What's new for readers in 2011? For fans of gay humor books, Simon & Schuster has announced the Jan. 11, 2011, release date for the e-book edition of "A Funny Time to Be Gay: Hilarious Gay & Lesbian Comedy Routines from Trailblazers to Today's Headliners" by Ed Karvoski Jr.
Just a few months after the book was originally released in January of 1997, the cover of TIME magazine pictured Ellen DeGeneres with the headline, "Yep, I'm Gay!" Journalist Tom Kuntz noted the concurrence of events in his New York Times "Word for Word" column: "You think Ellen DeGeneres had it tough, hiding her homosexuality in the closet all those years until she hit the big time in television? What about comics long out of the closet who have struggled in relative obscurity in large part because they are openly gay?... Many of their routines are available to a wider audience through a new compilation, 'A Funny Time to Be Gay,' collected by Ed Karvoski Jr."
In "A Funny Time to Be Gay," Karvoski traces the evolution of gay and lesbian comedy from the few pioneers in New York's Greenwich Village in the seventies, to the mavericks who played San Francisco's famed Valencia Rose in the eighties, to the comics who starred in their own TV specials in the nineties and continue to headline comedy clubs.
Whoopi Goldberg contributed a cover quote: "There's not a closet big enough to hold this book! The performers, many of whom I've worked with, are here and now. You'll get to hang out and laugh. Enjoy this!"
HBO's "Real Time" host Bill Maher also provided a cover quote: "The sex may be safe, but the comedy isn't. This is the kind of funny, bias-bashing book that all of America -- gay and straight -- should be reading."
Among the more than 30 humorists spotlighted in "A Funny Time to Be Gay" are Tom Ammiano, Judy Carter, Kate Clinton, Sabrina Matthews, Bob Smith, Jason Stuart, Robin Tyler, Suzanne Westenhoefer and Danny Williams.
Karvoski and his five books have also been featured in USA Weekend, Publishers Weekly, Lambda Book Report, The Advocate and Out. In addition, the Village Voice called the author "an insatiable vacuum cleaner in the showbiz closet."