READ A BOOK & WRITE AN ESSAY, or vice versa!
I originally put together this Newsletter w/regard to Essays (click on the photo of the green typewriter above), as part of a larger plan to send a box of books every week for 52-weeks, to the secondary school/library of my choice, in order to help kids at-risk, especially gay kids at risk with a list of books by or about gay men, which just might be able to help a young person in trouble, in some way, shape or form. I called my plan to help save the world, one kid at a time > the OK2BG Book Donation Project.
I soon began to realize that there were more than a few books available, about the lives of both historical & contemporary gay men (from all over the world), in several different formats; such as, Memoirs, Biographies, Autobiographies, Anthologies, Retrospectives, and/or Essays – in an effort to collect any & all literary works, on whichever subject that would share the story of some portion of their lives, to help somebody in distress, fight against bullies & other alien attacks of prejudice, bigotry & homophobia, or altogether, like anthropophobia.
I arbitrarily organized the books into various (quinquagenarian) categories, in order to send a different group of 25 books each week for 52-weeks, to a middle school or high school or college library. But because of the cost involved in my overly enthusiastic, yet dedicated scheme, to help kids feel better about themselves & hopefully find a like-minded role model, in however many boxes of books – I had to suddenly switch gears & decided thereupon, to just make a Newsletter for each group of books, which I could either include in each box of books (on some future date), or just send the Newsletter instead of the books, or perhaps put the Newsletter on my book website & hope somebody might find it posted there someday, to read & research at their convenience, at some eventful point in their life.
The comprehensive, subject category of Essays is presented here as Newsletter #39 for the 39th week (of the year) that I would have sent a box, or backpack of 25 books, to some school library in-need, or maybe my old high school library, or to some desperate kid out there, either still in school or who might have consequently dropped out of school. Or, a runaway sleeping rough on the street, who needs to know that somebody cares & wants to help them figure out a way to resolve their predicament & survive another day.
While, almost all of the books are by or about gay men, with the exception of a small percentage of some books (without essays) & some men (like the 2 Presidents) who were included systematically in the essay Newsletter, because they were associated in some way with the subject matter or my general interest & initial intent to find a way to help someone in need, or save the world, by reading a book & writing an essay, or vice versa!
I found more than 100 guys & 200 books on the subject of Essays & also included a separate spreadsheet file of all those book titles sorted 4 different ways (click on the map photo below), for some easier advantage of discovery, although I’m not exactly sure what or how much. Since, there are a variety of different subject matters w/regard to the essays within each book, although ‘too much is maybe better than too little’, I’m not sure which, as I became a little bleary-eyed in my industrious goal & may have missed the virtual target by a few degrees, as I tried to ‘keep it simple, stupid!’ However, I am a savant by nature & the devil is in the details, as they say.
Still, I wanted a copy of every book for myself, in order to read every essay, so I could better understand however many different categories of essay subjects & subsequent styles of writing there might be as a result, to sort & catalog; before somebody tried to wade through so much disjointed research material altogether, or all alone. But it’s a start, I think, as I’ve discovered more books in the process than I knew about before. And if nothing else grabs your attention, other than the book cover(s), well then, so be it! But checkout the spreadsheet list, too & read some of the sample essay titles (click on the map photo above), because there are more than a few (hundred) that I would certainly like to read, at some point in the near future.
I’m also enclosing a book review I wrote previously (click on the photo of open books below) (posted on Goodreads, currently) about an Anthology collection of 39 essays, I thought was relatively important to include with my essay Newsletter, since the book review also includes 39 books, aka additional Anthologies by or about 750 men, as potential role models for somebody who might need a virtual friend, to help solve a problem or just get through the day somehow, without being attacked on whatever physical or psychological level of disparagement.
‘The primary thing I should do, apart from being a good husband, brother, son, and friend, is to be a citizen activist. But I’m afraid it takes away from the writing. Not that anything depends on whether I put an essay in ‘The Nation’ or not. But you want to participate.’
– Tony Kushner @ brainyquote.com
As a secondary assignment for extra credit, I wonder if anybody can write an essay with enough persuasive impact to stop the war in the Middle East & Ukraine, which, as you may or may not know, is the longest war in our nation’s history, at almost 20 years & counting. Literally, longer than my great-nephew, Tyler has been alive & living in such a country that has always been at war!
To what end?!
Not yet the end, but to be continued....
Jack of Hearts
P.S.1 > I wonder if these 1K words count as an essay?!
P.S.2 > If they do the job, then yes!