Flash Dances: 100 Little Queer Tales

Edited by Stephanie Dickinson and Peter Scott-Presland
Published: 2024

This anthology has now been published and contains more than 100 tales by thirty queer and queer-friendly writers, including at least five published novelists, an award-winning playwright and eight debutants.

Flash Fiction lives, breathes and dances across the page in stories from eight words to 1,000. Funny and fire-breathing, sad, savage and sexy. 

If you don't like one story, there'll be another along in a Flash! Which, among other things, makes it an ideal toilet book!

ISBN 9 781904 585985

Paperback, 231 pages.

£10 (plus p&p)

Reviews

"A real mix of fab short stories and poems, written by a variety of up and coming LGBTQ authors. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and love the anthology."

"Flash Dances is an absolute gem of a book. This collection of short stories by queer writers is funny, heartwarming, and packed with all the feels. The stories are clever, authentic, and so full of life it’s impossible not to connect with them. If you love sharp writing and emotional depth with a side of sass, this is a must-read. You won’t regret it!"

Olympia Heights

By Leigh V Twersky

Published: 2024

Olympia Heights is set in a future corporate world, where only money and celebrity count, C-class people dread disemployment and D-classification, and homo 'niceboys' get metamorphosed into 'sphecos', a hybrid wasp-man auxiliary police force with crime-busting assets.

It is the story of one spheco's quest for identity, lost family and proscribed love and also the tale of a woman's struggle to survive on the outlawed fringes of a society, where the revelation of a dark secret threatens to tear her life apart.

Homophobia and genetic cleansing. Pre-mortem funerals and putting the 'quality' into equality.

Welcome to BestcoeBritain.

ISBN: 978-1-904585-95-4

Paperback, 432 pp

UK delivery: £13.49 (inc p&p)
EU delivery: £17.49 (inc p&p)

Lost Places an LGBT Anthology

Works by a variety of GAW members

Edited by Jeffrey Doorn

Published: 2023

The places we remember as significant in our lives helped shape who we are and how we relate to the world.

This anthology of nineteen prose, and poetry pieces by fourteen authors, recollects such places now lost, either though physical alteration, changed character, redevelopment or demolition.

Some may remain but are no longer gay or gay-friendly, others replaced by online platforms. It is important to recall and record these markers of our history and heritage. They form part of our legacy to younger and future generations.

ISBN 978-1-90-4585-94-7

Paperback, 132 pages.

UK delivery: £10.39 (inc p&p)
EU delivery: £13.74 (inc p&p)

The Bexhill Missile Crisis

By David Gee

Published: 2014

‘If only, Evelyn would think later, if only there hadn’t been the bother in Cuba; if only she hadn’t knocked the Horseman of the Apocalypse off his motorbike, the week might have turned out very differently. ’October, 1962. The world goes to the brink. Not only in Cuba.

As US warships set sail to establish President Kennedy’s Cuban ‘blockade’, Londoners Andrew and Evelyn motor down to the Sussex coast. At a country crossroads their car collides with a motorcycle ridden by the sinister Pilgrim.

Evelyn is the wife of a Bond Street jeweller; she knows what an orgasm is but hasn’t had one. Andrew is a graphic artist and womaniser, haunted by his gay past. Laurence, their host in Bexhill, is an ex-lover of Andrew’s; his teenage daughter Sarah is impatient to lose her virginity.

While Kennedy and Krushchev nudge the world towards a nuclear precipice, Pilgrim drives these middle-class misfits to a brink of their own. Their cosy Terence Rattigan lives get a Joe Orton makeover in this dark comedy-of-manners with a gothic twist.

"Sexual intercourse began in 1962," says David Gee. "Philip Larkin was out by one year. Anyone who was alive at the time of the Cuban Crisis will remember the feeling that with the world on the brink of thermonuclear extinction, there might only be time for one last fling. The four people in The Bexhill Missile Crisis don’t choose the wrong partner for this fateful fling; he chooses them".

ISBN: 978 1 904585 596

Paperback, 224 pages

UK delivery: £11.49 (inc p&p)
EU delivery: £15.49 (inc p&p)

Amiable Warriors

Volume One: A Space to Breathe

By Peter Scott-Presland

Published: 2015

A history of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality and its times.

