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Queer In Brighton call for submissions

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Queer in Brighton a heritage project celebrating the city’s unspoken LGBT histories and how these have shaped, and continue to shape, the place where we live and play are producing a new collection of stories, oral histories and photographs about the unspoken and outspoken stories of LGBT Brighton, from the 1950s to the present.

Editors Maria Jastrzębska and Shaun Levin are looking for stories about the places, the music, the fashion, the slang, the clubs, the bars, the living rooms, the squats, basements, and cruising grounds where you fell in love, danced till the early hours, looked after friends and lovers, had sex, plotted the revolution, brought up your family (or escaped from them), set up home… and the streets and parks where you marched, held hands, argued or made up.

They want your true stories about Brighton and welcome contributions from all who identify as queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) with experience of living in or visiting Brighton.

The book is scheduled to launch for Pride in August 2013.

Submit your stories about arriving in Brighton, and your reasons for coming to Brighton. About meeting other queer people in Brighton, the places, the people, the time of year.

Who was your first guide to Brighton or were you a guide to someone else?

What placed in Brighton have romantic memories for you. Or traumatic ones?

What political meetings or rallies did you attend in Brighton?

Tell your story about a memorable Pride. What were you wearing? Who were you with?

These are just some possible themes – tell your stories about being queer in Brighton.

The editors want the Queer in Brighton book to reflect the changes in our lives and in the city over the past fifty years, to demonstrate how the HIV epidemic, decriminalisation, civil partnerships, feminism, gender awareness, the economy and other challenges and triumphs of queer life have impacted on where we live and the ways we live our lives.

Queer in Brighton is a heritage project celebrating the city’s unspoken and outspoken LGBT histories and how these have shaped, and continue to shape, the place where we live and play, our days and nights.

The project is led by New Writing South with Pink Fringe and Photoworks, and is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2013.

All contributors will receive a copy of the Queer in Brighton book.

Submit your stories via e-mail to:

EMAIL

Or send a hard copy to:

Queer in Brighton, c/o New Writing South, 9 Jew Street, Brighton BN1 1UT

Word count is 500 words (no more than 2 pieces at the first instance)

Submissions will be read as they come in, so early submissions are encouraged.

Stories must be formatted in a file type compatible with MS Word. Double-spaced, 12-point font (Arial or Times New Roman) and set up with a 1-inch margin. Include a cover letter and a short bio with each submission.

Stories are accepted on the understanding that they have not been published elsewhere and may be edited (with the author’s consent).

OUT WRITE, new poety anthology out now!

WEB.600.OutWrite AdvertOUT NOW! The dazzlingly colourful OUT WRITE poetry anthology is now available – 32 pages of poetry, prose and images from the Norwich Pride writing group. Eight pages in full colour, and a full colour A5 cover – all for a very accessible £5!*

The OUT WRITE anthology has been edited by England’s only UNESCO City of Literature Pride Poet Laureate, Vince Laws, with design by Alexandra Blythe, and contributions from over a dozen new and experienced voices.

The anthology features visual poetry, collage poetry, painted text and carefully considered text on the page.

Copies can be ordered direct from Vince Laws on Facebook.

Or email:

EMAIL

Or send to:

Vince Laws, Ships Cottage, Oulton, Norfolk, NR11 6NU

Please add *£1 for P+P. and make cheques payable to V Laws.

Greens look to sports facilities to raise money

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The Green administration are looking to significantly increase fees for sporting activities at the city’s leisure centres.

Regular users of facilities like football pitches and swimming pools could be hit by above inflation increases in charges from April, should the policy be agreed by the Council’s economic development and culture committee.

Simon Kirby, MP for Kemptown & Peacehaven has poured scorn on the proposal.

Mr Kirby, who is the Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Minister for Sport, Hugh Robertson, has attacked the move as have local olympians and paralympians.

Simon Kirby, MP
Simon Kirby, MP

He said:

“As PPS to the Minister for Sport I am seeing firsthand the efforts that people across this country are going to in order to capitalise on the Olympic spirit of 2012 and encourage more people to take up sports. 

“This proposal from the Council’s Green Party administration flies in the face of that effort and it is extremely disappointing to that they would try to raid the pockets of enthusiastic young sportsmen and women in this way. 

“I note that local Olympians and Paralympians have spoken out strongly against this move in recent days. These athletes know better than anyone the importance of access to good facilities for people looking to take up a sport. I hope the Council listen to their criticisms and drop this policy. I will be keeping the pressure on them to do just that, and though my work with Ministers in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport I will look to raise this issue in Parliament.”

UK gay hate preacher warned he might be refused entry to USA

Rev Paul Shinners
Rev Paul Shinners

Following the Freethinker magazine exposing that the Rev Paul Shinners, owner of Cornerstones cafe in St Neots near Cambridge and head of an organisation called Passion for Souls had attended a Christian rally in Uganda on December 31 where he joined other Christian fundamentalists in calling on the Ugandan Government to speed up the process for passing the controversial Kill the Gays bill, the Rev Shinners has been warned he might face being banned from entering the USA because of his hateful rhetoric towards homosexuals.

Melanie Nathan
Melanie Nathan

 

After reading the Freethinker report, Melanie Nathan, who serves on the Marin Human Rights Commission in California wrote the following letter to Shinners:

“I note your purposeful quest in supporting the Ugandan Kill the Gays’ Bill. It just strikes me as horrific that someone who purports to be a man of God would openly incite such violence on foreign soil. You ought to know better.

“Mr Shinners, with all due respect, your support and call for passage of legislation that would kill people marks you as an accessory to the potential genocide that is likely to follow, not to mention the inciting of the current persecution that is already occurring.

“Gay people in Uganda are being persecuted, assaulted and tortured as we speak because of this rhetoric that you so freely hurl in your discourse and unfortunately in the name of Christianity. I do not believe that most Christians think in this fundamentalist way and most would be shocked at how you tout the name of Jesus with such vitriol and violent intent.

“Mr Shinners, you are free to practice your religion and to preach to your heart’s content. No one will ever dispute that nor take that away from you. However, you are not free to preach harm and violence against others and that is what you have done and are continuing to do …

“You have no right to preach about legislation that is against basic human rights standards and decency as expected of a British citizen either in his own country or around the globe.”

“I plan to explore with UK Justice Department. whether or not there is legislation similar to the US Alien Tort Act, under which we are currently suing Pastor Scott Lively in the US for his purposeful persecution of Ugandans on African soil, when he preached calling for their demise.

“In essence you have done the same. Your name will also be submitted to the list of unwelcome gay haters in the USA, to join the likes of David Bahati, Martin Ssempa and others and I believe you may find that you will not be allowed travel privileges into the USA in the future.

“To go to another country to tell them to kill people based on their sexuality is not what God wants by anyone’s religious standards and you have taken it too far. I hope that you will find it in your heart to look at what you have done and to issue an apology to the LGBTI community of Uganda as well as to provide a written retraction of your support for the Bill. If you do I would be glad to publish it in a prominent publication. In the meantime this letter to you sir, will be made public.”

George Broadhead
George Broadhead

George Broadhead, of the UK gay Humanist charity, the Pink Triangle Trust, said:

“I am appalled that a Christian charity in the UK, which claims to have been established “to love the Father, love one another, love our neighbour, and even to love our enemy” should be a hub of hatred towards gay people. Cornerstone even published a poster ahead of the Uganda event, which pictured Shinners among the event’s leading hate-mongers”.

“It is even more appalling that a UK-based organisation should attempt, through the direct efforts of its owner to interfere with the democratic processes of a foreign country”.

For more information view:

FREETHINKER

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