Literary Adventures at Sea

Dorothy Allison is the author of Bastard out of Carolina, a finalist for the 1992 National Book Award, and Cavedweller (Dutton, 1998) a national bestseller and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, as well as the memoir, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure (Dutton, 1995), and the poetry chapbook, The Women Who Hate Me (1990). She has a collection of short fiction, Trash, published in two editions—from Firebrand in 1989 and in an expanded edition from Penguin, 2003. In addition, she has a book of essays, Skin: Talking About Sex, Class and Literature (Firebrand, 1995). A new novel is forthcoming from Viking Penguin.

Bastard out of Carolina was made into a highly acclaimed film, directed by Angelica Huston. Two or Three Things I Know for Sure was translated into a short documentary that took prizes at the Aspen and Toronto film festivals, and was an Emmy-nominated feature on PBS’s POV. Cavedweller was presented Off Broadway by the New York Theater Company in the spring of 2003, and, in 2004, it was made into a film by Lisa Cholendenko, featuring Kyra Sedgwick.

A board member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, and a past member of the boards of both PEN International and Feminists for Academic Freedom, Allison has taught at some of the most prestigious institutions in the country. She continues to be a sought after lecturer and teacher, and has been writer-in-residence at numerous universities, McGee Professor and writer-in-residence at Davidson College, Emory University Center for Humanistic Inquiry’s Distinguished visiting professor, honored lecturer at John Cabot University in Rome, and a visiting professor at Columbia College. A contributing editor to Tin House, she has taught at the Tin House summer program at Reed College in Portland, Oregon over most of the last decade.

Allison makes her home in Northern California. She and her partner, Alix, were married on All Soul’s Day in 2008, the day before California passed Proposition 8, making such marriages illegal. Their son, Wolf Michael, was their best man.

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Dorothy Allison

Jewelle Gomez (Cape Verdean/Wampanoag/Ioway) was born in Boston where she was raised by her great grandmother. She graduated from Northeastern University and then from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York.

She worked at WGBH-TV in the 1960s on the staff of one of the first weekly, Black television shows, ‘Say Brother,’ then in New York on the pilot shows for ‘The Electric Company.’ She has taught creative writing and popular culture at institutions of higher learning from San Francisco State University to Hunter College (NYC).

She is the author of seven books including the double Lambda Literary Award-winning, vampire novel, THE GILDA STORIES, whose 25th Anniversary edition was recently published by City Lights Books. She’s written for numerous publications including the NY Times, the SF Chronicle, the Village Voice, Ms Magazine, Black Scholar, the Advocate and the Bay Times. She was the recipient of a National Endowment on the Arts Fellowship in Literature and two California Arts Council Artist-in-Residence grants. In 2017 she received the Barbary Coast Trailblazer Award from LitQuake. She is a 2018 Community Grand Marshall for San Francisco PRIDE.

She was on the founding boards of Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the Astraea Lesbian Foundation and the Open Meadows Foundation. She was previously the director of grants at the San Francisco Arts Commission and Horizons LGBT Foundation; as well as Director of the Literature Program at the New York State Council on the Arts. She also served as the director of the Poetry Center and American Poetry Archives (SFSU). Until recently she was the president of the San Francisco Public Library Commission.

She is currently playwright in residence at New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco which produced “Waiting for Giovanni,” her play about James Baldwin which is part of a trilogy about African American artists in the first half of the 20th century. The play has its New York City Premier at The Flea Theatre July 12. “Leaving the Blues,” her second play in the trilogy is about singer/songwriter Alberta Hunter and also premiered at NCTC. The third play, “Unpacking in Ptown,” will open New Conservatory’s 40th anniversary season in 2021.

J.M. Redmann was born in Biloxi, Mississippi and has yet to recover. She grew up in Ocean Springs, a small town on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. At eighteen, determined to get out of the South, she headed north to Vassar College. During her freshman year, she was asked by the Daughters of the Confederacy to make her debut. She declined their offer, and came out in a very different way. The day after she graduated from college, she got on a train for New York City. Determined not to become a rich yuppie, Ms. Redmann embarked on a career in theatrical lighting (including a stint as the lightening director of the New York Playboy Club. Yes, really). Riches never once darkened her door. To this day, they remain far afield.

Missing crawfish and king cake, Redmann returned to her ancestral home of New Orleans. Laissez les bon temps rouler. (No way going back to Mississippi. There is a reason they make those jokes about that place.)

With a degree in drama, Redmann ended up with a day job in public health. She worked in theater just as her co-workers could come to work with a cough and then their funeral was three weeks later. As Camus says, ‘it matters what you do in times of plague.’ She has since continued working in HIV/AIDS and is now the Director of Prevention (meetings, lots and lots of meetings, reports, even more of those) for CrescentCare, an organization that has transformed from an AIDS service organization to a community health center. It keeps her in contact with the areas of New Orleans that the tourists don’t see and allows her to order things that are called educational demonstrators in grants, but most people refer to as dildos. Yeah, nothing like opening the latest shipment just as the bug man comes to spray the office.

She currently writes two series in her copious spare time, a new one as R. Jean Read for Midnight Ink. The first, ROOTS OF MURDER, was out in 2016 and the second, PERDITION, came out summer of 2017. She is better known (five people instead of two) under the name J.M. Redmann, for which she writes the trashy, southern gothic lesbian detective series featuring Micky Knight. Her latest is THE GIRL ON THE EDGE OF SUMMER, which came out in the spring of 2017. Previous books include ILL WILL, which won a Lambda Literary award, Fore Word mystery award and made the American Library Association GLBT Roundtable’s 2013 Over the Rainbow list. THE INTERSECTION OF LAW AND DESIRE and DEATH OF A DYING MAN won Lambda Literary Awards. LAW & DESIRE was an Editor’s Choice of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Redmann was inducted as a Literary Saint into the Saints and Sinners Hall of Fame—first and last time she’ll ever be a saint. Her books have been translated into Spanish, German, Dutch, Norwegian and Hebrew and one short story even make it into Korean. She is the co-editor with Greg Herren of three anthologies, NIGHT SHADOWS: QUEER HORROR, WOMEN OF THE MEAN STREETS: LESBIAN NOIR, and MEN OF THE MEAN STREETS: GAY NOIR. Redmann currently lives in an historic neighborhood in New Orleans, at the edge of the area that flooded. She is the first to admit that this isn't exactly what she had planned. When pressed, she will admit that few things are as she had planned.

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J.M. Redmann

Sapphire Books, The Gem in Lesbian Publishing is proud to present “Literary Adventures at Sea II - The Caribbean Adventure” in partnership with Olivia Vacations for Lesbians aboard their Caribbean Islands-Bermuda-NY Cruise, with promotion by our Community Partner, National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR). Join us onboard for exciting workshops, meet & greets, book signings and programming presented by Sapphire Books and moderated by Christine Svendsen, publisher/author of Sapphire Books Publishing and other leading authors. Watch this page for announcements about our upcoming Keynote speakers and special guests. Get up close and personal with your favorite authors, editors, and publishers on this 9 day/8 night cruise of a lifetime.

Literary Headliners for Literary Adventures at Sea II - The Caribbean Adventure

Literary Headliners for Literary Adventures at Sea II -
The Caribbean Adventure