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Steve’s Year In Books

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Steve Turtell’s Followers (51)

Steve’s Bookshelves

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Steve’s Friends (648)

Shashank

8,132 books | 433 friends

F.E. Jr.

241 books | 1,171 friends

Cynthia Dunn

5,299 books | 552 friends

Amanda Alexandre

2,318 books | 219 friends

Corey

3,044 books | 689 friends

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4 books | 1,131 friends

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560 books | 26 friends

Ron Charles

2,400 books | 4,997 friends

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Steve Turtell

Goodreads Author

Born

in Brooklyn, NY, The United States

Website

http://steveturtell.com

Twitter

https://twitter.com/rdturtle

Genre

Poetry, Memoir

Influences

Edward Field, Joan Larkin, Allen Ginsberg, James Schuyler, Frank O'Har ...more

Member Since

October 2009

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/rdturtle

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Steve Turtell is a poet from New York City, where he has lived and worked for most of his life. He has been writing, editing and publishing articles, reviews, and poems since 1979. His first feature article, Energy at the Emerald City, about the first gay cable TV show in New York, was published in The Advocate. Since then he has been a staff writer for Gaysweek, LGNY, and Gay City News. He has written reviews for Publishers’ Weekly and contributed articles to the SCRIBNER’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LIVES (Scribner’s, 1998). He recently published a memoir, Portraits and Places from Palermo Publishing. His first collection, HEROES AND HOUSEHOLDERS (Orchard House Press, 2007), drew praise from Marjorie Perloff for his “subtle and charming poe ...more

11 posts
Steve Turtell's Blog

Her Name Is George

“All that is prearranged is false . . . . . How do I know what I think until I see what I say,”

E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel p. 101

In 1995, I was forty-five, in the MFA program in poetry at Brooklyn College, and teaching for the first time in my life. In the single class we had in how to teach basic composition, one of our assignments was a brief autobiographical essay. I wrote about my very

Combine Editions
Steve Turtell’s books

Average rating: 4.2 · 49 ratings · 8 reviews · 4 distinct works • Similar authors

	Peter Hujar: Speed of Life by Peter Hujar (Photographer), Philip Gefter (Text), Joel Smith (Text) 4.17 avg rating — 48 ratings — published 2017 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Heroes and Householders 4.25 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 2012 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Portraits and Places 3.33 avg rating — 3 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Letter to Frank O'Hara (ReBound Series, #3) it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2011	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.

Steve is Currently Reading

Steve Turtell is currently reading

Kitchen Hymns

by Pádraig Ó Tuama

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Oct 31, 2025 11:17AM

Steve Turtell is currently reading

Floaters: Poems

by Martín Espada

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Aug 29, 2025 06:09AM

Steve Turtell is currently reading

Jailbreak of Sparrows: Poems

by Martín Espada

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Aug 29, 2025 06:06AM

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Steve’s Recent Updates

Steve Turtell rated a book it was amazing Testaments Betrayed: An Essay in Nine Parts – A Brilliant Defense of Art and Fiction by a 20th Century Master by Milan Kundera	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Steve Turtell and 3 other people liked Christopher’s status update Christopher Curran-Vieira wants to read Tramps Like Us: A Novel
Jul 15, 2026 05:20AM
Steve Turtell rated a book it was amazing This Is Happiness by Niall Williams (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jul 13, 2026 06:47PM · like
Steve Turtell wants to read It Will Come Back To You by Sigrid Nunez	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Quotes by Steve Turtell (?)

