Launches & other
events - 2001 & 2002
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Gay Games Events -
Sydney / Spring Lit! Canberra - November 2002
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- During the Gay Games in November 2002, I was a
happy participant in the literary festival. To
kick things off on Friday night, 1 November, I
did "Hello Kitty" an evening of Asian-Australian
writers reading from their work and doing karaoke!
Hosted by Happy Ho (who sang "Fever"),
I joined Tony Ayres, Natasha Cho and William Yang
at a fun event at the Mandarin Club in Chinatown.
- The next morning after the Frontrunners fun run
to start the Games, I rushed over to host "Personal
Best: Writing on Sport." Boy, there was some
good writing there: Richard Watts, Kelly
Gardiner, Sandy Jeffs and Jim Provenzano. Reading
on cricket, speed-walking, wrestling and tennis!
- Following the Games, the lovely organisers of
Spring Lit, part of Canberra's Spring Out Gay and
Lesbian weekend, invited me up on Sunday 17
November to join 5 other writers for an afternoon
reading: Carole Saint-Clair, Robert Aldridge,
Lindy Edwards and two young local writers, Andy
Hewat and Tara Callaghan-Crawford. It was one of
my best audiences ever, a sell-out crowd of 140
attentive welcoming listeners and Electric
Shadows sold out of all 15 copies of Calendar Boy
that they brought!
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Lambda Literary Awards: NYC, 2 May
2002, Thursday
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| I flew off to New York City on my
frequent flyer points, and had a great time at the "Lammies",
the 14th annual Lambda Literary Wards to honor lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender writing and publishing. My
brother Walter came too, and I got to meet writers who
I've heard of and appeared in anthologies with, and match
familiar names with faces. Calendar Boy was nominated in
the Small Press category. I didn't win, but it was an
honour to be recognised and I'm sure glad I went to the
ceremony. More news on the event, and a final list of
both nominees and winners is at: www.lambdalit.org. In the meantime, here's photos from the event along with my
verbose running category. I
would have liked to get photos of more of the folks
there, but c'est la vie.
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Mardi Gras Dirty Boys - 18
February 2002, Monday
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This is how Mardi Gras described this
event, part of their literary festival: BOYS WILL BE
BOYS, and dirty boys at that, if given half a chance.
If you've got a one track mind, if you like your stories
steamy, your prose pulsing and your verse venereal -
you've found your Festival favourite. Sordid, soucy,
salacious and sizzling, Dirty Boys is a platform for
homoerotic porn and fetish writers to take their work
directly to their readers. Welcome to the underground -
uncensored and uncut. The line-up includes porn star
Chris Steele, along with Andy Quan, Jules Wilkinson, Phil
Scott and Stephen Dunn. Your guide through this
playground of pleasure is the scandalously provocative
Neal Drinnan, author of Glove Puppet, Pussy Bow and
Quills. Location: The Phoenix Bar, Oxford Street.
It was a fun night and the sell-out crowd of about 200
seemed to really enjoy themselves. I dressed for the
occasion, though I'm perhaps glad there aren't any close-ups!
 Photos |
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Melbourne Launch - 27 January 2002, Sunday
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| Crusader Hillis and Rowland Thomson
kindly scheduled my launch at their store, Hares
and Hyena, to coincide with a
celebration of the store's 10th anniversary and they did
some wonderful promotion. The bookstore was wonderfully
crowded and we sold lots and lots of books. Clare Forster
from Penguin was on hand to introduce Dennis Altman who
launched me (thanks Dennis!) and Sally Bateman, my most
excellent publicist, helped things run smoothly too! A
number of brave friends managed to make it there even
though they were at Red Raw, a big dance party, the night
(and morning) before! The first
photos are from a reading that I took part in the night
before as part of the Word is Out literary festival of Melbourne's
Midsumma Festival. "Love
Gone Wrong" featured the great talents of Moira
Finucane, Kylie Brickhill, Richard Moss, and Merrillee
Moss hosted by Jules Wilkinson! There's a lovely review
of the reading event here (I say lovely
because I like compliments!).
