Blithe House Quarterly, a journal of lesbian, gays, bisexual and transgendered short fiction, announces Volume 8, No. 2.

Blithe House Quarterly: a site for gay short fiction ( http://www.blithe.com/ ) invites you to browse its Winter 2004 edition.

"*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."
-- Baltimore City Paper

Now in its eighth year of online publication, Blithe House Quarterly features new short stories by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) authors -- both emerging and established. With an average of over 24,000 readers per issue, Blithe House Quarterly is the most widely read of LGBT literary periodicals. OUT Magazine has called BHQ "the central publishing arm of new queer fiction." A recipient of Encyclopaedia Britannica's Internet Guide Award, the journal is also a featured site on internet hubs.

The Spring issue (Volume 8, Number 2) of Blithe House Quarterly features new short stories by Sandra L. Beck, Stefanie Dunning, Drew Gummerson, Bethany Harvey, Trebor Healey, Reed Hearne, Martin Hyatt, Buzz Mauro, Dawn Paul, and Patrick Roscoe. It was edited by Diana Day and Jarrett Walker; executive editor and publisher is Aldo Alvarez.

Suite101.com writes: "Blithe House Quarterly is an electronic magazine up to the standards of print." In fact, the editors aim for standards higher than those of many print media. The site publishes LGBT fiction not as a genre or ghetto, but as a literature that can stand by any other in its quality and innovation. Past contributors have included Jane Eaton Hamilton, Felice Picano, Leslea Newman, Brian Bouldrey, D. Travers Scott, Frankie Hucklenbroich, Bernard Cooper, and Eileen Myles.

"Setting the quality bar [for gay and lesbian writing is the phenomenal site Blithe House Quarterly," said Gay & Lesbian Online in its 3rd edition. "It's awash in awards and rightly so. Of all gay and lesbian sites, Blithe House is the golden child, the one to be entered in the Literature Olympics. None of the stories needs special cosseting as our fiction. Be skeptical and go see the site!"

Philadelphia Gay News wrote in October 2003, "(BHQ's) virtual pages have brought the likes of Andrew Holleran, Ann Wadsworth and Kirk Read to a regular readership of about 24,000 that otherwise might not pick up a literary magazine or have access to a bookstore with gay titles."

Blithe House Quarterly was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award in 2000. The GLAAD Media Award recognizes the "fairness, accurracy, quality, originality and impact of media representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community".

Alvarez, based in Chicago, is available for print, radio and internet-based interviews. Please contact Alvarez or Ken Hunt at the contacts provided above.

Blithe House Quarterly
URL: http://www.blithe.com/

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CONTACT: Aldo Alvarez, executive editor and publisher, Blithe House Quarterly, Ken Hunt, associate publisher, (312) 203-8358, bhqpublicity@yahoo.com.