By Peter Scott-Presland with Foreword by Paul O’Grady

The Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) was the largest LGBT organisation ever in the UK. It had over 5,000 members and 150 local groups, from St. Ives to Sunderland, from Swansea to Norwich.

For twenty years (1970–1990) it campaigned ceaselessly for the human rights of LGBT people. It provided a social network, support, counselling and encouragement to ‘come out’ for tens of thousands of LGBT people all over the country. For people living in smaller towns it was often the only form of support and socialising that was available.

The story of CHE is the story of courage in small things, as ordinary lesbians and gays battled to get their voices heard in their communities. It’s also a story of humour and anger, ruckus and rumpy-pumpy, told with with, elegance and style by Peter Scott-Presland, a journalist who has interviewed many of those involved, and knew many more. A monument to a generation of activists which is also a thundering good read.

ISBN: 978-1-904585 -75-6

Hardback, 640 pages

UK delivery: £35 (inc p&p)
EU delivery: £45 (inc p&p)

First and Fiftieth

By Martin Foreman

Published: 2002

Sometimes you sit, watch the trains, the sunset, the rain. Sometimes you talk. Tell your story if you’ve a mind to. Trouble is, memory changes things.

Things you want to forget. Things you want to remember that never happened. Happens to everybody. Gets so, nobody’s story’s true. Not yours, not mine. But it’s all we got.

Martin Foreman‘s latest collection of short stories comprises first person narratives spanning the globe from Rio de Janeiro to Los Angeles, Africa to Nepal, London to Siberia. 

Men and women from teenagers to grandparents each speak in a distinctive voice and with intense emotion as love and sex, violence and humour, anger and pathos meet in this kaleidoscope of human comedy and tragedy.

“The youthful yet already impressive Paradise Press publication goes from strength to strength with his collection of first persona narratives, each containing a strong, distinctive and powerful voice, leading the collection as a whole to never be anything less than diverting.”Gay Times

“Engaging, told with style”Gay Scotland

“Mr Foreman’s style has evidently had a lot of attention lavished on it, not to mention careful study of the human race in its multiplicity of forms”
Tregolwyn Book Reviews

See Martin Foreman for more information.

ISBN: 978 0 9525964 7 9

Paperback, 152 pages

UK delivery: £10.49 (inc p&p)
EU delivery: £14.49 (inc p&p)

Coming Clean

Edited by John Dixon and Jeffrey Doorn

Published: 2014

Coming Clean is a poetry anthology from Gay Authors Workshop, and the most ambitious so far. Celebrating their 35th (Coral) anniversary, there is no theme, though the title, Coming Clean, could apply in one way or another, owning up or writing honestly to most of the poems included.

The 90 poems by fourteen poets recall childhood innocence, adolescent yearning, sexual encounters, troubled relationships, demons, dominance, deprivation, ageing, loss, doubt, and faith.

Haikus, prose poems, song lyrics, Spencerian Stanza, performance pieces, the variety of forms is as diverse as the themes and subjects. Abstract or concrete, the verses conceal and reveal, whether hidden objects or identity lost in time. Serious, amusing, light, dense, naughty or downright raunchy. There’s something for everyone.

It includes a short selection of poems by the late Ivor Treby, an early gay literary activist and member of GAW.

“An accessible and engaging anthology containing an impressive variety of poems, both in form and content. The standard was impressively high and I discovered some absolute gems”
V G Lee, author of several novels and volumes of short stories, including Diary of a Provincial Lesbian and Always You, Edina.

ISBN: 978 1 904585 69 5

Paperback, 128 pages

UK delivery: £8.39 (inc p&p)
EU delivery: £11.74 (inc p&p)

Whispering Campaigns

By John Dixon

Published: 2024

Whispering Campaigns is John Dixon's second volume of short stories. Twenty-four, some very short, on a variety of topics and in a variety of styles and forms - SF, historical, monologues, dialogue, dystopia.

