New Romantic slap, Judi, green VPL, Scottish lesbian secessionists and a "Fuck It" list

So there we were (our Paul, little Tony and I; and Emma, Toby, Bryanne, Simon, and Lauren/Rebecca and her coterie of "safety gays" including songwriter Jake Hook), on Paddy's Day at Polari ("London's peerless gay literary salon"). And Paul Burston, our host, was all in green - in a suit with trousers so tight one could see his Leprechaun. A perfect start to another evening of cultural wonderment!



Our opening entertainment was from Mr Carl Stanley, former New Romantic and make-up and hair artist to the stars, who read for us from his as-yet-unpublished memoir, punningly titled Kiss and Make Up, from whence comes this small extract about his (ahem!) fabulous mother:

“What’s a hysterectomy?” I’d asked.

“Somethin’ I should’ve `ad twelve years ago,” had been her flippant comeback as she’d pinned her commandments to the cork note-board.

Later, I’d trawled through the ‘H’s in my Collins Gem: hysterectomy n. the surgical removal of the womb.

"Hang on a mo’, if I’m eleven an’ it takes nine months to have a baby..." I’d thought...

Frosty and irascible, she’d never been especially likeable, but that’d been the cherry on a gateau of dislike that’d started two Christmases earlier in 1978 when the Girl’s World I’d written Santa for wasn’t under the tree. I’d hunted high-and-low lest he’d hid it elsewhere, and she got so annoyed with me badgering where else could it be that she said nowhere because he wasn’t real.

I should’ve known really, as she’d never have allowed anyone in Wellington boots to step on her Axminster, not even a saint...

The book sounds a hoot, and I hope it gets a publisher soon. You can read more at his Authonomy page.



The charming Nicolas Collins - a man whose online profile is practically invisible, sharing as he does a name with a popular electronic musician and the son of 80s pop-shame Phil, and the title of whose book of poetry is more a topic of conversation on MumsNet than findable on Google - was next onto the stage, reading a selection of pithy and sometimes rather wonderful poetry from his (self-published) anthology Washing the Duvet, tackling love, sex, relationships and everything in-between. We loved it.

Nevertheless, no matter how excellent our first two readers were, they were about to be upstaged! Forcing Paul B's hand once again to allow her into the limelight, everyone's favourite Barbara Brownskirt arrived - virtually at first, on her Big Day Out - a tribute to Judi Dench:

Barbara Brownskirt's Big Day Out

As she continued ("in the flesh" this time) with her deadpan readings about failure and obsession, we laughed till our faces hurt! Always a joy, Miss Karen McLeod's "miserable militant lesbian" creation appears to have developed a rather wonderful life of her own. And more power to her cagoule-clad elbow, I say...

We needed a fag and a drink break after that.



Actress, producer and writer Miss Angela Clerkin opened the second half with a corker of a reading, first from her short story The "Fuck It" List. It's a brilliant tale, and was one of the highlights of the compendium Men and Women (edited by Mr Burston), the launch of which I went to way back in 2011. And here she is, reading from the story, at that very event:



She's a great storyteller, to be sure. And a great dancer of the jig, too!

However, our "leading lady" on this occasion was a pioneer who has been creating stories for a little while longer - Ms Maureen Duffy.



The first gay woman in British public life today to be open about her sexuality (on TV as well as in her work), before homosexuality was decriminalised at the end of the 60s; she was an early participant in the CND marches; first president of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA); is a staunch campaigner for the rights of gays, women, and oppressed minorities in general (and animals); a fellow of King’s College London and a Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature; and the author of 33 published works, including seven collections of poetry, non-fiction and 16 plays for stage, screen and radio. Quite a record.

She read some extracts from one of those works, her latest, In Times Like These - a lesbian love story set in a dystopian future following a successful independence campaign by Scotland from the United Kingdom and the havoc that it wreaks. And it was enchanting to listen to her.



This was yet another evening of first-class literature, and I had missed it terribly - having been in absentia for the last one (and I was told off by that event's headliner Val (VG) Lee for not being there!) thanks to its clash with the end-of-LGBT-History-Month ball in Camden.

Next month's is quite a line-up. On the bill on 28th April are Sophie Ward, Rebecca Chance, LaJohn Joseph, Kiki Archer and Booker Prize-nominated author and journalist Philip Hensher, and I can't wait!

Polari

Sporno, unfaithful husbands, human trafficking and a shortlist

The first of our Autumn/Winter season planned events was the return of Polari at the South Bank last night - and a great evening it was, too!

