John Preston was an author of gay erotica and an editor of gay nonfiction anthologies.
Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by the U.S.-based Lambda Literary Foundation to published works which celebrate or explore LGBT themes. Categories include Humor, Romance and Biography. To qualify, a book must have been published in the United States in the year current to the award. The Lambda Literary Foundation states that its mission is "to celebrate LGBT literature and provide resources for writers, readers, booksellers, publishers, and librarians – the whole literary community." The awards were instituted in 1988.
Alyson Books, formerly known as Alyson Publications, was a book publishing house which specialized in LGBT fiction and non-fiction. Former publisher Don Weise described it as "the world's oldest and largest publisher of LGBT literature" and "the home of award-winning books in the areas of memoir, history, humor, commercial fiction, mystery, and erotica, among many others".
Simon Sheppard is a writer of gay erotica and a sex-advice columnist from San Francisco. He is the author of many books of gay sex writing, including Man on Man: The Best of Simon Sheppard, Sodomy!, Jockboys,Kinkorama: Dispatches From the Front Lines of Perversion,In Deep, and Sex Parties 101. He is also the editor of Homosex: 60 Years of Gay Erotica, winner of the 2007 Lambda Literary Award for LGBT erotica; the anthology Leathermen; and is the coeditor of the anthologies Rough Stuff and Roughed Up. Sheppard's work is wide-ranging, often combining history, philosophy, and culture — high and low — with hardcore sex. His first book, Hotter Than Hell and Other Stories, won the Erotic Authors Association Award for Best Collection of the Year, and the title story of In Deep was shortlisted for the Rauxa Prize for Erotic Fiction. His work has also appeared in over 300 anthologies and magazines, including many editions of Best Gay Erotica and The Best American Erotica. He wrote the syndicated column "Sex Talk," and the online columns "Perv" and "Notes of a Cranky Old Fag." The online serial "The Dirty Boys' Club," which he wrote for OutPersonals, was published as a novel in 2012. He also curates and co-hosts, with Carol Queen, the San Francisco performance series Perverts Put Out! Sheppard is openly gay, and is active in the queer artistic, political and AIDS-activist communities. He lives with his husband in San Francisco, where San Francisco magazine dubbed him "our erotica king."
Cleis Press is an independent publisher of books in the areas of sexuality, erotica, feminism, gay and lesbian studies, gender studies, fiction, and human rights. The press was founded in 1980 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It later moved to California to San Francisco and was based out of Berkeley until its purchase by Start Media in 2014. It was founded by Frédérique Delacoste, Felice Newman and Mary Winfrey Trautmann who collectively financed wrote and published the press's first book Fight Back: Feminist Resistance to Male Violence in 1981. In 1987, they published Sex Work: Writings by Women in the Sex Industry by Delacoste with Priscilla Alexander.
Connie Wilkins is an author of lesbian themed science fiction and fantasy erotica published under the title Wild Flesh. Wilkins is based in Massachusetts.
Radclyffe is an American author of lesbian romance, paranormal romance, erotica and mystery. She has authored multiple short stories, fan fiction and edited numerous anthologies. Barot is a member of the Saints and Sinners Literary Hall of Fame and winner of the Laurel Wreath, Beanpot, RWA Prism, Lories, Aspen Gold, Golden Crown Literary Society, and Lambda Literary Awards. She is a 2003/04 recipient of The Alice B Readers Award for her body of work as well as a member of the Golden Crown Literary Society, Pink Ink, and the Romance Writers of America. In 2014, the Lambda Literary Foundation awarded Barot with the Dr. James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist award acknowledging her as an established author, with a strong following, and the promise of future high-quality work. Barot founded the LGBTQ publishing house Bold Strokes Books in 2004. She has given many workshops on the craft of writing and in 2013, she founded the Flax Mill Creek Writers Retreat where she offers both face-to-face and online workshops to authors at all stages of development.
Gay pulp fiction, or gay pulps, refers to printed works, primarily fiction, that include references to male homosexuality, specifically male gay sex, and that are cheaply produced, typically in paperback books made of wood pulp paper; lesbian pulp fiction is similar work about women. Michael Bronski, the editor of an anthology of gay pulp writing, notes in his introduction, "Gay pulp is not an exact term, and it is used somewhat loosely to refer to a variety of books that had very different origins and markets". People often use the term to refer to the "classic" gay pulps that were produced before about 1970, but it may also be used to refer to the gay erotica or pornography in paperback book or digest magazine form produced since that date.
Lesbian literature is a subgenre of literature addressing lesbian themes. It includes poetry, plays, fiction addressing lesbian characters, and non-fiction about lesbian-interest topics.
Michael Thomas Ford is an American author of primarily gay-themed literature. He is best known for his "My Queer Life" series of humorous essay collections and for his award-winning novels Last Summer, Looking for It, Full Circle, Changing Tides and What We Remember.
Elana Dykewomon is a lesbian activist, award-winning author, editor and teacher.
Lawrence Schimel is an American science fiction and fantasy writer, translator, and anthologist whose work frequently deals with gay and lesbian themes, and with Jewish themes. He was born in New York, and received his B.A. in Literature from Yale University. Schimel is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and the Academy of American Poets. His is a founding member of the Publishing Triangle, an organization of lesbians and gay men in the publishing industry, which he chaired for two terms (1996–1998). As well as a writer, he is a prolific translator to and from Spanish.
Karin Kallmaker is an American author of lesbian fiction whose works also include those originally written under the name Laura Adams. Her writings span lesbian romance, lesbian erotica, and lesbian science-fiction/fantasy. Dubbed the Queen of Lesbian Romance, she publishes exclusively in the lesbian market as a matter of personal choice.
Carlos Luis "Charlie" Vázquez is a self-identified queer American artist, writer, and musician of Cuban and Puerto Rican descent and a New York Foundation For The Arts and NEA Fellow for poetry. He is also the editor of Fireking Press, where he has published a novel and a book of short stories. He serves as the deputy director of the Bronx Council on the Arts, and runs the group’s writing center. His fiction, erotica and essays have appeared in a number of anthologies, magazines, and websites. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his partner, poet John Williams.
Neil S. Plakcy is a America writer and professor whose works range from mystery to romance to anthologies and collections of gay erotica. Plakcy is a Professor of English at Broward College.
Jeanne Córdova was an American trailblazer of the lesbian and gay rights movement, founder of The Lesbian Tide, and a founder of the West Coast LGBT movement. Córdova was a second-wave feminist lesbian activist and proud butch.
Richard Labonté is a Canadian writer and editor, best known as the editor or co-editor of numerous anthologies of LGBT literature.
Greg Herren is an American writer and editor, who publishes work in a variety of genres, including mystery novels, young adult literature and erotica. He publishes work both as Greg Herren and under the pseudonym Todd Gregory.
Caro Soles is a Canadian author of science fiction, mystery and erotica literature, who has published work both in her own name and under the pen name Kyle Stone.
Bisexual literature is a subgenre of LGBT Literature that includes literary works and authors that address the topic of bisexuality or biromanticism. This includes characters, plot lines, and/or themes portraying bisexual behavior in both men and women.
