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A macabre tale of jealousy and possessiveness

When I first encountered Duffy’s writing, I was astonished at how far ahead she was for her time – a true literary innovator . . . Alongside her prolific creativity, her activism for gay and author rights is unparalleled

There could not have been a more deserving winner for the inaugural RSL Pioneer Prize . . . Her writing and activism were never far apart

A writer of intense political principle, committed to fighting for the rights of others . . . Maureen Duffy’s life and work was expansive and disruptive

A true trailblazer in every sense of the word

Guardian, ‘Maureen Duffy Awarded RSL Pioneer Prize’

Writer, poet, playwright, critic, activist: the words gather around Maureen Duffy but never quite contain her . . . Throughout a career spanning more than six decades, she wrote with intelligence, moral clarity and an unwavering curiosity about people pushed to the edges of society. At the same time, she fought tirelessly for the rights of authors, for gay liberation, for animal welfare and for the idea that culture itself is a public good worth defending . . . To encounter Duffy's work is to meet a mind unwilling to accept conventional boundaries between genres, between species, between public and private life . . . Maureen demonstrated that literature can do more than reflect society, it can reshape it

Love Child

Shot through with a lively brilliance, The Monkey's Mask is a traditional verse novel told in multiple voices, which also happens to be an erotic lesbian detective romance. Like the archetypal hero of Dashiell Hammett's Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade, Porter's lesbian private eye heroine, Jill Fitzpatrick, is torn between passionate love and professional ethics

There's a strange alchemy at work here, as if Porter has distilled storytelling to its essence and fed it to us homeopathically. Tiny drops, soluble in alcohol. Imbibe and feel it work its way through your system

Porter offered energetic, spare, sexy and irreverent poetry, which she was able to perform with unforgettable passion and energy

The Monkey's Mask transgresses boundaries between poetry and fiction, makes poetry accessible, readable, exciting . . . the plot races along at break-neck speed as the words race down the page. Porter's language is lean, colloquial, raw, yet rich in imagery and that sensuousness for which she is renowned

The Monkey’s Mask undertakes its projects with energy and originality . . . Porter’s anger at the endless self-regeneration of the posing posh is raw and uncontained, and she deserves immediate nomination for poetry prizes the length and breadth of the nation for her coinage of the literary term ‘I’ve-got-a-big-dick epic’

The Monkey’s Mask

A jolting book . . . An intense, personal, and courageous document. A book written out of rage, unnerving, thought provoking

His tone rings absolutely true, is absolutely his own, and he has the kind of discipline which allows him a rare and beautiful recklessness. He tells the truth, and tells it with such passion that we are forced to share in the life he conveys

An intelligent, persuasive, and, in its way, heartbreaking manifesto

One of the few original American writers of the last century

Rechy shows great comic and tragic talent. He is truly a gifted novelist

A passionate manifesto for gay rights by an author who openly and unapologetically identifies himself as a participant

The Sexual Outlaw

Electrifying . . . Indiana's re-creation of Cunanan's crimes and ever-shifting states of mind are convincing, but his real story, and strength, is his analysis of the hysterical, wildly inaccurate media coverage of the case. In the end, Cunanan's life and crimes, both factual and reimagined, become Indiana's vehicle to explore and expose how the media create a self-referential and self-perpetuating culture of hysteria, stereotypes, inaccuracies and glorified violence

A hero to the underground . . . Gary struck me as an authentic downtown literary artist, with a provenance that roped in Frank O’Hara’s concept of personism and Lou Reed’s unsparing empathy

Gary Indiana belongs to a special breed of American urban writers who take cool pleasure in dissecting the lives of the rich and ugly . . . On a good day, he makes Bret Easton Ellis look like Enid Blyton, yet many, myself included, think he might have already written the Great America Novel(s)

Penguin Queer Writers

Love Child

The Monkey’s Mask

The Sexual Outlaw

Three Month Fever

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