Gary Schmidt

Susan M. Felch

Discover how this transitional season can reveal both the abundance and the limitations of our everyday lives. Autumn, with all its traditional images of colorful trees, frost-covered pumpkins, and piles of wood stored up against winter's cold, can be a season filled with anticipation. The harvest, the imminent onset of cold and snow, the resumption of old routines, and the beginning of the school year all require preparation and planning. If summer has been something of a pause, autumn helps us to see the passage of time more clearly. Autumn is a season of fruition and reaping, of thanksgiving and celebration of abundance and goodness of the earth. But it is also a season that starkly and realistically encourages us to see our own limitations. Warm and stirring pieces by E. B. White, Anne Lamott, P. D. James, Julian of Norwich, May Sarton, Kimiko Hahn, and many others in this beautiful book rejoice in autumn as a time of preparation and reflection, when the results of hard labor are ripe for harvest.

A Spiritual Biography of the Season

Winter

Mary Azarian

Autumn

The male homosexual appears in many guises in postwar West German literature: whether he is a sexually predatory soldier, corrupt teacher, decadent artist, purveyor of kitsch, or powerful industrialist, he appears almost always as an insider of the social and political system. Writers such as Heinrich Boll, Wolfgang Koeppen and Alfred Anderch utilized images of homosexuality in order to examine the Nazi past and to critique the Federal Republic of Germany. Their literary depictions are infomed by discourses that circulated in the early twentieth century, including the scientism of Magnus Hirschfeld, the masculinism of the German youth movement and the Gemeinschaft der Eigenen, and the literary irony of Thomas Mann. Pre-Nazi images of homosexuality reappear in postwar West German literature in a new sociohistorical context, in which the meaning of the Nazi past and its relationship to the new Federal Republic is debated on many levels. The Nazi Abduction of Ganymede traces the development of a postwar West German literary tradition that participated in parallel developments in philosophy, psychoanalysis, and popular culture, all of which continued to find new ways to link homosexuality with fascism.

Representations of Male Homosexuality in Postwar German Literature

The Nazi Abduction of Ganymede

Merrill Cole

Knowing that queer voices have been making themselves heard in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria decades before Stonewall, editors Gary Schmidt and Merrill Cole curated thrilling snapshots of prose fiction from more than twenty contemporary writers whose work defies stereotypes, disciplines, and expectations. These authors produce fiction for adults and young people that celebrates the multiplicity of the present, casts a queer eye on the past, and interrogates LGBTQ+ futures. These outstanding texts exemplify the glittering variety of styles, themes, settings, and subjects addressed by openly queer authors who write in German today. They explore identity, sexuality, history, fantasy, loss, and discovery. Their authors, narrators, and characters explore gender nonconformity and living queer everywhere from city centers to rural communities. They are gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, and nonbinary. They are exiles, immigrants, and travelers through time and space. Witty, titillating, and a delight to read, Quertext opens up new worlds of experience for readers interested in queer life beyond the Anglophone world. Featuring work by Jürgen Bauer - Ella Blix - Claudia Breitsprecher - Lovis Cassaris - Gunther Geltinger - Joachim Helfer - Odile Kennel - Friedrich Kröhnke - Anja Kümmel - Marko Martin - Hans Pleschinski - Christoph Poschenrieder - Peter Rehberg - Michael Roes - Sasha Marianna Salzmann - Angela Steidele - Antje Rávik Strubel - Alain Claude Sulzer - Antje Wagner - J. Walther - Tania Witte - Yusuf Yeşilöz

An Anthology of Queer Voices from German-Speaking Europe

Quertext

Elizabeth Stickney

Acceptable Words offers prayers that correspond with each stage of the writer's work -- from finding inspiration to penning the first words to "offering it to God" at completion. Gary Schmidt and Elizabeth Stickney, experienced writers themselves, introduce each chapter of prayers with pithy pastoral reflections that will encourage writers in their craft. This welcome spiritual resource for writers includes both ancient and contemporary poems and prayers -- some of which were written especially for this volume. A thoughtful gift for any writer, Acceptable Words will accompany writers on their spiritual journey, lending words of praise and petition specifically crafted to suit their unique vocation.

Gary Schmidt

Books

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