Category Archives: The Magazine

Great Night at the Lammies

Lammylogo Thursday night, May 31st, a nice contingent of White Crane folks descended on the Lambda Literary Awards held at the Fashion Institute in New York City.  These events are always a lot of fun as they afford an opportunity to see a lot of writers and artists whose work has meant so much.  Dan drove up from with partner Pete and went with Bo and his partner Bill Foote.

CharmedlivesWhen we got to F.I.T. we were delighted to meet up with Toby Johnson and Kip Dollar, in from San Antonio. Toby was a finalist in the Anthology category for the White Crane Books project he and Steve Berman edited, Charmed Lives. Berman appeared a few minutes later and we had a great time talking with each other, catching up (such is the nature of internet publishing 68jeff_mannand editing, that one relishes the opportunity to just look at each other in the face and be in one’s presence!) The winner, alas, was not our book, but Love, Bourbon Street, edited by Greg Herren and his partner, Paul J. Willis. Next year…All: A James Broughton Reader!

Other friends at the reception included Jeff Mann, author of the amazing collection of poetry, On The Tongue (reviewed in the Summer ’07 of White Crane) and the scorching A History of Barbed Wire, winner in the category of Gay Erotica. 

We had a great interview with Jeff last year when his last book Loving Mountains, Loving Men came out. You can read an excerpt of that interview online.

Perry Brass, author of Angel Lust, and Substance of God and regular contributor to White Crane was there as well and it’s always good to see Perry.

Tom Spanbauer, who was nominated for his latest novel Now Is The Hour was there from Portland with mural painter, theatre technician/designer, tattoo artist, and permaculture specialist, Sage Ricci.  It was wonderful to meet them in person after the interview (online excerpt) Bo had with Tom in White Crane a few years ago.

Timmons_gayla Frequent contributor and friend Stuart Timmons was a double winner last night with the Lambda Literary Awards for GLBT Non Fiction and GLBT Arts going to the book he co-wrote with Lillian Faderman Gay L.A.  Since Stuart wasn’t able to attend the ceremonies Bo and I had the good fortune of stepping out of the hall and calling him to give him the good news after each win. The book is really a wonder and it’s a well-deserved double win.

It was also great to see Gregg Shapiro, a wonderful writer and poet we’ve featured in White Crane at the ceremony. Gregg has a book of poetry coming out next year and we had a chance to catch up with him as he’s on a whirlwind tour of the East Coast doing some music reporting and generally being a charm in every circle he enters.

It was great to see many legends at the event too, like Martin Duberman, author of the brilliant biography of Lincoln Kirstein, The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein, was honored with the Pioneer Award at the gala event, and the brilliant Alison Bechdel, of Dykes To Watch Out For and author of Lesbian Memoir/Biography Lammy winner, Fun Home, to name just a few. Bechdel got to present a Lincoln_kirstein Pioneer Award to Marijane Meaker, author lesbian pulp novels in the fifties, to groundbreaking young adult books like Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! to her amazing memoir Highsmith, A Romance of the 1950’s, which is about her relationship with Patricia Highsmith. She just turned 80.

Afterdeath_2 The winner in the Spirituality category was Michael McColly’s The After Death Room (Soft Skull Press) which is reviewed in the Summer 2007 issue of White Crane. We will have an interview with the author in an upcoming issue.

The After-Death Room is McColly’s chronicle of the events that took him from the day in a Chicago clinic when he heard the news that so affected his life, to the many steps he took to reconcile himself to the diagnosis, to becoming a world traveled AIDS activist and journalist.

Jim Elledge’s A History of My Tattoo won in the Gay Poetry category.

Thank You Bill Moyers

Moyers BILL MOYERS: It’s time to send an SOS for the least among us — I mean small independent magazines. They are always struggling to survive while making a unique contribution to the conversation of democracy. Magazines like NATIONAL REVIEW, THE AMERICAN PROSPECT, SOJOURNERS, THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE, THE NATION, WASHINGTON MONTHLY, MOTHER JONES, IN THESE TIMES, WORLD MAGAZINE, THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW, REASON and many others. [Editor’s Note: Like the one you’re reading here.]

The Internet may be the way of the future, but for today much of what you read on the Web is generated by newspapers and small magazines. They may be devoted to a cause, a party, a worldview, an issue, an idea, or to one eccentric person’s vision of what could be, but they nourish the public debate. America wouldn’t be the same without them.

Our founding fathers knew this; knew that a low-cost postal incentive was crucial to giving voice to ideas from outside the main tent. So they made sure such publications would get a break in the cost of reaching their readers. That’s now in jeopardy. An impending rate hike, worked out by postal regulators, with almost no public input but plenty of corporate lobbying, would reward big publishers like Time Warner, while forcing these smaller periodicals into higher subscription fees, big cutbacks and even bankruptcy.

It’s not too late. The postal service is a monopoly, but if its governors, and especially members of Congress, hear from enough citizens, they could have a change of heart. So, liberal or conservative, left or right, libertarian, vegetarian, communitarian or Unitarian, or simply good Samaritan, let’s make ourselves heard.

Issue #71 is Up!

71cover Wanted to give everyone a heads up here that the Winter issue of White Crane is up on our magblog.

There you can see the contents of this fine issue which includes a number of great articles on the subject of  outsiders and "Bohemia" with interviews with creative fine artist Don Bachardy and performance artist and author, Sweet Pam.

