Between the Palms, a collection of gay travel erotica, is edited by Michael Luongo. It is an anthology with contributions by several wonderful authors, some established, others up and coming. This book was so successful - both in terms of critical acclaim and sales - that Haworth has asked Michael Luongo to do a Between the Palms Volume II.
It's time to put it in your hands again!
Michael Luongo will be accepting submissions for Between the Palms Volume II until July 31, 2006, and under certain circumstances, beyond this initial deadline.
In general, submissions should fit within the feel of the stories in the first volume of Between the Palms - first person, gay or bisexual male, true story erotic travel tales, about no more than 4,000 words. Stories should be "literotica" and not merely accounts of meaningless encounters. Stories should have a sense of place, a connection to the location that remains in the storyteller and is conveyed to the reader of the story. Travel story settings can be based on travel in your own country or in any part of the world, or a domestic interaction with a tourist. The encounter may be a one night stand, an encounter which leads to life time love, or anything in between. Stories may hint at the erotic and be simply sensual in nature - there is no need for actual sex - or they may range to pornographic. The key is conveying the way an encounter with someone on a trip resonated and remained with you, and if possible, reflected the particulars of the culture or the setting.
Submissions MUST follow this format:
Emailed as attachments to Michael Luongo at both mtluongo@aol.com and mtluongo@hotmail.com. (Please note the "t" in the email.). Subject line should be "between the palms submission + your last name"
Word for Windows or RTF and with document naming sequence "betweenpalms_YOURLASTNAME"
Cover page with title of your story, word count, your full name (and if you are using a pseudonym, your real name) and full contact information – email, physical address, all phone numbers and pertinent personal websites. Cover page must also have a Bio of no more than 150 words. Your Bio will not impact whether the story is read or not and can be updated, if story is accepted.
The actual story double spaced, inch by inch margins, properly proofed and spellchecked.
Headers and footers if used should only have title of story, your name, and page x of y numbering and no other information. People using MAC's should not use the header and footer portions of their manuscripts at all.
If you are constantly traveling or living in remote regions of the world where proper computer access makes it difficult to follow this exact formatting, please note this in the body of the email you are sending the submission in. You must still include as much contact information as possible. Also, if you do not receive an email within one week of submission saying your submission was received, please send a follow up email as Michael Luongo is himself a frequent traveler with at times, limited email access.
You may also visit www.michaelluongo.com for more familiarity with his other work, and also www.outintheworld.com, the website for Haworth Press's Out in the World gay travel literature series which Michael Luongo oversees and which Between the Palms Volume II is a part of, as well as www.haworthpress.com.
In order to get a better idea of the stories in Between the Palms Volume I, it is best to become familiar with its contents by going to a library, borrowing from a colleague, or purchasing the book.
You can order it online directly from Haworth by clicking the photo above, or on this link or paste it into your browser:
http://www.haworthpress.com/store/product.asp?sid=ERRC9HKN6WHL8H6G76XFPSSE5NE3DUN6&sku=5048&AuthType=4
Buy it in local bookstores - ask if you don't see it - or order from Amazon.com by clicking below:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1560234164/qid=1091594728/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-6314569-9860814?v=glance&s=books#product-details
The book is published by Harrington Park Press, a division of Haworth Press.
If you would like to order a press kit, with more information and a JPG of the cover, please email Michael Luongo at mtluongo@aol.com
Here is a list of contents and features of Between the Palms:
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- A Note from the Editor
- Acknowledgments
- Stoned in Ten Languages - Simon Sheppard
- Big Red: Sun, Sex, and Fishing for Men in St. Barth’s - Aaron Krach
- Desert Bloom: Memories of Burning Man - Tim McKenzie
- A Page from History - Dayton Estes
- Only in It for the Passport Stamp: Forty-Eight Hours in Melbourne, Australia - Marshall Moore
- Salaam - Rob Stephenson
- Ghana’s Kiss of Love Without End - Matt Link
- The Soap - Blaise Bulot
- Spanish Summer (Granada, 1992) - Lawrence Schimel
- Beyond Giza - Kieron Devlin
- Biker Boys and Commie Lovers - Felice Picano
- The Eyes of Caravaggio - Michael Luongo
- Night and Day - Steve Dunham
- Sizzle in Paradise - Lance Rush
- Malabar Spice - Daniel Collins
- Nmanga - Michael Mele
- Where It Snows in Africa - Duane Williams
- Swiss Miss - Michael Senno
- Contributors Bios and Comments
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Be on the lookout for two other new exciting Haworth books from Michael Luongo - Looking for Love in Faraway Places and Gay Travels in Islam both of which will come out late in 2006 or early in 2007. Visit www.lookingforloveinfarawayplaces.com and www.gaytravelsinislam.com for more information.
