The Capital Times from Madison, Wisconsin • 15

'riday, Sept. 22, 1995 The Capital Times 13A Gay editor pushes for a radical middle Republic, drew a large crowd for Andrew Sullivan, editor of the New There are many books about homosexual culture memoirs, histories. But theres no rubric with which the whole society can discuss this subject. So I felt this was a book that was actually needed as opposed to something that was just to be done for its own sake. Is coming to grips with its attitudes toward homosexuality as significant a challenge for society in the 90s as were the challenges of coming to grips with religious diversity in the 50s and with race in the 60s? Yes.

These sorts of issues always have to be pushed into the public discussion. Look at womens rights, for example. Thirty years ago, womens rights were treated as a peripheral issue to the politics of the time. It took people insisting upon its centrality as a political issue to really move the society and culture. Im an optimist about this (societal acceptance of gays and lesbians).

I think that things have changed immeasurably in the last decade, and were on the brink of changing in a far more profound way. Its exhilarating to be a part of that, and to be able to participate in that conversation. You are part of a generation that is much more comfortable with issues of gay and lesbian rights than was your parents generation. And the generation that is rising now todays teenagers is even more comfortable with the subject. Thats a critical evolution, isnt Yes.

They (todays teenagers) his book reading here last week. Part of this, for me, comes out of the experience of being in a family, where you have to deal with these issues. You realize in that context how far people have to come, how deeply emotional this issue is, and how you have to give people space to deal with it. You have to calm the argument down and find some way through the center, so that both the minority and the majority can find a way of living together and understanding each other. I think theres a great thirst on both sides to do that, but so far there hasnt really been a good language in which to talk about it.

Or even a proposal. In some ways, Im saying, Look, heres a proposal. How does this sound? We may not get to where the book argues for a long time. I understand that. I didnt write this book as a political strategy.

I wrote it honestly as a vehicle to figure out what I really thought was the right solution to this issue. In many senses, the book offers a New Republic style argument that there is a rational middle that America can come to. A lot of people have said to me, Youre hopelessly naive. This subject is so emotional that this is a pointless exercise. I really dont believe that.

In fact, if we do believe that, we might as well give up as a liberal democracy. If you cannot find some civil discourse, whats the point? Theres been enough emotion on this issue. The thing about the subject of homosexuality is that the middle has become almost paper thin. Part of what I hope we do at the New Republic is provide a place where reasonable people of whatever opinion can make their case with the optimistic assumption that there is a general reader out there able to make a judgment about which case is better. The New Republic was once a liberal journal of opinion; now it seems very conservative.

Do you even try to put an ideological label on the New Republic anymore? I never tried to put a label on it from the beginning. The New Republic speaks for itself. I think each article tries to make a case on its own. The only thing that brings it together is that its a bunch of reasonable people trying to figure things out. Ive tried to create an atmosphere within the magazine between its editors and its readers where nobody takes anything for granted.

Weve all got to make our case and respond accordingly. For a time, it seemed that Bill Clinton was trying to define a radical or at least an activist middle. But the New Republic has become very disappointed in him. We hoped three years ago that he would define a radical middle. But the radical middle is not just sort of the middle point of all the different arguments, and thats where he is.

Clinton is the completely unradical middle. He is the geometric middle, the polling middle. People soon figure out that that doesnt have any core reasoning behind it. When you look across the political landscape at this point, do you see leaders who are attempting to encourage the sort of serious dialogue Clinton has failed to develop? You see it to some extent in someone like Bill Bradley, in a Paul Tsongas or a Colin Powell. I dont think any of those three people have the kind of charisma to really break through, but you can see this enormous public thirst for a more realistic dialogue.

But a year from now you may well be editorializing again in Clintons favor. If it comes down to Clinton and Gingrich, Clinton and Phil Gramm, I dont think theres any question that you go with Clinton. Ultimately, if it comes down to that, youve got to make a choice. But, on the other hand, until then were going to do our best to make sure thats not the choice we have. John Nichols is assistant editorial page editor for The Capital Times.

