 Thank you Lynn, this is an extraordinary book. I've actually used it already for the book that I'm writing That's great. There have been facts in it that I don't think anybody else had unearthed before and Whose idea was this? How did you come up with this in the first place? This was as actually an interesting story. I think it's interesting I'm one of the three editors sherry Thomas and Eric Marcus are also the other are the other two editors and Back in the 1970s sherry Was running a sheep farm in in Northern, California? And she had another woman put together a book called country women that was published by double day, right? I remember that and then sherry went on around a second book about farm women and then her life went on and she Did various things and among them that she started she didn't start but she took over spinster's publishing company and Ran the publishing company for ten years while the woman had been her editor back at double day and sherry stayed in touch because they were sort of in the same field and fast and back in 1970 in the 1970s her editor had hired a young woman to work for her name Maureen Fast forward 25 years sherry's now got a new project the editor has become an agent and Maureen who she had hired is now at Warner Books So they were having dinner together one night as as you know old girls old girls network as it were right about three or four Times a year together for dinner Maureen and Ed Loretta was our agent and they were reminiscing about what they had done Projects they'd worked on and they'd put together the People's Almanac. I don't remember that. Yes, it ended up having three volumes Which I just love I just it's I just think it's a fascinating book And they said what would be a People's Almanac of the 90s and they came up with this idea for a game Let's be an Almanac Loretta says I know I'll call sherry So she calls up sherry who's just started working at the library foundation because she's been you know head of the fundraising for the main library and So sherry have this great idea Warner's is really interested all these things and sherry said no, thank you I just started this new job And she came over working. She said Loretta called today and she had this project and I told her there's no way I knew sherry partners We've been living together for eight years now And I just you know, it was a great idea, but you know, I can't do this. I have this brand new job Isn't that great? I finally said no to something she says to me I said what apparently not really well I said I said are you out of your mind and so we spent the weekend sort of saying is it possible I said I'll do this I can do this and you can be essentially, you know a senior editor on the product or something so and how did Eric Marcus and I think his his last book was breaking the surface Which is Greg Ligonus's? autobiography, but our Eric was the ghostwriter Well, how did he get involved well after we called the red a back and and proposed that I would be the main editor and That sherry would would be a more senior editor, but that I would do most of the work We said that we had a couple of gay men in mind that we felt like we wanted to do we felt it was important to do gay and Lesbian and we wanted to have men involved Was there any particular reason that you wanted to do gay and lesbian rather than just a lesbian almanac? In part that was what they wanted It sort of said that from the beginning but as we started thinking about who the audience would be and who would buy it And who would want it we felt like it was very important at the community's changed over the years And and in our lives we have a lot more gay men Friends that we used to have and stuff and it just seemed like it was really time There was there wasn't anything like that out there, right? So we share he had met Eric actually used to be on the advisory board of the Harvey Milk branch of The library here he lived here for four years in San Francisco and sherry had worked with him then And he'd moved back to New York, and so we were in New York meeting with Warners actually and Set up a date with Eric and talking to him about it. He was pretty interested too So it was actually pretty simple. It seems a very daunting task though And I believe I heard that originally the manuscript was actually a thousand pages 1800 pages. Oh, that's quite a good one. How did you? Decide What you would put in this book? Well, we started off with After Warners had said yeah, they were interested. I put together proposal with sherry and Eric's help and With sample pages and a sample outline and we said there would be eight chapters and we sort of how did you pick the number eight? Well, it ended up with ten chapters. We started off with eight I actually sat in my living room with three by five cards and pencils and I went through the people's almanac I went through several traditional almanacs at the library just see what what do almanacs have in them what kind of topics what kind of themes How are they organized? And and then I just wrote on cards and then I had a little fit and I can't do this I can't do this and so I went to sleep because it was like one o'clock in the morning and the next morning I got up and I just started sorting them into piles and what kind of themes did we have do we had politics as a theme? And we had history as a theme and what you know, we had community as a theme and just you know, and this is this is an almanac and I was always Wondering what is the difference between an encyclopedia like a gay and lesbian encyclopedia and an almanac Well, you know, I've I've thought a lot about the fact that it's called an almanac and that a lot of people go well an almanac I'm not interested when people have asked me while I was working on it what it was I said the compendium of little known facts gay