Jack Fritscher
Encyclopedia
Jack Fritscher, Ph.D. is an American author, novelist, magazine journalist, gay historian, photographer, videographer, university professor, and social activist known internationally for his fiction and non-fiction analyses of gay popular culture. In 1968, he received his doctorate from Loyola University Chicago
and, as a pre-Stonewall gay activist, was an out and founding member of the American Popular Culture Association
. He was first published in 1958, and his first play was produced in 1959. He is the founding San Francisco editor in chief of Drummer magazine. Among literary peers Edmund White
, Felice Picano
, Andrew Holleran
, Ethan Mordden
, and Rita Mae Brown
, Fritscher is the first born, the earliest published, the only documentary filmmaker, and the most explicit literary writer.
Four of his most notable books are Some Dance to Remember: A Memoir-Novel of San Francisco 1970-1982, Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer - A Memoir of the Art, Sex, Salon, Pop Culture War, and Gay History of Drummer Magazine from the Titanic 1970s to 1999, and the memoir of his lover Mapplethorpe: Assault with a Deadly Camera, as well as the British photography book, selected and edited by Edward Lucie-Smith
, Jack Fritscher's American Men. His writing has been translated into Spanish, German, and Greek.
His academic writing has been published in the Bucknell Review
, Modern Drama, Journal of Popular Culture
, Censorship: A World Encyclopedia, and Playbill
. His photographs have been published by Taschen
, Rizzoli
, Weidenfeld & Nicolson
, Saint Martin's Press, Gay Men's Press
London, as well as by dozens of magazines, newspapers, and book publishers including his cover for James Purdy
's Narrow Rooms (1996). His videos as well as photographs are in the permanent collections of the Maison européenne de la photographie
, Paris; the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction; and the Leather Archives and Museum
. He has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and on BBC Channel 4 with Camille Paglia
.
As the founding San Francisco editor in chief of Drummer magazine, he was its most frequent contributor as editor, writer, and photographer through all three publishers, emerging as historian of the institutional memory of Drummer, San Francisco's longest-running magazine (1975–1999). At Drummer, he introduced into gay media such artists as Robert Mapplethorpe
and David Hurles (Old Reliable), and showcased talents such as Robert Opel
, Arthur Tress
, Samuel Steward (Phil Andros), Larry Townsend
, John Preston, Wakefield Poole
, Rex, and A. Jay. He was also the founding editor of the first gay "zine" of the 1980s Man2Man Quarterly (1979–1982) and San Francisco's California Action Guide (1982). With producer Mark Hemry in 1984, he co-founded the pioneering Palm Drive Video featuring homomasculine entertainment, which in 1996 expanded to Palm Drive Publishing, San Francisco. For Palm Drive he wrote, cast, and directed more than 150 video features. As an eyewitness participant, he contributed an article on artist Chuck Arnett to editor Mark Thompson's Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice. He is a frequent historical journalist for the Bay Area Reporter
and Leather Times. In 1972, he was the first gay writer to unearth and interview Samuel Steward (Phil Andros); his Steward audiotapes were referenced in Justin Spring's biography of Steward, Secret Historian (2010). As a gay popular culture critic, he began collecting his extensive gay history archive in 1965.
