Don Weise recently got in touch with news about what he’s been up to since he left Avalon Publishing Group after the merger with Perseus earlier this year: He’s one of several book editors who have joined forces to establish the Open Door Project, a contest that will earn one lucky gay male fiction writer a thorough introduction to the publishing world, “including a series of lunches with literary agents, book editors, and other publishing figures, a public reading, and a private cocktail reception with New York’s writing community.” Any gay male writer who has not published a book of fiction and is writing queer-themed content can enter, and the lineup of judges is like a who’s who of contemporary gay literature: Christopher Bram, Alexander Chee, Samuel R. Delany, Dennis Cooper, Robert Gluck, E. Lynn Harris, Scott Heim, Andrew Holleran, David Leavitt, Stephen McCauley, Dale Peck, and John Weir.
Weise explains that Open Door started “around our feeling that gay literature was decimated by the AIDS epidemic and has been off track, if you will, ever since. Our purpose here is to help reinvigorate the writing scene, especially where young men are involved.”