and lesbian first articles tidbits essays photographs cartoons And little did you know little facts little whatever that we dug up or that you know existed We read a lot of gay press subscribe to all the gay press for a while in New York Times every day A lot's happening internationally which isn't in the book because we had enough for another whole chapter Or perhaps even another whole project in the future some of these Details that you came up with were were amazing. There are things that I had no idea of and for instance some Catherine Lee Bates Who wrote the words to America the beautiful and set and set the words to when some old him or something like that? And and then Douglas Cross a gay man wrote I left my heart in San Francisco But the one that really got me was the gay man who? Who invented camouflage and k rations? I thought two different bad? Oh, those are two different guys Okay, I've blended them together. How did how did you find out that? Okay, the k rations. I found out it was published Actually Eric Marcus has it in making history Mm-hmm, and I was actually at an event actually was for the library is for the new library Jim Hermel was talking and He actually heard it from him first that he was talking about Herb King because he lives in San Diego Mm-hmm, and Jim had met him and he talked about in the 40s, of course Herb King was in the closet, but he was in the military and And that's why they're called K rations K for King. Oh Amazing Camouflage was interesting. We one of the things we did is we wrote to all of the Gay and lesbian archives in and libraries in the country Mm-hmm, and some of them are actual archives of libraries like the one here in San Francisco, which is a fabulous resource And some of them are just one or two people Maintaining a few things and some of them are actually letting libraries. Well, there's one in Texas called the happy foundation Right, right and essentially I the the man who invented camouflage whose name escapes me at the moment. I apologize It's his lover has sort of set up this foundation in his memory and he was actually a Designer who went into the military ended up in camouflage school now There had been camouflage before but the camouflage that we think of with a little bit different colors And some of the patterns is what he designed was part of what he did I think a lot of the stuff that you have found and put together in here breaks a lot of stereotypes and For instance, we're used to thinking of a gay man. Oh, he can be a designer or something but you don't really think of him as designing camouflage outfits for the military and Gosh, I think the military ought to be informed of that, you know Um, what a sherry's things favorite favorite things to say when we talk about the book is that maybe perhaps that whole debate on Gays in the military would have been a little different if we had a few of these facts to start off right Right or this idea that that lesbians somehow have always inhabited some shadowy World underworld or something, you know that those chief little novels from the pulp novels would tell us when you know Here's here's this Wellesley professor writing America the beautiful You know after coming back from I think you told me Chicago World's Fair That's a girlfriend or a partner or whatever right and actually she lived in a whole community in Colorado, I guess with a whole lot of women wasn't just the two of them isolated in some corner Now you decided to organize the book in certain categories You were mentioning with some of the categories were and I think That our viewers might be interested in how you arranged it well after I sort of did all this sorting and Went off in search of things which I could tell you more about I Tried to really think about if you're reading this it's not meant to be read from the front to the back It's meant to you pick it up you open it up. Oh, wow I learned something and if you want to read the article that goes with that tidbit you can or not You know, it's really just to pique your interest But if you were to start at the beginning go to the end I tried to think sort of not so much chronologically we started off with chronological decided that wasn't going to work But I tried to look at how our lives really are so I started off with a chapter called we are everywhere Because I really want to say because we are everywhere. So the kinds of things in the first chapter are All the political firsts who's been elected to office Some of the things you've mentioned the America the beautiful kinds of things All of the kinds of things where we were in gays and fashion and gays in the military There is there are so articles that kind of stuff sort of a we are everywhere And then the second chapter is called how we're seeing how we see ourselves and it's kind of a clunky title But I really thought about again how we're seen from the outside and how we see ourselves So it's movies and TV and theater both How we've been right and how we portray ourselves and writing and literature that's more lists and some things like that And then we went into history fighting ourselves in history. We were gonna do how far how far back in history Did you well did you go or we were a very us-focused book? So there's a little bit outside the u.s. But not a lot We Decided that we weren't good again be chronological. We have that to me the need of stuff in that chapter actually is The work that Jim Wilkie did we call it frontier queers and he's a frontier queers Want to read a little bit real frontier queers? Well, actually I want to tell you a little bit about what he's done He lives in LA and he's been doing research on gays and gay men and women in The military in the 1880s 1890s And the stuff this the the articles that we have here haven't been published anywhere else It's his first time it's