Vocal Minorty1Gets Bv Yves MORRISSETTE love of music and singing gathered in the Unitarian Universalist church in Montpelier and formed The Vennont Gay Men’s Chorus, “A Vocal Minority.” The group found a director who was at the time working with Lost Nation Theater, 21 Montpelier-based theatrical group. With talent and undying leadership since the incarnation of the chorus, Tim Tavcar directed the Vocal Minority for six years. Tavcar and the Chorus performed around Vermont in commu- nities large and small. At such events as bene- fits for AIDS Service organizations, the Habitat In the fall of 1998 a group of men with the for Humanity, peace rallies, the Vermont Statehouse Farmer’s night, Vermont People with AIDS Coalition, Cambridge Arts Council, remembrance and memorial services, to name a few, the men in the chorus sang out their hearts. ; In April 2004, Tavcar took a job as director of talent and music. at.’ the Astor Mansion Arts Center in Newport, Rhode Island. Now the Vermont Gay Men’s Chorus is proud to announce their new director, a native of Vergennes, Wayne Hobbs. Wayne Hobbs, tenor, is a native of Vermont. He has enjoyed a plentiful perforrn- ing career both here in the U.S. and abroad. He has been heard on the concert and operatic out n the mountains stages in Italy, Germany, Austria, Canada and the U.S. and his media performances include CBC Radio Canada, WCAX-TV, Vermont Public Television and WCVT Classic Vermont. Wayne also enjoys musical direction and con- ducting and was Assistant Music Director for Lyric Theater's recent production of Secret Garden. Wayne is active in the Stowe Theater Guild and has directed severalshows over the last two years. In the near fiiture, Wayne is looking forward to perfomiing the Rutter Requiem with his choral group, the Otter Creek Choral Society based in Vergennes and Stowe Theater Guild's upcoming production of Oliver. Currently, Wayne lives in Vergennes and is an Director Assistant Vice President for the Chittenden Bank. Wayne and the men of the chorus are looking forward to a new level of perfomiance, music and new faces. Because of the group’s origins in cen- tral Vermont and the Northeast Kingdom, they have not seen much involvement from Chittenden County. However, Hobbs hopes to recruit some voices and possibly some rehears- al time in and around the Burlington area. 7 For information on becoming a part of the cho- rus call or email the chorus at 802-633-3605 or, robnyves@hotmail.com. Writer Yves Mor- risette is a member of the chorus. Lammy for Vermont Cartoonist Bv EUAN BEAR Last month Vermont resident and cartoonist Alison Bechdel received a Lambda Literary Award in the humor category for her latest collection Dykes and Other Sundry Carbon- Based Life F arms to Watch Out For. The Lambda Literary Awards recog- nize the best in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender literature. Each award winner is selected by a panel 91" judges from five finalist nominees In each of 20 categories. :_\...r.\ ..-'....._'..'..3Ls.-.' c. .' . Asked about the award via email, Bechdel wrote, “Well, I have mixed feelings about awards. I’m ecstatic when I win, and deeply depressed when I lose. But seriously, it was very nice to win a Lammy. This is my fifih, actually. It always feels great to get that nod of recogni- tion from the queer literary commu- nity.” She wrote that the book was doing a bit better in sales than previous collections, and that she had done readings only in Washington, DC, New York, and Boston. “I didn’t ......-..- (Lt )_vm\|J L x.A-.C- {- £.n-\L~Z..‘\. is . ..s .\ A...1.:.s.,.....L..:...,._..\.\.i..: \ i. -. do anything locally because I come out with new books every couple of years and people start to get a little burned out. Like, ‘Oh, no. Yet anoth- , er Dykes To Watch Out For book- signing?’ So I’m giving it a rest for a while in Vermont.” Bechdel is balancing writ- ing a graphical memoir about her father with the continuing saga of the DTWOF strip. “My life is broken down into two-week sessions. I work for two weeks on the strip, then I switch to the memoir. I am getting kind of nervous, though, because my next Dykes book is due in December, and the book about my dad is due in March. And I have a -x-r\i.r\».~y-xx‘ --'-‘i~-»\. really phenomenal amount of draw- ing I have to do. I’m sort of consid- ering this year as a retreat — I can’t do anything but work.’_’ Other winners of note (a selected list): lgbt erotica — Best Lesbian Erotica 2004, ed. by Tristan Taorinino (Cleis Press); visual arts — Women Seeing Women, edited by Lonthar Schirmer (W.W. Norton); lgbt fiction anthology — Pulp Friction, edited by Michael Bronski (St. Martin’s Press); lgbt memoir/autobiography'— Naked in the Promised Land, by Lillian Faderrnan (Houghton Mifflin); les- bian poetry — The Dirt She Ate, by Minnie Bruce Pratt (University of .,., Pittsburgh Press); gay men’s poetry (tie) ~— Middle Earth, by Henri Cole (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and Sky Lounge, by Mark Bibbins (Graywolf Press); transgender — She is Not There, by Jennifer F inney Boylan (Broadway Books); lgb_t studies — Time on Two Crosses, edited by Devon Carbado and Donald Weise (Cleis Press); gay men’s fiction — Lives of the Circus Animals, by Christopher Bram (William Morrow); lesbian fiction — Southland, by Nina Revoyr (Akashic Books). V ., ‘V _:._?.,: ,3 ,3 ;-_ in r«_{« /, in §&~ '.lrr3r?fyr:7z2xtw:V& 3,?