[via Les Wright - pictured]A strange silence has fallen upon us. Twenty-five years ago, AIDS emerged full-blown in the gay communities of America, especially the urban enclaves of San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles, and devastated an entire generation of gay men. Survivors of ground zero, the "Lazarus generation" of gay men (and fellow travelers), have not only endured a historically unique, epoch-altering collective experience, but have returned to life, profoundly transformed in many ways. Yet, their voices have fallen silent.
As individual memories fade, as myth and reality commingle in the formation of public memory, passing time compels that long-term survivors of the Lazarus generation share their wisdom now, with each other, their gay/queer community, and the world at large. Wounded storytellers everywhere are encouraged to share their portion of this common journey, their experiences, insights, observations, hopes and wisdom.
Interrupted Journeys: Lessons from The Lazarus Generation is an anthology of original essays, in the form of personal memoir, narrative fiction and poetry, academic articles (including theoretical) and professionally-informed studies documenting explorations of transformation – individual or collective, psychological, social, spiritual, or political – written by self-identifying survivors, articulating roughly "then and now" perspectives. Essays may explore transformations, positive, negative, or unresolved, newly arising issues such as living with HIV in old age, the increasing social and sexual divide between poz and neg gay men, long-term adjustments to financial deprivation, chronic health conditions (medical or mental), and social death and resurrection, the rise of new gay archetypes and the transformation of gay tribal community (AIDS as a marker of tribal membership), or any heretofore unexplored dimensions. Each essay should be intelligent, engaging, aimed at a general audience, and articulate insight, compassion, and wisdom.
Submissions should be 1500 – 4000 words in length, be original or unpublished work (elaborations or redevelopment of previously published work acceptable), established authors, scholars, and other professionals as well as fresh voices are welcome. Diversity of perspectives and richness of experience encouraged.
Deadline: September 30, 2008.
Contact: Les Wright here or PO Box 460358,
San Francisco, CA 94114. Please query first.
Les K. Wright, PhD, is a writer, educator, photographer, and gay
community activist, and lives in San Francisco. Founder of the Bear
History Project, editor of The Bear Book and The Bear Book II, and
author of numerous articles and essays, his work has appeared in
Hometowns: Gay Men Write about Where They Belong, Bears on Bears,
Queer Sites: Urban Histories of Gay Male Experience, AIDS: The
Literary Response, Queering the Canon: Defying Sights in German
Literature and Culture, and elsewhere.
At present he writes film reviews for CultureVulture.net, pens the
"Bear History" column for A Bear's Life, and teaches writing at Diablo
Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California. He also serves ex officio
on the boards of the Billy Foundation as grant writer and of the Bears
of San Francisco as Historian, is involved with the San Francisco Gay
Men's Community Initiative, and recently assumed programming duties
for Ursology, the writers and artists cultural event, held in San
Francisco in conjunction with the International Bear Rendezvous annually.
"Tangled Memories of a Wounded Storyteller: Notes on Bear History and
Cultural Memory," his exploration of trauma, loss, and collective
memory appeared in 2005 in torquere: Journal of the Canadian Lesbian
and Gay Studies Association.
Other samplings of his Lazarus generation
writing can be found online here and here
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