American Literature
Muriel Rukeyser's poetry, which breaks the silence of many aspects of female experience, has been enormously important to many feminist and lesbian readers.
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.
Sadomasochistic literature, one of the most controversial forms of lesbian and gay writing, confronts such issues as domination, submission, uniformity, and humiliation and poses a constant challenge to them.
Alex Sanchez's unique background as a youth and family counselor and his experiences as an immigrant have helped make him an important voice in today's young adult glbtq literature canon.
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.
Bisexual African-American novelist, poet, and performance artist Sapphire came to public attention with works that focus on the harrowing realities of inner city existence.
May Sarton, who gradually revealed her lesbianism in her writing, worked successfully in poetry, the novel, essays, and the journal.
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.
Beginning with the "new wave" in the 1960s, science fiction and fantasy writers have explored openly and seriously issues of gender and sexual orientation.
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.
An important voice in children's literature over the past half century, Maurice Sendak writes and illustrates books that both acknowledge the fears faced by children and celebrate the imagination with which they cope with them.
Best known for his groundbreaking play Bent, iconoclastic playwright and screenwriter Martin Sherman has created an impressive body of work.
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.
Novelist Tom Spanbauer probes the darker undercurrents of sexuality, race, and violence while simultaneously using his unique prose style to meditate on and question received notions of time, subjectivity, and history.
A brilliantly original gay writer, Jack Spicer wrote poetry noted for its lyric beauty, intellectual power, and formal invention.
In addition to becoming--with Alice B. Toklas--half of an iconic lesbian couple, Gertrude Stein was an important innovator and transformer of the English language.
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.
A pioneering California writer, Charles Warren Stoddard is best known for his homoerotic tales collected as South-Sea Idyls and The Island of Tranquil Delights.
Howard Overing Sturgis is best known for two homosexual novels, Tim: A Story of Eton and Belchamber.
Social and political commentator Andrew Sullivan has established himself as an influential participant in Anglo-American political discourse.
One of America's most inventive and incisive poets, May Swenson wrote many love poems celebrating lesbian sexuality.
As reflected in her poetry, the strongest emotional relationships in Sara Teasdale's life were with women.
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.
Novelist John Kennedy Toole expressed sympathy for the socially marginalized and animosity towards the powers that enforce conformity, but he was never comfortable with his own homosexuality and presents sexual non-conformity in highly conflicted ways.
The Uranian poets, who lived and wrote from the close of the Victorian era to the middle of the interwar period, celebrated love for adolescent boys.
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.
In her work, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel has tackled difficult topics, including AIDS, incest, and prostitution.
In her explorations of the damage done to the individual self by racism and sexism, Alice Walker views lesbianism as natural and freeing, an aid to self-knowledge and self-love.
Patricia Nell Warren is the author of significant novels about American gay culture that exemplify popular adult and young adult mainstream fiction.
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.
A distinctive American narrative genre that has developed over more than two centuries, the Western is now consumed worldwide; characteristically depicting homosocial relationships, it is also frequently suffused with homoeroticism.
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.
The works of Thornton Wilder are landmarks of American literature, but they reveal scant traces of the author's homosexuality.
In the 1930s, Gale Wilhelm contributed significantly to the lesbian literary heritage by publishing two novels in which lesbianism was presented unapologetically.
Jonathan Williams was the author of more than a hundred books and booklets of gay poetry that merges flesh and spirit with a sense of history.
Conflicted over his own sexuality, Tennessee Williams wrote directly about homosexuality only in his short stories, his poetry, and his late plays.
A pioneer in the development of contemporary gay theater, Doric Wilson has been instrumental in Off-Off-Broadway theater in New York City since the early 1960s.
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.
In his occasional depictions of gay subjects, Lanford Wilson proves himself to be a powerful voice speaking of the lives of gay men today.
During the 1970s and early 1980s, poet, painter, and activist Fran Winant helped define the role and sensibility of lesbians in the contexts of gay liberation and radical feminism.
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.
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.
A prize-winning author of books for young adults, the African-American lesbian writer Jacqueline Woodson gives voice to a complex range of both straight and gay characters.
American hard-boiled fiction writer Cornell Woolrich reflected his homosexuality obliquely in his fiction.
The works of nineteenth-century American realist writer Constance Fenimore Woolson display a startlingly modern self-consciousness about lesbian desire and its effects on the female artist.
Critically acclaimed Asian-American playwright Chay Yew has consistently produced provocative drama addressing issues of racism, homophobia, and censorship.
Gay and lesbian young adult literature--books targeted at readers aged twelve and up--ranges widely in sensitivity, topic, quality, and political and social insight.
Transsexuals of Brazil
Cross-Dressing
The Sexual Revolution, 1960-1980
Hijras
Women's Liberation Movement