American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
writer, publisher, and critic who has encouraged the development of
gay literature
Gay literature is a collective term for literature produced by or for the gay community which involves characters, plot lines, and/or themes portraying male homosexual behavior.
Overview and history
Because the social acceptance of homosexual ...
in the United States. His work is documented in many sources.
Life
Felice Picano graduated ''
cum laude
Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...
'' from
Queens College
Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body representing more than 170 ...
in 1964 with English department honors. He founded SeaHorse Press in 1977, and The Gay Presses of New York in 1981 with Terry Helbing and Larry Mitchell; he was Editor-in-Chief there. He was an editor and writer for '' The Advocate'', ''Blueboy'', '' Mandate'', '' Gaysweek'', and ''
Christopher Street
Christopher Street is a street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the continuation of 9th Street west of Sixth Avenue.
It is most notable for the Stonewall Inn, which is located on Christopher St ...
''. He was the Books Editor of ''The New York Native''. At ''The Los Angeles Examiner'', ''
San Francisco Examiner
The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and published since 1863.
Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst, and flagship of the Hearst Corporat ...
'', ''
New York Native
The ''New York Native'' was a biweekly gay newspaper published by Charles Ortleb in New York City from December 1980 until January 13, 1997. It was the only gay paper in New York City during the early part of the AIDS epidemic, and pioneered repor ...
'', ''Harvard Lesbian & Gay Review'' and the ''Lambda Book Report'', he was a culture reviewer. He has also written for ''OUT'' and ''OUT Traveller''. With
Andrew Holleran
Andrew Holleran is the pseudonym of Eric Garber (born 1944), an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer, born on the island of Aruba. Most of his adult life has been spent in New York City, Washington, D.C., and a small town in Flori ...
,
Robert Ferro
Robert Ferro (October 21, 1941 – July 11, 1988) was an American novelist whose semi-autobiographical fiction explored the uneasy integration of homosexuality and traditional American upper middle class values.
Biography
He was born in Cranford ...
Edmund White
Edmund Valentine White III (born 1940) is an American novelist, memoirist, playwright, biographer and an essayist on literary and social topics. Since 1999 he has been a professor at Princeton University. France made him (and later ) de l'Ordr ...
The Violet Quill The Violet Quill (or the Violet Quill Club) was a group of seven gay male writers that met in 1980 and 1981 in New York City to read from their writings to each other and to critique them. This group and the writers epitomize the years between the ...
, considered to be the pathbreaking gay male literary nucleus of the 20th Century.
In his memoir ''Men Who Loved Me'', he described his close friendship with the poet
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...
. In his later memoir/history, ''Art & Sex in Greenwich Village'', he wrote about contacts with
Gore Vidal
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal (; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his epigrammatic wit, erudition, and patrician manner. Vidal was bisexual, and in his novels and ...
,
James Purdy
James Otis Purdy (July 17, 1914 March 13, 2009) was an American novelist, short-story writer, poet, and playwright who, from his debut in 1956, published over a dozen novels, and many collections of poetry, short stories, and plays. His work ha ...
,
Charles Henri Ford
Charles Henri Ford (February 10, 1908 – September 27, 2002) was an American poet, novelist, diarist, filmmaker, photographer, and collage artist. He published more than a dozen collections of poetry, exhibited his artwork in Europe and the Un ...
,
Edward Gorey
Edward St. John Gorey (February 22, 1925 – April 15, 2000) was an Americans, American writer, Tony Award-winning costume designer, and artist, noted for his own illustrated books as well as cover art and illustration for books by other w ...
,
Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Michael Mapplethorpe (; November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photographs. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-p ...
and many contemporary and younger authors. In ''True Stories'', Picano wrote about other people including
Bette Midler
Bette Midler (;''Inside the Actors Studio'', 2004 born December 1, 1945) is an American singer, actress, comedian and author. Throughout her career, which spans over five decades, Midler has received List of awards and nominations received by Be ...
