Nonfiction
Almost as renowned for his homosexuality and depravity as for his literary achievements, Jean Lorrain was a French poet, novelist, and journalist of the "decadent movement" during the Belle Époque.
Versatile Colombian-born author Jaime Manrique has written novels, short stories, poetry, and works of nonfiction with gay themes.
Writer Paula Martinac's career has been devoted to exploring and documenting the place that lesbians occupy in society, history, and the family.
Critic F. O. Matthiessen was instrumental in the inclusion of gay writers in American literary history, and the exchange of letters between him and his lover Russell Cheney are among the most revealing gay male documents of the 1920s.
The defiantly homosexual scion of a powerful family, Robin Maugham became a popular and prolific writer who regularly features homosexual themes and homoerotic situations in his work.
American publisher and writer Robert McAlmon made significant contributions to twentieth-century literature, both by publishing avant-garde writers and by depicting a queer subculture in his own works.
A master of the modern comedy of manners, novelist Stephen McCauley has been praised for his shrewd observations about contemporary morals, his tart dialogue and ironic tone, and his charming, self-deprecating gay male protagonists.
Award-winning mystery writer Val McDermid writes three successful series of novels, including one featuring lesbian investigative reporter Lindsay Gordon.
Swiss actor, cabaret performer, and stage director Karl Meier was, under the pseudonym "Rolf," editor of Der Kreis, the leading European homophile publication, from 1943 until its demise in 1967.
An American-born painter who emigrated to Canada, the artist Mary Meigs is best known for her literary contributions and her feminist activism on behalf of elderly lesbians.
The expression of male homoerotic sentiment is one of the dominant themes in classical Arabic literature from the ninth century to the nineteenth.
Over a period of two millennia, sodomy has been by turns condemned and celebrated in Persian literature.
Historian and journalist Neil Miller has attempted to widen the understanding of gay and lesbian life by moving away from the major metropolitan areas, focusing instead on small cities and rural areas.
Bisexual feminist literary and social critic Kate Millett is best known for her pioneering critique of patriarchy in Western society and literature, Sexual Politics (1970).
Chilean educator, journalist, feminist, diplomat, and Nobel laureate Gabriela Mistral celebrated women and motherhood in poems and essays that are frequently homoerotic.
Despite the widespread homophobia in the Modernist movement, several of its practitioners were homosexual; some of them wrote openly about homosexuality, and the groundwork was laid for the gay liberation movement.
In novels, poetry, and a memoir, Paul Monette wrote about gay men striving to fashion personal identities and, later, coping with the loss of a lover to AIDS.
In her own works, Cherríe Moraga defines her experience as a Chicana lesbian; and in her capacity as editor/publisher, she provides a forum for traditionally silenced lesbians of color.
Best known for his four volumes of short fiction comprising a series of interconnected stories about gay life in New York City, Ethan Mordden is also the author of novels and over twenty works of nonfiction on opera, film, and musical theater.
The talented and prolific Anglo-Welsh journalist, historian, and travel writer Jan Morris was one of the first transsexuals to tell her story publicly in a memoir.
Howard Moss, one of the leading figures of American letters in the latter half of the twentieth century, is the author of a significant body of elegant, erudite, and urbane work, especially poetry.
From the two-spirits of traditional culture to contemporary writers, Native North Americans have produced a considerable body of gay and lesbian literature.
Mystery writer Michael Nava has increasingly been recognized as an important novelist whose mature work transcends the limited expectations of a popular and highly specialized genre.
Through her writing, teaching, editing, and activism, Joan Nestle has devoted her life to promoting awareness of glbtq culture and advancing glbtq equality.
Prolific Jewish femme lesbian-feminist writer of poetry, fiction, and children's books, Leslèa Newman draws on her own multiple identities to describe the complex tapestry that results when a variety of identities are woven together.
The bisexual novelist Anaïs Nin is best known for her sexually frank diaries and the erotica published after her death.
Often categorized as a Beat writer, poet and memoirist Harold Norse created a body of work that uses everyday language and images to explore and celebrate both the commonplace and the exotic.
Although Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver has not been an outspoken lesbian activist, her poetry is deeply resonant with contemporary lesbian consciousness, and many lesbians claimed her as one of their own before she publicly came out.
Suze Orman rose from hardscrabble roots to become a financial manager, radio and television personality, and best-selling author in the field of personal money management.
Publishers Stathis Orphanos and Ralph Sylvester, partners in life as well as business, are best known for their beautifully produced limited edition books; in addition, Orphanos is acclaimed for his photographs of celebrities and male nudes.
A prolific writer and respected teacher, Sheila Ortiz-Taylor has bracketed her career with groundbreaking achievements.
The frequently outrageous cultural commentary and caustic criticism of Camille Paglia have made her both famous and controversial.
Most of the fiction and much of the poetry of Pier Paolo Pasolini, one of the great Marxist homosexual artists of the twentieth century, was shaped by his fascination with the lives of subproletarian youths.
One of France's leading lesbian theorists and political activists, Geneviève Pastre is a writer and publisher who has made lesbian feminism the root of her political and literary work.
