Recently Elisa Reviews (who sponsors the Rainbow Awards) asked my opinion on a best book for 2014.
My GLBTQ reading pick of the year is editor Douglas Ray’s The Queer South: LGBTQ Writers on the American South, published by Sibling Rivalry Press out of Arkansas. Full disclaimer: I have two poems in the collection. But don’t read it for me; the work overall is a fine mix of poetry and provocative essays from stellar authors (Dorothy Allison, Matthew Hittinger, D. Gilson, Jeff Mann, Valerie Wetlaufer, and more) who question what it is to be a southerner in the 21st century. It’s a must-read for anyone who was raised there or lives there, especially if he or she is still coming to terms with the joys and strictures of a southern past.
Kelly McQuain‘s Velvet Rodeo won the Bloom chapbook award. His writing on the Elf on the Shelf controversy recently appeared at the Good Men Project.
Kelly McQuain 