THOM GUNN, FORMALIST RENEGADE 1929-2004 My first date with Thom Gunn did not go well. It happened in Chicago in the late-1970’s. After a couple hours of unsuccessful cruising in a few bars, I found Thom in a bookstore. In a copy of Moly and My Sad Captains. I recognized his name and being newly […]

Starting at age twenty-eight I served as assistant to Black Panther Party founding-member and its first Chief of Staff, David Hillard. The essay linked below shares events from the ten remarkable years I spent at his side in Oakland, California. It was a consciousness raising experience of the first order. Editing Huey P. Newton: Reflections […]

I had the honor of publishing four books of fiction by the late and inimitable James Purdy whose decades as an outlaw writer earned this legend some incredible experiences and stories, featuring such giant talents as Billie Holiday, Gore Vidal, Edward Albee, and Edith Sitwell who discovered Purdy the writer in the 1940s. Christmas with […]

I was the editor on Ben’s memoirs In the Moment and it was my happiest experience as an editor in my entire career. Ben was a larger than life figure both onstage and off. I loved him and miss him. I wrote this essay to commemorate the anniversary of his death. Editing Ben Gazzara

Gay rights legend Harry Hay was someone I was fortunate to meet and interview just as I was graduating college and coming out. Although I didn’t appreciate his foundational place in our history when I first encountered him, I quickly saw him for the civil rights giant that he was, as this essay chronicles.http://www.lambdaliterary.org/features/05/01/on-meeting-harry-hay/

Incredibly enough Gore Vidal was the first writer I ever published. It started with a book proposal I sent to his home in Italy and culminated in my visit there just a few months after he agreed to the project. In this essay I recall working with him and the memorable afternoon we spent talking […]