ISSUE #54 November 

2007 - January 2008

editorial

It’s hard to believe that this is the last issue of the OGT for 2007! The year has flown by and soon the festive season will once again be upon us.

I hope that some (or many) readers of the paper will realize that the cover of this issue of the paper is a visual response to an incident that occurred in the lead up to Pride Week this year where a number of posters advertising the Lavender Globe Awards, the opening Pride Week event, had “Cancelled” stickers stuck over them by an overzealous DCC manager who decided that he’d had enough of posters being put up on Council property (specifically the “wall” of the building site where the new mall on George Street is going). Interestingly – and sadly, in my opinion - the mayor publicly applauded the manager’s solution to this “problem”. (In fact, the ODT quoted

Mayor Peter Chin as saying the idea was “wonderfully innovative”.)

The person who carried out this act claimed that he was not specifically targeting the gay community and that he stuck his “Cancelled” stickers on other posters too, but that rings a little false for me as it seems too coincidental that he was motivated to act just at the same time as Pride Week was taking place. If his sole concern was that the posters were being put up illegally and that they were making the area look like a ghetto, then why didn’t he spend his time and energy removing them rather than defacing them and deliberately misleading people. And, obviously this wasn’t a spur of the moment, random thing he decided to do as he was walking along the street. Oh no, it was clearly planned and implemented because he had to make the “Cancelled” stickers and then go out and attach them to the “offending” (or perhaps in his eyes “offensive”?) posters.

 Following this incident the DCC paid for the wall to be cleared, repainted and now there are “No Posters Here” signs quite clearly displayed on the majority of the wall with a few areas in between that allow posters. This seems like the most logical and fair solution if the proliferation of posters was regarded as an eyesore or an issue. However, what stumps me is why the Council manager couldn’t come up with this idea himself in the first place rather than taking the law into his own hands. 

 Incidents like this one remind us that despite all the progress that’s been made in regard to gay rights, there’s still an element of hostility out there towards our community and every so often it rears its ugly head – either quite publicly or in much smaller, personal ways. This is one of the reasons why it’s so important to be aware of and to preserve our history – the documentation of our struggles, our campaigns, our successes, our culture. The recently established Charlotte Museum Trust in Auckland is doing this with materials related to the lesbian community (see page 3 for more details).

December 1st is World AIDS Day and a time for us to remember those living with HIV/AIDS and those who have been lost to the disease. It’s also a time for us to think about how we can slow down the transmission of HIV and how we can support those who are HIV+. It’s a time for reflection and a time for action (see page 4 for more details).

All the best for the festive season. I hope that you enjoy the time you have together with family and friends and that you keep safe and healthy.

Tor Devereux, Editor

Charlotte Museum Trust

The vision of the Charlotte Museum is the classification, collection and conservation of lesbian culture as part of a network of archives preserving lesbian culture for the benefit and understanding of future generations. We aim to preserve lesbian culture with a special emphasis on objects. 

LAGANZ based at the Alexander Turnbull Library collects papers but is unable to house objects.

The Trustees and the Friends of the Charlotte Museum Trust are delighted to announce that we now have charitable status and are exempt from tax.  This means if you donate more than five dollars to the museum we can give  you a tax deduction receipt. Regular donations ensure we will be able to staff  the museum with part-time permanent staff rather than relying on project  grant money which offers only short-term employment. Staff training by way of the Museum Certificate will be offered and other relevant studies may be considered.

With the assistance of Te Papa National Services Paerangi and Friends of the Museum we have been developing policy documents to ensure our museum runs smoothly but within a lesbian feminist framework. We are on the Auckland City Council accommodation waiting list but to no avail. Now we are currently looking for premises on the fringe of the Zoo/Motat area of Western Springs.

