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Larry Mitchell (author)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Larry Mitchell
Born1939
Muncie, Indiana, United States
DiedDecember 26, 2012 (aged 72–73)
Ithaca, New York, United States
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
CitizenshipUnited States
GenresFiction, gay literature

Larry Mitchell (1939 – December 26, 2012) was an American author and publisher.[1][2][3][4] He was the founder of Calamus Books - an early small press devoted to gay male literature - and the author of fiction dealing with the gay male experience in New York City during the 1970s and 1980s.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

With Terry Helbing and Felice Picano,[5][6] he cofounded Gay Presses of New York in 1981. His book of short stories My Life As a Mole won the 1989 Small Press Lambda Literary Award.[7] Mitchell's novel The Terminal Bar, published in 1982, is considered to be the first book of fiction to address HIV/AIDS.[8][9] In addition to his own work, he was friends with and collaborated with many prominent gay artists working in New York City in the 1970s and 1980s including William "Bill" Rice,[10][11] David Wojnarowicz,[12] Peter Hujar and Gary Indiana.[13] The feature film Acid Snow (1998) directed by Joel Itman is based on Mitchell's novel of the same name.[14]

Mitchell received a PhD in Sociology from Columbia University.[1][15][16] At that time, he co-edited the book "Willard Waller on The Family, Education and War" with William J. Goode and Frank Furstenberg published in 1970.[2][16] He was born in Muncie, Indiana, in 1939 and died on December 26, 2012, in Ithaca, New York, after a battle with pancreatic cancer.[17]

Works

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Books

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Plays

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  • Get It While You Can (Presented November 1986 at Theater for the New City, New York City)
  • An Evening of Faggot Theater (with The Pink Satin Bomber Collective. Presented March–May 1978 at the Performing Garage, New York City) [18]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Brim, Matt. Larry Mitchell - Novelist of the Dispossed Archived 2013-02-16 at archive.today. The Gay and Lesbian Review. V16 N4 2009. Full text.
  2. ^ a b c Mitchell, Larry. My Life As A Mole and Five Other Stories. Calamus Books 1988.
  3. ^ a b Mitchell, Larry. Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions Archived 2012-12-24 at the Wayback Machine. Calamus Books 1977.
  4. ^ a b Mayer, Bob. Review of the novel, Terminal Bar. Cream City Special Edition V1 N1 May 1983, Page 12.
  5. ^ a b Brass, Perry. An Interview with Felice Picano Lambda Book Report, 2007.
  6. ^ a b Texier, Catherine. Gay Lit's Golden Age. Sunday Book Review of Felice Picano's Art and Sex in Greenwich Village: Gay Literary Life After Stonewall.
  7. ^ The complete list of Lambda Literary Award Winners from 1989.
  8. ^ Smith, Raymond A. (1998). Encyclopedia of AIDS: A Social, Political, Cultural, and Scientific Record of the HIV Epidemic. Taylor & Francis. p. 480. ISBN 9781579580070.
  9. ^ Sedberry, Jonathan A. (2008). Rupture and Repair: Literature, Genre and the AIDS Epidemic. ISBN 9781109079616.
  10. ^ Levin, Sara G. Obituary for Bill Rice, 74, cult film actor, artist and writer Archived 2017-01-29 at the Wayback Machine. The Villager, V75, N37, February 1–7, 2006.
  11. ^ Cotter, Holland (January 29, 2006). "Bill Rice, 74, Downtown Artist, Actor and Impresario, Dies". The New York Times.
  12. ^ Carr, Cynthia. A Fire In My Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz. 2012.
  13. ^ Indiana, Gary. Last Seen Entering The Biltmore. Plays, Short Fiction, Poems 1975-2010.
  14. ^ Itman, Joel (June 26, 2007). Acid Snow. YouTube.
  15. ^ Mitchell, Larry. Larry Mitchell - Failure and Success; the American Theater and its playwrights. 1968. Ph.D. Dissertation - Columbia University
  16. ^ a b Goode, William J.; Furstenberg, Frank F.; Mitchell, Larry R., eds. (1970). Willard Waller on The Family, Education and War. University of Chicago Press.
  17. ^ Brim, Matt (1 April 2013). "Larry Mitchell, Novelist of New York Gay Life". Boston, Massachusetts: The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
  18. ^ Pink Satin Bombers Collective. An Evening of Faggot Theater. Calamus Books 1977.
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