Dennis Milam Bensie joins the World of Ink Summer Virtual Tour with His Personal Heart Felt Memoirs

The World of Ink Network will be touring author Dennis Milam Bensie’s acclaimed contemporary heartfelt memoir, One Gay American and true life story, Shorn: Toys to Men throughout June and July 2013.

About the Book:

Dennis Milam Bensie is One Gay American. Born in the 1960s and raised with traditional values in Robinson, Illinois, Bensie desperately wanted romance, a beautiful wedding, and a baby to carry on the family name. He denied his sexuality and married a woman at nineteen years old,  but fantasized of weddings where he could be the bride. The newlyweds "adopted" a Cabbage Patch Doll and ironically witnessed a Cabbage Patch Doll wedding (a successful fundraiser staged by a local women's club) where the dolls were granted the type of grand ceremony off-limits to gay couples.

In search of his identity as a gay man, Bensie divorced his wife and stumbled through missteps and lessons that still sting his generation: defending against bullies, "disappointing" his parents, and looking for love in gay bars, bath houses and restrooms. He helped his straight friends plan their dream weddings and mourned his gay friends dying of AIDS.

Although true love has not yet come his way, Bensie has learned to love himself. Bensie is the author of the much-lauded memoir, Shorn: Toys to Men, which recounts his battle with paraphilia. One Gay American tells the rest of his story and draws parallels to gay history, decade by decade, with newspaper headlines and quotations. Bensie is the gay neighbor that you either love or hate. Either way, he's got a lot to say and says it with no apologies.

Paperback: 242 pages

Publisher: Coffeetown Press (September 1, 2012)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1603811532

ISBN-13: 978-1603811538

Price $13.95

This is a true story. Real names have been used with permission; others have been changed.

About the Book:

What shapes a man’s life more? Being molested at age seven, having a gruff father ashamed of him for being effeminate, or being humiliated by school bullies for being a sissy? In the memoir, Shorn: Toys to Men, author Dennis Milam Bensie chronicles his journey from damaged boy, self-medicating by cutting the hair of shoplifted Barbie dolls, to confused young man, paying hundreds of gay street hustlers to shave their heads. Bensie demonstrates how hair can be currencya moral gauge for good and bad, male and female, lawful and unlawful. The world of theater is his backdrop, a sanctuary where he gradually spins fantasy into reality. After getting his start in community theater, Bensie moves up to professional houses throughout the United States, turning his private sexual conflict over haircutting into a successful career as a skilled theatrical wig designer. Humorous and honest, this book is a uniquely tangled love story, a triumphant quest for love, forgiveness and self-acceptance.

Paperback: 268 pages

Publisher: Coffeetown Press; 1 edition (January 1, 2011)

Language: English

ISBNs:

Paper: 978-1-60381-092-0

Cloth: 978-1-60381-093-7

ePub: 978-1-60381-094-4

Price:

$17.95 (Paperback)

$25.95 (Cloth)

$6.95 (Kindle/ebooks)

Categories: Personal Memoir; Theater/Stagecraft; Child Abuse

Distribution: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de Baker & Taylor Smashwords (ebooks)

About the Author: 

Dennis Milam Bensie grew up in Robinson, Illinois where his interest in the arts began in high school participating in various community theatre productions. He holds a degree in Theatre Costume Design from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and completed an apprenticeship in theatrical wig construction at Los Angeles Opera. He has costumed and wigged shows all over the country including Oregon Shakespeare Festival, PlayMakers Repertory Theatre in Chapel Hill, NC, Alliance Theatre of Atlanta, Arizona Theatre Company, Actor's Theatre of Louisville, and the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego to name a few. His costume and wig design for Valley of the Dolls at Empty Space Theatre in Seattle garnered him a feature article in Entertainment Design Magazine and a Seattle Times Footlight Award for Best Design. Dennis also teaches master classes in wigmaking and wig maintenance around the country. He has been on staff at Intiman Theatre in Seattle since 1992 and is proud to have been involved with such productions as Angels in America, Nickel and Dimed and the world premier of the Tony Award winning musical Light in the Piazza. Shorn: Toys to Men is his first book. Dennis lives in Seattle with his three dogs.