The aesthetic of the important and influential Victorian critic Walter Pater reflected a homosexual sensibility.
Patristic Writers, also known as the Church Fathers, appropriated currents of hostility to homoeroticism in pagan thought and used them to strengthen the prohibitions of Leviticus and Paul, while also expressing their own hostile interpretations.
Novelist, short story writer, and critic Dale Peck has been praised as "one of the most eloquent voices of his generation" and has been self-described as "the most hated man in literature."
As one of the most famous homosexuals in France in the latter half of the twentieth century, novelist Roger Peyrefitte helped shape the public perception of homosexuals in the days before gay liberation.
A vigorous gay and lesbian literature emerged in the Philippines in the last two decades of the twentieth century.
Prolific author Felice Picano, a founding member of the Violet Quill, is also a pioneer in gay publishing, having founded two publishing houses.
The novels of David Plante examine a variety of homosexualities, their male characters ranging from openly gay to sexually ambiguous.
The poems of Count August von Platen are homoerotic expressions of Platonic love, idealism, beauty, friendship, and longing.
Among Greek writers on homosexual themes, Plato is preeminent not only as a major philosopher but also as the greatest master of Greek prose.
No ancient is more instructive about pederasty than the Greek biographer and essayist Plutarch.
The explosion of political blogs has served to multiply greatly the number of voices participating in glbtq activism and to expedite the transmission of political information to glbtq communities.
Bisexual artist Fairfield Porter is recognized as a major twentieth-century American Intimist painter.
Award-winning author Minnie Bruce Pratt has written moving and erotic poems and stories that explore sex and gender issues, as well as powerful essays that decry bigotry in its many forms.
One of the most prolific gay writers of recent decades, John Preston helped elevate pornographic fiction into a genre viewed as having literary merit.
Although they do not treat gay themes at length, the poems and novels of Reynolds Price often reflect homoerotic and homosocial male relationships.
By writing the earliest novel to respond directly to AIDS and subsequently producing innovative journal and sex writing, American author Paul Reed made several significant contributions to glbtq literature.
Christopher Rice, the author of four popular, gay-themed suspense thrillers, has also been active in supporting glbtq causes, especially those affecting glbtq youth.
Poet, translator, literary and art critic, and short story writer, Edouard Roditi was associated with most of the twentieth-century's avant-garde literary movements from Surrealism to post-modernism.
Essayist and memoirist Richard Rodriguez, perhaps the most widely read of Latino-American authors, positions himself as an outsider in America, not only because of his ethnicity, but also because of his sexuality.
Chronicler of Berlin's lesbian club scene of the late 1920s, writer Ruth Roellig was part of the lively gay counterculture of Germany's Weimar era.
Roman writers on homosexual or bisexual themes generally followed Greek models; but unlike the Greeks, Romans condoned sex with slaves.
The American composer Ned Rorem has achieved literary prominence by publishing a series of diaries that include candid descriptions of homosexual love affairs and relationships.
Though dealing forthrightly with lesbian and gay subjects, the novels and criticism of Jane Rule are deliberately nonpolitical in their commitment to diverse communities and a range of experiences.
Known for his intricate narratives and eloquent prose style, novelist Paul Russell creates works that focus on the sexual and emotional complexities of gay male relationships, especially those that cross generations.
In both her science fiction and her criticism, Joanna Russ is outspokenly lesbian and feminist.
Since the eleventh century, Russian literature has included treatments of homosexual themes.
Best known for her relationship with Virginia Woolf and for her scandalous love affairs, Vita Sackville-West was a prolific author of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.
The bisexual writer Amantine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin, better known as George Sand, is as infamous for her cigar-in-hand cross-dressing as she is famous for her eighty novels, twenty plays, and numerous political tracts.
Although late in fully understanding his sexual preference, George Santayana wrote a series of sonnets celebrating his love for a friend who died young and described his male friendships in rhapsodic terms in his autobiography.
May Sarton, who gradually revealed her lesbianism in her writing, worked successfully in poetry, the novel, essays, and the journal.
For war poet and memoirist Siegfried Sassoon, the grueling years of World War I left an indelible impression of devastation and futility that colored his entire life.
Best known for his syndicated sex-advice column, Dan Savage is also the author of books chronicling his and his partner's experiences in adopting a child and dealing with the issue of same-sex marriage
New Orleans writer Lyle Saxon is remembered primarily as an editor and friend to writers, as well as an architectural preservationist and beloved public personality.
Now best known for his highly successful mystery novels set in ancient Rome, Steven Saylor began his writing career by publishing erotica under the pen-name Aaron Travis.
Author and playwright Sarah Schulman is concerned with constructing a lesbian identity around and against the multicultural identities of New York.
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Schuyler, a prominent member of the New York School of poets and painters, wrote openly about his homosexuality.
Swiss writer and photojournalist Annemarie Schwarzenbach documented social conditions from Afghanistan to Alabama; her fiction reflected the tormented attachments and recurring loneliness that plagued her short lifetime.
The eighteenth-century novelist Sarah Scott challenges the sex-gender system of her society and claims narrative authority for women loving women.