As an analyst and framer of gay linguistics in the first post-Stonewall decade when gay journalists were inventing new words for the emerging gay culture, he coined the gay-identity word homomasculinity, and redefined S&M as "Sensuality and Mutuality" (1974). Documenting on page and on screen the dawn of the "Daddies"
and "Bear" movements, he was the first writer and editor to feature "older men" in the gay press (Drummer 24, September 1978) and "Mountain Men
Bears" (Drummer 119, July 1988); he was also the first journalist to write specifically about hirsute men and first editor to publish the word "Bear" on a magazine cover (California Action Guide, November 1982); additionally, he was the first videographer to shoot documentary footage of the first "Bear" contest (Pilsner Inn, February 1987). Chris Nelson
photographed him for Richard Bulger
's original Bear magazine as well as for the photography book The Bear Cult selected and introduced by Edward Lucie-Smith
. As writer and photographer, he contributed fiction and photographs for covers and interior layouts for Bear magazine and other Brush Creek Media magazines. He wrote the introduction to Les Wright's Bear Book II and contributed to Ron Suresha
's Bears on Bears: Interviews & Discussions as well as to editor Mark Hemry's fiction anthology Tales of the Bear Cult. In addition to Chris Nelson
, he has been photographed by Robert Mapplethorpe
, Daniel Nicoletta
, Arthur Tress
, David Hurles, David Sparrow, Robert Opel
and his nephew Robert Oppel, and Jim Tushinski.
and growing up during World War II
in rental housing, he was that generation of gay persons who in their teens, during the 1950s, rebelled against conformity through the birth of pop culture and the Beats
; in their twenties, during the 1960s, they marched for peace and civil rights; and, in their thirties, during the 1970s, they dared secure the cultural and esthetic foundations of modern gay liberation in its first decade after the Stonewall riots
.
In 1953 at age fourteen, he received a Vatican
scholarship to the Pontifical College Josephinum
where he attended both high school and college studying Latin and Greek, earning a degree in philosophy in 1961, followed by graduate work in theology and the Scholasticism of Thomas Aquinas
(1961–1963). He was also schooled by Jesuits in the Humanism of Marsilio Ficino
, Erasmus, and Jacques Maritain
. In 1962, and 1963, inspired by French Worker-Priests
and tutored by Saul Alinsky
, he worked as a social activist on the South Side of Chicago
in the same neighborhoods worked twenty-five years later by Barack Obama
. He was ordained by the Apostolic Delegate with the orders of porter, lector, exorcist, and acolyte. In 1964, he entered Loyola University Chicago
and completed his master’s and doctoral programs, writing the first ever dissertation on Tennessee Williams
titled Love and Death in Tennessee Williams(1967).
In 1961, he first arrived in San Francisco establishing the city as the home base of his peregrine life. From there, as a university professor, beginning in 1965, he taught at Loyola University Chicago
, received tenure at Western Michigan University
, and was repeated visiting lecturer at Kalamazoo College
. From 1968 to 1975, he served on the board of directors of the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
where he founded and directed the museum film program. In 1969 he founded and taught the first film-as-literature courses at the Western Michigan University Department of English. In San Francisco, he transformed his academic credentials and his publishing career in the Catholic press into the straight corporate world as editorial writer for KGO-ABC TV, as technical writer for the San Francisco Muni Metro, and as manager of marketing at Kaiser Engineers, Inc. (1976–1982).
With twenty years' editorial experience, he entered post-Stonewall gay publishing as founding San Francisco editor in chief of Drummer magazine (March 1977-December 31, 1979); he was one of only two editors in chief in Drummer history. He also contributed to the start-up of dozens of other emerging gay magazines as well as to book anthologies for new publishers such as Gay Sunshine Press and Bowling Green University Press. His first novel was What They Did to the Kid: Confessions of an Altar Boy (1965), and his first gay novel was I Am Curious (Leather) aka Leather Blues (1969). He authored the first nonfiction book on gays and magic in Popular Witchcraft Straight from the Witch's Mouth (1972). His solo anthology Corporal in Charge and Other Stories was the first book collection of leather fiction and the first collection of fiction from Drummer. The title entry "Corporal in Charge" was the only play published by editor Winston Leyland in the Lambda Literary Award
Winner Gay Roots: Twenty Years of Gay Sunshine - An Anthology of Gay History, Sex, Politics & Culture (1991).
