Ned Rorem Born October 23rd

Pulitzer Prize winning composer Ned Rorem was born on October 23rd. 1923 in Richmond, Indiana.

Visit Rorem's official site.

Oscar Wilde Born October 16th

Oscar Wilde was born October 16th. 1854 and died in exile on November 30, 1900. Yes, if one must be exiled, Paris certainly is a city to salve any wounds.

We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.

The official Oscar Wilde site.

Truman Capote Born September 30th

Truman Streckfus Persons was born September 30th, 1924 in New Orleans. Capote stated he was "a beautiful little boy", and it was a fact, not opinion.

If you are unfamiliar with the man who wrote both In Cold Blood and Breakfast At Tiffany's, please visit Capote Bio.

"I don't care what anybody says about me as long as it isn't true."

Edward Carpenter Born August 29th

Edward Carpenter was born August 29th, 1844 in Brighton, Sussex, England. Carpenter was educated at Brighton College, where his father was governor, followed by time at Trinity Hall. Carpenter later became a curate for the Church of England, which he left in 1874 to lecture. In 1868 Carpenter came into a copy of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" that would become a great influence on his life. Around this time he moved into a house in Sheffield with George Merrill and the two men lived together as a couple without hiding it, despite fallout from the Oscar Wilde trial. Author E. M. Forster indicated that Merrill served as inspiration for his novel "Maurie". One of Carpenter's many accomplishments was his efforts to campaign against sexual orientation discrimination. In 1908 he published a book on homosexuality, The Intermediate Sex, which influenced LGBT movements activists such as Harry Hay.

Read more at the Edward Carpenter Archive and Polari Magazine.

Radclyffe Hall Born August 12th

Maguerite Radclyffe Hall, or John as she preferred to be called, was born August 12th, 1880 in Bournemouth, Hampshire, England, whose father left her mother before she was even born. Thankfully, at age 21 she inherited an enormous fortune from her paternal grandfather which allowed her the  means to do whatever she wanted. Part of what she wwanted was beautiful women, inclulding Lady Una Troubridge and Evgguenia Souline. In her forties Hall became recognizable by her closely cut hair, tailored jackets, flamboyant tops, wide-brimmed hats, and ties. Hall is best remembered for her novel, The Well of Loneliness, and its undisguised lesbian characters and themes.

Learn more about Radclyffe Hall at GLBTQ.

Charles Warren Stoddard Born August 7th

American writer Charles Warren Stoddard was born August 7th, 1843 in Rochester, NY. Mostly forgotten today, Stoddard was a part of San Francisco's bohemian circle circa the 1860s along with Ambrose Bierce and Samuel Clemens and friends with Robert Louis Stevenson an Jack London. Stoddard was inspired by Whitman's Calamus poems and traveled to the  South Sea Islands where he wrote short stories collected in South-Sea Idyls and The Island of Tranquil Delights. Turing to Venice, Stoddard also formed a relationship with the American painter Francis Millet.

Learn more about Stoddard at GLBTQ and The Closet Professor.

Virgilio Piñera Born August 4th

Virgilio Piñera was born in Cuba. Little about Piñera seems to be written in English. He was exiled in Buenos Aires and returned to Cuba in 1958 months before Castro came to power.

Gordon Merrick Born August 3rd

Gordon Merrick was born August 3rd, 1916 in a suburb of Philadelphia. Merrick enrolled in Princeton where he studied French literature and was involved in student theater until the middle of his junior year when he quit to become an  actor in New York City. There, Merrick became playwright Moss Hart's lover, only then to become a reporter an d move to Washington DC. After a stint with the Office of Strategic services and a mission in Algeria, Merrick returned to the US with the hope of becoming a reporter again. When  these attempts failed, Merrick went to Mexico to begin writing. The Strumpet Wind, Merrick's first novel, was published in 1947. Merrick is important because he ignored contemporary attitudes that gay men had to be shown as objectionable and have tragic ends in books and movies. All of his stories featured well adjusted gay men and his books all have happy endings.

