FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 20, 2011

GLAD to Honor Author Jodi Picoult at Annual Summer Party

Comedian Kate Clinton Returns as Auctioneer Extraordinaire!

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders is proud to announce that it will honor best-selling novelist Jodi Picoult with the GLAD Community Award. Picoult will accept the award at GLAD’s 29th Annual Summer Party at the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum on Saturday, July 30.

GLAD is honoring Picoult for bringing a nuanced tale of the joys and challenges of being an LGBT family to a wide swath of readers who might otherwise be uninterested in, or unsympathetic to, our cause. Her recent book featuring a fictitious GLAD attorney, Sing You Home, topped both the New York Times’ and USA Today’s best-seller lists.

Picoult is also a very supportive mother of a gay son; her eldest child, Kyle, came out to the author and his father as she was writing Sing You Home.

“As a best-selling author with millions of devoted readers, Jodi has a huge platform from which to influence the hearts and minds of mainstream America,” said Gary Buseck, GLAD’s acting executive director. “We’re thrilled that with Sing You Home, she chose to use that platform to tell a moving story of a same-sex couple and their struggle to create a family honestly and with integrity, while also paying tribute to GLAD’s pioneering contributions in the area of LGBT family law through the character of attorney Angela Moretti.”

“I’m very proud to accept the GLAD Community Award,” said Picoult. “To me, LGBT rights are the last set of human rights that we do not automatically grant in this country and that was what I really wanted to poke with a stick in Sing You Home. Additionally, it was an important book for me to write because of my son Kyle. His coming out really did change for me how I approached writing the book because it wasn’t just a theoretical journey anymore. It really is a mom’s mission: How do I make the world a better place so that when Kyle’s ready to get married and have his kids, he doesn’t have to jump through hoops in order to do it?”

Political humorist Kate Clinton will once again wield her wit and the auctioneer’s gavel, making live bids on the opportunity to get your name in a Jodi Picoult novel, travel packages, massages, theater tickets and other unique experiences hard to resist.

The Summer Party also features a silent auction, activities for children, beautiful views of Provincetown Harbor, tasty summer fare, and cocktails provided by Bacardi, Barefoot Wine & Bubbly and Samuel Adams. Proceeds support GLAD’s efforts in the six New England states to end discrimination based on sexual orientation, HIV status, and gender identity and expression.

The lead sponsor of this year’s Summer Party is Macy’s.

EVENT DETAILS

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders’ 29th Annual Summer Party

Saturday, July 30, 2010, 4:00 – 7:00 p.m.

Pilgrim Monument & Provincetown Museum

1 High Pole Hill Rd.

Provincetown, Mass. 02657

Individual tickets are $75 and are available at www.glad.org.

Children are admitted free of charge.