We estimate that we need $25,000 to set up the museum and each year will need about $35,000 to pay for rent, electricity, security, temperature control, conservation and staff. It will be a modest operation but unique with changing exhibitions. Already we have received grants of $6,700 towards the set up costs and Friends of the Museum have contributed towards items that are more difficult to get grants for. But, we need more Friends and also a range of volunteers.

The collection is temporarily housed at Miriam Saphira’s home and is being reclassified and packed in archival paper before being relocated to the display venue. We have begun working our way through essential Museum Standards.

Before accepting artifacts for the Charlotte Museum the objects will need to be assessed as to their archival value according to the museum’s policy of collecting objects with significant lesbian meaning. Objects with the most significance would include artifacts expressing a lesbian theme and material associated with lesbian events. For example:

If the piece fits this criteria a consent form either loaning or gifting the artifact to the Charlotte Museum Trust is signed by both the museum staff and the donor. We cannot accept items where the ownership is not clear. Any artifact gifted belongs to the Charlotte Museum Trust for the lesbian community and as such it will be insured and a security system will be in place when we set up our premises.

We are interested in essays and dissertations on lesbian themes as there is considerable research to do in this area. For instance, when was the doublewoman/

double-Venus sign first used? Was an anklet the only sign in the twenties of possible woman loving tendencies? Were there only five positive lesbian novels before 1972? What happened to lesbians in mental hospitals in the fifties? Who was a lover of Ngaio Marsh? Who went to the Alexander Pub in Parnell in the sixties? Nancy Spain and Naomi Jacob (Mickey to her lesbian friends) wrote books that were popular in New Zealand. Nancy Spain’s have obvious lesbian undertones, but are there any in Naomi Jacob’s work? At the museum we have more questions than answers, and we could keep a women’s studies department going for the next fifty years. We are happy to supply topics.

Our website has been established through lesbian net www.charlottemuseum.lesbian.net.nz  and we’re planning to open on Sunday 18 February 2008 during the Hero Festival. Our first show will be in February 2008 on early women who loved women and we are looking for photos of lesbians together in the fifties and sixties. Some of our permanent collection of art pieces, labrys, glass and ceramics will also be displayed.

The Charlotte Museum Trust is planning two more shows in 2008: early lesbian music and early lesbian performance/songs etc and early theatre pieces done by lesbians with lesbian content from the 60s and 70s in particular. We are keen to obtain any early lesbian plays, songs and even drafts of possible performance pieces.

We also sell black T-shirts for $35 with our logo and Remember Us on them.

For more information please email us at [email protected]

A CHAT WITH ONE OF OUR OWN

Barb Long interviews Philippa Jamieson

For as long as I have known Philippa Jamieson she has been involved with books. When I initially met her she was working at UBS and then she went and joined the team at Otago University Press. A visit to Philippa’s house always included a glance or two at her extensive bookshelves and, of course, she was one of the initial contributors to and editors of the OGT.

Philippa’s book Wild Green Yonder: Ten Years Volunteering On New Zealand’s Organic Farms was released in September, has had 2,500 copies printed and is being positively reviewed. The book is being distributed as far away as the UK. I was eager to learn more about how one gets from working with compost and worms to sharing their experiences in print.

When I first set out as a willing worker on organic farms I wasn’t considering writing a book. I wrote some articles and profiles along the way, mainly for Organic NZ magazine. Friends then suggested that I consider writing a book and one person advised me that the book could be a compilation of articles that I had previously written. Although there is some crossover, magazine and book writing is different so I had to start anew. It was really the encouragement of others that motivated me to do something.

The first six months were pretty intense. I set myself a goal of writing 1,000 words a day although there was some flexibility in this and if I missed writing for a day or so I wasn’t going to berate myself. It was over three years from the beginning to publication.

That was one of the most challenging things to overcome because I found that my editorial eye inhibited the free flow of writing and I had to limit the critic within myself at least in the first draft. I was able to access the Creative New Zealand funded mentoring scheme run by the New Zealand Society of Authors. My mentor was also a writer of nonfiction and an editor and he provided me with suggestions about writing

style as well as structure and advice on how to approach publishers.