Nine authors are mentioned on the front cover, including Peter Straub and Jane Yolen, but King is nowhere listed, unless you count the and many others. Besides its best picks, its honorable mention list, with 800 or so listings, is a good source of other stories to check out. Frenkel will do a reading from the book Sept. 26 at 7 p.m. at Borders Book Shop, 3416 University Ave.

He plans to read two short stories and will also field questions. Randel Shard is a Madison writer. By John Nichols The New York Times refers to him as the "hot editor and the Boston Globe labels him a "media darling so it shouldnt come as much of a surprise that Andrew Sullivans first book is causing a sensation. The 31-year-old New Republic editor could have written about land use policies in Sweden and caused a commotion. But he chose to address the far more controversial subject of gay and lesbian rights, and his book, Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality, has stirred a remarkable national dialogue.

His current book tour, which last week drew about 200 people to Madisons Canterbury Booksellers, has packed bookstores and talk radio telephone lines all over the country, provoking intense discussions between the openly gay magazine editor and audiences including everyone from Queer Nation activists to members of the Christian Coalition. Sullivan refers to his readings as "public meetings" and sees "a real zest for discussing these issues on the part of the American people. Ultimately, he believes that such discussions will lead to broader societal acceptance of gays and lesbians, an end to all public discrimination against 1 them, and at the same time an acceptance on the part of homosexuals of their place as full participants in a civil society. The British-born, Oxford-educated editor sees his book and the current tour as promoting a dialogue that synthesizes the best arguments of the activist right and left. Thats something he claims to do as well with the New Republic, a once liberal magazine that he has steered right toward something he refers to as "the radical middle.

THE CAPITAL TIMES: As one of the most talked-about magazine editors in the United States, you knew that when you wrote a book it would draw attention no matter what subject you chose to address. So why did you decide to focus on the topic of homosexuality? ANDREW SULLIVAN: There are books you want to write, and there are books you have to write. In so far as Im the editor of a political magazine, it seemed to me that this political issue is the one most in need of the groundwork for a more reasonable and reasoned discussion. When I sat down and thought about writing this book, I looked for previous books that had been written about exactly how homosexuality can fit into the society at large. There were very few.

Madison By Randel Shard For the purposes of this volume, our definition of fantasy fiction is a generous one, embracing many diverse forms of storytelling, from fairy tales to magical realism, from swords and sorcery to surrealism; in other words, any fiction and poetry rooted in the fecund soil of myth, magic, and dream. Summation 1994: Fantasy by Terri Windling The Years Best Fantasy and Horror: Eighth Annual Collection isnt what a lot of people would expect. There are no sword-slinging barbarians or humpbacked henchmen, but there is a wide range of fiction, from magic realism to everyday horror. Its one of those books that is not only a labor of love, but a labyrinthine passage from beginning to end, says James Frenkel of Madison-based Frenkel Associates, which packages the book. Every year they go through hundreds of stories, track down who owns the rights to them whether author, agent or publisher and try to get permission to reprint the stories.

They do that for each of 50 stories in the collection. It was a book that everyone said wouldnt work, Frenkel says. It began as a result of another book a science-fiction anthology that everyone said wouldnt work. Big, fat anthologies were thought to be not a good idea, he recalls. By the third one, people were glad we were doing it.

I always thought it should have a companion volume. I thought Id better do this before someone else does. He got recognized authors and editors Ellen Datlow and Terri The literary season is now in full swing in the Madison area. Here are the highlights of the week ahead. TONIGHT Myra McClarey will read from her poetic novel, Water from the Well, which spans a century in the rural Souths worlds of black and white.

Canterbury Booksellers Coffeehouse, 315 W. Gorham 7:30 p.m. Cheri Erdman will talk about her book, Nothing to Lose: A Guide to Sane Living in a Larger Body, which is a guide to selfacceptance for larger women. A Room of Ones Own, 317 W. Johnson 6:30 p.m.