Here are some links to great reviews of Between the Palms:
PlanetOut.com
http://www.planetout.com/travel/article.html?sernum=9161
Navigaytion.com:
http://www.navigaytion.com/page.cfm?Sectionid=64&typeofsite=storydetail&ID=298&storyset=yes
BlueFood review:
http://www.bluefood.cc/betweenthepalms.html
for more information on Michael Luongo, visit:
www.michaelluongo.com
or email:
mtluongo@aol.com
Editor's Notes from Between the Palms
I first laid eyes on the contract for this book at 2:00 am on the morning of September 11, 2001. I had just returned to my Manhattan apartment after attending the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Convention in Dallas. Since my flight had been delayed for 5 hours because of a rainstorm in New York on the 10th, I was utterly exhausted and simply put the contract down and went to bed. I was not asleep for very long though, as we all know what happened just a few hours later. The work on this book has been done in the shadows of that event, one that unfortunately has changed the way most of us will look at travel for years to come.
At the same time, this book shows that even under the most strenuous circumstances, travel and the amorous adventure it engenders can survive. Even if it is hard in this new era not to link travel with politics, the Arab world in particular still holds a strong eroticism for gay men. Many of the submissions for this collection surrounded adventures in Arab countries, mysterious desert trysts, chance meetings where one wondered what was under the caftan. Would so many stories of this nature have been submitted had current events not been the same? I am not sure, but then war brings up thoughts of desire, and I have recently had more trysts with Middle Eastern men than ever before. In fact, even on 9-11, I made love to a Middle Eastern hospital emergency worker in a seemingly end-of-the-world sexual encounter, as if it might be the last time either of us had intimate contact with another person. I had heard that World War II brought about such feelings in strangers.
This book is travel erotica, but the stories go beyond mere tales of sex on vacation. Instead, each resonates in both place and time. Perhaps the most extreme example is Estes’ tale of making love in the toilet of a German cabaret while the Berlin Wall is being planned only blocks away. The conflicting ideologies of capitalism vs. communism created their own invisible wall, stopping this furtive relationship from going any further. The thought still leaves a lingering wonder in Estes that can never be answered. Or Link’s story of Africa, about men for whom sex might be a way out of poor lives, a connection to Western lands they know only from imported media images.
While many people laugh when I explain this, sex for me when I travel has always been a way towards greater cultural understanding. After all, what more intimate way to discuss culture and country than in bed? By the time this point has been reached between two people, there’s nothing left to hide. There is by then, a great sense of trust, which is what great sex is all about. I have learned almost as much from the men I have been with around the world as I did from textbooks about their countries. I feel that I have selected a group of authors whose stories perhaps reflect a similar feeling, that sex abroad is more than just sex, and instead a way of understanding difference. And if our government wants to send me and some of the writers around the world to keep up diplomacy and improve cultural relations one man at a time, I am sure we’d all be happy to do it. The penis, as well as the pen, might prove mightier than the sword!
The stories you are about to read represent a very broad picture of the world, most with destinations not so stereotypically gay. And all six of the inhabited continents have a tale to tell. (We might overcome politics, but not the cold of Antarctica.) I hope you enjoy these stories as much as I have, perhaps reading them on your next vacation. But while you’re earnestly looking through these pages, don’t forget to look up now and then at the men around you. You never know who might be interested in meeting you in a faraway land, helping you to get to know their country just a little bit better.
And then maybe you’ll have something for my next travel collection.
Bon voyage!
Michael Luongo
