Book Review - Voluntary Servitude : Poems

A chilling and masterful second poetry collection by the author of the award-winning The Anchorage

Sometimes the heart breaks. Sometimes
it is not held hostage. The red world
where cells prepare for the unexpected
splays open at the window's ledge.
Be not human you inhuman thing. -from "Amaryllis"

Voluntary Servitude asks of the beloved, "You say, Don't wreck me, and I say I won't, but how can I know that?" Here the poet is both servant and master to memory, sex, family, and the will of the lover, and the resulting poems describe the physical and psychological constraints and releases of relationships at the breaking point.

Book Review - Pink Therapy

A comprehensive British volume on lesbian and gay affirmative psychotherapy has been a while coming. Pink Therapy, however, has arrived, amply fills this gap, and is well worth the wait. The literature reviews are masterful for scholars, and the book offers a comprehensive, thoughtful approach for clinicians. A deft editorial hand is evident in the unusual consistency across chapters, the uniformly crisp, helpful chapter summaries, and the practical appendices, generous resources lists and well organized bibliographies.

I particularly like the contributors subtle appreciation of theoretical nuance, genuine open-mindedness to diversity of ideas, and willingness to synthesize in a pragmatic and client-oriented manner.

John C. Gonsiorek, PhD., Minneapolis, MN USA; Diplomate in Clinical Psychology, American Board of Professional Psychology; Past President, Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian and Gay Issues (Division 44 of the American Psychological Association).

Pink Therapy is the first British guide for counsellors and therapists working with people who are lesbian, gay or bisexual. It provides a much needed overview of lesbian, gay and bisexual psychology, and examines some of the differences between lesbians, gays and bisexuals, and heterosexuals. Pink Therapy proposes a model of gay affirmative therapy, which challenges the prevailing pathologizing models. It will help to provide answers to pressing questions such as:

*what is different about lesbian, gay and bisexual psychologies?

*how can I improve my work with lesbian, gay and bisexual clients?

*what are the key clinical issues that this work raises?

The contributors draw on their wide range of practical experience to provide - in an accessible style - information about the contemporary experience of living as a lesbian, gay or bisexual person, and to explore some of the common difficulties.

Pink Therapy will be important reading for students and practitioners of counselling and psychotherapy, and will also be of value to anyone involved in helping people with a lesbian, gay or bisexual orientation.

Book Review - On The Up And Up: A Survival Guide for Women Living with Men on the Down Low

Customer Review

This is the lady of all times. She was faced with insurmountable pain, public shame and ridicule (cause we know how our sisters talk) and having to start over with a ticking time bomb. What did she do? She can out stronger and better. Although I do think this lady believes in airing dirty laundry, she had to tell her story and she made me proud. Through her anger and heart ache, she never said one bad thing about her one time husband (that shouldn't have been said). She takes the time to speak frankly about what we, as sisters, should accept in our lives and what we should run from. Read it, reread it, take notes.... Enjoy.

Book Review - Harvard's Secret Court : The Savage 1920 Purge of Campus Homosexuals

In 2002, a researcher for The Harvard Crimson came across a restricted archive labeled "Secret Court Files, 1920." The mystery he uncovered involved a tragic scandal in which Harvard University secretly put a dozen students on trial for homosexuality and then systematically and persistently tried to ruin their lives.

In May of 1920,Cyril Wilcox, a freshman suspended from Harvard, was found sprawled dead on his bed, his room filled with gas--a suicide. The note he left behind revealed his secret life as part of a circle of (cut "young") homosexual students.The resulting witch hunt and the lives it cost remains one of the most shameful episodes in the history of America's premiere university. Supported by legendary Harvard President Lawrence Lowell, Harvard conducted its investigation in secrecy. Several students committed suicide;others had their lives destroyed by an ongoing effort on the part of Harvard to destroy their reputations. Harvard's Secret Court is a deeply moving indictment of the human toll of intolerance and the horrors of injustice that can result when a powerful institution loses its balance.