Charles Flowers is a great choice to lead the Lambda Lit Foundation. He's a great writer and queer-lit organizer, and a very sweet guy. I have a poem of his that I'd love to have included in Bearotica. Thank Goddess that now it seems that LLF is engaged and moving ahead. I'll talk about my recommendations to Charles later and his response, but for now I'll just mention that I requested the Foundation to write a formal letter of support (for me and my books) / protest (censuring the Boats Books & Bigots censors). Had they made this announcement three weeks earlier, I might have managed to get it in time for the BBB event itself, but later is better than never.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AskLambda@earthlink.net
Katherine V. Forrest, kvforrest1@aol.com
Lambda Literary Foundation Announces
Charles Flowers As Its New Executive Director
New York/San Francisco, October 14, 2005-The Lambda Literary Foundation announced
today that Charles Flowers will serve as its new executive director, effective
immediately. The appointment comes after several months of reorganization and
extensive planning for the future by the Board of Directors.
“We are enormously excited about this appointment,” said Katherine V. Forrest,
president of the Board. “We feel fortunate indeed to have found an executive
director of this caliber to lead us into a new era for the Foundation. Charles
brings a depth of knowledge and immersion in our literature, a wide range of
experience in all facets of publishing, a high energy presence, and a vision of the
Foundation's future that we fully share. Under his leadership the Foundation will
expand its role, becoming the dynamic and highly visible service organization our
entire literary community deserves.”
A fifteen year-plus veteran of publishing and arts administration, Flowers has
served as the co-chair of the Publishing Triangle, the association of lesbians and
gay men in publishing, and was most recently the Associate Director of the Academy
of American Poets, which he joined in 1999. He is the founding editor of Bloom, a
remarkable journal for lesbian and gay writing that Edmund White has called “the
most exciting new queer literary publication to emerge in years.” As a book and
journal editor he has worked with such authors as Urvashi Vaid, E. Lynn Harris, Joan
Larkin, Michelangelo Signorile, Sarah Schulman, Andrew Holleran, Keith Boykin,
Minnie Bruce Pratt, and Stacey D'Erasmo, among many others. He is the co-author of
Golden Men: The Power of Gay Midlife (with Harold Kooden, Ph.D.), and his poems have
appeared in Gulf Coast, Barrow Street, Indiana Review, and Puerto del Sol. He
graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vanderbilt University and received his M.F.A. in
Poetry from the University of Oregon.
“I am thrilled to be part of the Lambda team as the Foundation enters its second
decade,” Flowers adds. “I value the work of Lambda and welcome its goal of being a
complete service organization for the entire GLBTQ literary community-authors,
editors, booksellers, educators, librarians, and especially, the GLBTQ reader.”
Plans for the 2006 Lambda Literary Awards and a dynamic, new website (to be launched
in January) have already begun, while the Foundation continues to review the
viability of two of its publications, Lambda Book Report and James White Review.
Flowers urges the literary community to contact Lambda during its planning. “In the
weeks ahead, we will be sending a survey to our members as we review our current
programs and explore new initiatives,” Flowers explained. “We value your opinions
and feedback. Let us hear from you.”
***
Founded in 1996, Lambda Literary Foundation exists to celebrate and enhance GLBT
literature in all its dimensions. The Lambda Literary Awards, the most visible
expression of its mission, recognize annually the most significant books published
in more than twenty categories, from fiction to poetry to spiritual writing to best
debut novel. Currently, the Foundation is engaged in extensive planning for new
programs and initiatives.
To sign up for future updates from Lambda, please send an email to
asklambda@earthlink.net.
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