Books: Not Too Cocksure by Mark Freden

Mica Daly is an aggressive, ambitious on-camera entertainment reporter. Chad Martin is a strikingly handsome cater-waiter and ambitious, driven aspiring actor. When their two worlds collide at a dinner party in the Hollywood Hills, Mica and Chad’s lives -- and bodies -- become inextricably intertwined in the first book in author Marc Freden’s new book Not Too Cocksure. 

“It has been said that my novels have all the steaminess of a 50 Shades of Gay and the Hollywood-insider deliciousness of Jackie Collins, which I consider a compliment,” says Freden. “All my characters are drawn from, or are a pastiche of, real Hollywood personalities. People have asked me if certain incidents in the book have really happened. And the answer is yes!”

How to Put Your Inner Child in Time Out - 3 Ways to Retrain Your Brain & Put the Adult in Charge

The human brain is a wonder of the universe, but our understanding of it can seem contradictory, says Steven Jay Fogel, author of the new book Your Mind Is What Your Brain Does for a Living.

“On the one hand, we’re often told of those crucial years that our brain develops in childhood, when we’re rapidly progressing in development of our language and other skills, and our preadolescent and teenage years, when our brains undergo a sort of second Big Bang of learning,” says Fogel.

“But although it may seem that the brain is pretty much set by adulthood, it remains malleable throughout adulthood; it continues to change as we learn and adapt.”

Most of us are unaware that elements of our inner child’s development are constantly tugging atus, and we don’t have a clue that it’s happening, he says. In Jungian therapy there’s a concept called the dark side, or shadow side, the place in our unconscious to which certain feelings and thoughts are banished because they don’t support our image of ourselves, he says.

Books: Teeny Weenies and Other Short Subjects

Teeny Weenies and Other Short Subjects takes a long, hard look at getting the short end of the stick, both before and after transition from female to male. This collection of humorous essays explores identity, sexuality, and growing up female in a world with two sexes, two genders – and no exceptions. Teeny Weenies and Other Short Subjects is available in paperback, on Kindle, and as an eBook download.

Books: The Gay Gospel, A Survival Guide for Gay 20Somethings

In his new book The Gay Gospel, A Survival Guide for Gay 20Somethings in America Today Justin Luke Zirelli says, "So many twenty-somethings I know view themselves as broken or busted beyond repair. The truth is we all have something, or things, that are not quite right inside of us." 

In a new interview with Michael Graves for Lambda Literary, he explains more.

Books: A Well-Seasoned Kitchen

A Well-Seasoned Kitchen is a recipe treasury for cooks who cherish creating delicious meals to nourish relationships with family and friends. Developed by mother and daughter, Sally Clayton and Lee Clayton Roper, the book is ideally suited for today's modern cook who juggles a busy life but finds joy in preparing meals for others. The hardcover cookbook includes 186 tested recipes, planning menus, helpful tips and four-color photos by renowned food photographer Laurie Smith.

Lee conceived the idea for this cookbook as her aging mother (who was a fabulous cook and hostess) was showing signs of memory loss. Gathering recipes, remembering their shared cooking experiences and relieving family memories provided an opportunity to both keep her mother mentally active and also engage with her. The result of their effort is a wonderful collection of recipes that are uncomplicated, delicious and beautiful-- and work equally well for entertaining and everyday use. Sadly, just as they were finishing the book, Lee’s mom, Sally Clayton, passed away. As the book was originally conceived as a project to mentally engage her mother, a portion of proceeds benefit the Colorado Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association.

Marc Solomon's “Winning Marriage” Book Launch Tonight

Marc Solomon, the national campaign director for Freedom to Marry and veteran marriage strategist, continues his national tour in Denver this evening at the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art to promote Winning Marriage: The Inside Story of How Same-Sex Couples Took on the Politicians and Pundits – and Won. 

The book, with a foreword by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, has received critical acclaim from Bob Woodward, Dee Dee Myers, and Sen. Tammy Baldwin. 

As a senior political strategist for the marriage movement for more than a decade, Solomon takes readers inside the White House, the Supreme Court, governors' offices and state capitols, as well as into the war rooms of marriage campaigns throughout the country, showing how the campaign for marriage equality has been waged and how it has prevailed.  Solomon chronicles the indispensable role of Tim Gill, as well as the Denver-based Gill Foundation and the Gill Action Fund, in bringing about the victories secured over the last decade.

