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Strong Praise. Silver Birch Press praises The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez. Click here.
Feature
Review. Ariel Swartley writes about John Rechy and his
latest book, About My Life and the Kept Woman, in Los
Angeles magazine. Click
here.
A Writer
Responds. John Rechy responds to David Leavitt's New
York Times review of About My Life and the Kept Woman.
Click here.
New
Interview. John Rechy does an extended interview in the
magazine Vice in December 2010. Read it online. Click
here.
| City
of Night, One of Five Most Essential Books in Newsweek.
In the April 13th edition of Newsweek magazine,
author Richard Price names City of Night highly among
his Five Most Essential Books. "Both shocking and suffused
with longing," he writes, "a combo that can make an
adolescent boy circa 1966 lose his mind." |
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A Writer
Protests. Read John Rechy's letter to the editor of the
New York Times Book Review concerning David Leavitt's
review of About My Life and the Kept Woman. While the New
York Times published the letter, they omitted the very last
line. Read the full letter here, including an elaboration on the
last line. Click here.
Reviews of John Rechy's Autobiography. Read the Los Angeles Times review of About My Life and the Kept Woman. Click here. "...color, energy, humor and teeming characters of a Dickens novel..." is how The Dallas Morning News describes John rechy's memoir. Click here. Publishers Weekly calls About My Life and the Kept Woman "...a marvelous autobiography by a writer whose life is as interesting as his fiction." Click here.
John Rechy's Intensified Reality. A feature article on John Rechy and his new book, About My Life and the Kept Woman appears in the Sunday, February 17th Los Angeles Times. Click here to read the article.
About My Life and the Kept
Woman. John Rechy's 15th book is now available in
bookstores and online. In an advance review, Publisher's Weekly
calls About My Life and the Kept Woman "a marvelous
autobiography by a writer whose life is as interesting as his fiction."
More information on this new book will be appearing soon.
Living with Music in the New
York Times. Every Wednesday in the New York Times
book blog, “Living With Music,” a writer or other notable
book-world figure provides a music playlist. On January 16, John
Rechy was featured to discuss thirteen influential pieces of music,
from Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel to Maria Ewing's rendition
of Salome. Click
to visit the New York Times page.
John Rechy MySpace Page.
View the fan page dedicated to John Rechy on MySpace. Click
here.
"From
where do a writer's characters come?" John Rechy asks
in his new contribution to these pages. " Who are they, finally?—these
wily, shifty creatures, darting in and out of trouble, creatures
who cajole, flirt with their author, seduce him, at times challenge
him to the point that they run away beyond their creator's intent. "
Read the answer that follows in this
talk given at the University of Texas at El Paso, where John Rechy
received the 2007 Distinguished Alumni Award and was later revised
for a talk at the Los Angeles Institute of the Humanities. Click
here.
Female Actors, Part Two. John Rechy examines how
the banishment of the word 'actress' to erase gender identification
paradoxically creates an opposite effect in his new essay. Click
here.
Honoring A Substantial Artist.
ONE
National Gay & Lesbian Archives has honored John Rechy's
writing, teaching and activism by making him the first recipient
of their ONE Culture Hero Award. According to Gore Vidal: "In
retrospect, one of the few original American writers of the last
century." At an event in October, ONE celebrated John Rechy's
talent, courage, and commitment: "He has lived his life as
an outlaw in many arenas– being a Mexican-American, a gay
man, a writer living in and celebrating Los Angeles, a teacher of
writing (always noting, “Break the rules”), and an LGBT
social critic and activist. His writings, particularly his latest
work, "Beneath the Skin: The Collected Essays
of John Rechy" (2004), depict his unique stance from all
of these positions"
In His Own Words.
Coming soon to these pages: a collection of interviews with John
Rechy that span the years. Watch for further details.
Feeling
"...unmanly." Read the unedited letter to Details
magazine from John Rechy on The Army's Big, Embarrassing Gay-Porn
Scandal. Click here.
