This past November, Never Apart helped me bring literary legend Felice Picano to Montreal for a frank on-stage discussion about his work.
I was thrilled they trusted me with this, and I hope it’s the beginning of many more such events. There are so many great writers I’d like to bring to town, and it’s great to have a community partner ready to lend a hand to make that happen.
I first discovered Picano in the pages of The Violet Quill Reader, an anthology featuring work from the storied group of seven gay male writers that met in New York in the early 1980s. Even though the group got together met a handful of times, some of their members went on to write the most important books of the post-Stonewall era.
I’ve now met all three of the surviving members: Felice Picano, Andrew Holleran and Edmund White. Picano is by far the most prolific of the group. Not only did he publish more than 30 books, he was also the co-owner of two of North America’s first gay presses: Seahorse and Gay Presses of New York (you can read all about this time in the fascinating Art and Sex in Greenwich Village).
Felice Picano was generous enough to agree to come to Montreal to speak with me about his legacy in front of an audience. Never Apart filmed the interview and uploaded it online. You can watch it below.