Funny
Essays by Steven G. Fullwood
Former Africana.com columnist Steven G. Fullwood isn’t afraid to let it all hang out - literally. Loosely described as ‘part memoir, part satire, and completely self-revelatory,’ FUNNY makes its mark in poignant, twisted ways. Fullwood is your best friend and guru, and that crazy guy who lives down the street, his pants around his ankles. Here is a writer who calls a dick a dick, and has no problem with holding a conversation with his own appendage. In 31 essays he parcels out the playful, perceptive persona he’s pimped for the last few years, most recently at his website stevengfullwood.org. In the end, Fullwood wants you to laugh at yourself. Homos, heteros, and God (with whom he chats over lunch) - nothing escapes his wicked eye. But have no fear; this is a rant infused with love. This collection of essays reveals his obsessions: sex, religion, getting older, dating and homophobia. Neatly divided into three parts: ‘Us,’ ‘Them,’ and ‘Me,’ Fullwood demonstrates mastery for understatement about homo life, remarking that it has all the wonder of a doorknob.
about the author
STEVEN G. FULLWOOD is the author of Funny and the co-editor (along with Colin Robinson) of Think Again, an anthology featuring black men who experience same sex desire writing about HIV risk. He is also a freelance writer whose work has appeared in many publications including Vibe.com, Africana.com, Library Journal, Black Issues Book Review, and Lambda Book Report. Fullwood is an archivist at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City where he manages the Black Gay and Lesbian Archive (BGLA), a project he founded to aid in the preservation of black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, Same Gender Loving, queer, questioning and in the life history and culture.
author photo: © 2004 Larry D. Lyons, II
from the weblog
Stevie G in ATL this Labor Day Weekend!
Steven will be reading from Carry the Word, selling books, and acting a fool this weekend. Come check him out.
He will also be conducting a workshop at ITLA on Saturday. For details, see below.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2007
The Literary Café, 4pm-7pm
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2007
PHYRE = (fire) 5pm-10pm
@ Sugar
257 Trinity Avenue
Atlanta, Georgia 30303
Directions:
Between Forsyth and Spring Street
From 1-20 West, exit Windsor Street, turn right off exit. Pass two lights to Trinity Avenue, turn right and the building is directly on the left.
August 27, 2007 3:03 PM | Link | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Brave Soul Collective features VEP!
Tim’m West, co-founder of Brave Soul Collective, recently published an interview with Steven G. Fullwood, founder and publisher at Vintage Entity Press. Check out the interview.
Below is an excerpt from the interview:
Tim’m: Steven, I’m quite familiar with your work. It’s strikingly “brave” in the rather bluntly comedic way that you broach a number of provocative topics that many people won’t touch. I think of you as the writer who says what other people think about saying. It requires a special sophistication to be truthful about things that we often dance around: our closets, its skeletons, and the dirty laundry they wear. I also remembered when you first contacted me about the work of Brave Soul Collective. Can you speak a bit about your own sense of connectedness to the work we’re doing and how it manifests in your work as an author, publisher, archivist, and culture critic?
Steven: As an author and cultural critic, I am always pushing myself to do better work. That means I cannot afford to stay in safe spaces for too long because I get antsy and I know it’s not where my truth lies. I grew up trying to protect myself from all things hurting and in the hiding spaces I created, there was an awful fallout. Still feeling the aftershock. One detriment was that hiding impacted my ability to really sympathize and connect to people, much less value their love and support in any meaningful way. My writing is one way to be brave, test things out, see if what I say I believe is something I actually believe. As a publisher, it’s my goal to publish writing that is inherently brave by exceptional authors, two of which are Cheryl Boyce Taylor and G. Winston James. VEP is fueled by imagination and love and a fierceness to simply speak life and truth and honor and to challenge those things that frighten and keep us static. It’s a labor of love that has helped me realize how vital the written word is, and how it can transform life. As an archivist, the work I do with the Black Gay and Lesbian Archive is to collect, preserve and make available to the public the universe of non-heterosexual history and culture of people of African descent. It has taken a Herculean effort to bring this project to completion and it’s because of the communities I serve as an information specialist and my dedication to preserve cultures that have been ignored or dismissed up until recently largely because the people who created it have been ignore and dismissed from public discourse. The fact that non-heterosexual blacks folk and abroad have created in every media, for the last century, despite the various homophobic and racists environments they live in, is brave. My job is to makes sure these artifacts are preserved, so someone can get to these stories, read them, and perhaps share them.
Brave Soul Collective is an education, outreach, and support organization for gay / bisexual / transgendered / questioning HIV positive and negative individuals living their lives in truth through the arts. BSC aims to help stop the spread of HIV&AIDS, by serving as a platform for honest discussion about prevention, stigma, and personal responsibility. BSC is committed to encouraging artistic freedom, expression, and creativity in members of the arts, and same gender loving communities.
VEP thanks Tim’m and the BSC for their time, energy and effort in supporting our work.
February 27, 2007 6:39 PM | Link | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Book Talk: Steven G. Fullwood - On Working Toward A Revolution
You there? I am. This article originally appeared in Vibe.com Magazine, 2004.
