Call for Papers    

Black Gay Men’s Anthology

Deadline: March 15th, 2005

Published by the New York State Black Gay Network, Institute for Gay Men's Health (AIDS Project Los Angeles & Gay Men's Health Crisis); Black AIDS Institute and The National Black Justice Coalition

Co-edited by Frank Leon Roberts and Marvin K. White

Submissions are currently being accepted for the second volume of the 2004 LAMBDA Literary Award-nominated anthology Think Again to be published by the New York State Black Gay Network, The Institute of Gay Men's Health (a collaboration between AIDS Project Los Angeles and Gay Men's Health Crisis), The Black AIDS Institute and the NBJC (National Black Justice Coalition). The first volume, which featured contributions by a diverse array of writers, critics and artists such as Roderick Ferguson, Lyle Ashton Harris, Tim'm T. West and Vincent Woodard, among others, attempted to re-think the relationship between black men and HIV/AIDS. It is through this "re-thinking" that new
truths were told, old lies unearthed and the way forward made clear. A forum for black men practicing same-sex desire to hear and read one another's experiences was born; narratives were connected.

This new volume will speak in even greater volume to and from black gay men and black men who practice same-sex desire about the intersections of family and social value. In Think Again 2 our
personal narratives, poetry and cultural criticism will speak to how black gay men and black gay men anchored in various communities of same sex desire, construct, are denied, and (re)imagine notions of
kinship and belonging as well as the social value of their lives, practices, and performances in the age of the global AIDS pandemic. Think Again 2 will be a gathering of diasporic black voices, re-locating our (dis)located bodies, minds and spirits to these pages, the family album of our dreams. Think Again 2 will be a landmark conversation about same-sex marriage, the "down low" and black masculinities in the age of AIDS as well as the institutions of black cultural belonging (church, 'home,' etc.) to which same sex desiring black men are often excluded.

Submit your stories about family, both your biological and your extended. Tell the story of how you got your name: gay, DL, SGL or Other. Answer the question "Are you family?" Is there/has there
been/will there be "value" in identifying as gay or as being "family?"  Tell the story of when you changed your name from one to the other. Speak to feeling like "The Other." Speak to constructing virtual and on-line family and how your electronic life is performed and played out. Speak to the exclusion of your life from your family's history. Speak to a literary lineage. Speak to fatherhood, yours and your fathers. Speak to your children, both biological and found. Speak to the media shaped masculinities that you choose from and the "hand-me-downness" of labels that just might not fit you. Tell your story of aging in or aging out of "the family." Speak to 'staying in' and 'coming in' rather than 'coming out' to black communities. Write to love and how your love is re-enforced or torn apart by the places where love is supposed to reside. Write about our lives' worth, our heart's worth, our mind's worth.

Committed to reaching various and broad publics, we especially welcome submissions from those involved in activist and community based organizations; unofficial historians of black gay cultures, those that have "seen and heard it all", public health agencies targeting black men of diverse sexualities and their clients; writers from film, performance, and entertainment industries; 'queer' burgeoning and subcultures including cultures of hustling, public sex and "ballroom/house/club" and J-Sette cultures; black gay and black communities of same-sex desire outside of the U.S., including by not limited to London and Europe, Jamaica and the Caribbean, Africa and 'Latin' America, as well as those centered in traditional academic institutions.

The volume will be edited by Frank Leon Roberts, a young scholar, activist and editor of Brownstone Magazine based in New York City and Marvin K. White, former member of Pomo Afro Homos, co-founder of B/Glam, and author of the LAMBDA Literary-Award nominated collections of poetry Last Rights (Redbone Press) and Nothin' Ugly Fly (Redbone Press), based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

All submissions should be single-spaced, copied in the text of the email and sent as an attachment to THINKAGAIN2@GMAIL.COM, and should not exceed 3,000 words. Please include a brief two to three line biographical sketch at the end of your submission. Do not attach jpeg, tif, or mpeg images with your work. Also, while we encourage narratives to be both poetic and critical, please do not send poetry (unless it is incorporated into your essay) or traditional academic essays (large blocked quotes, extensive footnotes, etc).

Publication Date: JUNE 2005