I sent off to several publishers a covering letter and synopsis including a list of chapters with one sentence about each, as well as two sample chapters and some photos. Then it was a case of waiting for the responses, which initially were all rejections. I then submitted it to New Holland Publishers and they rang to say they were really keen. This was followed up with a letter of acceptance, as well as format suggestions and a contract. The New Zealand Society of Authors gave me help and

advice on the contract - they are like a union for writers.

There was the launch at UBS and I have also spoken at the Canterbury University Bookshop and to a small audience in Karamea when I was over there visiting my brother. I’ve been interviewed on several radio stations, including by Kim Hill on Radio New Zealand, and I am available for talks to groups.

I am working on a lesbian murder mystery that I have been thinking about for quite

some time. At the moment I am developing the characters and components of the plot – I don’t know yet who’s going to get murdered!

I hear a lot of people say that they are thinking about writing a book and I tend to say “why don’t you?”. It’s easier to get published if you already have had work published in magazines and newspapers, or if you’ve won a writing competition.

You need to have an objective opinion about how to improve your writing, so join a writers’ group, get an outsider to critique your work and join the New Zealand Society of Authors (www.authors.org.nz).  Benefits of membership include a weekly email newsletter, a bi-monthly print newsletter, professional development booklets, a model standard contract, discounts on books and a free contract advisory service.

by Chris Banks, NZ AIDS Foundation

Gay and bisexual men are being reminded on World AIDS Day this year that New Zealand’s HIV epidemic shows no sign of slowing down.

84 new diagnoses were reported by the AIDS Epidemiology Group for the first half of the year. Men who have sex with men are the group still most affected, both by HIV and a disturbing resurgence of syphilis recorded at sexual health clinics between 2002 and 2006. The New Zealand AIDS Foundation is deeply disturbed by the news and says these epidemics are linked.

“Sexually transmitted infections like this were quite common among gay men in the 1970s, before AIDS, when condom use was rare,” says Douglas Jenkin, NZAF National Campaigns Co-ordinator. “When condom use became the norm during the first wave of the HIV epidemic in the 1980s, rates of STI infection plummeted.” The presence of a sexually transmitted infection (STI) like syphilis, gonorrhoea or chlamydia - all of which are on the increase as well - make the body more vulnerable to HIV infection and vice versa.

“Every act of unprotected sex opens up pathways for these infections to spread further in our communities,” says Jenkin. “Gay and bisexual men in particular need to be aware that a decision to have unprotected anal sex is a choice that is clearly harming an increasing number of men - friends and partners alike.”

Discussion at NZAF’s recent community forums for gay and bisexual men suggested that unprotected anal sex was being glorified through a lack of peer pressure against the practice. 

“No one wants to become infected, let alone be responsible for passing an infection on,” Jenkin says. “Those of us who were around in the 1970s remember how unpleasant it was. Condoms, along with regular sexual health checkups, are by far the better choice for avoiding HIV and STIs.” NZAF Research Director Tony Hughes says similar linked epidemics of HIV and syphilis have been taking place in Sydney, Melbourne, San Francisco and London. “We don’t want gay and bisexual men to be blindsided by this. Syphilis is a real threat in particular, and we need to respond before it takes hold in New Zealand as it has already done overseas.”

This quarter we hear from author Renee (Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairoa), who will return to Ōtepoti in December for a two-month residency at the Robert Lord writers’ cottage.

Questions by Anna Chinn via email

Until I was 50 I had had no experience at all. I had a desire to learn it but didn’t know where to start. Since the 1980s I have had a few goes at learning te reo and all these have been great.

Great teachers. The main thing is to get practice in conversation, get the structure of sentences into my head. I’ll never be a fluent speaker but I know and enjoy a lot more than I used to. I think for someone like me it takes a lot of courage to do a mihi but I decided I had to so I do. He toa taumata rau (Bravery has many resting places).

