It started with a moan, really. Myself and Rupert Smith were moaning about the lack of opportunities for us as gay authors, the lack of invitations to read at major book festivals, the lack of invitations to read anywhere. Out of that conversation came Polari, the gay literary salon night I launched last November, and which has grown at such a rate, it surprised even me. Myself and Rupert read together at the first Polari. Neil Bartlett read at the second.

Since then we’ve had Stella Duffy, Christopher Fowler and Will Self, to name just a few.
Then in February, to mark LGBT History Month, Polari joined forces with Rupert’s House of Homosexual Culture for a night debating the state of gay publishing in the basement bar at Freedom. We had 150 people through the door that night. But were we happy? Were we buggery. It was all very well raising our profile on the gay scene, but what about the wider literary world? Were we destined to remain in the ghetto forever?

Unbeknownst to us, someone, somewhere was listening. Barely a week later we were called into a meeting at the South Bank, and invited to curate at this year’s London Literature Festival. We left the meeting in a daze. I actually remember turning to Rupert and uttering those immortal words, ‘What just happened?’
What just happened, in fact, was that gay programmers were invited to curate at a major British book festival - for the first time ever as far as we can tell.

Five months later, we’ve just completed out first season of gay literary events at the South Bank. Under the umbrella heading of The House of Homosexual Culture, we staged three events in all, involving a total of 20 writers and performers, including two male strippers. Our Dirty Books night was the smallest of our three events, but it was the most talked about. We were the people who put cock in the Saint Paul’s Pavilion at the Royal Festival Hall.
We also put Julian Clary, Andy Bell and David McAlmont on stage with Stella Duffy and Diana Souhami in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, which is no mean achievement considering that it seats 1000 people and we were over two thirds full.
So yes, we’re feeling pretty pleased with ourselves. And more importantly, the South Bank are pretty pleased it us. This could be the start of a beautiful relationship. And the end of us constantly moaning about having nowhere to read.

Read more about Paul Burston <here>

Paul Burston's most recent novel; Lovers & Losers was published in 2007. Buy it <here>.

© 2008 Paul Burston. All Rights Reserved.

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