Larry Mitchell

Larry Mitchell (July 12, 1939 – December26, 2012) was an American author and publisher. 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.

Biography He was born in Muncie, Indiana, on July 12, 1939, which he described as "a nightmare". He worked as a professor at the College of Staten Island, CUNY, where he taught for 25 years. Mitchell's novel The Terminal Bar, published in 1982, is considered to be the first book of fiction to address HIV/AIDS. 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, David Wojnarowicz, Peter Hujar and Gary Indiana. The feature film Acid Snow (1998) directed by Joel Itman is based on Mitchell's novel of the same name.

Mitchell stopped writing in 1993, in part due to his increasing blindness and the impact of AIDS on his neighborhood and community.

Works

Books

Acid Snow (Calamus Books, 1992) My Life As A Mole and Five Other Stories (Calamus Books, 1988) In Heat: A Romance (Gay Presses of New York, 1986) The Terminal Bar (Calamus Books, 1982) The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions (Calamus Books, 1977) Great Gay in the Morning (with The Lavender Hill Group, Times Change Press, 1972) Willard Waller on The Family, Education and War (with William J. Goode and Frank F. Furstenberg, University of Chicago Press, 1970)

Plays 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)