been published. It's really exciting and he did some really neat stuff one of my most favorite which is just kind of silly but Yes, yes, we have a couple of photographs from his collection but There was a train robber a famous train robber named bill minor and he was known as we have a train robber And he was known as the gray fox. They made a film about him, right? The Peekerton detective agency who was set off in charge of him said he was a quote-a-quote a sodomite And his accomplices accomplices were young men that he met during his periodic stays in prison Gee, you know, now there we break a stereotype again train robbers I mean, well, maybe you could imagine lesbian train robbers, but you know game entrance. I like this I like this very much. What are some of the other chapters that well after after finding ourselves in history of that kind of thing? We then Came a little bit more which we were talked we go into finding identity What what does that mean? Well, what I was trying to figure out, okay? We have we can say okay here. We are in history and you have to remember history that you can't I mean We're talking from 1996 Saying these people were gay. It didn't mean that people use those terms But it how we perceive gay and lesbian people those labels apply from our perspective, right? But then and that God is thinking about what it is. What is it to be gay? What does it mean to be gay and black was it mean to be Jewish and disabled and gay or whatever kinds? Who are we? Before you could have a community we you have to know you have to find yourself And so we have a chapter called finding identity, which is coming out tidbits stories about people's lives someone stories about family It's one of my most favorite chapters We were going to do a section African-american gays a section on Jewish gays a section on And we realized there was no way we could speak to everybody So we gathered material most of the stuff most of the articles in the short tidbits in that chapter Reprints I like most of the other book a lot of the other articles were written for us Most of those are things that we found at other sources and we we probably gathered enough for three chapters You say people wrote articles for you and you did reprints. How did you find the people to write the articles? Real early on Because we got in advance and I got to quit my job. Oh, that's all right. That's very good Very nice. I spent the first part of the first four months traveling Mm-hmm, and I basically use Sherry and Eric's Enormous list of contacts because Eric has written what five books right and Sherry published books and it wrote books all those years But you're the one that went on the road. I went on the road Okay, they all stayed home and did their did their paying jobs. That's nice. I Went around and so I went to 12 cities and I saw they in all in one area The East Coast a bit West Did not go into the South I went to Atlanta first actually Mm-hmm, and that was great. That was my first time in South actually that was just wonderful And in each of those cities I had appointments with two or three people and in the course of meeting with them I would then ask for other people and I wasn't looking for writers I was looking for people who were doing things or who might have knowledge and I had this tremendous outline It's back what I always had eight chapters right and I sort of say gee, I don't know who you are But are you interested in any of these things that I learned as I went on to figure out what potpourri of Possibilities to be anything to figure out or somebody would say you know this person has been working on a gay TV program And they know all this stuff or um This is very complicated project though It actually well, you know it's interesting when I got introduced as a systems analyst because that is exactly what this was about People kept saying how could you do this because I hadn't really written anything in a lot of years Mm-hmm, and I like writing and I'm comfortable and I'm good at it But but it really was a puzzle. It was it was what is the big picture? What's it made up of mm-hmm? and Okay, you're not gonna get this piece. What are you gonna use instead? How are you gonna balance this? Oh, do you have you know 16 things by lesbians and nobody by anybody on the West Coast or whatever? Where everybody's from San Francisco. Where are you gonna find these other people? Did it feel a little political at any point? I know that whenever Anyone I know has written a book about that has anything to do with lesbian and gay history There are often battles over Who's you know who is going to be? Designated as the first to have done something or that type of thing Did you run up against that at all when we tried not to have first as much as interesting tidbits for that very reason There are some firsts that we could verify the political firsts are very easy to verify You know who was first elected in one state or to a national office as opposed to a local office all those kinds of things You know there are records But some other kinds of things You know was New Yorker San Francisco first in something and that was if there was a tension in quotes It was it was the New York San Francisco because so much was going on At the same period in both places and both both cities Think you know we both have parochial ideas about who's really running gay politics and the gay movement And so we sort of know about if we're in New York We know about everyone in New York in San Francisco everyone in San Francisco So but you had to bridge that gap and part of bridging that one's going to other cities besides the coasts That was what was really interesting to me if there's a lot is going on in a lot of cities Could you give an example? Well, Minneapolis was a fabulous city. I love Minneapolis I did to with four contacts