Books: Winning Marriage: The Inside Story

As the spotlight turns back to the U.S. Supreme Court to potentially bring national resolution to the freedom to marry, a new book by veteran marriage strategist Marc Solomon, Winning Marriage: The Inside Story of How Same-Sex Couples Took on the Politicians and Pundits – and Won, hits bookstores after weeks of critical acclaim. Solomon tells the gripping story of what it took to make a seemingly impossible goal—to win the freedom to marry for all Americans—a near reality in a relatively short period of time. He gives readers a fly-on-the-wall view of the winning strategies that have made marriage equality the most successful social movement in recent American history.

Slate Magazine has dubbed Winning Marriage “the definitive political history of marriage equality,” adding “Activists spent thousands of hours bending the arc of moral justice with their own hands.” U.S. News and World Report calls it "a playbook for progressive causes." The book’s release by ForeEdge/ University Press of New England comes less than a week after the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the freedom to marry, creating a split among federal circuit courts and making it much more likely the U.S. Supreme Court will bring national resolution on marriage by June of 2015. The book also comes a month after the number of states where gay couples can marry skyrocketed from 19 to, soon, 35.

“Winning Marriage is a deeply-reported and deeply-felt insider’s account of the marriage equality movement,” wrote Washington Post Associate Editor Bob Woodward. “Astute, committed, and fair-minded, Solomon’s story chronicles the political sea change on marriage equality.”

Winning Marriage begins at a time when politicians of both parties viewed marriage for gay couples as the third rail of American politics – touch it and a political career dies – to today, when nearly every Democratic and an increasing number of Republican elected officials, as well as the strong majority of American people, embrace it. Solomon provides an insider’s account of how the freedom to marry was won, bringing readers into governors’ offices, state houses, the White House and the Supreme Court, as well as into the war rooms of marriage campaigns across the country.

“Even though I knew where each chapter would end, I was drawn into Marc’s detailed, carefully researched and deeply personal account -- and it left me wiping my eyes and pumping my fist,” noted Dee Dee Myers, press secretary in the Clinton White House. “I can’t wait for the ultimate epilogue.”

Solomon has been Freedom to Marry’s national campaign director since 2010 and has campaigned full-time on marriage for more than a decade. He is hosting a national book tour with launch events in New York on November 14 and Washington, D.C. on November 18. Other cities include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis, Denver, Kansas City, and Portland.

Christopher Rice: On His New Novel 'The Vines,' the Gay Appeal of the Horror Genre, and Writing Supernatural Thrillers

Christopher Rice talks to Lambda Literary Review about his surprising-yet-not-surprising career trajectory, the gay appeal of the horror genre, literary labels, and readying one of his mother's classic novels for the big screen.

Books: Sweet Tooth

Sweet Tooth (by Tim Anderson, author of the best-selling travel memoir Tune in Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries) that tells the hilarious story of a gawky, junk food-loving, and secretly gay Southern teen's being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the same time that his adolescent hormones are going bonkers. Angst, mortal frustration, and much hilarity ensue.

Described by Publishers Weekly as "lively and invigorating" and by The Advocate as "uproariously self-deprecating," Sweet Tooth is more than a memoir of Tim's gay, diabetic adolescence in the eighties--it's a celebration of the music he grew up with and that soothed him during all of his teenage cravings: The Smiths, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Echo and the Bunnymen, and other new wave greats that he's currently paying tribute to in a series of posts called Sweet Tooth Jukebox over at his blog.

Books: Flower of Iowa

More than two decades in research and writing, Lance Ringel's new eBook FLOWER OF IOWA is a sprawling tale of battle, courage and the resilience of the human spirit. It concerns an American soldier – Tommy Flowers – and a British soldier – David Pearson – who meet during the summer of 1918 in France behind the battle lines in the final months of the war.

Their friendship soon develops an unexpected intimacy. Baffled by their feelings, but committed to exploring them further, Tommy and David do everything to spend time together, even after David is wounded and sent home to England to convalesce.

Ringel first began work on the book in 1992 at the height of the controversy surrounding President Bill Clinton’s campaign promise to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” He envisioned a saga that examined a relationship between two soldiers set against the backdrop of WWI. This idea launched Ringel into a five-year journey across America and through Europe in a quest to make sure that FLOWER OF IOWA was as historically accurate as possible. The author visited former battlefields across the French countryside, their surrounding towns, as well as numerous museums in Europe and the United States.