If I had to choose, it would be plays. I love the challenge of writing good dialogue. I work very hard on the dialogue in my plays and novels, and I’m still learning. When we write plays we have four elements to play with: sound, silence, dark, light. A lot of playwrights whose work I see forget about silence. Between the lines, sub-text, is a good place to explore.

I reject this totally. Do you think this because I had a bit of fun [in Yin & Tonic] about poets who read in pubs? I have read poetry and bought poetry for years.  My all-time favourite is the American Jewish poet Adrienne Rich (we are the same age, both  lesbian, both writers). Her Diving Into The Wreck is a must for anyone who calls themself a writer. But I have lots of favorites I read over and over. New Zealand poets I like are Elizabeth Smither, Bernadette Hall and Lynn Davidson. And others. This year I joined a poetry Year 2 class as a student and have enjoyed the experience immensely ... Elizabeth Smither is my mentor and she’s the best - rigorous and encouraging. All of us in the poetry workshop gave a reading on Montana Poetry Day, and we had music, food, wine and no one wanted to go home – great audience and great reviews.

So good that we’re doing another one just before I come down to Dunedin.  Playwrights like Lorca have been an inspiration. He wrote some great plays – Blood Wedding, The House of Bernarda Alba - and he was also a poet and a great one. He was killed in the mid 1930s because he was homosexual. He is now regarded as one of Spain’s greatest writers. Writing poetry is a great thing for playwrights to do.

Too many favourite recipes, too little time. I love cooking. I have always had an intense relationship with food so cooking good food grows out of that. My mother was not a good cook, but she had little money and less interest so maybe that’s why I’ve had such an interest in it. At the moment I am into Thai cooking, but I like Italian and am still occasionally into a good old-fashioned kiwi roast meal. I think cooking a meal for someone is a way of showing your love and affection for them and that cooking is a place where all cultures meet.

Now there’s a great philosophical question and it made me laugh too. I haven’t eaten a saveloy for years. Your question reminded me of a poem of Elizabeth Smither’s called “Saveloy”. It’s in her collection called Red Shoes. Saveloys cross all gender and cultural boundaries it seems. None of us are unaffected by them. Don’t know whether I put this anecdote in Yin & Tonic or not but I remember a girl I knew when I was at school whose father worked in the local butcher’s shop – she used to throw her white socks in with the saveloys because they came out a bright pink. She  offered to let me throw mine in, but I decided against that tempting proposition. It didn’t put me off saveloys.

RAINBOW FAMILY LIFE

by Tor Devereux

There are defining moments in our lives which we use as markers – coming out is often one of these. I’ve found in recent years that having children is another. From time to time my partner and I reminisce about things we were able to do before the introduction of little ones into our family and we also talk about how things are different now that they’re part of our lives. This doesn’t mean that one period is necessarily better than the other, simply different. This is never so true as when it

comes to holidays. When planning a trip to Australia earlier this year our focus was solely on child-oriented activities and interests. A visit to Dream World, including Wiggle World (for hours and hours!), zoos, children’s sections in museums, playgrounds, etc. A few years back our pre-holiday research for an overseas destination would have included trying to find out if there were any feminist or LGBT bookshops in the cities we would be visiting and any other LGBT businesses, resources or entertainment. How life changes …

And, with our oldest starting school this year, I have been reminded once again that regardless of the fact that our lives are so focused on every day, kid-related things, our family is different and there’s no guarantee that we’ll be accepted by other families. With a child starting school we found ourselves back at the stage of him making new friends who don’t know us and therefore don’t know that we’re a rainbow family and back at that point of worrying about how the information once shared will be received. To date things have been fine, but I’m always very conscious

that this could “go wrong” and how would we all deal with that.