Read gay.net's Merrick bio.

Salvador Novo Born July 30th

Referred to as Mexico's Oscar Wilde, Salvador Novo was born July 30th. Sadly, little about Novo seems to be written in English. There is the obligatory Wikipedia entry.

Phil Andros Born July 23rd

Phil Andros, ne Samuel M. Steward, was born July 23rd, 1909 in Woodsfield, OH. Steward may be the only man to have been an English professor, tattooist, and writer of gay porn and non porn novels, friend of Gertrude Stein and Alice B.Toklas, Andre Gide, Thomas Mann, Lord Alfred Douglas, and Thornton Wilder, and a collaborator of Alfred Kinsey.

Learn more at GLBTQ and Gay Ohio History Initiative.

Thoreau Bor July 12th

Henry David Thoreau was born July 12th, 1817 in Concord, MA. The author of Walden proposed to one woman and was proposed to by another, of which nothing came. Perhaps Thoreau was more interested in Tom Fowler and Alek Therien.

Read more at GLBTQ and The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau.

Proust Born July 10th

Marcel-Valentin-Louis-Eugène-Georges Proust was born in Anteuil, France in 1871 into a wealthy family. Proust is famous for the fourteen part novel A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, or Remembrance of Things Past/ In Search of Lost Time. Proust deliberately made some of his characters female when they were based on men. The character Albertina is based on Proust's chauffeur and lover Alfred Agostinelli.

Read more about Proust at Gay For Today and GLBTQ.

Matthew Lewis Born July 9th

Matthew Gregory Lewis was born July 9th, 1775 in London. Lewis is the author of "Ambrosio, or the Monk", published in 1795 and the second Gothic romance novel. Lewis had a fifteen year infatuation with William Kelly, a bad boy if ever there was one.

Learn more about Lewis at GLBTQ and The Gothic Labyrinth.

Jean Cocteau Born July 5th

Poet, playwright, author, and filmmaker, Cocteau was born July 5th, 1889 in Maison-Lafitte just outside of Paris. Cocteau was equally welcomed in aristocratic drawing rooms and seedy taverns.

Learn more about Cocteau at Gay For Today.

David Sedaris - I Like Guys

Donald Windham Born July 2nd

Author, playwright and best friend to Tennessee Williams, Donald Windham was born July 2nd, 1920 in Atlanta, GA.

Learn more about Windham at GLBTQ.

Jean Lorraine Born June 29th

Jean Lorrain (born Paul Duval) may have been the equivalent of Oscar Wilde in terms of writing that cut to the bone in fin de siècle France.

“It is the sheer ugliness and banality of everyday life which turns my blood to ice and makes me cringe in terror.”

Learn more about Lorrain at GLBTQ.

Larry Kramer Born June 25th

Playwright, author, public health advocate, LGBT rights advocate, co-founder of Gay Men's Health Crisis organization, founder of ACT UP, provocateur.

E Lynne Harris Born June 20th

Everette Lynn Jeter was born June 20th, 1995 in Flint, MI. Mother and son moved to Little Rock Arkansas when he was three. She would marry Ben Harris, whose family name he would take. Years of abuse by his stepfather stopped when the marriage ended in divorce. Harris found meaning for his life in writing after a 1990 suicide attempt. His books dealt with topics of male homosexuality in the African American community. Harris' first novel is Invisible Life, which he self published and distributed to African American bookstores, book clubs, and beauty shops.

Harris died on July 23rd, 2009 of heart disease.

Carl Van Vechten Born June 17th

Carl Van Vechten was born June 17th, 1880 in Cedar Rapids, IA. Van Vechten is most well known for his interest in African American culture leading up to and during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. He wrote about the many facets of the cultural rebirth and was friends with many of its artists and organizers. His interest in the people of Harlem extended to photography, which he began in 1932 and continued until his death in the 1960s.

Learn more at GLBTQ and Gay.net's Inventors of Gay article.