“I remember writing 'The One I Can't Have' at the kitchen table. I was looking at a picture of Truman Capote with Marilyn Monroe and that's where I started. It doesn't make any sense because he was gay, but it was just the idea of the short guy and the beautiful blonde out of his league. That's where I started, but very quickly it became about me.” WritingI CanIdeasBeautifulRememberGuyGayTablesLeagueKitchenBlondeTrumanKitchen Table Author:Teddy Thompson
“I don't remember deciding to become a writer. You decide to become a dentist or a postman. For me, writing is like being gay. You finally admit that this is who you are, you come out and hope that no one runs away.” WritingRunningRememberLiteratureGayWho You AreRunning AwayDentistBeing GayPostman Author:Mark Haddon
“I had a friend write me that our music was being played at Gay Pride in New York, which is a big compliment. In the biggest city in the country with the most culture and the most grit - I love it.” WritingCountryBigsCultureCitiesNew YorkPrideGayComplimentGritGay PrideBeing Played Author:Jennifer Nettles
“In making Achilles and Patroclus lovers, I wasn't trying to speak for all gay men, just as when I write straight characters, I don't claim to speak for all straight people. My job as an author is to give voice to these very particular characters - these two men, in this time, and in this place” PeopleMenGivingWritingTryingTwoCharacterJobsSpeakVoiceParticularLoversGayClaimsGay MenAchillesPatroclus Author:Madeline Miller
“My dad's gay experiences really had a very positive influence on me and my straight relationships - how to better accept all the weirdness and ambiguity and ups and downs and paradoxes. I knew from the beginning I was writing about love.” WritingAcceptingInfluenceDadGayMy DadParadoxAmbiguityUps & DownsWeirdnessVery PositivePositive Influence Author:Mike Mills
“Sedaris, in his essay in the It Gets Better book, writes that when he was growing up nobody called him gay because you might as well have called him a warlock. Nobody knew what gay was.” WritingWellsBookMightGrowing UpGrowingGayGet BetterEssaysWarlocksIt Gets Better Author:Dan Savage
“To try and imagine that I'm another person is always going to be hard - whether I'm writing about a truck driver or someone who is gay, who's trans, who is of a different ethnicity or creed. But it would be boring if I always had to write about myself and my limited viewpoint.” IfsWritingTryingPersonsDifferentHardWould BeImagineGayBoringDriversImagine ThatCreedsTruckTransViewpointsEthnicityTruck Driver Author:Brian K. Vaughan
“It does seem like between the groundbreaking writing of Edmund White's generation and the work of younger gay writers in their twenties and thirties there is a kind of gap.” WritingKindDoeSeemsWhiteGenerationsGayTwentiesGapsGroundbreaking Author:Garth Greenwell
“I am a gay writer, absolutely. And in no way does that fact limit the reach or importance of what I write.” WayWritingDoeFactsGayLimitsImportance Author:Garth Greenwell
“It never occurred to me to write anything that didn't include gay characters in it.” WritingCharacterGay Author:Christopher Rice
“When I was writing the book, I thought "Who wants to hear another story about some actor who lost his way?" But my story is a little unique in that I realized when I was 14 years old that I was different. I think a lot of gay people use drugs and alcohol to quell that fear and shame - especially people of my age.” PeopleThinkingWayWantWritingYearsLittlesBookDifferentStoriesUseAgeActorsLostGayDrugUniqueShameAlcoholI RealizedGay PeopleDrugs And Alcohol Author:Leslie Jordan
“There are words that I wouldn't say because they hurt people's feelings. I just happen to be a white guy who writes for a lot of black comedians but if I wrote for a lot of gay comedians there might be stuff I would say then.” PeopleIfsWritingFeelingsMightHappensGuyStuffBlackHurtWhiteGayComedianWhite Guys Author:Neal Brennan
“Those people are seen, I assume, by Larry [Kramer] as writing partly about gay issues and problems, whether it's on the surface or not, and I am not. But another thing is when we met, there still wasn't exactly a gay/straight divide in the minds of a lot of straight people. There weren't any gay people, as far as we knew, at Yale.” PeopleWritingMindStillsProblemIssuesMetsGayAssumingSurfaceDividesLarryGay PeopleYaleKramer Author:Kevin Sessums
“In the Air Force, I had an old Wilcox Gay recorder, and I used to hear guitar runs on that recorder going (vocalizing) like the chords on "I Walk The Line." And I always wanted to write a love song using that theme, that tune.” WritingRunningWantedUsedSongForceLinesWalksAirGayGuitarThemeTunesChordsAir ForceRecorders Author:Johnny Cash
“As a gay writer and someone who began by writing autobiographical fiction, it's hard to get away from chatter of "You're just a narcissist," "You're just a gay man," "You're just looking for yourself in somebody else," "Why does your boyfriend look like you," a kind of baggage that you already have to create in the face of.” MenWritingKindLike YouGayGet AwayNarcissistGay MenYour Boyfriend Author:Douglas A. Martin
“It's difficult to sit down and write a letter back saying, "you know what, even if we remove the word from the dictionary, people will still continue to use it." That's the tightrope that we walk - "gay marriage" is another example, or the word "nude."” PeopleWritingDifficultGayGay MarriageDictionary Author:Kory Stamper