The blog excerpt of the Victor Marsh’s interview with Don Bachardy includes a number of Bachardy’s recent brilliant  male nudes — many that subscribers will recognized from the full color centerfolds in the printed version of this issue.

So, check it out at  White Crane online!

Dan & Bo!

Where is the Winter Issue?

A lot of people have been calling and writing and wanting to know why they haven’t received their winter 2006 issue. We hold our writers to a fairly tight deadline (and by the way…the deadlines never change. It is always the first of the month prior to the pubdate. So winter (Dec. 21…usually) the deadline is November 1. Always. Spring (March 21)…deadline: February 1. Always. Summer (June 21)…deadline: May 1. Always. And fall (September 21)…the deadline is August 1. Always.

So…if we’re so hard ass about our writer’s deadlines, how come we’re so lax on our own publishing dates? Well, we’re not happy about it and we try very hard to get everything layed out and nice for you and do it as quickly as we can so you get it as close to the day you expect it as we can. In December that can be a particular problem, too, with all the holiday mail. But this winter issue is extraordinarily late.

Well here’s why:

We have used the same printer for the past ten years. He’s in Texas and because we’ve tried to keep our overhead to a minimum so we can keep the subscription rates reasonable, we’ve stuck with him even though he was unable to do full color, didn’t have digital capability, couldn’t do photography, etc.

There have been a lot of improvements in the magazine that we would have loved to do…but we just couldn’t. Or our Texas printer (let’s just call him TP) couldn’t. We stuck with him out of a sense of loyalty, too. He managed our fulfillment (mailing), too. And there are very few printers who would do both the printing and the fulfillment for the price we were getting it done. So despite numerous issues…like last summer’s debacle with the marvelous Don Kilhefner article "Gay Adults: Where Are You?" that were squarely and by any measure the printer’s mistake…we stuck with him. To his credit, he reprinted it (at his own expense) and sent it out to all the subscribers with the fall issue. But bookstore readers never saw the complete Kilhefner piece (except here online). Bummer.

So, with this winter issue we had some serious concerns about color reproduction. (I don’t want to give too much away here…we still want you to be delighted when you open your mail and see it)…so we called TP to make arrangements to ensure that the color reproduction was perfect.  We called him months in advance.

I’ll just cut to the chase here: TP never answered a single phone call. He never responded to multiple phone messages and never replied to multiple email messages. No "I think you should find someone else." No "I don’t want to do this anymore." Nothing.

So at the worst possible moment, we had to find a new printer, and a new fulfillment house. And we had to find them fast. And we had to find a printer who would do a good job who would take a small magazine. Most printers won’t even look at you unless you’re doing 5000+ pieces. We’d like to be that big, but, alas, we’re not. We were under the gun and a lot of printers wouldn’t even look at us.

Well…the good news is we found one. Turns out to be the same printers who print such fine publications as McSweeney’s and The Paris Review, no less! And they have been friendly and helpful and so much more capable that we didn’t mind (here’s the bad news) that it nearly doubled our printing costs (and no…this isn’t leading up to "we’re raising our subscription rates"…not yet at least.)

Not nearly…it doubled our printing costs…and they don’t even do fulfillment. We had to find a new fulfillment house, too. And that’s an added expense, too. Fortunately the good news there is the wonderful fulfillment house we found — recommended by our wonderful printers — are helping us to get the [reduced] postal rates a nonprofit publication is supposed to get. So over time…the next three mailings, to be exact…our postal rates will show a significant savings. A savings that is more than eaten up by the new printers, to be sure, but that’s a trade-up and we think you will actually SEE that difference and probably agree with us that it was a good call.

So that’s why winter is late this year.

Dan and I go through virtually the same psychological process with every issue, usually ending up with us thinking “this is the best issue we’ve ever done.”

This is the best issue we’ve ever done.

We hope you think so, too, when you see it.  That will be soon and then we’ll be back and humming along to the Spring issue, which is on Cinema.  So start thinking about your favorite movies and the way that movies enrich your life and send us your stories!

Off to the Left Coast!

I’m off to Los Angeles today to attend Rise Up and Shout! the special event on Saturday, September  9th, produced by the Los Angeles Gay Men’s Medicine Circle to benefit White Crane.
Riseupand_shout_2
I’m really excited about it and the opportunity to visit with Malcolm Boyd and Mark Thompson, sit for a portrait with Don Bachardy and, later, work with White Crane Institute Advisory Board member, Robert Croonquist to produce an oral history video on the San Francisco Hula Palace with bon vivant and activist, Lee Mentley.

L.A. is my old stomping grounds, so it will be good to see old friends. Now if I could only remember how to drive on a freeway!

Our Bad

Dan and I just want to let readers know that we are aware of the problems with the current issue of White Crane (and we’ve probably learned that we shouldn’t try to publish anything when Mercury is retrograde!) particularly with the important article by Don Kilhefner.

First of all, we want you to know that the full article, without the printing errors, is on line. And, finally, we feel this article, Gay Adults! Gay Adults Where Are You?, is so important, that we will be re-running it in issue #70 so readers can read it and see the missing text, and enjoy the full idea of the piece.

Many of you have written to us about this. Both Dan and I apologize to Don and to our readers for the errors. We are working to make sure it doesn’t happen again. (I feel compelled to explain it wasn’t in the copy editing that this error happened…it happened at the printers!)