  Photos
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Sydney Launch - 15 January 2002, Tuesday
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My first launch in Australia. We held
it at La Bar on Oxford Street, sponsored by Penguin Books
and The Bookshop Darlinghurst. It was a really memorable
event, surrounded by friends from all parts of my life
here in Australia: Mardi Gras friends, work colleagues
and friends from the HIV/AIDS sector, sports friends, the
Penguin crowd, a few UWCers and choristers, and many more.
I forgot to take out my camera until the end. A shame! I
expected maybe 70-80 people to come and instead there
were over 170. The champagne was downed in a flash! Clare
Forster, my publisher from Penguin introduced the
charming Neal Drinnan, talented author, who launched me.
Read his eloquent
introduction of me here. Thanks
to all who made this one happen!
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Vancouver Launch - 7 July 2001, Saturday
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This was an extraordinary evening, in
my home city, with my family, friends, publishers and
with my partner by my side on my 32nd birthday. It was
held at Sugar and Sugar at 420
W. Pender St, a beautiful venue with an appropriately
Asian themed photo exhibition on at the time. I played a
few songs on a white grand piano, including a song "Older"
that I'd pretty much written for the occasion. Attendees
had managed to get there in the midst of a 3 month bus
strike. Sushi was eaten, drinks were consumed, and books
were sold. Thanks to all who made it such a memorable
occasion for me, and to co-hosts: New
Star Books, Harbour
Publishing, and Little Sisters bookstores.
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Victoria Reading - 4 July 2001, Wednesday
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My gracious and generous brother
organised this event at the Open Space Gallery on Fort
Street as part of the lead up to Victoria Pride - about
90 Victorians showed up to hear readings from Ciaran
Slavin, Billeh Nickerson (The Asthmatic Glassblower), Shani Mootoo (The Predicament of Or)and
myself. Thanks Stacy for working the door, and to April
and Bleeding Rose Multimedia for selling books!
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Toronto Launch - 30 June 2001, Saturday
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Toronto blew me a way! Back in my old
neighbourhood, at the Victory Cafe near the Annex and
Honest Ed's, a hot summer night and friends from all over
in an evening co-hosted by Nightwood editions, New Star
Books, Arsenal Pulp Press and the Glad Day Bookstore.
Francisco Ibanez-Carrasco and a superb vocalist, Vicki,
did an amazing reading/singing/performance from Pancho's
new novel from Arsenal Pulp Press "Flesh Wounds and Purple Flowers". The boys from Glad Day cheerfully sold books,
and friends from many parts of my life - Trent, CWY,
York, Pearson, Expo, Toronto came by. About seventy of
us, and it was great!
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Ottawa Launch - 27 June 2001, Wednesday
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My first launch was organised
by the wonderful David Rimmer from After Stonewall bookstore (Calendar Boy and Slant are
both up on their website - thanks David...) at
the Polo Lounge, on Bank Street. My friend John
Barton opened the night with selections from his
new collection of poetry, Hypothesis.
About forty friends, old and new, provided a
great audience and warm encouragement for my
debut!
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Other Events / Readings / Interviews
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- 31 May-1 June 2002: Sydney
Writer's Festival. My
first writer's festival involved two events. The
first one was a reading with Albert Wendt, Tony
Perrottet, and Anita Heiss in a session chaired
by Jane Palfreyman. The second was a panel called
"Searching?" with Eva Sallis, Joanna
Murray-Smith, and Barry Hill. I was particularly
impressed with the writers on this panel - and
thought that our thoughts on what writers might
be searching for made for an entertaining and
thoughtful presentation.
- 25 June 2001: BookExpo Canada, Metro Toronto Convention Centre,
Toronto Canada: Before my book launches, I got my
first taste of being an author at the Harbour Books/Nightwood Editions stall at the BookExpo. With poet Billie Livingstone, my editor and publisher, Silas and
Howard White, and Craig, from Harbour, I signed
books and chatted with booksellers and tried not
to drink too much white wine. No photos
unfortunately.
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