Once more Mr Burston pulled out all of the stops with a varied line-up of readers, opening with the lovely Justin David (who at his last appearance, at Polari's third birthday last November was calling himself Justin Ward).



His semi-autobiographical tale Unicorn, set in the 80s and all about knitting and grandparents and an uncle who calls him "nancy-boy", was charming, funny and made me want to read more. This is, however, just a short story from a collection of works by Goldsmiths College alumni - I wonder if Mr David will develop it into a novel? I hope so!



Helen Smith's book Alison Wonderland is described in its sleevenotes thus:

After her husband leaves her for another woman, twenty-something Londoner Alison Temple impulsively applies for a job at the very P.I. firm she hired to trap her philandering ex. She hopes it will be the change of scene she so desperately needs to move on with her shattered life. At the all-female Fitzgerald’s Bureau of Investigation, she spends her days tracking lost objects and her nights shadowing unfaithful husbands. But no matter what the case, none of her clients can compare to the fascinating characters in her personal life.

Her reading from it was equally bizarre, in which the preamble involved women transforming into aubergines and pumpkins, before she even got to the story of her character's disappointment that the girl her hubby is having an affair with is skinny and plain, not glamorous and exotic as she had hoped... Funny and weird at the same time.



Concluding the first half was a man whose writing I have always loved - the superbly cynical author, journalist and some-time broadcaster, and purported inventor of the term "metrosexuality", Mr Mark Simpson. He chose to focus on one of his favourite subjects, the ostensibly straight sportsman who deliberately and provocatively courts "gay icon" status. Fab stuff indeed! (And his gruff, pumped-up appearance set poor John-John's legs-a-quiver, too!)

You can read the essay, brilliantly titled Sporno, on Mark's blog.



After the break, it was the turn of the artist formerly known as "London Preppy" (who blogged his short stories anonymously for several years), the gorgeous Greek stud-muffin North Morgan. Mr Morgan has just published his very first novel Exit Through the Wound, and read a couple of excellent short extracts from it. Here he is, in the flesh (oo-er):



Following swiftly on, it was the turn of the "man of the moment", Mr Jonathan Kemp.



His debut novel London Triptych won The Authors’ Club Best First Novel award, was shortlisted for the The Green Carnation Prize for modern gay writing, and is now shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize (more of which later). I have just started reading it, and it is indeed gripping stuff. Mr Kemp read a perfectly pithy extract, followed by a teaser for his second novel Twentysix, which is due out in November 2011. We loved it!

Here is a snippet of London Triptych, courtesy of Mich Jamieson and none other than Mr David Hoyle:

Jonathan Kemp - London Triptych

Our final reader was the stately Maureen Duffy - a stalwart of gay rights activism since the debates around homosexual law reform in the 1960s, she is said to have been Britain’s first lesbian to "come out" in public.



Her literary career is equally extensive, and she chose to read from her most recent work The Orpheus Trail, a murder mystery involving occultism and human trafficking of young boys. The extract she read involved the complex relationship that blossomed between one of the young boys and the archaeologist hero of the story. Beautifully written, and certainly intriguing...

And so it was time for Paul Burston to announce the shortlist for the Polari First Book Prize! The entries are:

• >Love, Hope & High Heels by Clare Campbell (Tollington Press)
• Autofellatio by James Maker (self published ebook , now in print from BigFib)
• Homo Jihad by Timothy Graves (Paradise Press)
• Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar by DJ Connell (Blue Door/Harper Collins)
• London Triptych by Jonathan Kemp (Myriad Editions)

According to the press release: "The shortlisted titles consist of a poetry collection, a memoir and three novels. Of the five selected books, three are published by small independent presses, while one - Autofellatio - was self-published as an ebook before finding a publisher."

A good list, an excellent evening, and I look forward with anticipation to October's outing for "London's peerless gay literary salon", with Man Booker Prize-nominated author Philip Hensher already announced!

Polari

Pride, striptease and Jesus's skid-mark

Despite the warm weather that evidently keeps even the stalwart literary queens away from events in downstairs bars mid-week, a reasonably healthy crowd eventually turned up for Paul Burston's Polari "Love & Pride Night" last night, making for yet another excellent evening's entertainment.

True to the theme, I dug out my historic collection of Gay Pride badges dating back to 1991 to celebrate the occasion.

Once the music and the cocktails flowed sufficiently, it was time for the readers to take the stage. First up, VG (Val) Lee read another hilarious story from her anthology As You Step Outside, this time about the dressing of her mother's body for the funeral, and the strange mix of emotions this brings out. I love her writing (having heard her first at Polari "Stalkers' Night" back in January), and this tale was enough to persuade me to buy the book - get your copy from Amazon today!


