Felice Picano

Flamboyant, mercurial Alistair Dodge and steadfast, cautious Roger Sansarc are second cousins who are both gay and whose lifelong friendship begins when they first meet as nine-year-old boys in 1954. At crucial moments in their personal histories their lives intersect, and each discovers his own unique - and uniquely gay- identity. Through the lends of their complex, tumultuous, yet enduring relationship - and their involvement with the handsome model, poet and decorated Vietnam vet Matt Loguidice, whom they both love - Felice Picano chronicles and celebrates gay life and subculture over the last half of the twentieth century. From Malibu Beach in its palmist surfer days to the legendary parties at Fire Island Pines in the 1970s, from San Francisco during its gayest era to AIDS activism in Greenwich Village in the 1990s, Like People in History presents 'the heroic and funny saga of the last three decades by someone who saw everything and forgot nothing' (Edmund White).

Like People in History

Charles Silverstein

For a new century and a new generation of readers comes a fully revised and expanded edition of a classic guide to gay sex, love, and life. Invaluable as a sex guide, a resource on building self-esteem, and a trusted aid for coming out of the closet, The Joy of Gay Sex covers the ins and outs of gay life alphabetically from "anus" to "wrestling." Noted psychologist Dr. Charles Silverstein has collaborated once again with critically acclaimed novelist Felice Picano on this third edition, updating every single entry and adding nearly thirty new entries. The authors provide positive and responsible advice on safe sex in all its varieties; on emotional and relationship-oriented issues such as long-term couples, loneliness, and growing older; and on scores of diverse topics ranging from spirituality to online dating. With fifty new line drawings by acclaimed illustrator Joseph Phillips, this landmark reference is a necessary addition to every gay man's bookshelf.

Fully revised and expanded third edition

The Joy of Gay Sex

In 1979, Felice Picano rocketed to fame with the publication of this shocking, controversial thriller. Riveting and candid in its depiction of the gay sexual subcutlure of the era, 'The Lure' thrusts young widower Noel Hathaway into a dark universe of physical and psychological violence; an unwilling lure used by the police to unmask an elusive killer. 'Explosive... Picano plays out the novel's secrets brilliantly, one deliberate card at a time... Picano is one hell of a writer' - Stephen King 'One of the best books of any kind' - The Advocate

The Lure

Smart As the Devil

Nights at Rizzoli

Handsome, intelligent, street-smart, ruthlessly ambitious, and omnisexual, young Addison Grimmins has been hired by the Lord Exchequer of England to be his second and to do what Lord R. cannot do himself. After a country estate wedding, the Marchioness of R. is discovered missing. Is it a kidnapping or…a more sinister plot? Addison vows to find her and bring her back no matter what it takes. It is the 1880s and despite only letters, bribed information, and telegrams as communication; despite only horse, coach, and train service as transportation, Addison tracks Lady R. across Europe, via the strangest people and places: from Venetian palaces to opium dens. Who and what he discovers about her, and more fatefully about his own life, will lead Addison to the crisis of his life, an extraordinary decision, and a stiletto duel with his most implacable foe.

Pursuit: A Victorian Entertainment

Gay romance is coming into full bloom in the wake of the Defense of Marriage Act’s fall, and the literary world is giving this full expression. New series editor Felice Picano is one of the top gay writers in the world with many awards and much critical acclaim to his credit. Picano has written novels, plays, and major nonfiction works and he is at his finest when it comes to the subject of love. In Best Gay Romance 2015, he gathers a sweepingly romantic collection of short fiction that is long on love (and sex).

