SciFi and More from Duane Simolke

The following is a press release about one of my upcoming appearances.

Out in Writing

(Lubbock, Texas) Using resources from
StoneWall Society and The Human Rights Campaign Foundation's National Coming Out Project, Duane Simolke will lead a discussion on lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) books and writers.

This event will occur in Lubbock, Texas, on Tuesday, November 18, 7 PM, as part of a PFLAG-Lubbock meeting. PFLAG-Lubbock meets at St. John's United Methodist Church, 15th Street & University Avenue, across the street from Texas Tech University. Contact: 806-799-5466. It is part of the international PFLAG Federation. PFLAG (Parents, Friends, and Families of Lesbians and Gays) provides advocacy, support, and education.

Simolke, author of The Acorn Stories and Degranon, will start by discussing his own experiences as an openly gay author. Then he will branch into other books and authors that he finds helpful in dealing with coming out and other LGBT issues.

Next, attendees will break into four smaller groups, each lead by at least one person who frequently reads LGBT-friendly books. They will discuss other books that interest them, in relation to the theme “Out in Writing.” The event will conclude with the results of these small group discussions, and with a brief/question answer session.

Simolke plans not to promote any official list of LGBT books, but rather to promote an overall awareness of LGBT books and the themes they explore, especially in relation to coming out and being out. He encourages attendees to bring pens and paper, so they can write down the names of authors and works discussed at the meeting.

Majoring in English, Simolke received degrees from Belmont University (B.A., 1989), Hardin-Simmons University (M.A., 1991), and Texas Tech University (Ph.D., 1996). Stein, Gender, Isolation, and Industrialism: New Readings of Winesburg, Ohio was his doctoral dissertation at Tech. StoneWall Society gave him Pride in the Arts literary awards for his books The Acorn Stories, Degranon, and Holding Me Together.

Duane Simolke also edited and co-wrote the spin-off The Acorn Gathering: Writers Uniting Against Cancer, with all author and editor royalties going to cancer research. Simolke’s publisher, iUniverse, is releasing a revised second edition of The Acorn Stories as part of its Editor’s Choice series, in the fall of 2003.