05/22/2026
As we know Stan was a lover of books. He loved other writers. ReQueered Tales is keeping books and authors in the forefront. Time to go shopping, get your summer reads in order
N THE HEADY DAYS of the late 1960s, when young people in many western countries were in the streets protesting for a new, more inclusive world, some of us were in libraries, coffee shops, communes, retreats, bedrooms and dens plotting something even more startling: literature – highbrow and pulp – for an explicitly gay audience. Specifically, we were craving to see our gay lives – in the closet, in the open, in bars, in dire straits and in love – reflected in mystery stories, romance, paranormal and more. Hercule Poirot, that engaging effete Belgian creation of Agatha Christie might have been gay … Sherlock Holmes, to all intents and purposes, was one woman shy of gay ... but where were the genuine gay sleuths, where the reader need not read between the lines?
Beginning with Victor J Banis's “Man from C.A.M.P.” pulps in the mid-60s – riotous romps spoofing the craze for James Bond spies – readers were suddenly being offered George Baxt's Pharoah Love, a black gay New York City detective, and a real turning point in Joseph Hansen's gay California insurance investigator, Dave Brandstetter, whose world weary Raymond Chandleresque adventures sold strongly and have never been...
Read more here: https://www.requeeredtales.com/about-us
When you first notice it, something seems a bit unusual. Then it occurs to you that most, if not all, of the pools you've ever seen before were painted blue or white. The Captain's House pool is black. Not painted black. But constructed of black marble and black tile. The marble has streaks of white that look like lightning bolts in a black sky. There is a sexiness to this pool; a personality. It looks and feels like a warm, wet blanket, surrounding and protecting you like a dark, quiet womb.
\There's a dead body at the bottom of a pool in the backyard of a guest house in Key West. Who is he? And what caused his untimely demise? Maybe it's su***de. Or an accident. But more likely - murder! And who's responsible? One of the guests, the people who run the guest house or one of those mysterious women in town?
A Lambda Literary Awards Finalist in 1991, this new edition includes a foreword by renowned LGBTQ publicist and friend of Stan Leventhal, Michele Karlsberg.
"The pace is brisk: the plot keeps twisting, as no one is at all who they seem." - John Glaeske, Out In Print
"Stan was a literary activist who always gave to, built and endorsed literature and writers. On this Sunday morning, all these years later, I can still see Stan in his apartment window on Christopher Street, next door to the Stonewall Inn, overlooking Sheridan Square as he typed away." - Michele Karlsberg
"Stan Leventhal was wonderful company: warm, honest, curious, engaging, and human. [His writing] is the next best thing to hanging out with him." - Christopher Bram