and I asked everybody for names of other people and by the time I left in four days I had seen 20 people everybody had called me back everybody started cross referring me to same people They have public radio. They have more gay radio programs in Minneapolis at any other city There's no gay neighborhood in Minneapolis, but there's three bookstores There's a community center. There's all of those kinds of things people actually people who are doing things very I found that that the straight people there I went on some regular talk shows, you know, and they were perfectly open very nice people. I like them. That's that's It's always difficult to try and go to all those little cities though because people tend to be more closeted and I was thinking that something that was wonderful about this book is that You don't have to be in a in a big city to find out about your history, you know You can just pick this up and well and the other thing I it was very interesting doing nothing, but gay lesbian Stuff for two years. I sort of thought everybody was out at some point I'm you thought oh right you were out and your friends are out and so and everybody I'm talking I would everything I'm reading and everything I'm right every every conversation civil rights wars over everything's fine And I spend an hour or two hour and a half every day on the internet Which is what you're talking about and that was the other piece that not only mean the book work But gave me this sense that there's not just that the sense that so much is happening But so much is happening in small towns everywhere in Alabama and in Idaho and in Washington and all over the country in small towns my experience actually have a lot of the Um of the gay Bolton boards in and things on the internet was actually very few Comparatively few people from San Francisco in New York Hmm and the really big cities and a lot of people from the south and the Midwest and Pacific Northwest Perhaps because they don't have a sludge of an open population and very brave people doing a lot of stuff You know going on marches when you know we talk, you know, San Francisco gay pride has 200,000 300,000 Whether you know you're talking about, you know, right 700 people marched down the street in some small town and this is fabulous Montana I Just do you have I still on the internet at this yeah, I I'm not doing my sort of daily Check-in anymore, right because it gets a bit overwhelming What are some of the other chapters just so that people have an idea of what the range of this book is well We went from finding identity and sort of all the people talk about who they were into what we call building community And that which is about relationships everything from personal ads to reasons not to get married to gay neighborhoods to reasons not to get married Even if we can yeah, as well as getting very good. I like that. Okay You know all those kinds of these gay neighborhoods We also talk about community in the sense of the archives that I mentioned the libraries the kinds of institutions that we've built That kind of stuff the next chapter that we came up with is called myths and facts And it's a really one of the shorter chapters and it has some reprints from some of Eric's Work he did a book called 300 questions you up 300 things you always wanted to know about gays and lesbians I think I never get that title that book right in the in the myths in the myths and facts There must have at some point been some myths or facts that surprised even you I mean well Can can you think of any of those that well actually what the best two fun things in that chapter? We're we found a list and this was off the internet. I believe of animals of which Scientists have studied that have same-sex coupling in quotes right and we called it even educated fleas do it You must have had the the lesbian seagulls of Anacapa. We have right. Okay. We have there are many I could read you a few but That was one but one of the things that I found here in San Francisco at the gay lesbian historical society Was a little pamphlet about that big? Called how to recognize almost well It was called it was from a group called teen challenge which existed in Orange County in Los Angeles in the 60s That having grown I have read about that right and actually Jim Kepler who? Has been very instrumental in keeping our history over the years who lives down Los Angeles Knew a lot about them when I brought it up to him anyway I found this pamphlet and it was a Christian in quotes very right wing apparently designed by ex-homosexuals according to Jim, right? How to how to recognize homosexuals recognize homosexuality and it had 25 of the funniest things You could possibly imagine and they had a whole section on On lesbians I can't imagine. Oh, you know the whole older woman younger woman. Oh, really? Oh, all of that stuff All right, that whole section at the back about how two ministers should never should always ask for separate rooms when they travel together They should never have the same room. It was just stunning, but it was one of you know What I know what I've noticed about about this book and in your attitude toward it is so many times when people are telling the History they get really really serious and really tight and the things that you always seem to bring up and in other Conversations I've had with you you've mentioned are always things that have humor to them And I mean instead of looking at this list of 25 things is this heavy horrendous thing You're laughing at it and and you're saying we have to remember this But we don't have to feel terrible or frightened by it anymore because we can look at it in perspective And I think that that's something you do all through this book And I'm glad you see that because we tried that we tried to make sure that we kept things light Serious and light