Val, Maureen and friend

Maureen Duffy, explaining that publishers prefer authors to read from their latest works (and fighting the microphone that has a mind of its own), took us through a piece from hers - The Orpheus Trail - a revelation by an eminent archaeologist that his forbidden feelings for a young Arab boy had discredited his career, yet provided him with something worthwhile (and entirely innocent) in the process - a feeling of love. Check out Maureen's website for more...



After a break, it was the turn of the boys. Anthony McDonald read from his new sequel to his bestseller Adam, titled Blue Sky Adam, and chose a charming extract about the awkward meeting again of two teenage lovers after a period of time; their circumstances may have changed but their feelings for each other evidently have not. Read an extract on Amazon.

Paul followed, with a hilarious excerpt from his early work Shameless evoked a fabulous (and ever-so-slightly familiar) scenario, as early 90s queens, popping pills and dancing in a tent at Gay Pride, confuse the real meaning of "pride" with the party and the music - the drugs may have changed, but the shallowness of queens today has not!



Michael Arditti (losing the battle with the dodgy microphone) read acapella (with his marvellous vocal projection) a fascinating extract from his latest The Enemy Of The Good, a complex story about the trials and tribulations of a very mixed-up family and their clash with faith, sex, death and relationships - and in this piece the desire of an HIV-positive man to conceive a baby with his dead brother's widow, and the tragic realisation that he cannot do this, even for love. The Enemy of The Good on Amazon

But before our top billing reader Dan Mathews (activist and vice chairman of anti-fur campaigners PETA) took to the stage, it was time for a special treat as our host (and stripper for the evening) made his own very special commitment to the cause:

Paul the Stripper

Dan, an imposing figure, took us through parts of his memoir about campaigning and the trouble it can get you into. Not only did he harbour a long-standing notion that in order to back up PETA's claim that Jesus was indeed a vegetarian someone should ask to test the "skiddy" on the Turin Shroud (!!), but surprisingly (unsurprisingly, some might say, given the previous anecdote) he was once committed to a mental asylum in France for his views.

He obviously survived the experience, and was thankfully here to tell the tale. Committed: A Rabble-rouser's Memoir is available on Amazon.



Despite not exactly being surrounded by the coterie of megastars we had hoped for (Tasty Tim is no substitute for the rumoured Chrissie Hynde or Kate Moss in my book!!), Dan is a charming man, circulating the room afterwards and talking to everyone, including Christopher Bryant of Polari Magazine, who was thrilled to arrange an interview for a future issue of the mag. I finished off having a couple of drinkies afterwards with Mr Bryant - a lovely chap - and in all, had a superb evening!

Roll on Polari "Porn Night" on 15th July!!

Polari

Dick-lit and glitterballs

Whoever would have expected that a night dedicated to talking about books -even gay ones - would be such a success? The glitter-ball-filled Freedom Bar in Soho was packed to the gunnels last night for just that - the Between the Covers event (organised as part of LGBT History Month 2008).

Rupert Smith as MC was a perfect representative of his "organisation" The House of Homosexual Culture. Waspish, witty and bedecked in a foppish cravat, he held the evening together with aplomb.

One of the original ground-breaking lesbian authors of the pre-equality 1960s Maureen Duffy gave a wonderful insight into the difference between writing on queer themes then and now - listening to her talk about the terror that girls felt on entering the famous Gateways club (immortalised in The Killing of Sister George), and the discrimination they received in their daily life was fascinating. Christopher Fowler was very entertaining as he gave his perspective on writing books that many consider to be more at the "erotic" end of the scale.

From the perspective of how the "mainstream" press deals with the tricky problem of reviewing gay literature as opposed to "genre publishing", Suzi Feay from the Independent on Sunday gave us her witty theory as to why gay authors rarely break through into the wider world of literature - they simply don't know how to handle them. (Unless of course you take the reviewer out for a champagne lunch!)

We had a discussion about the similar issues that face the book selling trade, with speakers from Gay's The Word (which almost closed down last year), Prowler Store and Foyles. But the piece de resistance was the dramatised version of Clayton Littlewood's forthcoming book Dirty White Boy - serialised in its original version as a blog on MySpace.

And with the campest music I have heard in a long time, courtesy of prize-winning author Mr Paul Burston, who jointly organised the evening - with his Rubettes-cum-Minets Sauvages flat cap and scarf ensemble - the evening was complete!

A great way to spend a Tuesday evening...