I’ve also discovered this year that 5 year olds are very inquisitive.  Often younger children simply accept situations or aren’t particularly interested in the make-up of families. However, school-age children are quite a different kettle of fish and there have been times this year when I’ve been quite taken aback or amused by some of the comments I’ve received from our son’s classmates. Here’s a selection of the particularly memorable ones:

- Why is your hair so short?

- Are you Russell’s dad?

- Does Russell have two mums?

- Pink is a girl’s colour (this came about because Russell insisted on

having a pink reading folder despite the teacher trying to talk him out

of it! – and no, he doesn’t wish now that he’d made a different choice)

- Which one of you did Russell come from?

None of this appears to phase Russell though - he’s quite clear and secure about his family and is happy to talk about us to anyone.

I also tend to get many comments/questions from adults about our younger son’s hair and many of these relate to his biological background since I’m often asked by complete strangers where his curls or the colour of his hair come from. (The best one occurred at the beginning of this year at a children’s music group when I was asked one day, “Do the curls come from you or your husband?”) Who cares why he’s been blessed with a head of ginger curls? Why is it the business of strangers? Why does the answer matter to anyone? While I’m sure that such questions are generally asked quite innocently, they exemplify the heterosexist world that we still live in and for me they can be awkward, annoying and invasive.

I’ve been told too, on multiple occasions, that curls like those our younger son Tobias has are wasted on a boy – and Russell used to get similar comments about his eyelashes. This one astonishes and angers me so much that generally I’m unable to respond. I keep meaning to come up with a sharp, witty retort that I’ll always have at the ready for such occasions so that I can let these “well meaning” folk know quite

clearly that I completely disagree with them (without being offensive), but to date this hasn’t happened. And, I’ve lost count of the number of times that our wee curly-haired guy has been mistaken for a girl (probably because his hair has never been cut – his own decision! - and since he’s now 3 ½ years old it’s getting kind of long – and only girls can have long hair, you know!).

In many ways our children (and those in other rainbow families) are trailblazers, although at this stage they’re completely oblivious of this. The majority of the children they come into contact with (through school, kindy, various groups) won’t know another child from a rainbow family and so they’re helping to raise awareness and teach others that in many respects our families and our concerns and interests have more similarities than differences. As with so many things, I believe that personal interaction and experience is the most effective way of changing attitudes and breaking down barriers. Families come in so many different shapes

and sizes now that assumptions or expectations of any sort are unhelpful and inadequate. All I ask is to be acknowledged as a family unit and for our children’s reality of family to be recognised and acknowledged.

Pride And The Public  

by Anna Chinn

At the checkout I have 110 precooked sausages, matching slices of bread, one kilo of

margarine, twelve onions, plus six litres each of milk and cream. The checkout lady asks, “And what’s all this for – some sort of fundraising, is it?”

She exudes the sort of tension that scrambles gaydar. “Potential dyke!” it cries, but in the same blip, “Repressed? Hostile? Gaydar has encountered an error and needs to close.” I tell her, “It’s for Pride Week. We’re doing a sausage sizzle and giving away hot chocolate as part of Rainbow Day.” The checkout lady looks down at her hands and says, “Oh. I don’t think I know anything about that,” and moves the onions across the scanner. I am not sure whether this is an invitation to elaborate, or whether she is hoping for a change of subject.

In any case, the lady packing the bags pipes up. “Yeah, you know, Pride Week. It’s a gay and lesbian week of activities.” I beam at her and say, “That’s right.” The checkout lady gives me a strange look, directly into my eyes. Reactivated, gaydar

scans the barcodes and reads it as terror – but of what? She has inadvertently opened a can of queers. Is she asking me to close it? I don’t quite pity her enough to attempt that and, besides, there is no containing the lady packing the bags.

“They do all sorts of events and activities. What’s Rainbow Day?”

“It’s in the Octagon between noon and two today. Free food and entertainment.”

“I think in Auckland they do a parade, don’t they?”