On May 22, 1979, the night after the White Night riots
, he first met his spouse Mark Hemry under the marquee of the Castro Theatre
during the post-riot Castro Street peace demonstration which also celebrated the birthday of Harvey Milk
. With a Civil Union
in Vermont (July 12, 2000) and a Canadian marriage (August 19, 2003), they were constitutionally married in California (June 20, 2008). His previous significant partners were David Sparrow and Robert Mapplethorpe
.
Novels
Non-Fiction
Academic & Professional Publications
Short Fiction Anthologies
Plays and Screenplays
Short Fiction Magazine Erotica
2009
2008
2007
2005
2002
2001
1999
1998
1990
1978
, Department of English: Completion of Interviews Conducted in 1972 of Samuel M. Steward (aka Phil Andros)
1974 National Endowment for the Humanities
, Literature and Culture in America, University of California, Berkeley
1969 Ray B. Browne
and Pat Browne Research Grant, American Popular Culture Association
: Interviews of Anton LaVey
, Frederic de Arechaga, and Others for Popular Witchcraft: Straight from the Witch's Mouth
1969 Filmmaker Grant, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
: 16mm Film for Television: Kalamazoo Art Center
Loyola University Chicago
Loyola University Chicago is a private Jesuit research university located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1870 under the title St...
and, as a pre-Stonewall gay activist, was an out and founding member of the American Popular Culture Association
Journal of Popular Culture
The Journal of Popular Culture is a peer-reviewed journal and the official publication of the Popular Culture Association.The Journal of Popular Culture publishes academic essays on all aspects of popular or mass culture...
. He was first published in 1958, and his first play was produced in 1959. He is the founding San Francisco editor in chief of Drummer magazine. Among literary peers Edmund White
Edmund White
Edmund Valentine White III is an American author and literary critic. He is a member of the faculty of Princeton University's Program in Creative Writing.- Life and work :...
, Felice Picano
Felice Picano
Felice Picano is an American writer. He graduated cum laude from Queens College in 1964 with English department honors. He founded SeaHorse Press in 1977, and The Gay Presses of New York in 1981 with Terry Helbing and Larry Mitchell; he was Editor-in-Chief there. He was an editor and writer for...
, Andrew Holleran
Andrew Holleran
Andrew Holleran is the pseudonym of Eric Garber , a novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is a prominent novelist of post-Stonewall gay literature. He was a member of The Violet Quill, a gay writer's group that met briefly from 1980-81. The Violet Quill included other prolific gay writers...
, Ethan Mordden
Ethan Mordden
Ethan Mordden is an American author.-Biography:Mordden was raised in Pennsylvania, in Venice, Italy, and on Long Island, and is a graduate of Friends Academy in Locust Valley, New York, and the University of Pennsylvania...
, and Rita Mae Brown
Rita Mae Brown
Rita Mae Brown is an American writer. She is best known for her first novel Rubyfruit Jungle. Published in 1973, it dealt with lesbian themes in an explicit manner unusual for the time...
, Fritscher is the first born, the earliest published, the only documentary filmmaker, and the most explicit literary writer.
Four of his most notable books are Some Dance to Remember: A Memoir-Novel of San Francisco 1970-1982, Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer - A Memoir of the Art, Sex, Salon, Pop Culture War, and Gay History of Drummer Magazine from the Titanic 1970s to 1999, and the memoir of his lover Mapplethorpe: Assault with a Deadly Camera, as well as the British photography book, selected and edited by Edward Lucie-Smith
Edward Lucie-Smith
John Edward McKenzie Lucie-Smith is a British writer, poet, art critic, curator, broadcaster and author of exhibition catalogues.-Biography:Lucie-Smith was born in Kingston, Jamaica, moving to the United Kingdom in 1946...
, Jack Fritscher's American Men. His writing has been translated into Spanish, German, and Greek.
His academic writing has been published in the Bucknell Review
Bucknell University Press
Bucknell University Press was founded in 1968 as part of a consortium operated by Associated University Presses and currently partnered with Rowman & Littlefield. Since then it has published more than 1000 titles in the humanities and social and biological sciences...
