Diversity Rules Magazine

11 Diversity Rules Magazine October 2017 Her most recent book, An American Queer, a collection of "e Amazon Trail" col- umns, was presented with the 2015 Golden Crown Literary Society Award in Anthology/ Collection Creative Non Fic- tion. is, and her award- winning fiction, including e Raid, e Swashbuckler, and Beggar of Love, can be found at http://www.bold- strokesbooks.com/Author-Lee-Lynch.html. One day, out of the blue, I received an email from well-respected writer Renee Bess. In her thoughtful, elegant style, she asked if I would be interested in work- ing together to produce an anthology about the role gay bars have played in our lives. I was on board before I finished read- ing. A gay bar anthology, I immediately thought, was a brilliant idea and worked in so many ways. For one thing, it would capture a big chunk of our history, and document it, whether it be in the form of memoirs or poems or fiction or essays. For another, it would honor that history. Perhaps, I hoped, it would give young LGBT people an understanding of the at- traction of the bars, of places of our own, back when holding hands under a table was both daring and for- bidden. Happy Hours – Our Lives In e Gay Bars is not about the pleasures or tragedies of alcohol, but the camaraderie we found—or didn't find—inside those loud, dark, smoke-filled rooms where we took our freedoms. Renee emphasized how important it was to her to have a widely diverse collection. I felt the same and we com- mitted to vigorous outreach. Renee proposed we do the book as a fundraiser for youth shelters, the antithesis of the bars. All profits would go to that cause. Sounded per- fect to me. We both chose programs in the cities where we entered the gay world, Philadelphia for Renee and New York for me. We had an enormous pool of contrib- utors from which to draw. Not many writers resisted the companionship of- fered in the heydays of the bars. at's where we could feel normal for a while, where we could go to hang out with friends, meet our soulmates, dance, celebrate, blot out pain with liquor and sympa- thetic ears, and be our real selves for a few hours. Not to romanticize the experience, the bars also gave us the opportunity to feel isolated from our own people, breathe in dangerous levels of tobacco smoke, develop into alcoholics, get into fights, be ripped off by the owners, and arrested by the police. I wrote a whole book about that last, it's called e Raid. When I did Off the Rag: Lesbians Writing on Menopause, and e Butch Cook Book, my co-editors and I had to coax, beg, plead, transcribe, and otherwise badger submissions from women interested in writ- ing about the subject. With Happy Hours, Renee and I were elated to be inundated with heartfelt, quality donations of every type of writing from a hefty cross section of our tribe. And donations they were. We're really hoping to make a difference to our kids with this fundraiser; every stitch of work is volunteered. Of course, writers are used to giving away our work just to get it into print somewhere. is time, though, the publisher, Patty Schramm is taking no money and expending hours and hours plus a goodly sum for producing the book, which will be the inaugural project for her company, Flashpoint Publications. Patty's knowledge of the pub- lishing process is magic. She's doing the typesetting herself. Award winning cover artist Ann McMan is in great Amazon Trail - Con't on page 12 The Amazon Trail Happy Hours By Lee Lynch (c) Can Stock Photo Inc. / grsphoto

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