The Lambda Lit thing went really well last night. While I can't say I was interested enough to want to read all of the books that were featured, I did purchase three of them, 'Forbidden Acts', 'Pinned Down by Pronouns', and 'Lives of the Circus Animals'. 'Forbidden Acts' is an anthology of gay plays covering the 20th century. 'Pinned Down by Pronouns' is an anthology of articles, poems, interviews, etc., dealing with transgender issues. 'Lives of the Circus Animals 'is a comedy about a group of theater people in New York.

They sound like pretty good reads, though I'm most excited about 'Pinned Down by Pronouns' as the transgendered community is something that I have only fleeting experience with and am curious to learn more about. It helped that Toni Amato and Mary Davies were both very good readers. Amato has a background in performance which no doubt helped.

The Bram novel I trust will be good. I've never been disappointed by him. And as usual he gave a very good reading. 'Forbidden Acts' should be okay. I've read most of the plays in the anthology, but I'm interested in reading some of the reference material that is included in the book.

The one disappointment of the evening was that Creative Visions, which was selling copies of the books, didn't have any copies (or sold out of what few they had) of Marijane Meaker's memoir 'Highsmith: A Romance of the 1950s'. Meaker was Patricia Highsmith's lover during their time in New York. Her reading was smart, funny, and gave a real sense of gay life in New York at the time. Plus, I'm a huge fan of Highsmith. Well, of her Ripley series at least. Now I have to go out and find a copy of the book.

As for the rest of the authors, Lucy Jane Bledsoe writes beautiful prose, but I didn't think her novel was really my cup of tea. Perry Brass was, as usual, a great reader, and his novel was interesting. I just haven't made up my mind about him as a writer. I need to pull out a couple of his older novels, reread them and try to decide. Sometimes I really like him, sometimes I don't.

Jameson Currier. Good reader. Great story. But I didn't really want to go to dinner with a big book of gay erotica tucked under my arm.

Stephen Greco. Not a really good reader. One of those guys who rush when nervous. But his writing is good. He was a nominee last year, too. I'm not sure how many times he's been nominated; it would be interesting to find out.

Kathi Kosmider was a fantastic reader. Great voice, great style, fascinating. But for the life of me, I had no clue what the story was about.

Donald Weise's book was a collection of Bayard Rustin's speeches and other writing. I will probably read this as some point.

As usual, I'm very glad I went. Hopefully next year I'll be listening to a reading from Trust Fund Boys.