I mean if you read the articles, you know, there's a lot of there there It isn't just tidbits. It isn't just you know, here's something now, you know close the book go away there's a lot of very interesting things there that are thoughtful that people put a lot of effort into and I You know, I would have done a whole book of comics There's a chapter would called I was a chapter. I always forget what it's called. It's called want to have fun Which I insisted this was one of the chapters we added that wasn't in the original take that I insisted we add because I wanted cartoons I want I have to tell you I have to make a terrible confession You know where this book has been in the bathroom It has been in the bathroom and people go, you know, they came on they say, do you know what I just learned? And I know, you know in the chances are you haven't read that piece. Yeah, maybe not What are the other chapters that you have? Okay? Well after missing facts We went into a chapter called our very queer lives and it's sort of the antithesis of we are everywhere In this chapter we covered sort of the whole range of who we are as a gay lesbian community So we talked about the leather community. We talked about bisexuality. We talked about transgender people We Talk about the origin of words and the origin of colors that kind of thing The origin of colors well, you know the lavator has always been associated with right and that's always fascinated me and I've never I know the pink triangle and and I know the the black triangle, but I don't know well I didn't know that either what Judy Gron in another mother tongue There's a whole chapter on this and I sort of read her stuff and did a little more research and My most favorite of her reasons if I can read this one or just even well Violets which are related to pansies were worn in England in the 1500s by men and women to indicate that they did not intend to marry. Oh That's fascinating. Yes, and then she goes on. She has quite a few Narcissus the whole story in Greek mythology right Narcissus who scored the love of women fell in love with his own image right and eventually died in the place Where he died a purple flower grew up with white leaves. How interesting Wish he didn't die though. Yeah But there's that's unfortunate part those the hyacinth is purple It's also in its name for love between two men between well man in quotes, but the Sun God Apollo. Mm-hmm use high Hyacinth Sappho is often described as being violet haired Very interesting whole lot of these although my most I have two other ones that are favorites when she did not come up with The one is that I found on the internet was combining the colors pink and blue gives you lavender. Oh, of course Which was interesting which is so because it was a thing about being neither male nor female right actually That was the other color one the origin of the word gay, which I which is really just up for grabs There's a lot of different there are battles about that about that but my most favorite was somebody's actually sign off on the internet He said gay is the feeling you get when all the straight people leave the room And maybe someday we'll be able to keep it even when they're there Lesbian which is fairly obvious which is great for Lesbos and for Sappho, right? Well, that's we did that in in in the very queer lives We've really tried to that's right do a much broader scope Not just who are we out there in front of the camera? Who are we behind the camera right as it were and is that the concluding section? Well, and then they would you want to have fun No, actually we have another chapter I always forget this chapter in the chapter called ensuring our survival in that chapter I sometimes call it the political chapter not the elected officials political chapter, but all the information about hate crime laws and Organizations who Actually are enemies as well as organizations that we should be supporting Things we can do everyday things you could do that's a lot about Aids us throughout the book obviously I mean you cannot write a book in the 90s No, and not talk about the epidemic and we didn't do an aid section or just like we didn't do an African-American section You know because all of that is part of who we are very intertwined But there is there are there are some more in the survival chapter which makes some sense about that And the last chapter which was called the material world. What's that Donna take off, right? That is our business chapter But it's more than that this is where again the internet comes into play You know issues about being out at work One of the really fine resources was the gay librarians listserv on the internet and when I needed a piece of information a Fact I would just ask if they had it or I'd start a dialogue or whatever And I came into a dialogue one day. I was just just got on in the morning and somebody had said You know I had this job interview I don't know whether or not to be out the interview sure and she got you know 27 responses And so I wrote to people and said could I reprint your responses? And I've done that in a few other places as well And one of the most interesting things to me was that every single person I wrote to got back to me every person said Yes, and every person said I could use their name now mostly I didn't but nobody said gee that was private Don't do that or I'd rather not everybody said yes well that shows that that that times have changed and And I think that this book is a really valuable document and it's something that will be on the library shelves for a long time and the book is out in all directions the almanac of gay and lesbian America and I understand it was just nominated for the 1995 American Library Association's gay and lesbian nonfiction award and so thank you Lynn Witt Well, thank you much. This was great