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Category: Literature

Color photograph of Andrew Holleran.

Andrew Holleran and the Violet Quill

Posted by: Mark Manivong

Andrew Holleran (pseud.) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer and a significant contributor to post-Stonewall literature. He was a member of the Violet Quill, a group of gay writers who assembled in the early 1980s to critique each other’s work and to develop strategies to overcome corporate publishers’ reluctance to publish gay-themed novels. The Rare Book and Special Collections Division collects the works of the Violet Quill writers, including Andrew Holleran, and holds the first editions of their works in the Gene Berry and Jeffrey Campbell Collection.

Posted in: 20th Century, LGBTQIA+, Literature, Publishing

Photograph shows James Baldwin, an African American, male, LGBTQIA writer and activist, seated.

An Honest Man and a Good Writer: 100 Years of James Baldwin

Posted by: Amanda Zimmerman

Born in Harlem on August 2nd, 1924, novelist and essayist James Baldwin (1924 – 1987) is regarded as one of America’s greatest writers. At the time of his death on December 1st, 1987, Baldwin was working with sculptor and printmaker Leonard Baskin (1922–2000) of the Gehenna Press to publish a fine press edition of an unpublished work. Gypsy and Other Poems features six of Baldwin's poems that reveal an intimate, introspective side of the writer.

Posted in: 20th Century, Fine Prints, Literature