fine writing by lesbians and gay men since 1999
Welcome
Paradise Press publishes a wide range of fiction, poetry and non-fiction by lesbians and gay men. Our titles – over forty so far – are available in print, e-book or both formats. From fantasy and chilling tales of the supernatural to the memoirs of gay men who lived through the repressive years of the 1950s and 1960s, from acerbic humour to thoughtful poetry, from romance to mystery, there’s a book for you. Two novels by Paradise Press authors have been short-listed for major gay literary prizes – Timothy Graves’ Homo Jihad for the Polari First Book Prize in 2011 and Rod Shelton’s Bokassa’s Last Apostle for the gay mystery category in the 2013 Lambda Literary Awards.
New titles for 2015/16: Pharmakeia by Timothy Graves – “Art and death, cocaine and meth, from Shoreditch to Soho and back again. Graves documents the artistic world of London – its drug-fuelled highs and overdosing lows with extraordinary detail.” Clayton Littlewood, author of Dirty White Boy.
Consequences by Elizabeth J. Lister - The destructive force of homophobia
Kissyface by Elsa Wallace - three stories about gay lives
Amiable Warriors Volume One A Space to Breathe by Peter Scott-Presland – A history of The Campaign for Homosexual Equality and its times.
Diverse Performances by David Haldane Lawrence edited by Ross Burgess – Masculinities and the Victorian Stage.
Latest Publications all our titles
An anthology of poetry and prose celebrating women’s loves, lives and landmarks.
Fourteen women have contributed to this anthology. We share our experiences of love and life ... and the landmarks that mark our progress through our lives ... in our own very varied styles, using poetry and prose.
'We want to tell you how ... contains deeply heartfelt, pain-fully honest, and beautifully written pieces of writing. For those who have ever lived with hope or regret, you will find your own story amongst these pages.' —Clare Summerskill
The journey of self-discovery is seldom simple. Frequently the most unexpected things can reveal themselves. Two Lives tells of Andrew’s journey through gender confusion and his wish to be a woman. A chance tea-time conversation leads to an exploration of reincarnation and the resolution of his dilemma. Includes 16 pages of photographs, some in colour.
A Boxful of Ideas is the latest and most ambitious anthology from Gay Authors Workshop. More authors. More titles. A greater range of forms: short stories, poems, and essays. A varied line-up and a new take on current and abiding topics.
Paradise Press, founded 1999, is run by a collective within GAW, and has published over forty titles, including full-length novels, poetry, memoirs and history, and six previous anthologies.
Authors featured in this anthology include:
Risking It is Jeremy Kingston’s third poetry collection. Using a variety of verse forms, rhymed and unrhymed, they express feelings to do with erotic encounters at home and abroad before moving into darker areas of betrayal, revenge and the power and dangers of myth. The tone now ranges between sorrow, mirth and resignation, at times managing to combine all three while also exploring the delights of metaphor, in language and among orchids.
When Mahvand Amirzadeh, a young gay comics artist, encounters Belial (aka Jean-Baptiste Lebeau-Chevalier) at a literary soiree in the East End, his artistic journey takes an unexpected turn. Mahvand is lured into the dark underbelly of London’s conceptual art scene and enters into a Faustian- like pact with Jean-Baptiste. But what is Jean-Baptiste’s true nature? And how far will Mahvand go in his quest to become a celebrity- artist?
Pharmakeia is a darkly disturbing tale interwoven with humour and light – from Candy Darling, the Geordie transsexual who works below Mahvand in the basement sex shop, to Gracie, Mahvand’s cockney-rhyming, Tarot-reading Gran.
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