Using his and his family's experiences, particularly his childhood in Raleigh, North Carolina, and his own wacky perspective on life, David Sedaris has become a world-famous humorist, comedian, writer, playwright, and radio personality.
Randy Shilts pioneered as an openly gay journalist in the 1970s and 1980s and was an astute interpreter of the various issues affecting American gay men and lesbians.
Popular short story writer and novelist Ann Allen Shockley treats both interracial and lesbian experiences.
Michelangelo Signorile is a prolific, and often provocative, writer and activist whose books and articles, radio show, newspaper columns, and website champion the cause of glbtq rights.
Although she treated her own lesbianism as a strictly private matter, Susan Sontag wrote perceptively on gay male figures and issues.
In his poetry and his autobiography, Stephen Spender wrote about his homosexual experiences in his early life.
The male athlete has been an important gay icon in several cultures from ancient times to the present.
Edward Prime-Stevenson, who wrote both fiction and nonfiction, might well be styled the first modern American gay author.
College professor, tattoo artist, novelist, and memoirist, Samuel Steward is best remembered for the literate and explicit gay male erotica he published under the pseudonym Phil Andros.
The English biographer and essayist Lytton Strachey spoke openly of his homosexuality to his Bloomsbury friends, but his openly gay works were published only after his death.
Social and political commentator Andrew Sullivan has established himself as an influential participant in Anglo-American political discourse.
Algernon Charles Swinburne was interested in flagellation, sadomasochism, bisexuality, and lesbianism, not only for their erotics but also as gestures of social and cultural rebellion.
John Addington Symonds was the most daring innovator in the history of nineteenth-century British homosexual writing and consciousness.
Although there is some question as to whether travel writer, explorer, photographer, and cult figure Sir Wilfred Thesiger can be labeled as homosexual, his most powerful emotional ties were with the young male companions of his famous journeys.
In essays, journals, and poems, Henry David Thoreau recorded impassioned expressions of the beauty and the agony of love between men.
Financial writer Andrew Tobias, the author of the classic coming out memoir The Best Little Boy in the World (1973), was elected Treasurer of the Democratic Party in 1999.
The recent novels of acclaimed Irish writer Colm Tóibín are astutely observed, unsentimental explorations of gay men trying to fit into an unwelcoming, and often openly hostile, world.
Travel has afforded gays and lesbians both freedom from the restraints of their own cultures and the erotic stimulus of exotic sexual customs and partners.
The gay novelist, critic, and photographer Carl Van Vechten was especially interested in African-American culture and was an influential patron to many writers of the Harlem Renaissance.
The multifaceted Gore Vidal is important in the gay literary heritage because of the straightforwardness with which he has pursued gay themes and included gay characters in his work.
A circle of gay male writers in Manhattan who met a few times in 1980 and 1981, the members of the Violet Quill helped create the post-Stonewall renaissance of American gay male writing.
Activist and editor Anna Vock pioneered in organizing lesbians and gay men in Switzerland in the 1930s.
From ancient times, homoerotic writing has been a notable part of the literature of war.
Sarah Waters is the author of three lesbian novels as well as articles on lesbian and gay literature.
American writer Glenway Wescott is author of a series of critically esteemed novels, but may be best known for his central position in New York's artistic and gay communities of the 1950s and 1960s.
Publisher, book designer, and museum director, Monroe Wheeler was a leading figure in New York artistic and gay communities of the 1950s and 1960s, alongside his partner of sixty-eight years, the writer Glenway Wescott.
One of the most prominent and highly acclaimed figures of contemporary gay literature, Edmund White works in many distinct categories of fiction and nonfiction.
Mel White spent over thirty years serving the Evangelical Christian community; after struggling with his homosexuality for many years, he broke his ties with anti-gay religious leaders and became a glbtq activist.
Celebrating an ideal of manly love in both its spiritual and physical aspects, Walt Whitman has exerted a profound and enduring influence on gay literature.
Scattered throughout the novels and short stories of Sir Angus Wilson are a number of gay characters who are presented from a decidedly nonapologetic gay viewpoint.
John Morgan Wilson is best known today as the author of a gay male mystery series featuring a flawed and often exasperating amateur detective named Benjamin Justice.
The art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the first German to have been publicly acknowledged as a homosexual, developed an aesthetic deeply rooted in his homosexuality.
In addition to writing fiction with gay and bisexual characters and situations, Donald Windham has made a significant contribution to gay studies as a memoirist and editor.
The controversial lesbian author and theorist Monique Wittig has produced some of the most challenging fictional and theoretical work of second-wave feminism.
Throughout her varied career as a writer, editor, teacher, and performance artist, Terry Wolverton has consistently worked to document glbtq history and increase the visibility of the community.
Passionate friendships with women were essential to the life and work of novelist Virginia Woolf.
Film Actors: Gay Male
Film Actors: Lesbian
Photography: Gay Male, Pre-Stonewall
Subjects of the Visual Arts: Nude Females
Chamberlain, Richard
Erotic and Pornographic Art: Gay Male