pre-order a signed edition of the Comic Book Torah

For three years, Sharon Rosenzweig and Aaron Freeman have been collaborating on The Comic Torah: A graphic re-imagining of The Very Good Book. They've refined their story and characters as they posted them online each week at The Comic Torah website.

Now, Ben Yehuda Press wants to publish The Comic Torah as a full-color book. They need to find enough fans and supporters to fund a first printing. This is your chance to pre-order The Comic Torah -- and show there's enough support to justify publication.

For a $22 (US) pledge - the retail price of the book if it get published - you can guarantee yourself a signed copy of the book if it gets published. If there aren't enough pledges by the deadline (Nov. 18th), noone is required to pay. If there are enough pledges by the deadline, the money is transferred, the book gets published and the $22+ pledgers get their books sent to them.

It's like a different version of print-on-demand ... publish-on-demand.

For more details, please go to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/391391432/the-comic-torah-the-book, where you can watch a short promotional video starring Aaron & Sharon (and showing what the full-color cover will look like).

Call for Submissions - Gender Outlaws

Since the collection will include comics - and since it is being co-edited by ing Kate Bornstein (known as "major Jewess with Attitude"), I am posting the followinf Call for Submissions :

Call For Submissions
GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION
Kate Bornstein & S. Bear Bergman, eds

Deadline: 1 September 2009

In the fifteen years since the release of Gender Outlaw, transgender narratives have made their way into cultural locations from the margins to the mainstream and back again. Today's trannies and other sex/gender radicals are writing a radically new world into being. GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION (Seal Press) will collect and contextualize the work of this generation's most forward-thinking trans/genderqueer voices-new voices from the stage, on the streets, in the workplace, in the bedroom, and on the pages and websites of the world's most respected mainstream news sources. Edited by that ol' original Gender Outlaw herself, Kate Bornstein and writer, raconteur, and theater artist S. Bear Bergman, GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION will include essays, commentary, comic art and conversation from a diverse a group of trans-spectrum people who live and believe in barrier-breaking lives.

*What we're looking for*

GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION wants to collect work that represents a quantum leap forward in thinking and talking about gender and the gender binary, in the same way Gender Outlaw did almost twenty years ago. So blow us away. Bring the smart, bring the sexy, blind us with science, break the gender barrier, shine a bright light (or a disco ball) on the whole gender situation. Tell us about your future, what you imagine, how you want things to go and what you (and your friends) intend to do about it. Think big.

We'll look at whatever you have for us - essays, graphic art, interviews/conversations, haiku, rants - as long as you're thinking smart and fresh about sex and gender (and being an outlaw, of course). We will feel especially keen about your work if it adds to or advances the conversation about gender (as distinct from simply reflecting it, or lamenting it).

People of any identity are encouraged to submit work. This means you - yes, you!

We intend to privilege non-normatively gendered/sexed voices in the book but will include all the good stuff we can, regardless of current identifiers of the author.

*The Details*

Deadline: Sept 1 (early submissions are encouraged). Submissions should be unpublished; query if you have a reprint that you think we'll swoon for. While we hesitate to list a maximum, please query first for pieces over 4,000 words. If you have an idea and need help writing it out, contact us to discuss an interview-style piece or other accommodations.

Submit as a Word document or black/white JPEG (no files over 2MB). Please include a cover letter with a brief bio and full contact information (mailing address, phone number, pseudonym if appropriate) when you submit. Submissions without complete contact information will be deleted unread. Payment will be $50 and 2 copies of the book upon publication in Fall 2010. Contributors retain the rights to their pieces. Send your submission as an attachment to genderoutlawsnextgeneration@gmail.com.

~please repost lots and lots, as appropriate~