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Michael Nava | |
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| Born | Michael Angel Nava September 16, 1954 Stockton, California, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Stanford Law School (JD) Colorado College (BA) |
| Occupation(s) | Lawyer, writer |
| Spouse | George Herzog [1] |
| Website | www |
Michael Angel Nava (born September 16, 1954) is an American attorney and writer. He has worked on the staff for the California Supreme Court, and ran for a Superior Court position in 2010. He authored a ten-volume mystery series featuring Henry Rios, an openly gay protagonist who is a criminal defense lawyer. His novels have received seven Lambda Literary Awards and critical acclaim in the GLBT and Latino communities. [2] [3]
Nava grew up in Gardenland, a predominantly working-class Mexican neighborhood in Sacramento, California that he described as "not as an American suburb at all, but rather as a Mexican village, transported perhaps from Guanajuato, where my grandmother's family originated, and set down lock, stock and chicken coop in the middle of California." [4] [5] His maternal family settled there in 1920 after escaping from the Mexican Revolution. Nava's grandmother was an "influential force" whose "piety and humility was highlighted by her Catholic beliefs." [5]
At 12 years old, he started writing and it was also around that time he recognized that he was gay. [6] He was the first person in his family to go to college; he attended Colorado College and "acquired a special affinity for literature and writing." [5] He joined a group of young poets that included writer and humorist David Owen and the poet David Mason. [5] He graduated in 1976 cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in History. [2] [6]
Nava received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, and spent the following year in Buenos Aires and Madrid where he worked on translations of works by Spanish-American poet Rubén Darío. After returning, he considered graduate education in English or History. He enrolled in Stanford Law School, [5] and received his J.D. in 1981. [2]
Nava worked in the Los Angeles City Attorney's office, where he was a deputy attorney and prosecutor on about 50 jury trials. [1] [2] In 1985, he became an associate at the appellate boutique firm Horvitz & Levy, located in Encino, California. [1] He then served as a judicial staff attorney for Arleigh Woods, the first female African-American appellate court justice in California, from 1986-1995. One of the cases he worked on was Jasperson v. Jessica's Nail Clinic in 1989, [7] which resulted in the first published decision to uphold an HIV/AIDS anti-discrimination statute. [2]
After Woods retired, Nava moved back to Northern California and settled in San Francisco. In 1999, he joined the staff of the California Supreme Court. In 2004, he became a judicial attorney for Carlos R. Moreno, who was the third Latino to ever sit on the California Supreme Court. [5] Nava said "Judicial attorneys and law clerks can have a huge influence in shaping the direction of the law, but there are very few attorneys of color in those positions because they are mostly filled through the Old Boys Network. We need to establish our own network." [5]
In 2002, Nava was given a Doctor of Humane Letters honorary degree from the Colorado College in recognition of his literary achievements. [8]
From 2007 to 2009, he was a member of the State Bar of California's Council on Access and Fairness, which advises the State Bar's board of governors on diversity issues. [9] In 2008, he wrote The Servant of All: Humility, Humanity, and Judicial Diversity, a law review article where he put forth the case for judicial diversity. [10]
In 2010, Nava ran for Seat 15 of the San Francisco Superior Court. In the June election, he received a plurality of the votes, [11] but the position required a majority. [12] In the November run-off election with incumbent Richard Ulmer, he received 87,511 votes (46.83%) compared to Ulmer's 99,342 (53.17%). [13]
After graduating from Stanford Law School, Nava began writing his first novel. [5] The Little Death features Henry Rios, an openly gay Latino criminal defense lawyer who worked in Los Angeles. He was inspired to create Rios because of a comment by author Toni Morrison about writing books that she wished she could have read when she was growing up. [5] After the novel was rejected by thirteen publishers, it was picked up by Alyson Books, and published in 1986. [5] His follow-up novel, Goldenboy, published in 1988, received critical acclaim by the New York Times which called him a "brilliant storyteller." [5] From 1990-2000, Nava wrote five more Henry Rios books: How Town, The Hidden Law, The Death of Friends, The Burning Plain, and Rag and Bone. He received six Lambda Literary Awards. In 2001, he was awarded the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from Publishing Triangle, a GLBT professional group within the publishing industry. [2] [5] [14]
In 1994, he co-authored the book Created Equal: Why Gay Rights Matter to America. [2] [15]
After not having written any new novels since 2000, Nava announced in 2008 that he had drafted a new work, The Children of Eve, which was set in the Mexican Revolution. He based one of the main characters on his grandfather. [2] [16] The Children of Eve would later be redone as a quartet of historical fiction novels; the first book would be titled The City of Palaces. [17] [18] In 2016, he published a revised version of the first Henry Rios novel, “The Little Death,” which he retitled “Lay Your Sleeping Head.” In 2018, he adapted the revised novel into season one of an audiodrama podcast called “The Henry Rios Mysteries Podcast.” In 2019, he started his own small press, Persigo Press, with the goal of publishing a new edition of the existing Rios novels and to add new novels to the series. The first new novel, “Carved in Bone”, was published in October 2019. Nava also announced he hoped to publish other LGBTQ writers and writers of color through Persigo Press.
