CFP: BLACK GAY MEN'S ANTHOLOGY (3/18/05;6.15.05)

Published by the New York State Black Gay Network, Institute for Gay
Men's Health (AIDS Project Los Angeles & Gay Men's Health Crisis);
Black AIDS Institute and The National Black Justice Coalition

Co-edited by Frank Leon Roberts and Marvin K. White

Submissions are currently being accepted for the second volume of the
2004 LAMBDA Literary Award-nominated anthology Think Again to be
published by the New York State Black Gay Network, The Institute of
Gay Men's Health (a collaboration between AIDS Project Los Angeles and
Gay Men's Health Crisis), The Black AIDS Institute and the NBJC
(National Black Justice Coalition). The first volume, which featured
contributions by a diverse array of writers, critics and artists such
as Roderick Ferguson, Lyle Ashton Harris, Tim'm T. West and Vincent
Woodard, among others, attempted to re-think the relationship between
black men and HIV/AIDS. It is through this "re-thinking" that new
truths were told, old lies unearthed and the way forward made clear. A
forum for black men practicing same-sex desire to hear and read one
another's experiences was born; narratives were connected.

This new volume will speak in even greater volume to and from black
gay men and black men who practice same-sex desire about the
intersections of family and social value. In Think Again 2 our
personal narratives, poetry and cultural criticism will speak to how
black gay men and black gay men anchored in various communities of
same sex desire, construct, are denied, and (re)imagine notions of
kinship and belonging as well as the social value of their lives,
practices, and performances in the age of the global AIDS pandemic.
Think Again 2 will be a gathering of diasporic black voices,
re-locating our (dis)located bodies, minds and spirits to these pages,
the family album of our dreams. Think Again 2 will be a landmark
conversation about same-sex marriage, the "down low" and black
masculinities in the age of AIDS as well as the institutions of black
cultural belonging (church, 'home,' etc.) to which same sex desiring
black men are often excluded.

Submit your stories about family, both your biological and your
extended. Tell the story of how you got your name: gay, DL, SGL or
Other. Answer the question "Are you family?" Is there/has there
been/will there be "value" in identifying as gay or as being "family?"
 Tell the story of when you changed your name from one to the other.
Speak to feeling like "The Other." Speak to constructing virtual and
on-line family and how your electronic life is performed and played
out. Speak to the exclusion of your life from your family's history.
Speak to a literary lineage. Speak to fatherhood, yours and your
fathers. Speak to your children, both biological and found. Speak to
the media shaped masculinities that you choose from and the
"hand-me-down"ness" of labels that just might not fit you. Tell your
story of aging in or aging out of "the family." Speak to 'staying in'
and 'coming in' rather than 'coming out' to black communities. Write
to love and how your love is re-enforced or torn apart by the places
where love is supposed to reside. Write about our lives' worth, our
heart's worth, our mind's worth.

Committed to reaching various and broad publics, we especially welcome
submissions from those involved in activist and community based
organizations; unofficial historians of black gay cultures, those that
have "seen and heard it all", public health agencies targeting black
men of diverse sexualities and their clients; writers from film,
performance, and entertainment industries; 'queer' burgeoning and
subcultures including cultures of hustling, public sex and
"ballroom/house/club" and J-Sette cultures; black gay and black
communities of same-sex desire outside of the U.S., including by not
limited to London and Europe, Jamaica and the Caribbean, Africa and
'Latin' America, as well as those centered in traditional academic
institutions.

The volume will be edited by Frank Leon Roberts, a young scholar,
activist and editor of Brownstone Magazine based in New York City and
Marvin K. White, former member of Pomo Afro Homos, co-founder of
B/Glam, and author of the LAMBDA Literary-Award nominated collections
of poetry Last Rights (Redbone Press) and Nothin' Ugly Fly (Redbone
Press), based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

All submissions should be single-spaced, copied in the text of the
email and sent as an attachment to THINKAGAIN2_at_GMAIL.COM, and should
not exceed 3,000 words. Please include a brief two to three line
biographical sketch at the end of your submission. Do not attach jpeg,
tif, or mpeg images with your work. Also, while we encourage
narratives to be both poetic and critical, please do not send poetry
(unless it is incorporated into your essay) or traditional academic
essays (large blocked quotes, extensive footnotes, etc).

Submissions will be accepted for consideration until March 15th, 2005.

Publication Date: JUNE 2005

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Received on Wed Feb 16 2005 - 06:45:50 EST