A fourth generation Chinese-American, B.D. Wong made his Broadway debut in 1988 in M. Butterfly, for which he became and remains the only actor to win the five major theater prizes for the same role. But it was not enough to convince David Cronenberg to cast him in the movie version five years later, when he chose John Lone instead. Wong starred with Margaret Cho in her much praised, quickly canceled series All American Girl, then played a priest on Oz, and for ten years running Dr George Huang on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. He and his ex-partner Richie Jackson, an agent, are parents of a son named Foo, the surviving one of two twins born extremely prematurely. Wong wrote a book about the experience called Following Foo.
Emma Donoghue is 41 and this is her year. In May, Knopf published her immensely entertaining, decade-in-the-making exploration of lesbians in literature, Inseparable [Kindle], and last month Little, Brown published her defining book, Room [Kindle].
So far, that novel has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Writers Trust Fiction award, and the Governor's General Award. Room has become an instant bestseller in Canada and the UK, and here in the US, even as the NYT list becomes more crowded with Follett, Franzen, Connelly, and le Carre, Donoghue moved up three spots last week, her fifth week on the list. Best of all -- because what's better than knowledge -- she learned the word autoantonym from the website you are reading now. The youngest of eight children of literary critic Denis Donoghue, Dublin-born Emma is also the youngest of “the four,” contemporary U.K. lesbian novelists, along with Sarah Waters, Jeanette Winterson, and Ali Smith. In her novels she is equally at home in the present day (Stir-Fry, Hood, Landing) and the past (Slammerkin, Life Mask, The Sealed Letter). She lives in Ontario with her partner Chris, their young daughter Una, and their six-year son Finn, on whom last year she test-ran questions for Room's five-year-old narrator, Jack. At a recent New York reading where she was kind about Band of Thebes, she admitted she even coaxed him into a "game" of rolling him up in a rug to see how he would fit and how difficult it would be for her character to wriggle out. In fact, very difficult. She told me her next novel will return to lesbian life.
A towering outsider with impressive insider pull, 6'5" Dan Mathews led the "I'd Rather Go Naked" anti-fur campaign and convinced Morrissey, Pink, Pam, and Paul McCartney to do spots for the love-them-or-hate-them animal rights group PETA. He started poor, was bullied in high school, worked at McDonalds and as a model to put himself through American University, and after graduating started at PETA as a receptionist. His 2007 memoir Committed: A Rabble-Rouser's Memoir [Kindle] finally pubbed in the UK last year, when gay rights living legend Peter Tatchell chose it on Band of Thebes best lgbt book poll saying, "It’s a story full of ideas, action and loads of gossip about the many celebrities who support PETA’s work. Off-beat, hilarious, irreverent, and highly ethical, Committed is a damn good read. It shows how direct action can raise consciousness and secure social change – and be lots of fun."
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