BGSQDBureau of General Services—Queer Division
BGSQD
FIVE NEW YORK WRITER DYKES READ FROM THEIR LATEST NOVELS & DISCUSS THE EXPERIENCE OF
WRITING QUEER FICTION IN THE BIG CITY
Native New Yorker Ann Aptaker has earned a reputation as a respected if cheeky exhibition designer and curator of art during her career in museums and galleries. Taking the approach that what art authorities find uncomfortable the public would likely enjoy, exhibitions Ann has curated have garnered favorable reviews in the New York Times, Art in America, American Art Review, and other publications.
She brings the same attitude and philosophy to her first love: writing, especially a tangy variety of historical crime fiction. Ann’s short stories have appeared in two editions (2003 and 2004) of the noir crime anthology Fedora. Her flash fiction story, “A Night In Town,” appeared in the online zine Punk Soul Poet. In addition to curating and designing art exhibitions and writing crime stories, Ann is also an art writer and an adjunct professor of art history at the New York Institute of Technology. CRIMINAL GOLD is her debut novel.
Ann can be contacted at writer.aptaker@gmail.com, on Facebook at Ann Aptaker, Author, and on Twitter @AnnAptaker
Jane Hoppen‘s fiction has been published in various literary magazines, including Story Quarterly, Western Humanities Review, Feminist Studies, The Dirty Goat, PANK, and Superstition Review. Her novel, In Between, was published by Bold Strokes Books, December 2013. Her novella, The Man Who Was Not, was published as an e-book by Bold Strokes Books, June 2014.
Cindy Rizzo is an author of lesbian fiction. Her first novel, Exception to the Rule, won the 2014 award for Best Debut Fiction from Golden Crown Literary Society and was a finalist for the Rainbow Book Awards. In September 2014, her second novel, Love Is Enough, was released. A short story, The Miracle of the Lights, appeared in the anthology Unwrap These Presents (Ylva Publishing). Earlier writing includes essays in the anthologies, Lesbians Raising Sons and Homefronts: Controversies in Non-Traditional Parenting. Cindy was also the co-editor of a fiction anthology, All the Ways Home, published in 1995 (New Victoria) in which her story Herring Cove was included.Cindy has worked in philanthropy for many years and has a long history of involvement in the LGBT community. She serves on the boards of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in New York and Funders for LGBTQ Issues. She lives in New York City with her wife, Jennifer, and their two cats. They have two grown sons, a wonderful daughter-in-law, and a baby granddaughter.
You can contact Cindy by email at cindyt.rizzo@gmail.com, via Facebookwww.facebook.com/ctrizzo, through her blog, www.cindyrizzo.wordpress.c