A Sea of Stories

Take a look at how narrative has shaped gay and lesbian culture

A Sea of Stories: The Shaping Power of Narrative in Gay and Lesbian Cultures: A Festschrift for John P. De Cecco is an unforgettable collection of personal narratives that explores the historical, psychological, and sociological contexts of homosexuality in locations ranging from Nazi Germany to Colorado. Some of the prominent authors in this collection include David Bergman, Louis Crew, Diana Hume George, and Ruth Vanita. Scholars in gay and lesbian studies, political movements, cultural studies, and narratology, and anyone interested in gay history will want to explore these intriguing narratives on topics such as sex and sin in the South, selling gay literature before Stonewall, growing up gay in India, and the story of an interracial male couple facing homophobic ignorance in a small town.

A Sea of Stories also contains creative fiction and nonfiction love stories, war stories, oral stories, and bibliographies, and a beautiful post-Stonewell and post-modern narrative set on a South African seascape that tells the story of two professional men and the possibility of a kiss. For a complete list of contents, please visit our Web site at www.haworthpressinc.com.

This book offers you a variety of narratives that cover a wide range, including:

• memoirs of gay Holocaust survivors and the emergence of the first lesbian and gay book club in its wake

• homophobia in the workplace and the use of coming-out stories to enhance workplace diversity

• the establishment of a gay/straight alliance in a Salt Lake City high school that is heavily dominated by Mormons

• gay literary heritage that examines the works of Langston Hughes as well as Martin Duberman, Paul Monette, and Edmund White in relation to the lesbian 70s

• creative nonfiction about a woman's love for another woman, her lifelong friend

• Provincetown's remarkable community response to the AIDS epidemic

  A collection of chapters written by the colleagues and former students of John P. De Cecco, pioneering editor of the Journal of Homosexuality, A Sea of Stories takes its title from a phrase Dr. De Cecco used in his keynote address to the “History and Memory” conference at Allegheny College in 1997. This conference sparked the idea for this collection of essays that examine the homosexual experience through historical, psychological, and sociological viewpoints and homosexuality in literature. These courageous stories will assist readers to know themselves more deeply, to identify wih others, and to interpret gay and lesbian experiences in different narrative forms.