Christopher Rice has been featured in Oasis every time he has released a book. In 2000, he came out of the gates with The Density of Souls, which really set the bar for this talented newcomer. With its epic scale including massive floods, gay characters, a multi-generational storyline, and a New Orleans Garden District setting, it made for a bold debut that established him as a unique voice. He followed that up with The Snow Garden, which detailed a murder mystery on a small, northeastern campus that showed the first book wasn't a one-off, but rather the establishment of an author who took questions and background from his life to paint beautiful stories that always hold your attention and keep you reading.

Larry Kramer has been a hero of mine since I first accepted being gay. He has always been outspoken, cantankerous, and driven. This speech is long, unsettling, and thought-provoking. I advise you all to read it, and consider it. Thanks, Jeff.

THE TRAGEDY OF TODAY'S GAYS

An address to the gay community

By Larry Kramer

(A speech made at Cooper Union, New York on Sunday, November 7, 2004, presented by HIV Forum in conjunction with NYU's Office of LGBT Student Services, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids, Callen-Lorde, and the Gill Foundation.)

Hey there everyone,

Just wanted to let people in the Bay Area know that if they want to see a new solo show by Heather Gold, called "I look like an Egg, but I identify as a Cookie," Heather is offering Oasis readers discounted tickets. During the show, she tells stories while baking cookies (which you get to eat at the end).

More information is available about the show at http://www.subvert.com/

Today, I got fired from my job. This is good news (believe me).

Monday, I begin writing my novel full-time.

Next month, this site, which i started in 1995, turns NINE years old!

Lots of change on the horizon (for me, that is, any change for this site is up to Adrian).

More details on my firing at http://www.jeffwalsh.

Blithe House Quarterly, the leading online journal of lesbian and gay literary fiction, is pleased to open submissions for its 2005 issues.

"*The* journal, online or off, for gay short fiction. Blithe House Quarterly is one of the best literary sites on the Internet. Period." --  42opus.com

"Internet-based fiction journals have become a significant force in publishing, especially for serious short fiction.  In Web-only lit journals such as Blithe House Quarterly, the short-story form is alive and clicking."

Hey everyone... figured I should let you know that a story I wrote called "Wedding Dae," about the boy who wanted to marry me in Thailand, appears in a new queer marriage anthology called "I Do, I Don't: Queers on Marriage."

It has tons of contributors from people you've heard of (Margaret Cho, Patricia Nell Warren) to a lot of people you will hear from eventually (me, others).

Anyway, more information on the book is available at the Suspect Thoughts website, which is run by Greg Wharton and Ian Philips, who are a great couple running their own independent imprint.

For the next week or so, I'm in the Dallas, Texas area, so if anyone wants to say, "Hey" and you live here, now is the time.

Mainly chilling out and doing family stuff here, although there will be some gay excursions.

Right now, to continue the Latin vibe that began in Mexico this week, I may go try out Bamboleos, a gay Latin bar here. Anyone else know of anything worth doing here?

In less than 48 hours, Congress will vote on an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would permanently deny marriage equality to same-sex couples. This is unprecedented -- never before has our Constitution been amended to take away anyone's rights. We've got to fight back.

You can let your voice be heard at: http://www.moveon.org/unitednotdiv

Just wrote this up for my blog after hearing the news, and thought I'd share it here as well...

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Came home from helping a friend move into his apartment tonight, and decided to check CNN to see if anything happened today, and the entire front page is on Reagan dying. I wasn't the most political person when he was president. I remember sitting with my grandfather in his house and him telling me to watch Reagan being sworn in as president on television. That it was a big deal.

Posting this for someone (so the "I" is not me:

I wanted to make sure you all knew about the Marriage Meetups.
Meetup.com was such a wonderful tool for the Howard Dean Campaign, and I
think it could also be a great tool in fighting the Amendment and
working for marriage equality in local communities across the country.

The Marriage Meetups are scheduled for the first Monday of every month.

San Francisco's New Conservatory Theatre Center (NCTC) announces the world premiere of the OutSpoken Project as part of their ongoing YouthAware Program. Through written word, poetry, visual art, music and drama, NCTC is asking all youth, regardless of their sexual orientation, to send in their experiences with issues of sexual identity, homophobia, acceptance and pride.

These submissions will be compiled into a new play by award-winning author Norman Allen. After a premiere production in San Francisco this summer, to be performed by local youth, the script will be made available at no cost to schools, youth groups and community organizations across the country for use in their own performance and educational outreach programs.

Just got back from seeing Rosie O'Donnell marry her longtime partner Kelli Carpenter at City hall in San Francisco this afternoon. As I work a $7 cab ride away from City Hall, it seemed relevant to see history in the making, as Rosie brings even more visibility to an issue that 3,300 anonymous gay couples couldn't on their own.

The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus put together a decent-sized group on short notice, all holding different colored flowers and singing songs such as "American The Beautiful," "We Shall Overcome," and "Going to the Chapel," with the crowd cheering them on and singing along. Lots of spectators, many couples, and even more media were all waiting in anticipation as we sorted out what was occurring.

Acknowledging the "Going to the Chapel" song, Rosie said, "We really did. We got married." Carpenter held the license in her hand throughout the statement.

Hmm, as I'm sure most of you have read by now, San Francisco became the same sex wedding capital of the world recently, with more than 2,300 couples being married since Thursday, starting with Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, who have been lesbian activists since the 50s and a couple for 51 years.

Sadly, I have been laid up with an illness all week, so I didn't get to see any of the celebration firsthand. The closest I got was being on a bus going past City Hall, with its line of hopeful couples snaking down the stairs, and around the corner and block. I was headed to a movie, one of my only outings all week, and the level of physical activity for which I was only capable.

Ko Imani was an Oasis writer on the previous version of the site, before I bunged it up and it disppeared for a while.

Anyway, Ko has been a busy boy, publishing his book "Shirt of Flame," calling for a new LGBT activism.

A sample chapter is available online. You can also purchase it, and by all means, do so if you can. We need to support our own, and Ko is independently publishing this thing, so he needs your help to get the word out.

WASHINGTON � In an historic decision with wide-ranging implications, the U.S. Supreme Court today struck down a Texas law that makes some kinds of sexual intimacy a crime, but only for gay people. The decision overrules the court�s 1986 decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, which was widely condemned for treating gay people as second-class citizens.��It was hailed by the American Civil Liberties Union as a major milestone in the fight for constitutional rights.