"This amazingly diverse collection of stories is sometimes fantastic and dreamlike, sometimes surreal and nightmarish, often playful and satirical, and always transgressive."  Les Brookes, author of Gay Male Fiction Since Stonewall

"Nothing about Dixon's work could be called light or superficial. He cuts deep. Expect the unexpected! A highly observant writer with a unique take on life. A diverse and compelling collection!"  VG Lee, author of The Comedienne: Always you, Edina: Mr Oliver's Object of Desire

"An impressive breadth of narrative styles, humorous, macabre, satirical, violent, and often delightfully bizarre. This is not a book for the faint-hearted. Many of these stories are genuinely subversive."  Tim Blackwell, author of The Bingo Caller & other stories

"John Dixon's glittering collection of bonbons offers tales for all tastes, some funny, some creepy, some tragic. And some downright filthy. He does so in elegant, detached prose. Always there is an arresting phrase to pull you up short."  
Peter Scott-Presland author of A Gay Century and Amiable Warriors, a history of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality

ISBN 978-1-904585-78-7

Paperback , 220 pages

UK delivery: £12.49 (inc p&p)
EU delivery: £16.49 (inc p&p)

Ghosts and Gargoyles

By Elsa Wallace

Published: 2013

Who would have heard any cries from the attic window at the back? No-one had heard them since but Fiona, trembling in her bed, those dreadful hoarse pleadings and sobbing, hysterical sometimes.

It was like a man but also like a child, the noise rose and fell, on and on, sometimes muffled, sometimes sharp, sometimes howling and growling in a sort of madness. Once a sickening laugh came down those stairs. Once or twice she was sure it had called her name, and then “Mummy, mummy” it had said quite clearly.

She was terrified of it. What could it be? She ought to be sorry for it but it sounded so bizarre and she couldn’t imagine the being behind it. Was it a man or was it a child or something of both?’

Ghosts and Gargoyles is the second collection by Elsa Wallace, the author of A Short History of Lord Hyaena, Merle and The Monkey Mirror.

ISBN: 978 1 904585 43 5

Paperback, 144 pages

UK delivery: £10.49 (inc p&p)
EU delivery: £14.49 (inc p&p)

The Physent and Other Stories

By Michael Harth

Published: 2003

There was somehow an atmosphere about it, almost as if it was waiting for something to happen, and as Gary stepped into the hollow he could feel the air crackle. 

He knew he was dicing with danger, but something over and above any fears drew him on till he was standing in the centre.

A collection of frightening, humorous and challenging fantasies, featuring weretigers, vampires and other creatures that live in the shadows of our present day.

“There are good things in The Physent. The ‘spook’ stories are imaginative, and stray into territory familiar from the tales of M R James and H P Lovecraft, but generally also possess a sexual frisson.”
Peter Burton, Gay Times, December 2003

ISBN: 978 1 904585 03 9

Paperback, 146 pages

UK delivery: £10.49 (inc p&p)
EU delivery: £14.49 (inc p&p)

We want to tell you how …

Edited by Stephanie Dickinson and Pat Dungey

Published: 2018

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

ISBN: 978-1-904585-89-3

Paperback, 144 pages

UK delivery: £11.49 (inc p&p)
EU delivery: £15.49 (inc p&p)

Diverse Performances

Masculinities and the Victorian Stage

By David Haldane Lawrence and edited by Ross Burgess

Published: 2014

The rich tapestry of life in and around London theatres in the Victorian age. Oscar Wilde and his first-night supporters with their green carnations, soon to be dispersed when disaster struck; ‘Fanny and Stella’ parading in full drag, and their triumph in court; Sir Henry Irving and his close male friendships. Plus the many ways that the theatre impacted the lives of men, as actors, musicians, dramatists, and men behind the scenes and in the audience.

Diverse Performances is a comprehensive survey of the role of men in the Victorian theatre, with insights into the behaviour of ‘swells’ in the audience, the unhealthy conditions backstage, the techniques of lighting as gas jets were replaced by limelight and then by electricity, the struggle of playwrights to earn a decent living, the portrayal of soldiers sailors, and working men in popular melodrama, and the struggle for actors to be considered ‘respectable’.

David Haldane Lawrence was working on this book, an expansion of his PhD thesis, up to his untimely death in 2009. Ross Burgess has thoroughly revised it, combining what appeared to be the best sections of David’s various drafts, and prepared it for publication by Paradise Press.

ISBN: 978-1-904585-74-9

384 pages, with 59 illustrations, full references and select bibliography.

Cover design by David Tilbury and foreword by Jeremy Kingston.

UK delivery: £16.55 (inc p&p)
EU delivery: £26.55 (inc p&p)