Best Gay Romance 2015

Salvador Dalí, Jerome Robbins, Jackie Onassis. Gregory Peck, Mick Jagger—S. J. Perelman—I. M. Pei. Philip Johnson, Josephine Baker, John Lennon: they, and so many more who made New York City the center of the universe in the 1970s, all had one thing in common besides their adopted hometown—they shopped at a legendary palace of books, music and art: Rizzoli Books at 712 Fifth Avenue. There, Kennedys and Rockefellers mingled with tourists and “regular” customers under the watchful gaze of sophisticated employees, themselves a multi-talented, international collection of artists, scholars and rogues. Nights at Rizzoli is the memoir of Felice Picano, an aspiring but near-starving young writer who in 1971 lucked into a part-time job at the stunningly elegant store via a friend. It metamorphosed into a life-changing experience, one that exposed him to some of the brightest lights in the world’s cultural capital. At the store, he himself became a key player on a stage that opened every night to a new drama that often featured romance, at times violence, and of course always the books and their readers. And when his shift was over, in this post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS era, the handsome young bookstore manager stepped from one world into another, prowling the piers, bars and very private clubs of a different New York City.

Een groepje kinderen uit welgestelde Amerikaanse families heeft een intensief (homo)-erotisch dubbelleven.

The Secret Lives of Children

Ambidextrous

Five thousand years into the future, life itself is in jeopardy. A rebellion of intelligent cybernetic servants has left the females of the galaxy virtually sterile, crippling the controlling political body - the Matriarchy. The race is on to find a solution, but will it be enough to save the Matriarchy as other galactic authorities attempt to dominate them using sabotage and all-out-war? A science-fiction adventure for the new millenium, touching on today's most controversial topics, such as interracial and gay relationships, and cloning.

Dryland's End

From author Felice Picano, co-founder of the path breaking Violet Quill Club, comes a new collection of memoirs, many of which have never appeared in print. Picano presents sweet and sometimes controversial anecdotes of his precocious childhood, odd, funny, and often disturbing encounters from before he found his calling as a writer and later as one of the first GLBT publishers. Throughout are his delightful encounters and surprising relationships with the one-of-a-kind and the famous-including Tennessee Williams, W.H. Auden, Charles Henri Ford, Bette Midler, and Diana Vreeland.

Portraits from My Past

True Stories

In Pursuit: A Victorian Entertainment, Addison Grimmins, slum-born but ambitious and ruthless, sets out on a quest to bring back the Lord Exchequer of England’s missing wife. Now, in Pursued: Lillian’s Story, we get the other side of the story from Lillian, the woman being pursued. From boat to stagecoach to train, as Lillian and her questionably reliable companions elude her pursuers throughout Europe, Lillian writes to her daughter-in-law on her honeymoon, warning her of what she may expect marrying into the Ravenglass estate and its cursed male line of descent. Lillian recounts how as a girl she entered a dream marriage to the “golden” son of a great Lord. And how, little by little, one misfortune after another, the dream union threatened to become a nightmare that would destroy her reputation—and her life.

Pursued: Lillian’s Story

"But when an acquaintance brought his female cat to be serviced by Fred, an entire new set of experiences opened up for the cat - and for Picano, who'd never had the nerve to befriend her owner, his ideal man. The course of love seldom runs straight for cats or for men, and this time would prove (hilariously) no different." "This is another of Picano's portraits of a vanished era, when a new gay domain was solidifying only a few years after the Stonewall Riots, and the still nascent gay literary world that Picano would help invent was just a conception. Fred in Love is a story about how we learn and grow, and how we love - whether the object of our affection is a cat or another human being."--Jacket.

Fred in Love

Gay romance is coming into full bloom in the wake of the Defense of Marriage Act's fall, and the literary world is giving this full expression. New series editor Felice Picano is one of the top gay writers in the world with many awards and much critical acclaim to his credit. Picano has written novels, plays, and major nonfiction works and he is at his finest when it comes to the subject of love. In Best Gay Romance 2015, he gathers a sweepingly romantic collection of short fiction that is long on love (and sex).