Not All is Bright on our Horizon.
On June 24, 2006, John Rechy gave a talk at the Adelante
Gay Pride Gala in El Paso, Texas, commemorating a thrilling event
in the evolution of gay pride--the Stonewall Riot. John Rechy reminds
his audience that "...pride and courage were not born at Stonewall...and
that not all is bright on our horizon today." Click
here.
Interview with John Rechy.
Read the recent interview on teaching writing and the publishing
world today with John Rechy in Writer's E-Zine. Click
here.
Artwork by John Rechy.
View two drawings by John Rechy, "Lady of the Evening"
and "Salem Alley" on these pages. Click
here.
Sexual Liberator or Enslaver? John
Rechy examines the work of artist Tom of Finland and certain gay
charades of violence celebrated in his drawings in the most recent
essay to appear on these pages. Click here.
Lying
Writers . Read John Rechy's latest contribution on the
fuss about James Frey's purported "memoir" "A Million
Little Pieces" and the nature of truth in writing. Click
here.
"I'll
try 'Hence the Title' for $1200, Alex." In June of
2005, John Rechy's City of Night was the basis of an answer on Jeopardy.
Click
here to read an account of the event.
On Writing. John Rechy
has conducted creative writing courses as guest author at Occidental
College and UCLA. He currently teaches in the Masters in Professional
Writing Program at USC. He also holds private workshops for professional-level
writers. He has lectured on writing and other subjects at Harvard,
Yale, and Duke Universities. A new essay on the The
Buried Wisdom and Poetry in Time-Honored Clichés
now appears on this site. Click here.
Pilgrim Soul Read
John-Manuel Andriote's article on John Rechy called "Pilgrim
Soul" at the Lambda Literary Foundation. Click
here.
A Writer Protests! Over
twenty letters of protest from John Rechy to editors and reviewers
have now been posted in the Speaking Out section of this web site;
new letters will be added periodically. Current material
includes correspondence with Amazon.com resulting from the New York
Times article about the "glitch" in Canada that revealed
the names of "reviewers" who were promised anonymity on
Amazon's book sites. Click here
for complete table of contents.
New Commentaries by
John Rechy are coming soon to these pages. Topics to include: More
Rules of Writing, Surreal Reality, The Beauty of Old Cliches, A
Writer Protests. Latest submission: The Gay Mammies.
Click here for a menu of all current essays.
"Best
of the Best" The
Los Angeles Times calls "The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens"
"Best of the Best" and lists it as one of the 10 best
works of fiction in 2003! Click
for more details
Forever Kathleen Winsor.
John Rechy pays tribute to the overlooked author Kathleen Winsor
who died on May 26, 2003. Her novel, "Forever Amber,"
sold 100,000 copies upon release in 1944 and went on to sell millions.
Click
here to read the Los Angeles Times article.
Liz Smith, in New
York Newsday, muses on "City of Night" as a movie. Click
here to read an excerpt from her column.
Jonathan Kirsch in conversation
with John Rechy. Listen to an interview with John Rechy
by Jonathan Kirsch on KCRW which aired on Wednesday, November 28,
2001. Click
here. (Requires RealPlayer).
Biography News: "Outlaw:
John Rechy, Vol. 1," a biography of John Rechy by Charles
Casillo is now in bookstores. Click
here to read an excerpt. Charles Casillo was recently interviewed
on KCRW about his biography. Click
here to hear the interview.
New Feature. John Rechy
has conducted creative writing courses as guest author at Occidental
College and UCLA. He currently teaches in the Masters in Professional
Writing Program at USC and also holds private workshops for professional-level
writers. He has lectured on writing and other subjects at Harvard,
Yale, and Duke Universities. From time to time, he will contribute
short essays on writing. Click here
to view the first on the "Terrible Three Rules" that are
capable of doing terrible damage to good writing.
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