The 3^rd Annual Rebel Satori World AIDS Day Book Release and Reading: the Rebel Satori imprint, The Library of Homosexual Congress, is honored to reprint the first American novel about the AIDS crisis, Facing It: A Novel About AIDS, by Paul Reed, from 1984. In addition to reading from Facing It, we will celebrate our initial World AIDS Day releases with memorial readings from Invisible History: The Collected Poems of Walta Borawski, edited by Micheal Bronski and Philip Clark, winner of the 2023 Thom Gunn Award for Poetry,  and Allen Barnett’s classic short story collection, The Body and Its Dangers, from 1990.

Featuring readings by:

CHRISTOPHER BRAM

GERARD CABRERA

RON CALDWELL

PHILIP CLARK

PHILIP F. CLARK

DALE CORVINO

SCOTT HIGHTOWER

JP HOWARD

JERRY ROSCO

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Christopher Bram is the author of twelve books, including the novel that became the Academy-Award-winning movie, Gods and Monsters. He teaches at the Gallatin School of New York University.

Gerard Cabrera is the author of short fiction, poems, and the novel, Homo Novus, published by Rattling Good Yarns Press in 2022. His writing has appeared in literary journals such as the Acentos Review, JONATHAN, Kweli, Apricity, Digging Press, and Angel Rust. A naturalized Brooklynite, Gerard hails from the Puerto Rican community of Springfield, Massachusetts, the birthplace of Dr. Seuss, basketball, and the first American dictionary. He is a member of the Publishing Triangle Board of Directors.

Ron Caldwell is a writer, editor, and educator who was born in Texas and studied English literature at Rice University. He received a Master’s degree in Creative Writing: Poetry from Boston University, where his teachers were George Starbuck, Christopher Ricks, and Nobel laureate Derek Walcott. Ron has taught at Parsons School of Design since 1996, and is currently the coordinator of Integrative Seminar in the First Year program. He lives in Allen Barnett’s apartment.

Philip Clark is the co-editor of Invisible History: The Collected Poems of Walta Borawski, winner of the 2023 Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry.  His previous books are Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS and In the Empire of the Air: The Poems of Donald Britton. The recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, he is completing a biography of H. Lynn Womack, a pioneering gay publisher from the late 1950s to the early 1970s.  He lives near Washington, D.C.

Philip F. Clark is the author of the poetry collection, The Carnival of Affection (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017). He received his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from City College in 2016, where he was an Adjunct Assistant Professor. His work is included in ‘On Becoming A Poet’, published by Marsh Hawk Press, 2020, and he has been published in various journals and anthologies.

Dale Corvino’s essays have appeared in Salon, the Rumpus, and the Gay & Lesbian Review. Bonds & Boundaries, his debut short story collection, was published in 2023 by Rebel Satori Press. His memoir of sex work, Afterlife of a Kept Boy, won the C&R Press Nonfiction Prize and is scheduled for publication in March 2025.

Scott Hightower’s newest collection of poems, Imperative to Spare, is from Rebel Satori, New Orleans. Part of the Bargain, his third book won the 2004 Hayden Carruth Award. Hightower lives in Manhattan and teaches at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

JP Howard is a poet, educator, literary activist, curator, and community builder. JP is a Learn with Lambda Literary 2023 workshop facilitator and was the Spring 2023 Brooklyn College Tow Mentor-in-Residence. Her debut poetry collection, SAY/MIRROR (The Operating System), was a Lambda Literary finalist. She is also the author of bury your love poems here (Belladonna*), Praise This Complicated Herstory: Legacy, Healing & Revolutionary Poems (Harlequin Creature) and co-editor of Sinister Wisdom Journal Black Lesbians–We Are the Revolution! JP has received fellowships and grants from Cave Canem, VONA, Lambda Literary Foundation, and Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC). She curates Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon and her poetry is widely anthologized. JP is a general Poetry Editor for Women’s Studies Quarterly and Editor-At-Large of Mom Egg Review VOX online. http://www.jp-howard.com

Jerry Rosco is author of the biography Glenway Wescott Personally and editor of the Wescott journals Continual Lessons and A Heaven of Words.