San Francisco's own, internationally best-selling author, Armistead Maupin, discusses the new book, Michael Tolliver Lives where he revisits the now 55-year-old Michael Tolliver, allowing him to tell his story in his own voice.
Bio
Bevan Dufty
Bevan Dufty is a Member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
Supervisor Bevan Dufty was elected in December of 2002 and re-elected in November 2007 and represents San Francisco's District 8. District 8 encompasses Noe Valley, The Castro, Glen Park, Diamond Heights, Duboce Triangle, Dolores Park & San Jose / Guerrero, and Buena Vista Heights neighborhoods.
Armistead Maupin
Armistead Maupin was born in Washington, DC, in 1944 but grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. A graduate of the University of North Carolina, he served as a naval officer in the Mediterranean and with the River Patrol Force in Vietnam.
Maupin worked briefly as a reporter for a newspaper in Charleston, South Carolina, before being assigned to the San Francisco bureau of the Associated Press in 1971. The climate of freedom and tolerance he found in his adopted city inspired him to come out publicly as homosexual in 1974. Two years later he launched his Tales of the City serial in the San Francisco Chronicle, the first fiction to appear in an American daily for decades.
Maupin is the author of nine novels, including the six-volume Tales of the City series, Maybe the Moon, The Night Listener and, most recently, Michael Tolliver Lives.
Three miniseries starring Olympia Dukakis and Laura Linney were made from the first three novels in the Tales series. The Night Listener became a feature film starring Robin Williams and Toni Collette.
Sexual interest in and attraction to members of one's own sex. Female homosexuality is frequently referred to as lesbianism; the word gay is often used as an alternative for both homosexual and lesbian, though it may refer specifically to male homosexuality. At different times and in different cultures, homosexual behaviour has variously been encouraged, approved of, tolerated, punished, and banned. Homosexuality was not uncommon in ancient Greece and Rome, particularly between adult and adolescent males. Jewish, Christian, and Muslim cultures have generally viewed it as sinful, although many religious leaders have said it is the act, and not the inclination, that their faiths proscribe. Attitudes toward homosexuality are generally in flux, partly because of increased political activism (seegay rights movement). Until the early 1970s many medical organizations, such as the American Psychiatric Association, classified homosexuality as a mental illness, but that designation was widely dropped in subsequent years. Longstanding beliefs about homosexuals (including the stereotype that gay men are weak and effeminate and lesbians aggressive and masculine) have also largely faded; some countries, cultures, and religious groups, however, continue to view homosexuality as deviant. Homosexual orientation, like sexuality in general, apparently results from a combination of hereditary factors and social or environmental influences, and it tends to coexist with heterosexual feelings in varying degrees in different individuals.