TUESDAY, Sept. 26 Gloria Steinem, author and feminist pioneer, will give a Distinguished Lecture at the UW Memorial Union at 7:30 p.m. Free tickets with UW ID are available at the Union Theater box office today and Saturday. Jim Frenkel, a Madison native, will read from the annual anthology that he helps edit, The Years Best Fantasy and Horror, 8th Annual Collection. Borders Book Shop, 3416 University 7 p.m.

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 27 Judith P. Rosenberg will read from A Question of Balance: Artists and Writers on Motherhood, interviews with 25 well-known artists and writers. Canterbury, 315 W. Gorham 7:30 p.m.

Judith Strasser, producer and interviewer for public radios To the Best of Our Knowledge, will read from her latest work, Some Poems Want to be Stories. Canterbury, 315 W. Gorham 7:30 p.m. SATURDAY, Sept. 30 Les Standiford will read from his south Florida thriller, Deal to Die For, which blends murder, a Chinese gang, the pornography business and the streets of Miami.

Booked for Murder, 2701 University 2 p.m. is home to horror, fantasy collection Virtually Normal: An Argument about Homosexuality By Andrew Sullivan Knopf $22; 209 pp. are the first generation that has grown up seeing gay people in public life. I have felt that the most important thing is just to be honest about this (ones sexuality). That trickles down in the culture to such an extent that suddenly this is mentionable eveiywhere.

When I grew up in the 60s and the 70s, there was no one (who was prominent and out of the closet). In fact, as I say in the book, I dont think I even heard the word uttered in my family when I was growing up. Now, because of the gays-in-the-military issue, and of course because of the (AIDS) epidemic, every American has been forced to talk about this, to initiate a conversation, and to initiate questions in his or her own head. So I think were ready to take this beyond the emotional stage and to the political-rational stage. That notion stuns up much of what youve tried to do with your book.

You eschew the extremes rejecting both the Christian Coalition line and the Queer Nation line. You seem, ultimately, to be arguing for a point that you hope becomes the middle. Yes, exactly. The cover art of The Years Best emboweling his wife and staking her organs after a fight over overcooked ziti? A lot of time the horror stories are the most interesting because horror in general lends itself to wonderful short stories, says one of Frenkels associates. A lot of the times you read a horror novel and you think, Well, that could have been done a lot quicker.

Non-genre readers will recognize such names as Joyce Carol Oates and Stephen King. Kings story, The Man in the Black Suit, first appeared in the Oct. 31, 1994, issue of The New Yorker. The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Eighth Annual Collection St. Martins Griffin $27.95 hard; $16.95 paper Windling to do the fantasy and horror anthology, which took off running, unlike the SF series.

Datlow and Windling select the stories for each years collection, Datlow picking most of the horror and Windling the fantasy, and providing a short introduction to each. There is a certain amount of overlap. Its very subjective to see where fantasy ends and horror begins, and vice versa, according to Frenkel. Sometimes they both take credit for a stray because they both want to see it in there. A -lot of the books fantasy stories use the time-honored fairy tale as a starting point, either satirically contemporized (A.R.

Morlans Yet Another Poisoned Apple for the Princess), or revisions from another point of view (Neil Gaimans Snow, Glass, Apples, which makes the evil queen from Snow White the sympathetic protagonist). There are also original, if straight-formula, fairy tales (Geoffrey Landis The Kingdom of Cats and Birds). Many of the horror selections are retellings of well-known stories in other settings, such as Frankenstein in India (Brian Mooneys Chandira). The scariest ones are about real human evil, which to some is about as far from horror as you can get. After all, how scaiy are braineating zombies when a man was just in the news recently for dis Fantasy and Horror captures the spirit of the book.

Frenkel had tried to get permission to use Kings stories for previous editions, but to no avail. Eveiy time previously, we were turned down by his agents because it was going to be part of a Stephen King collection and they didnt want it in book form beforehand, Frenkel recalls. I almost didnt try this year, but the theory is it never hurts to try. But lo and behold, this year he said yes. The only caveat was he didnt want to be favored above other writers.

I can respect that, says Frenkel. We had to sign a piece of paper saying so. We had to do the same for Ray I- I-.