Date: Tue, 7 Mar 95 21:58:32 EST From: "Ellen Greenblatt" BELHUE PRESS -- 1995 CATALOG 2501 Palisade Avenue, Suite A1 Bronx, NY 10463 Phone & fax: (718) 884-6606 MIRAGE electrifying science fiction On the tribal planet Ki, two men -- in the spirit of an ancient pact -- have been promised to each other for a lifetime. But a savage attack and a bloodchilling murder break this promise and force them to seek another world where imbalance and lies form Reality. This is the planet known as Earth, a world they will use and escape. Nominated 1992 Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Men's Science Fiction/Fantasy. "What we've got here is four characters in two bodies ... a startling historical perspective on sexual politics ... intelligent and intriguing." -- Bob Satuloff in _The New York Native_. Author: Perry Brass. 224 pages. $10.95. ISBN 0-9627123-1-0 CIRCLES the amazing sequel to _Mirage_ "Brass' prose slides gracefully from down-to-earth plain talk to a richly metaphored language that recalls his roots as a poet ... the world he has created with _Mirage_ and its sequel rivals, in complexity and wonder, the fantasy creations of such greats as C. S. Lewis and Ursula LeGuin." -- _Mandate Magazine_, New York. Author: Perry Brass. 224 pages. $10.95. ISBN 0-9627123-1-0 OUT THERE Stories of Private Desires. Horror. And The Afterlife. "... ghosts, reincarnation, insanity, other-worldly revenge, and demonic possession of dolls, people, and/or souls. Recommended to horror fans who happen to be gay. And especially perfect for reading aloud to a cheating spouse." -- _Lambda Book Report_. "... we have come to associate [horror] with slick and trashy chiller-thrillers. Perry Brass is neither slick nor trashy. He writes very well, indeed, in an elegant and easy prose that carries the reader forward readily and pleasurably from one episode to the next. I found this selection of his work to be of excellent quality." -- _The Gay Review_, Canada. Author: Perry Brass. 196 pages. $10.95. ISBN 0-9627123-4-5 ALBERT or The Book Of Man The year is 2025. San Francisco. At a massive rally at the ultra-high-tech Reagan Towers, Brother Bob Dobson, world leader of the White Christian Party, announces: "Hate in the name of Jesus is better than love in anyone else's name." The White Christian Party has taken over America and divided the country between fundamentalist strongholds and a few weak "gay reserves." Albert, once the son of a pair of Same-Sex men on the distant warring planet Ki, will emerge from the dark waters of a gay reserve on Cape Cod. From there, he will change the lives of a community and a culture. Mesmerizing, erotic, and truthful, _Albert_ is the gay Everyman at the crossroads of two worlds. In _The Book of Man_, he will tell his own story and define the ultimate tribe from which he comes. Author: Perry Brass. 224 pages. $11.95. ISBN 0-9627123-5-3 (Available Spring, 1995) Belhue Press books are available through Inland Book Co. (800 243-0138), Alamo Square Distributors (415 863-7410), Baker & Taylor, Bookpeople, Midwest Library Service, and many other library wholesalers and jobbers. In the UK and throughout Europe they can be ordered through TurnAround Book Distributors 71-609 7836; fax: 71-700 1205) For more information, please contact Belhue Press, 2501 Palisade Avenue, Suite A1; Bronx, NY 10463. Phone & fax: (718) 884-6606 PERRY BRASS Perry Brass has been involved with gay liberation since 1969. He edited _Come Out!_, the first gay liberation newspaper in the world, published by New York's Gay Liberation Front, and with two friends founded the first health clinic for gay men on the East Coast. His poetry and essays -- some of the most influential in the early gay movement -- dealt with the oppression of gay men as well as their gifts for passionate feelings. They were published in alternative papers here and in Europe. His work has been included in _The Male Muse_ (the first public anthology of gay poetry), _Angels of the Lyre_, _The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse_, _Gay Roots_, _Gay Liberation_ (from Rolling Stone Press); and _Out of the Closets_, recently rereleased by New York University Press. His short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in _Christopher Street_, _The New York Native_, _Amethyst_, _Mouth of the Dragon_, _FirstHand_, _Playguy_, _Alfred Hitchcock Magazine_, and many smaller literary magazines. His 1985 play, - _Night Chills_, one of the first to deal with the AIDS crisis, won the Jane Chambers International Gay Playwriting Contest. He has collaborated with many composers, including the late Chris DeBlasio whose _All The Way Through Evening_, a song cycle based on five Brass poems, from which "Walt Whitman in 1989" was spotlighted in the ground-breaking AIDS Quilt Songbook CD, has become the most performed contemporary song cycle in the world. His first book of poems, _Sex-charge_, was published in 1991. _Mirage_, his gay science fiction thriller, was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men's Science Fiction. Its sequel, _Circles_, was described by San Francisco Bay Times as "a shot of adrenaline to the creative centers of the brain." Perry Brass currently lives in New York City. An accomplished reader and exponent on gender and gay-related topics, he is available for public appearances. Q. & A. with Perry Brass Q. Tell us something about Perry Brass and his books. A. In many ways I wanted to write the kind of books that I wanted to read -- and couldn't find. Exciting, fun, gripping books, full of ideas and insights. Not loaded down with the usual stereotypes of what gay men were supposed to be. In other words, I was not interested in writing books about sad young men who have problems with their mothers. There are enough people writing them. I wanted to write books that gripped you, but were also amazingly personal. That is one reason why I got involved with science fiction/fantasy -- I felt that SF and fantasy stories could be big, powerful, and gripping -- and also contain the messages that I wanted to bring across; messages about the inner lives of gay men. Q. So you think it's important for writers to have a "message." A. Only if the message is an innate part of the book, and not a billboard attached to it. It should not say: LOOK AT THIS. In my case, I think the message is that gay men -- and women -- are a part of Nature, part of the consciousness of the human race. And if you tamper with this part of human consciousness, humanity will pay for it. I think frankly it already has -- extreme homophobia is almost always part-and-parcel with violent, totalitarian regimes. A good example is that the second law Hitler passed after he become Fuhrer made homosexuality, including lesbianism, completely against the law. His first edict, by the way, prohibited any form of "pornography." This is not to say that it's impossible to have fascistic homosexuality. But much of homosexual behavior involves reaching out to others, either sexually or emotionally, and I think that puts a damper on the fascistic face in gay behavior. Q. Can you tell us anything about _Albert_, your next book? A. _Albert_'s an amazing story. Part of it takes place on Ki, my favorite planet where gay men mate for life and carry the "Egg of the Eye," a third testicle that allows them to trade thoughts, travel through space, and reproduce. And another part of it takes place in America in the year 2025, when the White Christian Party has taken over and gays are the only section of the population actively fighting it. So much so that by 2025, the term "queer" will be used for anyone who does not fit into a "White Christian agenda" of phony "family" values and conformity. This is close to my own feelings -- as a small kid when I heard the word "queer" I thought for a long time that it simply referred to anyone who was different and who didn't fit into the world I grew up in: a completely segregated Savannah, Georgia, in the late 50s and early 60s. Q. What do you think people get out of your books? A. I feel -- and hope -- that what they get out of them is hope, the feeling that their lives are not wasted, even lives cut short by AIDS, and that the purpose for us to be here, either in this world or in any other, is to find each other: to realize a certain special chemistry we have to know and love each other, no matter how difficult repressive, homophobic societies make this for us.