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[bellejarred]

Hi, I just joined this community for suggestions and reading tips, etc. I'm getting a PhD in Creative Writing and one of my preliminary exams is going to be in Contemporary Queer Fiction. I have compiled a brief, preliminary list, and was wondering if you could give me advice--can you all recommend any titles that are vital and absent from my list

Comments

[blake_fraina]

Christopher Rice recently wrote about diversity in queer fiction for the Advocate. Here is a brief excerpt (which includes a list of authors writing in the GLBT genre who are doing very unique, exciting stuff) as well as a link to the Yahoo Community where the article is re-run in its entirety:

"Rather than spending all of our energy trying to guilt-trip the
media into representing us more diversely, it's time we put our
passion and our dollars behind the nuanced representations of gay
men that have already been written.

Don't think you're part of the problem? Here's a test. Which of the
following do you recognize? Mack Friedman, Richard McCann, Barry
McCrea, Vestal McIntyre, Sulayman X, Aaron Hamburger, Dennis Cooper,
Harlan Greene, Thorn Kief Hillsbery, Keith McDermott, Patrick Ryan,
Blair Mastbaum, Bart Yates, K.M. Soehnlein, Michael Lowenthal, Eric
Shaw Quinn, John Morgan Wilson. This is but a small sampling of
current writers whose work collapses stereotypes of gay men. (Here's
hoping you're already familiar with living gay literary lions such
as Alan Hollinghurst, Felice Picano, Andrew Holleran, Edmund White
and others.)"

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ourbookshelf/message/4503

I've personally read AVOIDANCE by Michael Lowenthal, CLAY'S WAY by Blair Mastbaum, THE BROTHERS BISHOP by Bart Yates and THE FIRST VERSE by Barry McCrea (which has become one of my favourite books, ever). Joel Lane and Neil Drinnan are two others I might add to his list. I think you should check out Rice's list of contemporary alternatives to the classic and the cliche.