I became aware of the struggles of the LGBTQ community as a 22-year-old touring the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, where hundreds of gay men were imprisoned—my mother was a Holocaust survivor who survived Auschwitz. A month later, in October 1978, after I returned to San Francisco, Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were murdered. As a hippie, San Francisco seemed extremely tolerant, but after the murders, I realized there was a monumental struggle for “unalienable rights” in the LGBTQ community. I started photographing LGBTQ political events and, for six years, documented the “gay liberation movement” as it exploded across the streets of New York and San Francisco.
I wrote...
Castro to Christopher: Gay Streets of America 1979-1986
In the late 1970s and early 80s, after Stonewall and before the AIDS epidemic, there was an explosion of gay life in places even then known as “gay paradises.” Most famous were San Francisco’s Castro District, New York’s Christopher Street and Fire Island, and Provincetown, Massachusetts.
This collection of celebratory black-and-white photographs is a window into this outburst of pent-up freedom and the riotous ebullience of closeted persons who suddenly felt the door of tolerance opening and who could finally live life openly as their true and genuine selves. These complex, witty, and provocative images are time capsules of a few places in America where, for the first time and for a short while, it was okay to be gay.
I learned so many things that I was not taught in school from this book. As if revealing a parallel universe, I was made aware of the history of LGBTQ life and culture hidden in American history.
I could think about Melville in a new way when he wrote, “..waking next morning I found Queequeg’s arm thrown over me in the most affectionate manner. You had almost thought I had been his wife”.
Or Emily Dickinson, who remained single but was steadfastly devoted to her close friend Sue Gilbert, who had married her brother. She wrote to Sue: “Susie, forgive me, darling, for every word I say–my heart is full of you, none other than you is in my thoughts…”
Winner of a 2012 Stonewall Book Award in nonfiction
The first book to cover the entirety of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, from pre-1492 to the present.
In the 1620s, Thomas Morton broke from Plymouth Colony and founded Merrymount, which celebrated same-sex desire, atheism, and interracial marriage. Transgender evangelist Jemima Wilkinson, in the early 1800s, changed her name to “Publick Universal Friend,” refused to use pronouns, fought for gender equality, and led her own congregation in upstate New York. In the mid-nineteenth century, internationally famous Shakespearean actor Charlotte Cushman led an openly lesbian life, including a well-publicized “female marriage.”…
I was mesmerized by this masterfully written and engrossing page-turner that emotionally landed me in the intimate orbit of Anthony Malone and Andrew Southerland, the book’s two main characters.
Honest and unflinching, it describes a life and culture unknown to me in such a beautiful, romantic way that, although intrinsically tragic, I regretted not being a part of it.
Holleran illuminates a period essential to understanding LGBTQ history, “Imagine a pleasure in which the moment of satisfaction is simultaneous with a moment of destruction: to kiss is to poison; lifting to your lips this face after what you have dreamed, long for, the face shatters every time.”
'Astonishingly beautiful... The best gay novel written by anyone of our generation' Harpers
'A life changing read for me. Describes a New York that has completely disappeared and for which I longed - stuck in closed-on-Sunday's London' Rupert Everett
Young, divinely beautiful and tired of living a lie, Anthony Malone trades life as a seemingly straight, small town lawyer for the disco-lit decadence of New York's 1970's gay scene. Joining an unbridled world of dance parties, saunas, deserted parks and orgies - at its centre Malone befriends the flamboyant queen, Sutherland, who takes this new arrival under his preened wing.…
I was overwhelmed with the loving simplicity of this beautifully rendered and highly charged romantic graphic novel. Reading it was akin to watching a film–I was drawn in and held tight until I had finished the last page.
Tender, emotional, cross-cultural, and cross-class, it resonated with me on so many levels but especially reaffirmed my belief that love is possible at any age and despite any obstacle.
Written by black, gay science-fiction writer, professor, and theorist Samuel R. Delany, and drawn by artist/martial arts instructor Mia Wolff, Bread & Wine, based on the poem “Bread and Wine†by the German lyric poet Friedrich Holderlin, is a graphic autobiography that flashes back to the unlikely story of how Delany befriended Dennis, and how they became an enduring couple—Delany, a professor at Philadelphia’s Temple University, Dennis, an intelligent man living on the streets. For casual readers and fans, Bread & Wine is a moving, sexually charged love story, with visuals informed by Wolff’s professional physical pursuits. Her black-and-white, pen-and-ink…
I found this to be a phenomenally original and imaginative dive into the tragic period of the AIDS epidemic.
I was gripped by the complex relationship between the different couples, the relationships between the characters, and “queerness” even if they were not. I learned about that dark period in American social history through the entwined lives of a few emotionally charged and engrossing characters.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes includes Part One, Millennium Approaches and Part Two, Perestroika
“Glorious. A monumental, subversive, altogether remarkable masterwork…Details of specific catastrophes may have changed since this Reagan-era AIDS epic won the Pulitzer and the Tony, but the real cosmic and human obsessions—power, religion, sex, responsibility, the future of the world—are as perilous, yet as falling-down funny, as ever.” –Linda Winer, Newsday
"A vast, miraculous play... provocative, witty and deeply upsetting... a searching and radical rethinking of American political drama." - Frank Rich, New York Times
Emotionally and historically, I was drawn into this astounding collection of riveting images. Through the direct gaze of the subjects, I could feel the love and tenderness they had for each other.
Frank and honest I felt like I was actually sitting across from the subjects while they were photographed. They all seemed so comfortable, open and free, even though living under the yoke of crushing social constraints that were hovering outside the frame.
Loving: A Photographic History of Men in Love, 1850-1950 portrays the history of romantic love between men in hundreds of moving and tender vernacular photographs taken between the years 1850 and 1950. This visual narrative of astonishing sensitivity brings to light an until-now-unpublished collection of hundreds of snapshots, portraits, and group photos taken in the most varied of contexts, both private and public.
Taken when male partnerships were often illegal, the photos here were found at flea markets, in shoe boxes, family archives, old suitcases, and later online and at auctions. The collection now includes photos from all over the…
The five recommended nonfiction books on my list profoundly affected my life in my time of need. I struggled when a minor accident led to a brainstem stroke and being locked in at 45. How would I find happiness now? How can I go on? These five books gave me the strength to work hard, accept what couldn’t be improved, and be grateful for each day of good health. I hope the recommended books will help you prepare for the day your life will change...and it will.
Duke, the leader of a bike gang, is in custody for murder. He plans an escape by feigning illness and hospitalization. But an unexpected turn of events results in two gang members and Duke holding a medical floor of patients hostage. Patients will die if the police don't meet their demands within hours. The drama follows Duke and Drs. Mindy Fletch, director of the Intensive Care Unit, and Craig Russell, a family medicine resident, in this tense hostage stand-off.
Will the bikers find freedom? Will hostages die? Can Mindy and Craig survive and prevent deaths? In times of stress, people often discover new directions and strengths.
Duke, the leader of a bike gang, is in custody for murder. He plans an escape by feigning illness and hospitalization. But an unexpected turn of events results in two gang members and Duke holding a medical floor of patients hostage.
Patients will die if the police don't meet their demands within hours.
The drama follows Duke and Drs. Mindy Fletch, director of the Intensive Care Unit; and Craig Russell, a family medicine resident; in this tense hostage stand-off.
Will the bikers find freedom? Will hostages die? Can Mindy and Craig survive and prevent deaths?
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