You can find out more about Dennis Milam Bensie, his memoirs and World of Ink Author/Book Tour at 

http://worldofinknetwork.com

Book Review: Torch in the Dark

About the Book:

Torch in the Dark tells the moving story of how Hadiyah Joan Carlyle, a single mother haunted by memories of her own traumatic childhood, pioneered as one of the first women since World War II to enter the trades as a union welder. Beginning in a Jewish immigrant neighborhood in New Jersey, the story moves through San Francisco’s colorful Haight-Ashbury in the sixties to arrive at Fairhaven Shipyard in Bellingham, Washington. For Hadiyah, welding become a metaphor for healing from the dark past as well as a path to self-reliance and economic survival.

While providing insightful perspective on the culture of the 1960’s and 1970’s, Torch in the Dark offers profound inspiration for anyone struggling with issues of abuse and oppression.

Publisher: Book Publishers Network; 1st edition (March 20, 2012) 

ISBN-10: 1937454231

ISBN-13: 978-1937454234

Genre: Memoir

Available in Print & eBook

What Readers are Saying:

“Torch in the Dark" tells the author's story through a series of tightly crafted vignettes and flashbacks. As many women of her era, Joan Carlyle was raised without defined ambition or skills, even the domestic ones. Estranged from her parents, she often felt alone and out of place. She entered adulthood not knowing who she was. She drifted and drifted. Her stories remind us how "freedom" isn't always free. Eventually she became an activist, a mother and a welder.” ~Lucky Charlie

“In prose as hot as her welding torch, Hadiyah Carlyle transports the reader to a time early in the women's movement that must never be forgotten. As one of the first female welders in the West Coast shipyards, Carlyle paved the way for women working in the trades today. You will applaud her strength in sharing this powerful story.” ~Arleen Williams, The Thirty-Ninth Victim

Our Thoughts:

This isn't a memoir for those who aren't fans of reading true-life stories. The verbiage at times is harsh and brass with still that rhythmic lyrical beat to keep you turning the pages. Hadiyah doesn’t hold back the truths, which haunted her for years, subconscious steered her path and confronts later as being a single mother and welder in darkness force her to confront, reflect and revile her inner self and strength.

We applaud Hadiyah for sharing the deepest and sometimes darkest moments of her life, along with the joys of being a mother, female welder and the struggles of both worlds. Her memoir not only shows the reader about her journey, but also of a time in history where young adults were breaking away from the traditions of their parents, country and the 1950s values.

Excerpt from book:

Moving Metal-Shifting Shapes (p. 109)

Spring 1966.  Welding.  I first hear the word from Robert, my next door neighbor on San Pablo Avenue.  New baby.  No job.  No money.  No husband.  I pick up stuff on the street, a cardboard box for a coffee table, a mattress for my bed. I see two bicycle wheels.  I carry them upstairs with the baby on my back.  I look at them.  I want to pull the wheels apart.  I want to twist them, bend them.  I want to dig in there and make my hands move the metal.  I want a different shape than the round rim, the symmetrical spokes.  I want to move what’s inside—the chaos, the crying out, the burning inside me.  I want to move what I can’t.  I am the steel-hardened on the outside.  I need to break open.  I thought I could do it with my hands.  They don’t move, no matter how hard I try.  I bring the bicycle wheels to Robert, who supplies dope and who rides a motorcycle.

                “Oh, you have to cut and weld them,” he says

                “What’s that?”

“Welding—putting metal together.  Can’t do it with bare hands.  You need a torch.  You need equipment.”

                “Welding?” I say.

                “It’s called welding,” he says again.

                I know I have to learn to weld.

Today Hadiyah lives in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood close to her son, Washington State 36^th district Legislator Reuven Carlyle, his wife Dr. Wendy Carlyle and their four children. Activist, hiker, devoted grandmother, Hadiyah delights in the wild beauty of the Northwest while remaining connected to her gritty urban East Coast roots.

Though welding is no longer a part of her life, she continues to carry the torch for the empowerment of the oppressed.

You can find out more about Hadiyah Joan Carlyle, Torch in the Dark and her World of Ink Author/Book Tour at http://tinyurl.com/chrfo3t

Follow Hadiyah Joan Carlyle at

Author Website http://www.torchinthedark.com

Twitter @CarlyleHadiyah

Facebook https://facebook.com/hadiyahcarlyle

Publisher Website http://www.bookpublishernetwork.com