Outwrite retrospective: A look back at some of the biggest authors, events to grace Atlanta LGBT bookstore

The Georgia Voice Editors

Atlanta

November 14, 2011

Author Interviews

Interview: CNN anchor Don Lemon on coming out on cable news

CNN anchor Don Lemon is accustomed to reporting headlines, not making them.

But as the author of the new book, “Transparent,” Lemon decided to make public to the world what many people close to him already knew —he is gay.

From the first moment audiences encountered Tabatha Coffey on Bravo’s “Shear Genius,” she has never been shy with an opinion. Her reputation as the dominatrix of deep-conditioning led to her own series on the network, “Tabatha’s Salon Takeover,” now in its third season.

Each episode features Coffey in a struggling salon, doling out tough love to the owner and staff. In each installment, it is absolutely guaranteed someone will cry, Tabatha will be gobsmacked by someone’s incompetence, and at least one person will call her a bitch. Sometimes this all happens in the same scene.

‘Wicked’ author says goodbye to Oz

Gregory Maguire didn’t plan on falling in love with a woman — much less a green-skinned, allegedly wicked, witch from another world. But after almost two decades he has penned his goodbye to the girl in the black hat.

“I’ve had a wonderful 16-year relationship with the Wicked Witch of the West and I don’t think I’ll ever have a relationship like that with a woman again,” Maguire says with a chuckle.

Christopher Rice’s latest novel, “The Moonlit Earth,” tackles three dangerous subjects: wealth, family, and gay life in the Middle East. After his last novel about a closeted Marine’s death and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” elicited real-life death threats, Rice jokes, “This book is as close as I’ll ever get to Robert Ludlum.”

The main character of “The Moonlit Earth” is a straight woman, Megan, who discovers that her flight-attendant brother Cameron is caught up in an apparent terrorist bombing in Hong Kong. Aabid, a gay Saudi Arabian who stays in the closet so he won’t be cut off from his family’s fortune, has a habit of trying to buy Cameron’s affection. Aabid’s bodyguard, Majed, runs interference throughout.

Scott Pasfield’s “Gay In America” is a beautiful coffee-table photo book with an ambitious goal: shatter stereotypes by photographing gay men from all 50 states, while also including their first-person accounts of their lives.

Released Sept. 27 by Welcome Books, “Gay in America” consists of 140 gay men, all of whom responded to a call for photographic subjects. They encompass a range of ages and races, creating a colorful portrait of 21st century gay life.

Meredith Baxter on coming out

Even though actress Meredith Baxter has spent much of her professional career in the spotlight, she has never been one to want to share her entire life in public. After coming out as a lesbian, however, she realized it was time to open up and tell her story. She reads from her new memoir, “Untied,” Oct. 28 at Outwrite.

For much of the ’70s and ‘80s, Baxter was known as a TV mom in popular television series such as “Family” and “Family Ties.” What viewers didn’t realize was that behind the sunny façade she was dealing with secrets – an abusive relationship with husband David Birney, alcoholism, breast cancer, and the realization late in life that she was attracted to women.

The news best-selling author Jodi Picoult received while writing her latest novel, “Sing You Home,” wasn’t exactly a surprise.

The novel, Picoult’s eighteenth, was released earlier this month and debuted at #1 on both the USA Today and New York Times book lists. It introduces Zoe, a music therapist who is divorced by her husband, Max, after their long-awaited baby is stillborn. After years of infertility, Max retreats into alcoholism and later a fundamentalist church, while Zoe stumbles through her days in a blur until Vanessa — a school counselor who just happens to be a lesbian — helps her find joy again.

Jonathan Lerner at Outwrite

When two hijacked planes crashed into the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, Atlanta writer Jonathan Lerner remembers thinking how he could identify with Mohamed Atta. Atta, a college-educated man who was raised by affluent parents in Egypt, was the hijacker-pilot who flew the first plane into the World Trade Center.

Lerner’s friend, sex columnist and blogger Michael Alvear, who is gay, told him he needed to put those thoughts down on paper.

Kim Severson set out to simply write about female cookbook authors. But the result was her memoir “Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Changed My Life,” the compelling tale of how lessons learned at the table helped her cope with alcohol addiction, drug use, coming out, and more.

Released in April 2010, “Spoon Fed” drew instant praise for Severson, who has worked as a journalist and food writer for newspapers in Alaska and California, and finally for the New York Times.