Read the VIBE.com conversation with the author about gays and hip-hop and his new book.
How does Black LGBT/SGL culture relate to hip-hop?
Well, consider the literature.
Black LGBT/SGL literature is underground hip-hop. We are telling our truths and we have an audience. We are not anomalies. We have been writing for over a century and the mainstream is beginning to notice. We are more than E. Lynn Harris. We are women and men who are on a mission to see our lives, triumphs and defeats, reflected in art and ourselves. We are not afraid. We will ultimately succeed.
Why is homophobia so rampant in hip-hop culture?
Hip-hop is no different from the cultures it mixes and distills. Frankly the rabid fraternity amongst black men reeks of homoeroticism. It’s something to consider when black men prefer the company of their “boys,” to women. Very homo-social, at the least.
Hip-hop wants to act as if there are no gays and lesbian heads. Wrong. A substantial part of the hip hop generation is non-heterosexual. Over the years there has been a rise in the number of gay hip hop artists and gay hip-hop festivals in the last five years. These artists, writers essentially, have chosen to express themselves in music, and the concurrent literary movement inspires many of these sisters and brothers. I have chosen to express myself as a writer solely. Hip-hop, in its most provocative form, has been about resistance. Been about being cutting edge. Frankly you can’t get more cutting edge that being black and non-heterosexual. Hip-hop’s misogyny and hyper-masculinity has defined it since its inception. Simply by being out challenges those paradigms, and invites a reexamination of what is male and female to the whole community.
Hip-hop has always laid claim to the notion that it was keeping things real. Well you can’t get any realer than what I’m about, which is redefining community by interjecting some much needed commentary about the sexual life of the black community as we know it. Many black heterosexual folk would rather be seen as the model for life as opposed to being in the continuum. Well, they ain’t and they will never be.
Where can one find out more about the culture of black gays and lesbians?
I created the Black Gay and Lesbian Archive for two main reasons. First, to aid in the preservation of cultural materials produced by and about people of African descent who experience same sex desire: lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, same-gender-loving, queer, questioning and in-the-life people. Second, to help reshape history by making these materials available to the public. We folk are going to place our stories up against everything that’s been said about us. We are going to be heard. We are going to create our histories.
Where is this Archive?
The BGLA will be housed at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, and will be open to the public December 2004.
How does your new book Funny relate to hip hop culture?
I’m a hip-hop writer in the sense that I am mixing styles, different types of humor, and ideas about being black and homo, and pulling inspiration from my literary forbearers like James Baldwin, Audre Lorde and Essex Hemphill, incredible trailblazers who everyone should read. Funny represents for brothers and sisters who normally only get talked about as problems in the mainstream and black media, particularly in light of the “down-low” shit. As a writer, I have been freelancing for years and recently published Funny, a book of humorous essays on being black, male and a “manhandler.” Unlike a lot of books by blacks about sex, Funny is not fiction, it’s real: it’s about my life.
How does HIV risk relate to the work you do, and its effects on the hip-hop generation?
I was one of the co-editors (along with Colin Robinson of the New York State Black Gay Network) of Think Again, a collection of narratives by black men who write about HIV risk. The realness of Think Again is that its contributors are fiercely unapologetic about being black, male and intimately and sexually involved with other men. They are not in the closet or on the down low. Hip hop, like the rest of the world, is fascinated with this “down-low” idea, and really, all it points to is being anti-black, and how black male bodies somehow connotes “criminal.” There is no “down-low,” and too many parasites, I mean, writers, have made $$$ off this malformed idea about black men infecting black women. If readers want to get true stories from real people, Think Again is the real deal. The contributors to the book are amazing, every day people, activists, artists, activists, thinkers, and writers who care about black people and are not out trying to make money off people’s fears.
January 29, 2007 5:32 PM | Link | Comments (0)
FUNNY at the African Mini-Festival at the Audre Lorde Center
Author Steven G. Fullwood will be selling copies of his book, FUNNY, at the Mini Festival in Brooklyn Saturday Oct 1, 2005 from 1-3pm. Information about the event is listed below:
Uhuru-Wazobia/LGBT Africans With The Audre Lorde Project Present A Mini Festival For the Immigrant Rights Working Group
Saturday October 1st 2005 1:00 – 6:00PM 85 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217-1607 Free
Dance performances and Readings
Film Screenings,
African Vendors
and
Panel discussion with presenters and performers.
For more information visit www.voicesabroad.org or call (917) 656 - 5383
October 1, 2005 8:29 AM | Link | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Hello Funny!
Here we are, in the immaculate offices of Vintage Entity Press: Hello Funny!
Here’s what some really smart and interesting people had to say about Funny:
“[FUNNY] offers a much-needed voice”
— Kheven LaGrone, Washington Blade“The words trip off the page, delivered with a tongue-in-check and very critical wit.”
— Christopher James, Chroma Journal“Funny is just that, funny as hell. It’s guaranteed to keep you entertained from beginning to end.”
— Damon Percy, Sapience Magazine
And, what say you?
September 4, 2005 11:11 AM | Link | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)