PLAYWRIGHT CHRISTOPHER DURANG, who passed away on April 2, 2024, at the age of 75, was one of the American theater’s most celebrated satirists. His plays could be hysterically funny and deeply disturbing, in a style he described as “absurdist comedy married to real feelings.” Among the targets of his Obie Award-winning works were religious dogma, psychoanalysis, and dysfunctional families, all critiqued from a distinctly queer perspective.
MoreObituaries for Ned Rorem, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and Charles Silverstein.
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Amber always managed in her activism to “say out loud what everyone had agreed not to notice.” She constantly called for a “new revolution” that included the sexual desires that so many experience with shame and feel forced to keep secret. She insisted that we embrace “our most dangerous desires” and “fight for a world that values human sexual possibility without extracting a terrible human price.” She strove “to create a movement willing to live the politics of sexual danger in order to create a culture of human hope.”
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The following is adapted from a tribute given at the Publishing Triangle Awards ceremony, April 27, 2023, at the New School in New York City.
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While her novels dealt with incest and other topics, she’s best remembered for her lesbian themes. The Ladies, for example, based on a true story, depicts two women from wealthy Anglo-Irish families who ran off to Wales to live together. They entertained notable visitors, including the Duke of Wellington and Edmund Burke.
MoreDON ELDRIDGE GORTON III (1960–2022) was a longtime activist for LGBT causes in Massachusetts who was also an integral part of this magazine for many years. Born in Mississippi,…More
Memorial programs were held in both Boston and New York City this past fall to celebrate the life of activist Urvashi Vaid (1958–2022), who passed away last May. Her longtime friend and “co-conspirator” Richard Burns delivered the first of many eulogies at both programs. What follows is based on the Boston speech, which was delivered on September 28th at Northeastern University. A few items have been included from Richard’s remarks in New York (November 3rd).
MoreIN KEEPING WITH our annual tradition, we remember here some of the people who left us over the past year—the writers, artists, performers, and activists who made a significant contribution to LGBT culture and community. All dates are in 2022 unless otherwise indicated.
MoreA PIONEERING gay author of nine novels for adults, young adults, and children, Steve Neil Johnson died in Los Angeles on December 13, 2021, just one day shy of…More
LARS EIGHNER, gay novelist, memoirist, and chronicler of the lives of the homeless, passed away on December 23 in Austin, Texas. He was 73. Born in Corpus Christi in…More