,
Diana Vreeland
Diana Vreeland (September 29, 1903 – August 22, 1989) was a French-American fashion columnist and editor. She worked for the fashion magazine ''Harper's Bazaar'' and as editor-in-chief at ''Vogue (magazine), Vogue'', later becoming a special c ...
, as well as friends and acquaintances from his childhood and early adulthood. In his newest book, ''Nights at Rizzoli'', Picano writes about being a book clerk and bookstore manager in the early 1970s with
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarr ...
,
Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins (born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz; October 11, 1918 – July 29, 1998) was an American dancer, choreographer, film director, theatre director and producer who worked in classical ballet, on stage, film, and television.
Among his nu ...
,
Jackie Onassis
Jackie or Jacky may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Jackie (given name), a list of people and fictional characters named Jackie or Jacky
** Jackie, current ring name of female professional wrestler Jacqueline Moore
** Jackie Lee (I ...
,
Gregory Peck
Eldred Gregory Peck (April 5, 1916 – June 12, 2003) was an American actor and one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1970s. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck the 12th-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood ...
,
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English singer and songwriter who has achieved international fame as the lead vocalist and one of the founder members of the rock band the Rolling Stones. His ongoing songwriting partnershi ...
and
S.J. Perelman
Sidney Joseph Perelman (February 1, 1904 – October 17, 1979) was an American humorist and screenwriter. He is best known for his humorous short pieces written over many years for ''The New Yorker''. He also wrote for several other magazines ...
.
Among those who Picano introduced to the public via his publishing companies were
Dennis Cooper
Dennis Cooper (born January 10, 1953) is an American novelist, poet, critic, editor and performance artist. He is best known for the ''George Miles Cycle'', a series of five semi-autobiographical novels published between 1989 and 2000 and describe ...
,
Harvey Fierstein
Harvey Forbes Fierstein ( ; born June 6, 1952) is an American actor, playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for his theater work in '' Torch Song Trilogy'' and '' Hairspray'' and movie roles in '' Mrs. Doubtfire'', ''Independence Day'', an ...
,
Jane Chambers
Jane Chambers (March 27, 1937 – February 15, 1983) was an American playwright. She was a "pioneer in writing theatrical works with openly lesbian characters".
Chambers was born in Columbia, South Carolina, but grew up in Orlando, Florida, where ...
,
Brad Gooch
Brad Gooch (born 1952) is an American writer.
Biography
Born and raised in Kingston, Pennsylvania, he graduated from Columbia University with a bachelor's degree in 1973 and a doctorate in 1986.
Gooch has lived in New York City since 1971. His 2 ...
,
Doric Wilson
Doric Wilson (February 24, 1939May 7, 2011) was an American playwright, director, producer, critic and gay rights activist.
He was born Alan Doric Wilson in Los Angeles, California, where his family was temporarily located. Originally from the ...
, and Gavin Dillard. Several of his novels have been national and international best-sellers, and they have been translated into fifteen languages.
A longtime resident of
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
,
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
,
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, England, and
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
, Germany. He now lives in
West Hollywood
West Hollywood is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Incorporated in 1984, it is home to the Sunset Strip. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. Census, its population was 35,757. It is considered one of the most ...
, CA.
Literary prizes
He has received the
Ferro-Grumley Award
The Ferro-Grumley Award is an annual literary award, presented by Publishing Triangle and the Ferro-Grumley Foundation to a book deemed the year's best work of LGBT fiction. The award is presented in memory of writers Robert Ferro and Michael Grum ...
and Gay Times of England Award for best gay novel and the Syndicated Fiction/PEN Award for best short story, as well as the Jane Chambers Play Award in 1985. He was a finalist for the first
Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award The PEN/Hemingway Award is awarded annually to a full-length novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a full-length book of fiction. The award is named after Ernest Hemingway and funded by the Hemingway ...
and was nominated for five
Lambda Literary Awards
Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ literature.The awards were instituted i ...