Equally tragic and hopeful, dramatically stirring and historically faithful, FLOWER OF IOWA takes its place among the memorable novels about the Great War, distinguishing itself with a gallery of compelling characters, meticulous research and exhilarating storytelling that vividly captures the war and the universal nature of love.

Books: Confessions of a Drag Queen Tupperware Lady

In 1996 actor Kevin Farrell moved to Hollywood and he began to work steadily. But not steadily enough. So he started doing what he needed to do to make ends meet, waiting tables, catering, the occasional office job, and selling Tupperware ... in drag!

Kevin created an outlandish, larger-than-life character named Dee W. Ieye (pronounced “eye,” get it?), a loud, sassy refugee from a trailer park in Tennessee, and she started to sell. In fact, before long, Kevin — as Dee — became Tupperware’s #1 salesperson in North America for four years running. And you can read all about it in Kevin's new book Confessions of a Drag Queen Tupperware Lady!

Books: Colorado Legends & Lore

Colorado is steeped in stories as unique as the people who settled it. 

Each wave of exploration and settlement brought new tales to explain the mysteries of this incomparable place. With extreme weather and breathtaking landscapes, it seems only natural that Colorado could play host to UFOs, stripper lightning and the Fountain of Love. From creation myths and rumored Aztec treasure to snow snakes and drunken house flies, professional yarn-spinner Stephanie Waters turns an eye to all of it in her new book Colorado Legends & Lore.

Books: A Queer Capital: A History of Gay Life in Washington, D.C.

“They made history and made a difference”

From the turn of the twentieth century through the 1980s, gay people in Washington, D.C. created their own communities, fought for their rights, and, in the process, helped to change the country.

But much of this vivid history had never been documented. Until now.

In A Queer Capital: A History of Gay Life in Washington, D.C., Genny Beemyn explores how lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals established spaces of their own before and after World War II, survived some of the harshest anti-gay campaigns in the U.S., and organized to demand equal treatment.

Telling the stories of black and white gay communities and individuals, Beemyn provides insights not only into LGBT life, but also on the history of Washington, D.C. and African American life and culture in the twentieth century.

Michael Bronski, author of A Queer History of the United States, said the book “is at once exhilarating and moving. Brimming with newly discovered information and vibrant sketches of people and historical events brought together with a fresh eye and original analysis, A Queer Capital is an important addition to academic and popular studies of LGBT American history.”

How to Put Your Inner Child in Time-Out: Three Ways To Retrain Your Brain

The human brain is a wonder of the universe, but our understanding of it can seem contradictory, says Steven Jay Fogel, author of the new book Your Mind Is What Your Brain Does for a Living.

“On the one hand, we’re often told of those crucial years that our brain develops in childhood, when we’re rapidly progressing in development of our language and other skills, and our preadolescent and teenage years, when our brains undergo a sort of second Big Bang of learning,” says Fogel.

“But although it may seem that the brain is pretty much set by adulthood, it remains malleable throughout adulthood; it continues to change as we learn and adapt.”

Most of us are unaware that elements of our inner child’s development are constantly tugging atus, and we don’t have a clue that it’s happening, he says. In Jungian therapy there’s a concept called the dark side, or shadow side, the place in our unconscious to which certain feelings and thoughts are banished because they don’t support our image of ourselves, he says.

Books: Medium Rare: The Memoir of a Fourth Generation Psychic Medium

From the time Linda Lauren was a small child, her special gift started manifesting itself in the “indoor movies” that danced before her third eye. Thankfully, her Italian-American family was able to embrace their daughter’s curious abilities. As a member of HRC, Linda has held fundraising events for the LGBT community and also created a piece of Energy Art called 'Healing' for people with AIDS. Now Linda shares her own experience, from first visions to mainstream career psychic medium, in her new memoir, Medium Rare: The Memoir of a Fourth Generation Psychic Medium.

“I hope that people look at my gifts the same way I do, as something very comforting,” she says. “Remember – your loved ones are only a vibration away, and I’m grateful that I can tap into that energy to help others.” Medium Rare is a window into the life of a psychic medium who details visits from ghosts, conversations with family and friends who had already passed, and near disasters avoided by premonitions.

