Mary Renault was a British writer best known for her wonderful historical novels that recreated in Ancient Greece in magnificent detail (I recommend The King Must Die and The Persian Boy). Renault met her life partner Julie Mullard in 1933 while they were training as nurses and they were together for 50 years, until Renault's death in 1983.

Carol Ann Duffy is an out British poet and playwright. Earlier this year she was appointed Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, the first female and the first openly homosexual person to ascend to the traditional post. Today she published her new Christmas work which attacks the war in Afghanistan, MP's expenses, banking and many more current issues.

Public roles should be inhabited comfortably and happily by people whatever their sexuality is.
- Carol Ann Duffy

Read the poem in its entirety here.

Today, lesbian tennis player and former World No. 1 Amelie Mauresmo announced her retirement from the sport at the ripe old age of 30. Mauresmo has been out for ten years, but the focus of the media has always been on her tennis and not her sexuality. Vive la Amelie!