“I’ve spent my adult life leaping off cliffs that turn out to be curbs.”
― Steve Turtell

6 likes

Steve’s Quotes

“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.”
― Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare

tags: music

3557 likes

“For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”
― T.S. Eliot

282 likes

“Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolatey cafe mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the entire history of the New World. From the Spanish exportation of Aztec cacao, and the Dutch invention of the chemical process for making cocoa, on down to the capitalist empire of Hershey, PA, and the lifestyle marketing of Seattle's Starbucks, the modern mocha is a bittersweet concoction of imperialism, genocide, invention, and consumerism served with whipped cream on top.”
― Sarah Vowell

tags: chocolate, coffee, history

345 likes

“I’ve spent my adult life leaping off cliffs that turn out to be curbs.”
― Steve Turtell

6 likes

“What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

tags: books, bookstore, towns

5364 likes

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recent posts
Steve’s Groups

Queereaders — 21762 members — last activity 16 hours, 47 min ago
A group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals and supporters interested in fun and stimulating conversation about books, movies, art, ...more

Goodreads Librarians Group — 331651 members — last activity 1 minute ago
Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra ...more

Magnus Books — 145 members — last activity Jul 14, 2013 01:39AM
Book discussion group for readers and writers of LGBT literature. Magnus Books is an imprint of Riverdale Avenue Books. We publish widely in both LGBT ...more

THE Group for Authors! — 13059 members — last activity Jun 27, 2026 11:15PM
This is a group for authors to discuss their craft, as well as publishing and book marketing.

My Story Book Club — 103 members — last activity Mar 28, 2013 05:52PM
My Story is a Young Adult online LGBT book club featuring a LGBT author every month. Lambda Literary Foundation’s My Story Book Club, in association w ...more

¡ POETRY ! — 22513 members — last activity Jul 17, 2026 05:50PM
No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read it!) Goodreads honors wordsmiths: poets and poetry promoted and prompted here. ~~~ "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." -- Carl Sandburg “God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.” —Anne Sexton On Clouds – “…what primitive tastes the ancients must have had if their poets were inspired by those absurd, untidy clumps of mist, idiotically jostling one another about…” —Yevgeny Zamyatin “If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn’t wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate.” —Donald Hall “Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.” —Boris Pasternak “Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.” —Charles Simic “Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.” —Gustave Flaubert “Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” —Allen Ginsberg. ~~~~~ Amy King, Moderator Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the WNBA Award (Women’s National Book Association). Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She serves on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and is co-editing with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology, Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She is also co-editing the anthology, Bettering American Poetry 2015, and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College. ...more

LGBTQIAP+ Lit Lovers — 225 members — last activity Jun 27, 2025 04:39PM
For those who appreciate LGBTQIAP+ literature across various genres, we are a welcoming and supportive community that offers a non-judgmental space fo ...more

NYRB Classics — 1548 members — last activity 3 hours, 12 min ago
For friends of NYRB Classics

Editors and Writers — 3198 members — last activity 20 hours, 31 min ago
Are you a writer looking for an editor or proofreader? Are you an editor looking for publishing experience? This is the place to make contact.

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Steve’s Friend Comments

Comments (showing 1-4) post a comment »

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newest »

message 4: by Steve

May 23, 2018 11:42AM

Thanks, Allen, and thanks for adding me here. Any interest in a book exchange? I can send a copy of Heroes and Householders if you provide a mailing address. You can use my regular email if interested: sturtell@gmail.com

Cheers, Steve

Allen wrote: "How cool that you have gay books and my friend Lynda Mapes' tree book in your list. I met Peter Hujar in the 1970s will look at your book some time soon. You might enjoy my recently published autob..."

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message 3: by Allen

May 23, 2018 07:29AM

How cool that you have gay books and my friend Lynda Mapes' tree book in your list. I met Peter Hujar in the 1970s will look at your book some time soon. You might enjoy my recently published autobiography, "Left, Gay & Green; A Writer's Life." Some reviews and other info on Amazon.com about my book, and others I have done. I'm new on Goodreads. Best wishes to you.

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message 2: by Steve

Jun 05, 2014 03:01PM

Thanks, Stephanie! My pleasure.

reply | flag

message 1: by Stephanie

Jun 05, 2014 02:46PM

Hi Steve, thanks for accepting my friend request! You have great taste in books.

reply | flag

Steve Turtell’s Followers (51)

Steve Turtell

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