July's Rainbow Award Winners

Although 90 submissions were received for the July Rainbow Award, only 15 were deemed good enough for this coveted award as we continue to tighten our webpage standards. Those of you who were not accepted need only reapply when you've updated your site.

One of the very best designed sites of this month's winners is Alan Callander's Ex , short for exhibitionist, which he surely is, featuring pictures of himself in bondage. We placed his site in the Leather Directory at gayamerica.com. Check out his "Storyline," an interactive erotic story that continues to grow as visitors add paragraphs to it.

Two sites added to the Arts directory, and thoroughly meriting the honor, are graphic artist Jamie Durrant's On-Line Portfolio , which is humbling in its audacious display of technical expertise, not only in the field of webpage design, but every graphic arts area as well-photography, computer-generated animations and artwork and pen and ink sketching and cartooning. Another British webber is Alan L. Strong and his Alan L. Strong's Theatre site. A UK drama teacher, his page is presented in three acts: Childhood-his uniquely English growing-up story, Creative Ideas-thoughts on the theatrical process after directing over 100 theatrical productions, and A Gay Man. There are excellent examples of his writing ability with a short story and poem, to say nothing of his drawing ability.

We created a new directory called "Bears" for Peter Somers bear page, TopCub's Little Corner , and Adiane Alvarez's unique Adiane's Den copped the award and was placed in the Bi-Sexual directory. Her "den" boasts a TV with various "channels" like "Self," "Horror," "True Crime," "Music," "Cute Stuff," "Bisexual," "I Am Woman," and "NYC," which is where she is from.

Our ever growing Infotainment Directory now boasts three new entries. Robert B. Smith's Cathedral Of The Hydrogenated Snack Cake equates today's society with Twinkies and Little Debbies done up in a gorgeous and hilarious design filled with color and calories, while Chikara's World uses color sparingly to conjure poetry through ingenious java applets, which extend to a collection of delightful java games, with her "electro poetry" board taking top honors among the Ambush staff-Chikara's World was also placed in the Literature directory. Chris Rowen, a young gayman in Sydney, Australia created The Labyrinth--a maze that takes one on a most interesting and entertaining journey, literally and figuratively as well.

Another contribution to our Lesbian directory is Melissa Meister's XENAMEISTER'S Xena & Gabrielle Pages which are fun and stylish yet uniquely subversive as she sheds light on the "subtextual" nature of the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle of Xena: Warrior Princess.

J.L.S.E., a teacher in Texas who "can't afford" to be out, has created a simple, straight-forward page exhibiting, or publishing, his poetry which he attributes to Ganymede. The page is called simply Antinous .

Both Outbox and Lavender Magazine Online are now in the Media Directory at gayamerica.com. Both are excellent examples of "e-zines." Whosoever: An Online Magazine For Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Christians , although calling itself a "magazine," was placed in our Family directory due to its content-for every quote a right-wing zealot can throw at you from the Bible, these fine people have ferreted out other quotes which support homosexuality.

Henry Shawcross may have been a female at one time in his life, but now he is an out transgender-out and proud and into S/M! Check out his incredible story and his paean to Trent Lott of Nine Inch Nails in his page, memorabilia.

And last, but certainly not least, and placed in our Travel Directory, is Steve Yasko's Mike Billt's Guide to Gay DC & Baltimore, which is exactly what it is: the real dish on where to go and why in the Washington, DC and Baltimore areas.