“The Hero Parade,” I say, nodding, smiling.

The checkout lady is looking down again. Shaking her head, she quietly reiterates her

ignorance of the topic. The lady packing the bags gives her a cheerful nudge. “Yes, Gay and Lesbian Pride Week. You know!”

The checkout lady looks defeated. She says, “One hundred and thirty-seven dollars and ninety-five cents, thanks.” Then she asks, “Any cash?”

Politely, I decline.

********************

Two pairs of legs in shorts appear above my head while I am down among tree roots

sussing out the electricity in the Octagon. Much of the Octagon is draped in rainbow flags and a barbecue is being set up. The legs belong to domestic tourists, one of whom asks, “And what’s all this for? What’s happening here today?”

“It’s Rainbow Day,” I say. “It’s part of Pride Week.”

“Pride Week,” they both murmur, and then one says, “Pride in Dunedin?”

They bleat tamely for a while before one woolly-haired woman begins to compliment his dress. A brief and banal conversation about beauty takes place and then the flock ambles off, its members tickled by their encounter and apparently pleased with their own wit.

One of their ram companions across the room begins to yell abuse at the queen through drink-lubed lips. The queen, in a red sequined dress, strides over to face the man. The cusser cannot be charmed like the wives, because he has perfected his oafdom, but the womenfolk make some apologetic noises on his behalf. They now compliment the lady in red on her politeness and her dignity and she high-heels across his ego as she departs. I hear strains of Chris de Burgh. Lady in red . . . you were amazing. 

In the August edition of the Otago

Gaily Times I reported that Logan Park

High School did not return calls in

The obvious place to ask that question locally was Taieri College. In the last edition of the Otago Gaily Times, we reported that this school was planning to put to the school board the idea of  establishing such a group. When the school was contacted for an update on progress, however, there was little to report. Good things take time, perhaps – certainly the reason progress had stalled was unclear. Counsellor Robyn Dunlop did point out that such groups are formed on a voluntary basis and the Ministry of Education offers no resources or guidelines on how to run them.

As with more traditional romance genres the writing is not (generally) sexually explicit. The first two books I have completed reading are a little in the style of  Armisted Maupin in his Tales of the City series.

The principal characters in the second book, He’s The One, interact with some of the principal characters in the first title, It Had To Be You. I am only part-way through reading the third title, Someone Like You, but it seems that the characters in this story

have a distinct existence from those of the first two. The fourth title is I’m Your Man. A fifth title, When You Don’t See Me, is to be published this month.

It Had to Be You and He’s The One were Lambda Literary Award nominees in the Gay

Romance and Gay Fiction categories and Someone Like You was a finalist in the Lambda Literary Awards.

It Had To Be You. New York: Kensington, 2001

He’s The One. New York: Kensington, 2003

I’m Your Man. New York: Kensington, 2004

Someone Like You. New York: Kensington, 2006

When You Don’t See Me. New York: Kensington, 2007

Last year I reviewed for the OGT the very good movie Capote with Philip Seymour Hoffman in the starring role for which he deservedly won an Oscar. Capote drew largely on Gerald Clarke’s excellent and comprehensive work Capote: A Biography. Followers of film will know that at the same time another company was making a film of this same period in Truman’s life when he was working on his “non-fiction novel” In Cold Blood.

Infamous, the more recently released film, is based on another Capote biography - this

time George Plimpton’s Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career. As the title might suggest, this biography is much

It was decided to delay the release of Infamous so that it received full attention when it screened. For some curious reason it hasn’t yet been shown locally, though it has been in Christchurch’s cinemas for a month.

Good and all as Capote is it has been superseded in almost every way by the thoroughly brilliant Infamous. Toby Jones, who plays the lead role, is superb. Not only is he much more physically like Truman Capote, but he gets the distinctive mannerisms to a “T”. Sandra Bullock is a superior Harper Lee and Michael Parks an excellent Gore Vidal. Juliet Stevenson plays an absolutely stunning Diana Vreeland while John Benjamin Hickey plays Jack Dunphy, TC’s longterm and long-suffering partner, very well.