Books: How to Entertain Low Lifes, Celebrities, Friends and Enemies

How to Entertain Low Lifes, Celebrities, Friends and Enemies by food writer Petrit Husenaj offers a tongue-in-cheek look at how to prepare some of the best food for a variety of individuals.

Using short humorous stories, Husenaj weaves in how-to chapters teaching anyone to prepare a feast to surprise a dinner guest and for which parents can (finally) be proud of their children. Husenaj's writing is sharp and the recipes hot as he shows young homemakers how to slice, dice and dazzle any house guest.  Even if they don't want to be in the home!

How to Entertain Low Lifes, Celebrities, Friends and Enemies features chapters on the most unlikely of dinner guests, including bosses, celebrities, lesbians, hipsters, gays, vegans, Ina Garten (based on an experience the writer had at her home), Bravo's Andy Cohen, comedienne Chelsea Handler and more.

Husenaj is a Los Angeles-based food writer from New York City, and has developed his irresistible recipes in a funny yet helpful ebook for anyone who needs a hand in entertaining, and also wants a good laugh.  The secret is a recipe that wows them, even when they don't even want to be in the home and might take pleasure laughing at the cook's expense.

“When I cook for my parents, I never spend a lot of money. Parents hate seeing their children spend money. What they want is to see me suffer. They want to know that I gave up drinking, partying and hanging out with my friends to cook them something that forced me to stay home the entire day,” Husenaj stated.

Books: You Got to Be Kidding! The Cultural Arsonist's Literal Reading of the Bible

Joe Wenke calls his book You Got to Be Kidding! The Cultural Arsonist's Literal Reading of The Bible an "engaging, provocative, and hilarious investigation into the bestselling book of all time." I think that description may be overstating the case a bit but it is an irreverent--sometimes ranty, sometimes funny--take on some of the stranger, sillier stories in the bible.

It's got pretty solid ratings over at Amazon and Goodreads and if it sounds like the kind of thing you'd be interested in, it'll probably be the kind of thing you're interested in. The chapters are short and punchy and make for excellent bathroom reading (no tea, no shade).

And it's got the fabulous (and fabulously named) transgender model Nina Poon on the cover, so there's that.

Summer Reading List: The Books of Matt Kailey

Looking for some summer reading? Check out the works of award-winning author (and MileHighGayGuy contributor) Matt Kailey.

Teeny Weenies and Other Short Subjects
Teeny Weenies and Other Short Subjects takes a long, hard look at getting the short end of the stick, both before and after transition from female to male. This collection of humorous essays explores identity, sexuality, and growing up female in a world with two sexes, two genders – and no exceptions.

Teeny Weenies and Other Short Subjects is available in paperback, on Kindle, and as an eBook download.



Just Add Hormones (recommended by Chaz Bono)
Just Add Hormones: An Insider’s Guide to the Transsexual Experience (Beacon Press) is an exploration of gender, sexuality, body image, and personal identity, as seen through the eyes of one transsexual man.

Just Add Hormones was on the Rocky Mountain News local bestseller list in September 2005 and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. It is available in hardcover, paperback, and on Kindle.



Focus on the Fabulous
Focus on the Fabulous: Colorado GLBT Voices (Johnson Books) is a collection of 33 Colorado GLBT authors writing about their lives, their loves, and their state. Don’t miss this first-ever volume of Colorado GLBT short fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and experimental writing.

Focus on the Fabulous was on the Denver Post local bestseller list in September 2007. It is available in paperback.




Our Day Will Come
Our Day Will Come is a novel that explores family relationships, ageism, independence, and authenticity as two gay men struggle to build a relationship in a nursing home. It is available in softcover through online booksellers.

Our Day Will Come is available in paperback and on Kindle.

Things to do in Denver When You're Gay: Meet Christopher Castellani–Literary Judge, Jury … and EXECUTIONER!

By Drew Wilson

Christopher Castellani is the award-winning author of the Grasso family trilogy (A Kiss from Maddalena, The Saint of Lost Things, and All This Talk of Love) and the Artistic Director of Boston-based non-profit creative writing center Grub Street. Castellani brings his special brand of authorial authority to the wild, writing west this Thursday, March 14 with his Craft Tribunal: Words on Trial workshop at Lighthouse.

