Danny M. Hoey, author of The Butterfly Lady (Flaming Giblet Press, 2013), will be one of the Sundress Academy for the Arts’ judges for the OUTSpoken competition. His novel has achieved acclaim throughout the entire LGBT community. Hoey says he wrote The Butterfly Lady “to give Gabriel, or someone like Gabriel, a sense of humanity – to show that they are not a spectacle, but a real person.”
He goes on to explain that writing this story has not only helped himself to feel empowered to be truthful, but also encouraged his friends to write the truth and to remain truthful in their writing, “It’s helped me to not be afraid to write the truth, even the hard parts. I was afraid and then I let it go. I’m not as afraid as I was before. I can write things that matter.”
This led him to meet and work with author T.A. Noonan, who informed him of SAFTA and the OUTSpoken program. Hoey described his excitement at the opportunity to work with and judge for this organization, saying, “We need more LGBT voices. I think it is important to help the arts in any way we can because art is political. We need to give people an area to express themselves and who they are and give them an opportunity to be who they are.”
The Butterfly Lady was just named a Finalist for the Foreward Book of the Year in Gay and Lesbian Fiction.