. He received the Lambda Literary Foundation's Pioneer Award in 2010, and the City of West Hollywood's Rainbow Award and Citation in 2013.
Publications
Novels and short story collections
*''Smart as the Devil'', Arbor House (New York, NY), 1975.
*''Eyes'', Arbor House (New York, NY), 1975.
*''The Mesmerist'', Delacorte (New York, NY), 1977.
*''The Lure'', Delacorte (New York, NY), 1979, Alyson Books (Los Angeles, CA), 2002, Bold Strokes Books, Inc, (Valley Falls NY) 2008
*''Late in the Season'', Delacorte (New York, NY), 1981, Bold Strokes Books, Inc, (Valley Falls NY) 2008
*''An Asian Minor: The True Story of Ganymede'' Sea HorsePress (New York, NY), 1981.
*''Slashed to Ribbons in Defense of Love and Other Stories'' Gay Presses of New York (New York, NY), 1983.
*''House of Cards'', Delacorte (New York, NY), 1984.
*''To the Seventh Power'', William Morrow (New York, NY), 1989.
*''Dryland's End'', Masquerade Books, 1995, Harrington Park Press (New York, NY), 2004.
*''Like People in History'', Viking (New York, NY), 1995.
*''Looking Glass Lives'', illustrated by F. Ronald Fowler, Alyson Books (Los Angeles, CA), 1998, Bold Strokes Books, Inc, (Valley Falls NY) 2008
*''The Book of Lies'', Alyson Books (Los Angeles, CA), 1999.
*''The New York Years: Stories'' (contains ''An Asian Minor'' and ''Slashed to Ribbons in Defense of Love''), Alyson Books (Los Angeles, CA), 2000.
*''Onyx'', Alyson Books (Los Angeles, CA), 2001.
*''Tales: From a Distant Planet'' (collection), French Connection Press (Paris, France)
*''Contemporary Gay Romances'' (collection), Bold Strokes Books, Inc, (Valley Falls, NY), 2010
*''Twelve O'Clock Tales'' (collection), Bold Strokes Books, Inc, (Valley Falls, NY) 2011
*''Twentieth Century Un-limited: Two Novellas'', Bold Strokes Books, Inc, (Valley Falls, NY) 2012
Memoirs
*'' Ambidextrous (novel), Ambidextrous: The Secret Lives of Children'', Gay Presses of New York (New York, NY), 1985.
*''Men Who Loved Me: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel'', New American Library (New York, NY), 1989.
*''A House on the Ocean, a House on the Bay: A Memoir'', Faber and Faber (Boston, MA), 1997.
*''Fred in Love'', University of Wisconsin Press (Madison, WI), 2005.
*''Art and Sex in Greenwich Village: Gay Literary Life after Stonewall'', Perseus Publishing, 2007.
*''True Stories:Portraits From My Past'', Chelsea Station Editions, 2011
* ''True Stories Too: People and Places From My Past'', Chelsea Station Edition, 2014
* Nights at Rizzoli ',
OR Books
OR Books is a New York City-based independent publishing house founded by John Oakes and Colin Robinson in 2009. The company sells digital and print-on-demand books directly to the customer and focuses on creative promotion through traditional med ...
, 2014
Poetry
*''The Deformity Lover and Other Poems'', Sea Horse Press (New York, NY), 1978.
*''Window Elegies'', Close Grip Press, 1986.
Anthology
*''A True Likeness: An Anthology of Lesbian and Gay Writing Today'' (editor), SeaHorse Press (New York, NY), 1980.
*''Ambientes: New Queer Latino Writing'' (co-edited with Lazaro Lima), University of Wisconsin Press (Madison: WI), 2011.
*''Best Gay Stories 2012'' (edited by Peter Dubé; story ''My Childhood Friend'' was chosen as one of 15 inclusions),