We caught up with Castellani recently to ask him a few questions about the workshop, his writing process, and Psychology Today.

The workshop you’re doing for Lighthouse is called Words on Trial. Why is it important to put the words in question on trial? How can we determine the guilt or innocence of these words and what punishment should these words face if/when found guilty?
I took the title from Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer: “As I wrote,” Prose states, “I discovered that writing, like reading, was done one word at a time, one punctuation mark at a time. It required … ‘putting every word on trial for its life:’ changing an adjective, cutting a phrase, removing a comma, and putting the comma back in.” This resonated with me because, as someone who reads everything like a writer (even when I wish I could turn off those sensors (and censors)), I have little patience for fatty sentences. And when I’m writing, I try hard to practice what I preach, to honor readers’ time by not giving them a single syllable that’s not essential. The problem is that the trial process for words is imperfect and messy and long – not to mention subjective – so even after you are confident that every word is essential, you’re never quite sure you won’t look back on a sentence or scene and realize it could have been tighter. What I do in the craft class is close-read a short-short story in which I believe every single word is necessary; we then try to apply what we learn to our own work. I also look at a story that is hyper-conscious of language, but which doesn’t always get it right.
As for how to punish the guilty words, that’s an easy one: Death By Deletion.

Can you name a time in your most recent book All This Talk of Love when you had to put words or ideas or a character on trial? What was the verdict?
Well, every single page, every single sentence, is haunted by the ghosts of words past. But there’s a long chapter in All This Talk of Love where one of the characters is losing her mind over a period of years, and where, to capture that, the prose veers into something close to poetry. That was a particularly challenging section because, even more than in the rest of the book, the pitch had to be perfect, and one false word would cause the entire chapter to crumble. I had to show a gradual degeneration without being too blatant and while maintaining the dramatic irony. For the 10 pages or so that ended up in the novel, I wrote about 25 or 30, and I was pruning and changing the rhythm of the sentences until the 11^th hour.

In a recent interview with Psychology Today you said, “I think the most important thing I learned is that there is no past.” What does that mean to you? How does that knowledge impact you as a person and as a writer?
As I said in the interview, as we get older we accumulate so much memory and so much loss and love. As a person, I find it overwhelming; it makes me more risk-averse, more tired, more anxious. As a writer, I think/hope it makes me more empathetic, better at more fully exploring character. My books have always been character-driven, but I think they’re going to get even moreso as I get older, and as the world of people I know and imagine becomes even more complex and layered.

Words on Trial with Christopher Castellani will take place Thursday, March 14 from 1:00 to 4:00 PM in the Lighthouse Grotto (lower level). Cost is $55.00 for Lighthouse members and $75.00 for non-members. 
After the workshop, at 6:00 PM will be The Pop-Up Reading with Christopher Castellani. Please join us for wine, beer, and light eats as Castellani reads from the book All This Talk of Love.

This post originally appeared on The Lighthouse Writers Top-Seecret Blog. Reprinted with permission.

Books: Betty White Rules the World

Who do we love more in the world but Betty White? Author Mike Pingel celebrates her almost 70 years in the entertainment business with the release of his newest book,  Betty White Rules the World” book The Ultimate (and Unauthorized) Guide to Television's Grande Dame: The Ultimate and Unauthorized Guide to Television’s Grande Dame.

The book is a funny, heartfelt and a loving tribute to America’s Sweetheart, Betty White Rules the World looks at her extraordinary entertainment career, her beloved characters and her love of animals and is sprinkled with funny “what-ifs.”

At the tender young age of 90, Betty White is going strong with two TV series and two new books!  She has given us priceless moments to escape from this crazy world with laughter. No other actress has the buzz that Betty has—from constant reruns of “The Golden Girls” to “Hot In Cleveland” to the Facebook campaign landing her a hosting gig on “Saturday Night Live,” Betty White has never been more beloved.  In her spare time, Betty selflessly helps vulnerable and endangered animals. Now, take a look at her storied television career and her impact on the industry and let's see where she goes from here.

Betty White Rules the World is the must-have book about television’s must-have Grande Dame written by Mike Pingel, the 70s TV fanboy.  Having penned books as Channel Surfing: Charlie’s Angels, Channel Surfing: Wonder Woman and The Brady Bunch: Super Groovy After all these Years! He currently lives in Los Angeles and stalks Betty White daily.