We're Here, We're Queer and We Like to Read: Lesbian and Gay Authors at the Miami Book Fair

Miami is the girl in the bikini, the boy in the Mercedes, suntans and flip-flops.

Not a city known for its bookish nature.

Yet each November, the Miami Book Fair International welcomes writers and readers to an event that has become an intellectual paradise.

This year is the 28th edition of the Fair, which takes places from Sunday, Nov. 13 to Friday, Nov. 18 with author readings and cultural gatherings at the Wolfson Campus of Miami Dade College in Downtown Miami.

A Street Fair commences at the same location on Friday, Nov. 18, and continues on Saturday and Sunday, November 19-20, with a daily schedule of author readings as well as exhibitor's booths representing publishers and booksellers. Throughout the weekend, there is music, food vendors and a section for kids' authors/ activities at Children's Alley.

The wealth of riches may leave a bibliophile with one problem: how to decide on events.

While an LGBT audience will have many literary interests there will be readings by LGBT authors.

Two of the events may prove to be exceptional for the LGBT community: a presentation with Ann Bannon and Erin McHugh, and a reading by latest literary sensation Justin Torres.

In the late 1950s, lesbian pulp fiction author Ann Bannon wrote Odd Girl Out, a bestselling novel about two college sorority girls who fall for each other. Her subsequent books were also successful- in some

ways due to the pulp fiction marketing of lesbian lovers. But they were also a solace to many women who connected to the story, to lesbians who had few representations of themselves.

The work continues to find new audiences.

"When the...books were new, they were read as life-saving confirmation of same-sex identity...guidebooks to the gay and lesbian world...by the 80s and 90s...the books had become social and cultural history," she said. "Finally, in the new century, they have come into their own again as seductive, funny, and heartfelt stories about coming of age in the pre-Stonewall era."

It makes perfect sense that Bannon is one of the women featured in Erin McHugh's book The L Life: Extraordinary Lesbians Making a Difference."

McHugh (with photographer Jennifer May) presents interviews and photographs of twenty-six lesbians who have defined success on their own terms.

Included are some of the celesbians we all know: Kate Clinton, Alison Bechdel, Jane Lynch.

But also present are women such as Marjorie Hill, an African-American lesbian activist and the CEO of the Gay Men's Health Crisis; Lupe Vega, sheriff of Dallas county in Texas; and Lisa Vogel, organizer of the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival.

"I wanted to show that heroines are ordinary people who do extraordinary things," McHugh said.

Although lesbians may seem to be the main audience, McHugh intends to reach a larger community:

"One of my favorite reactions was at an event where a straight woman wandered into the bookstore...When I finished speaking, she raised her hand to say she wanted to congratulate every woman in the room for being brave."

Ann Bannon and Erin McHugh appear on Saturday, November 19 at 5 p.m.

In 2010, the Lambda Literary Foundation named Justin Torres as one of the New Queer Voices to Watch Out For. In 2011, he lives up to the accolade with a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University, a short story published in The New Yorker, and a highly praised debut novel, We The Animals.

Three young brothers are the center of Torres' story, growing up in a working class family with parents who have dropped out of high school to raise them. The surreal intersects with the matter-of-fact as their mother works the graveyard shift and loses track of time-"...when we came into the kitchen in the morning, half asleep, she'd be pulling a meat loaf out of the oven, saying 'What's wrong with you boys? I been calling and calling for dinner.' " In another scene, their Puerto Rican father takes them to his overnight job as a security guard, where they sleep on the floor.

But the book celebrates an undaunted childhood-the brothers lean on each other so much, they often become one character. However, when one of them questions his sexuality, the inevitable separation-and re-birth- occurs.

Justin Torres appears with Tayari Jones, Ana Menendez and Lynne Barrett on Sunday, Nov. 20 at 12:30 p.m.

See below for other Miami Book Fair authors who may appeal to a LGBT audience. (The full schedule of readings can be found at http://www.miamibookfair.com.)

Way before Occupy Wall Street forced CNN and MSNBC to even mention the issue of class, working class feminist and lesbian writer Dorothy Allison spoke her truth in novels such as Bastard Out of Carolina. "An Evening with Dorothy Allison" takes place on Thursday, Nov. 17 at 8 p.m. Tickets for "Evenings with..." presentations are $10.

Mystery fans should check out Neil Plakcy, who sets his mysteries in Hawaii (Mahu, Mahu Vice). He has also edited gay erotica anthologies from Cleis Press and written several M/M romance novels. Plakcy appears with Jeffrey Siger, Sharon Potts and Ian Vasquez at a How Mysterious! Reading on Saturday, Nov. 19 at 3 p.m.

You may want to ask Chuck Palahniuk about the first rule of Fight Club-but you know the first rule of Fight Club. Instead, why not ask him about his latest book, Damned, which according to the Wall Street Journal Speakeasy "combines elements of Judy Bloom's coming of age classic, 'Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret' with Dante's 'Divine Comedy,' with a heavy infusion of the 1980s classic 'The Breakfast Club.' " See Palahniuk on Saturday, Nov. 19 at 6:30 p.m.

Even if you know nothing about poetry, this title may make you curious-Sinead O'Connor and her Coat of a Thousand Bluebirds. Poets Maureen Seaton and Neil de la Flor have co-authored "a non-linear narrative spawned in the eye of Hurricane Francis." Seaton and de la Flor read with Emma Trelles at The Poet's Voice: Readings of New Work on Sunday, Nov. 20 at 3:30 p.m.

Miami Book Fair International
November 13-20
Street Fair, November 18-20, 2011
Wolfson Campus of Miami Dade College in Downtown Miami
"Evenings with..." tickets: $10 (plus $2 handling fee)
Street Fair tickets:
Free on Friday, November 18
$8 for adults
$5 for 13-18 and over 62
Free for 12 and under
Weekend author sessions in Chapman Conference Center require online free ticket reservations

For more information, visit http://www.miamibookfair.com