Twelve O’Clock Tales is the fourth collection of short fiction by legendary novelist and memoirist, Felice Picano (The Lure, Like People in History, True Stories). A personal homage to the storytellers of his youth, Edgar Allen Poe, E.F. Benson, and H. P. Lovecraft, as well as his acquaintances, Arthur C. Clarke and Harlan Ellison. Thirteen dark tales, eerie, bizarre, and dreamlike, the tales will thrill and disturb, discomfort and titillate, enthrall and leave you wondering. Picano ranges across time and space, from tribal West Africa to the American heartland, to a lab in Venezuela, and a California Highway fifteen years from now. His characters range from a teen accident survivor with a secret, to a far-future scholar forced to travel to a galactic backwater, to a retired L.A. cop who dabbles in astrology, and a peasant girl in B.C.E. Israel encountering the strangest of strangers. The thirteen tales include brand new stories and acknowledged Picano masterworks collected here for the first time.

Twelve O'Clock Tales

Ray Henriques has success, love, friendship ... but lately it's not enough. Yet it's not just Ray who is on a quest for deeper meaning. For Jesse, Ray's lover of ten years, it is a quest accelerated by his imminent death from AIDS. And for young married father of two Mike Tedesco, it is a search for the heart of masculinity. The sexual exploration which begins when Ray and Mike meet awakens a restlessness in both men, which resoundingly alters their future paths. As Ray's life begins to draw him increasingly into the future, a future without Jesse, he attempts to tether himself to the here and now with frequent visits to a past where life's answers seemed simpler and more meaningful. But when Jesse's fundamentalist Christian mother rolls into town to take charge of her son's final weeks, he is yanked from his reverie to face an opponent unlike any he has ever known. Marked by shifting points of view, humor, descriptive brilliance and unexpected revelation, Onyx is a multifaceted exploration of inner lives, motivation, love, and the sometimes hollow center beneath a polished surface. First published to acclaim in 2001, this new edition features a 2019 foreword by the author. About Felice Picano: A five-time Lambda Literary Award nominee, Felice Picano's books include the best-selling novels Like People in History and The Book of Lies. Along with Edmund White, Andrew Holleran, Robert Ferro, Michael Grumley, Christopher Cox and George Whitmore, he founded The Violet Quill to promote and increase the visibility of gay authors and their works. His 12th novel, Justify My Sins, was published in 2019. Press Notice: "The Godfather of Gay Lit" - Richard Burnett "Picano has always drawn his main characters as gay heroes, unashamed and unafraid of who they are and what life has to offer, whether positive or negative. This, ultimately, is the measure of Picano's genius." - Greg Herren, Lambda Literary Book Report "Picano's Onyx enhance[s] his reputation as a major chronicler of gay life and culture" - Publisher's Weekly

Onyx

Contemporary Gay Romances is the third collection of short fiction by legendary novelist and memoirist, Felice Picano (The Lure, Like People in History, Ambidextrous). It is also his most diverse in terms of the times, places, themes, characters and situations he writes about. Filled with the unexpected, the true, and the amazing, Contemporary Gay Romances moves with ease from gas-lit, upper class London, to a future, climate-altered Bay Area; from semi-rural Florida to Southern California beaches, to an extrasolar planet where people have surprising existences. His characters range from ordinary American suburban housewives to extraordinary children, from grieving young geologists and memory-haunted middle aged men, to British Midlands soccer stars and 22nd Century war heroes. Picano subtitled this collection of stylish, unique, and moving works "Tragic, Comic, Mystic & Horrific," and they are all that and more. The ten tales include prize winners as well as stories published here for the first time, and are as different from any standard "romances" as you can get, but they will linger in the mind and memory.

Contemporary Gay Romances

Noel Cummings's life is about to change irrevocably. After witnessing a brutal murder, Noel is recruited to assist the police by acting as the lure for a killer who has been targeting gay men. Undercover, Noel moves deeper and deeper into the dark side of Manhattan's gay life that stirs his own secret desiresÑuntil he forgets he is only playing a role.

Newly updated for the 1990s, this guide to homosexual sex includes new information on AIDS, safe sex, alternative families, and much more. $35,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Felice Picano

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