the novel within the novel—that White’s classic sexy writing emerges.
 

"The Master of Repression" Henry James (1843-1916). If you haven't read James, and you know you haven't, you may want to Netflix The Wings of the Dove (1991) and The Heiress (1949).

But Hotel de Dream is also about literary friendship and betrayal. White “skewers” Henry James as “the master of repression,” argues Christopher Benfey for Slate.com. Cora describes “The Master” as being “queer as football bat.” In the end, James commits “the greatest imaginable act of literary betrayal,” writes Angel Gurría-Quintana in the Financial Times.

It is James who destroys the manuscript for “A Painted Boy” after Crane’s death. Still, writes Quintana, the novel is an “illuminating” commentary on storytelling and the distance between fiction and life.

Read the FIRST CHAPTER at NYTimes.com. For a list of White’s favorites visit Newsweek.com.