Infamous is much more specific about the affectionate/loving relationship between TC and Perry Smith (one of the two murderers) played by Daniel Craig who delighted audiences as the latest incarnation of James Bond in Casino Royale. The tragedy of TC with his self-serving approach even to Perry Smith whom he probably genuinely cared for – but not nearly as much as himself – is convincingly and very uncomfortably portrayed.

Infamous is stronger too on the little details of relationships and gossip, the wit and cynicism of TC and reminds me of a quote of Geoffrey Bocca: “Wit is a treacherous dart. It is perhaps the only weapon with which it is possible to stab oneself in one’s own back.” Of course, TC was his own worst enemy and found himself shunned by many former intimates when they discovered how deceitful and disloyal he could be.

This much more compelling and open version of these years in Capote’s life when he was writing In Cold Blood will be remembered for its sterling strength and perceptive insights into TC’s quirky character long after Capote has been forgotten – good though that was regarded at the time of its release. Books on which the two films were based: Clarke, Gerald. Capote: A Biography. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988.

Plimpton, George. Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and

Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career. New York: Talese, 1997.

This Breathing World by José Luis de Juan

There is a splendid new DVD on queer cinema in the Dunedin Public Library collection - Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema – which provides a visually delightful, intelligent and thought-provoking introduction to gay cinema since the 1950s. There are interviews with directors, actors and academic commentators on the development of queer cinema from catering largely to a specifically queer audience through to its becoming mainstream as in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, the harrowing Boys Don’t Cry and

There is nothing frivolous about this presentation and the focus is on the role of cinema in helping to shape identity. Kenneth Anger’s Fireworks, portraying his masturbatory fantasy, is singled out as one of the first truly queer movies.

Stonewall was a vital event helping to shape much of western queer society and culture with film-makers being determined to do their bit to be open about who we were and to stop hiding. The acme of this was probably The Rocky Horror Picture Show – a totally gay movie – promoting the delight of being whatever/whoever you wanted to be.

Viewing this documentary brought to mind an earlier documentary of queer cinema. Celluloid Closet (1995) is based on the book by Vito Russo which is an excellent history of homosexuals in film.  (I’d suggest reading the revised edition of 1987 which

Celluloid Closet (the book) documents 300 plus movies from the days of Chaplin and Stan Laurel when gay characters were presented to laugh at, pity and fear. Celluloid Closet presents a sharper, wittier treatment than Fabulous and covers early twentieth

In several movies through the 1960s gay characters were often presented as unhappy, desperate and suicidal people. But, in Boys In The Band (1970) the director was determined on a script where the gay men don’t die at the end and where there is an incredible camaraderie, albeit with some self-deprecating humour.

Russo’s view is that the first film “celebrating” homosexuality was the delicious Cabaret (1972) and he states that Making Love (1982) was the first movie treating homosexuality as an act of love rather than violence.

Both of these DVDs are well worth viewing, but if you want to delve deeper into queer cinema a very good place to start is the revised edition of Vito Russo’s The Celluloid Closet.

is The Bent Lens: A World Guide To Gay And Lesbian Film (2003).

Ribbons of Grace is a superb first novel written by Maxine Alterio who is a very talented and experienced local writer. The book is an infusion of different societies and is set in China, Orkney and New Zealand between 1870 and 1895. It explores cultural relations and differences by focusing on the lives of the three main characters, Ming

Ribbons of Grace imitates a series of pictures that constantly change and reshape and

I loved this book. I have told everyone I know about this book. It is a marvellous story beautifully narrated. Now I am looking forward to Alterio’s next one, In Quiet Exile.

been won by Pariah, a film about an African-American lesbian

her friends and family, Pariah has already made a splash on the