Sex and the City star to receive Point Courage Award

San Francisco – The Point Foundation announced late last month that Emmy-award winning Sex and the City star, Cynthia Nixon, will receive the Point Courage Award.

The Point Courage Award recognizes individuals who advocate for the future of the LGBT community and lives with the vision that investing in today’s potential will produce a brighter tomorrow, according to the January 30 news release that announced the awardees.

"Not only does Cynthia Nixon lead a phenomenally successful career as an actress, she is also a strong supporter of New York City Public Schools and an advocate for quality education and it is with great pleasure that we will present her with the Point Courage Award," said Jorge Valencia, executive director and chief executive officer of Point Foundation, in the release. "For her position in the LGBT community and pursuit of quality education for today's youth, Cynthia stands as a source of hope and inspiration to potential Point Scholars."

The awards will be held in New York City, April 7 at the Capitale starting at 6 p.m.

Nixon, 41, a child star and New York City native is best known for her role as the no nonsense lawyer Miranda Hobbes on HBO’s Sex and the City. Nixon currently is reprising the Hobbes character for the Sex and the City movie due May 2008, according to the film’s Web site.

Reports of Nixon’s relationship with the education activist Christine Marinoni surfaced in 2004. Nixon somehow managed to “make her coming-out story boring,” reported the New York Magazine in September 2006.

“I never felt like there was an unconscious part of me around that woke up or that came out of the closet; there wasn’t a struggle, there wasn’t an attempt to suppress,” Nixon told New York Magazine. “I met this woman, I fell in love with her, and I’m a public figure.”

Marinoni has since turned union organizer reported New York Magazine. Nixon has two children with her former partner Danny Mozes, Samantha Mozes, 11, and Ezekiel Mozes, 5.

The Point Foundation also announced the Point Inspiration Award honoree Time Warner.

The Point Inspiration Award recognizes a corporation that champions respect and inclusion of the LGBT community, and operates with the vision that the success achieved by talented young people is limited only by the resources and opportunities they are given to help them fulfill their potential.

The Point Foundation is the nation's largest scholarship-granting organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students of merit. Point provides financial support, leadership training, mentoring and hope to LGBT individuals who are marginalized because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

The Media Sponsors for the event are Metrosource, Genre, Echelon, HX, and The New York Blade.
Tickets for the Point Foundation Award dinner and program will be held April 7 at the Capitale, 130 Bowery in New York City. The evening begins at 6 p.m. with a reception and silent auction and the award dinner award program begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are available for the Doctorate Level Table – $10,000, Masters Level Table – $5,000, Bachelors Level Table – $2,500, Individual Ticket - $500 per ticket.

For more information about the event, visit the Point Foundation.

Lambda Literary Foundation announces

record number of nominations

San Francisco – Who says books don’t sell and the publishing industry is gasping for air?—certainly not the queer press in 2007.

Lambda Literary Foundation announce January 10 a record number of nearly 200 publishers nominated 463 books for awards in 21 categories—that is nearly 30 percent from 2007, Charles Flowers, Lambda Literary Foundation executive director noted in the January 10 news release.

"This has been a spectacular year for LGBT publishing in terms of the number of books published and the number of participating publishers," said Flowers in the release.


Categories include: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, memoir/biography, childrens/young adult, romance, and mystery, and others, including the “Bisexual” category, which returned for its second consecutive year.


Following the publishing trend 18 nominations were made for 2008, up by seven nominations in 2007, its first year, nearly a 40 percent increase. Nominees for 2008 include noted bisexual authors: Jennifer Baumgardner, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Emma Donoghue, Farley Granger, Rebecca Walker and others. For a complete list, visit Lambda’s “Bisexual” category.


Lammy’s will be presented May 29 at a gala event at the Silverscreen Theater at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood on the eve of Book Expo America, the annual booksellers’ convention.


Books must contain LGBT content in order to be eligible for a “Lammy” nomination by a publisher or its author.


Ticket information will be available in January 2008. The City of West Hollywood, according to the release, provided “generous support” for the event.


For more information, contact awards@lambdaliterary.org.

Interested in discussing the 2008 bi nominees, join the Bi Book Club list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BiBookClub/.


What's your queer lit pick this year? Why?