‘About the inner sanctum of the self’
Tóibín’s prose style has been described as “daring and precise,” “austere,” “lyrical,” “reticent,” and even “monkish.”
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Visual Art for an Invisible Subculture
IN 2012, a Cuban friend who is an accomplished gay artist was able to visit the United States for the first time for a few months. Because Americans generally get their impressions of Cuba from either government propaganda or leftist sympathizers of the Cuban regime, I wanted to get the views of a nonpartisan independent Cuban with no particular axe to grind. I asked him to discuss life in Cuba near the end of his visit. For security reasons, he cannot be further identified. …
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Ed Koch, the Ambiguously Gay Mayor
IT WAS certainly intriguing to read the obituaries of Ed Koch, the famous former mayor of New York, who passed away at 88 on February 1. Most mainstream papers were coy about a fact that almost everyone knew-that Koch was gay-while some noted that he had remained a bachelor his whole life and had no children. …
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“Writing is emotional and mysterious.”
AUTHOR of thirteen books, a play, a libretto for a dance opera, and several cut-and-paste novels, Seattle-based Rebecca Brown has been dubbed “the greatest secret of American letters” by literary bad boy Dale Peck.
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On the Return of Virginia Woolf
… At 84, Albee is notoriously cagey during interviews, and enjoys a good game of cat-and-mouse, sometimes craftily switching roles with the interviewer. I spoke to the playwright shortly before the revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf on Broadway on October 13th-fifty years to the day of its première …
MoreVidal: ‘I don’t regret anything I’ve said.’
THIS interview was conducted at the Blue Metropolis Literary Festival in Montræal in April 2011. It is thus a very late interview with the late author, whose wit at 85 seems undiminished by time.
MoreHow the EEOC Protects Gay Workers
CHAI FELDBLUM is one of five commissioners on the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She was appointed to that post by President Obama in March 2010. This interview was conducted over the phone, and transcribed in real time by the interviewer, on July 2, 2012.
MoreThe Making of an Outlaw Genre
CHRISTOPHER BRAM is well known for his novels, especially the one that became the acclaimed film Gods and Monsters (originally published in 1995 as Father of Frankenstein). His new book, Eminent Outlaws, is a history of gay literature in the U.S. beginning soon after World War II with Gore Vidal and The City and the Pillar (1948). … This interview with Christopher Bram was conducted by telephone last February.
MoreLesbian Subcultures before Stonewall
[Lillian Faderman’s] memoir, Naked in the Promised Land, was published in 2003.
This interview was conducted by telephone in early March.
MoreStopping the Madness
WHAT FOLLOWS is a conversation between Charles Silverstein and Perry Brass that took place at a Barnes & Noble in New York City in early January of this year as part of an event to launch Silverstein’s memoir For the Ferryman. …
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