“I did one interview with the Atlantic. It was very interesting; I could write an entire book on that one experience. I've never had any type of public persona outside of the face recognition I have with this job, so I was really ill prepared to have this conversation. I think the real story was that it became a source for a flurry of other derivative stories. I remember the Post headline said "Marcarelli's Bizarre Life," which to me is code for gay, primarily.” ThinkingWritingBookRealRememberInterestingGayIllRecognitionCodeBizarreVery InterestingPersona Author:Paul Marcarelli
“I've always been surprised when a straight guy likes me. It's just been like my whole life has been kinda like that. I definitely felt like when I started writing music, it wasn't writing for a gay audience at all. I was just writing for me. But what I say whenever I get this question is my best friends have always been gay, I've always been, as a person, just accepted by the gay community, and celebrated and had the best nights of my life at gay clubs. Always had a fashion sense usually with drag and I don't know. That's just kind of my people. That's just kind of where I fit in.” PeopleWritingKindNightGuyCommunityAudienceFashionFitGayAcceptedWhole LifeMy Best Friend Author:Allie X
“I don't buy into the idea that an Irish writer should write about Ireland, or a gay writer should write about being gay. But when I found the right story, I saw it as an opportunity to write about being a teenager and being gay. Most people, whether you're gay or straight or whatever, have experienced that relationship where one person is much more interested than the other.” PeopleWritingOpportunityGayTeenagerIrelandBeing GayBeing A Teenager Author:John Boyne
“I need to have one foot inside and one foot outside a culture to be able to write about it. For example, I couldn't write about the gay culture if I were wholly inside or outside of it. Finding that distance is always interesting. I jokingly say that when I'm in America, I write about Beirut, and when I'm in Beirut, I write about America. A lot of my friends in Beirut think I'm more American than Lebanese. Here, my friends think of me more as Lebanese.” ThinkingWritingCultureInterestingGayDistanceThink Of Me Author:Rabih Alameddine
“I think in Arabic at times, but when I'm writing it's all in English. And I don't try to make my English sound more Arabic, because it would be phony - I'm imagining Melanie Griffith trying to do a German accent in Shining Through. It just wouldn't work. But the language in my head is a specific kind of English. It's not exactly American, not exactly British. Because everything is filtered through me, through my experience. I'm Lebanese, but not that much. American, but not that much. Gay, but not that much. The only thing I'm sure of, really, is that I'm under 5'7".” ThinkingWritingTryingKindLanguageGayShiningPhony Author:Rabih Alameddine
“I couldn't imagine a book with many characters in it and one of them not being gay. It would have felt like a glaring and problematic omission for me. But I also wanted to write that character as a person, not just a gay person.” WritingBookCharacterImagineGayBeing Gay Author:Ayana Mathis
“If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” IfsWayWantWritingHumansWellsArtSoulMatterStoriesHeavenGrowsParentCan DoHurtCreativityCreativeGayRewardsSakeRadioEnormousYour SoulNervesCreative ProcessShowersBearable Author:Kurt Vonnegut
“What things there are to write, if one could only write them! My mind is full of gleaming thought; gay moods and mysterious, moth-like meditations hover in my imagination, fanning their painted wings. But always the rarest, those streaked with azure and the deepest crimson, flutter away beyond my reach.” IfsWritingMindImaginationMeditationGayWingsMoodMysteriousMy ImaginationMothsCrimsonAzure Author:Logan Pearsall Smith
“* to know a lot of people I love pieces of, and to want to synthesize those pieces in me somehow, be it by painting or writing. * to know that millions of others are unhappy and that life is a gentleman's agreement to grin and paint your face gay so others will feel they are silly to be unhappy, and try to catch the contagion of joy, while inside so many are dying of bitterness and unfulfillment.” PeopleKnowsWantFeelsWritingTryingFacesLife IsJoyMillionsPiecesDyingPaintingGayPaintSillyUnhappyGentlemanAgreementYour FaceBitternessContagionUnfulfillment Author:Sylvia Plath
“Look, Mrs. McGillicuddy, it's not my fault your son jumped out a dorm room window on Christmas eve. I've written over fifty books as a Columbia professor, all right? You don't do that by holding hands with every at-risk undergraduate who says he's homesick, or he's turning gay, or the dog ate his term paper. I write about Lincoln, and freedom, and great ideas. I don't always have time for students. It's like Dean Martin used to say: if you want to talk, go to a priest. Hey -- what's the gun for?” IfsWantWritingLooksBookIdeasHandsUsedTermRoomsWrittenRiskDogStudentsSonGayPaperGunWindowFaultsHeyFiftyPriestsProfessorsGreat IdeaDeanColumbiaHolding HandsYour SonHomesickChristmas EveUndergraduateDormsDorm RoomsTerm Paper Author:Eric Foner
“Everybody drinks," she said calmly. The Only Rational One. "Your sister doesn't." When rolled her eyes. "Forgive me, but I'm not going to spend my college years sitting soberly in my dorm room, writing about gay magicians." "Objection," Cath said, reaching for a burrito.” WritingYearsSaidEyeRoomsCollegeDrinkGaySittingForgivingRationalReachingHer EyesMagicianObjectionsForgive MeDormsBurritosDorm RoomsCollege Years Author:Rainbow Rowell