In October 2008, Nava married his partner George Herzog, an oncology nurse at the Veteran's Administration hospital in San Francisco. California Supreme Court justice Carlos R. Moreno presided over the ceremony. They live in Daly City, California. [1]
Katherine V. Forrest is a Canadian-born American writer, best known for her novels about lesbian police detective Kate Delafield. Her books have won and been finalists for Lambda Literary Award twelve times, as well as other awards. She has been referred to by some "a founding mother of lesbian fiction writing."
Ellen Hart is the award-winning mystery author of the Jane Lawless and Sophie Greenway series. Born in Maine, she was a professional chef for 14 years. Hart's mysteries include culinary elements similar to those of Diane Mott Davidson.
Richard Stevenson Lipez, commonly known by his pen name Richard Stevenson, was an American journalist and mystery author, most recently residing in Massachusetts. He was best known for his Donald Strachey mysteries.
Lambda Literary Awards are awarded yearly by the United States-based Lambda Literary Foundation to published works that celebrate or explore LGBT themes. The awards are presented annually for books published in the previous year. 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."
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.
The Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction is an annual literary award, presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation to a work of fiction on gay male themes. As the award is presented based on themes in the work, not the sexuality or gender of the writer, women and heterosexual men may also be nominated for or win the award.
The Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction is an annual literary award, presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation to a work of fiction on lesbian themes. As the award is presented based on themes in the work, not the sexuality or gender of the writer, men and heterosexual women may also be nominated for or win the award.
The Lambda Literary Award for Drama is an annual literary award, presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation to an LGBT-related literary or theatrical work. Most nominees are plays, or anthologies of plays; however, non-fiction works on theatre or drama have also sometimes been nominated for the award.
The Lambda Literary Award for Debut Fiction is an annual literary award, presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation to a debut work of fiction on LGBT themes. Formerly presented in two separate categories for gay male and lesbian debut fiction, beginning the 25th Lambda Literary Awards in 2013 a single award, inclusive of both male and female writers, was presented. The award was, however, discontinued after the 28th Lambda Literary Awards in 2016.
The Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry is an annual literary award, presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation to a gay-themed book of poetry by a male writer.
The Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry is an annual literary award, presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation to a lesbian-themed book of poetry by a female writer. At the first two Lambda Literary Awards in 1989 and 1990, a single award for LGBT Poetry, irrespective of gender, was presented. Beginning with the 3rd Lambda Literary Awards in 1991, the poetry award was split into two separate awards for Lesbian Poetry and Gay Poetry, which have been presented continuously since then except at the 20th Lambda Literary Awards in 2008, when a merged LGBTQ poetry award was again presented for that year only.
The Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Studies is an annual literary award, presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation, presented to scholarly work that address "issues relating to sexual orientation and gender identity, and oriented toward academia, libraries, cultural professionals, and the more academic reader." Most works are published by university presses.
The Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Literature is an annual literary award, presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation, that awards books with bisexual content. The award can be separated into three categories: bisexual fiction, bisexual nonfiction, and bisexual poetry. Awards are granted based on literary merit and bisexual content, and therefore, the writer may be homo-, hetero-, or asexual.
The Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir/Biography is an annual literary award, presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation, to a memoir, biography, autobiography, or works of creative nonfiction by or about gay men. Works published posthumously and/or written with co-authors are eligible, but anthologies are not.
The Lambda Literary Award for Mystery is an annual literary award, presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation, to a mystery novel by or about people in the LGBT community. Prior to 2021, the award was separated into separate categories for Gay and Lesbian Mystery.
The Lambda Literary Award for Erotica is an annual literary award established in 2002 and presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation that awards books with LGBT characters and "whose content is principally of an erotic nature." "Anthologies, novels, novellas, graphic novels, memoirs, and short story collections" are eligible for the award.
The Lambda Literary Award for Gay Romance is an annual literary award, presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation, to a novel, novella, or short story collection "by a single author that focus on a central love relationship between two or more characters, not including anthologies. The submission guidelines mention several sub-genres are included, " including traditional, historical, gothic, Regency, and paranormal romance".
Michael Craft Johnson, who goes by the pen name Michael Craft, is an American author of gay and lesbian mystery novels. His 2019 novel ChoirMaster won the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award for LGBTQ, and four of his novels have been finalists for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery.
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