, Modern Drama, Journal of Popular Culture
Journal of Popular Culture
The Journal of Popular Culture is a peer-reviewed journal and the official publication of the Popular Culture Association.The Journal of Popular Culture publishes academic essays on all aspects of popular or mass culture...
, Censorship: A World Encyclopedia, and Playbill
Playbill
Playbill is a monthly U.S. magazine for theatregoers. Although there is a subscription issue available for home delivery, most Playbills are printed for particular shows to be distributed at the door...
. His photographs have been published by Taschen
Taschen
Taschen is an art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. It began as Taschen Comics publishing Benedikt's extensive comic collection...
, Rizzoli
RCS MediaGroup
RCS MediaGroup S.p.A. , based in Milan and listed on the Italian Stock Exchange, is an international multimedia publishing group that operates in daily newspapers, magazines and books, radio broadcasting, new media and digital and satellite TV...
, Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd is a British publisher of fiction and reference books. It is a division of the Orion Publishing Group.-History:...
, Saint Martin's Press, Gay Men's Press
Gay Men's Press
Gay Men's Press was a publisher of books based in London, United Kingdom. The company published from 1979 until 2006.Launched in 1979, the publisher was a welcome company for gay writers attempting to get published. The book business had been unwelcoming to such writers, publishing only works of...
London, as well as by dozens of magazines, newspapers, and book publishers including his cover for James Purdy
James Purdy
James Otis Purdy was a controversial American novelist, short story-writer, poet, and playwright who, since his debut in 1956, published over a dozen novels, and many collections of poetry, short stories, and plays. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages. He has been praised by...
's Narrow Rooms (1996). His videos as well as photographs are in the permanent collections of the Maison européenne de la photographie
Maison européenne de la photographie
The Maison Européenne de la Photographie, situated in the historic heart of Paris, is a major centre for contemporary photographic art. Since February 1996 it has housed an exhibition centre, a large library, an auditorium, and a video viewing facility with a wide selection of films...
, Paris; the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction; and the Leather Archives and Museum
Leather Archives and Museum
The Leather Archives & Museum , based in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, USA, has much information and details on the beginning of the leather subculture and BDSM community...
. He has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and on BBC Channel 4 with Camille Paglia
Camille Paglia
Camille Anna Paglia , is an American author, teacher, and social critic. Paglia, a self-described dissident feminist, has been a Professor at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania since 1984...
.
As the founding San Francisco editor in chief of Drummer magazine, he was its most frequent contributor as editor, writer, and photographer through all three publishers, emerging as historian of the institutional memory of Drummer, San Francisco's longest-running magazine (1975–1999). At Drummer, he introduced into gay media such artists as Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe was an American photographer, known for his large-scale, highly stylized black and white portraits, photos of flowers and nude men...
and David Hurles (Old Reliable), and showcased talents such as Robert Opel
Robert Opel
Robert Opel was a photographer and art gallery owner most famous as the man who streaked during the 46th Academy Awards in 1974...
, Arthur Tress
Arthur Tress
Arthur Tress is a notable American photographer born on November 24, 1940 in Brooklyn, New York. He is well known for his staged surrealism and exposition of the human body.- Education :* Abraham Lincoln High School, Coney Island, New York* B.F.A...
, Samuel Steward (Phil Andros), Larry Townsend
Larry Townsend
Larry Townsend was the pseudonymous author of dozens of books including Run Little Leather Boy and The Leatherman's Handbook at pioneer erotic presses such as Greenleaf Classics and the Other Traveler imprint of Olympia Press.Growing up as a teenager of Swiss-German extraction in Los Angeles a...
, John Preston, Wakefield Poole
Wakefield Poole
Wakefield Poole is an American dancer, choreographer, theatrical director, and pioneering film director in the gay pornography industry from the 1970s and 1980s....
, Rex, and A. Jay. He was also the founding editor of the first gay "zine" of the 1980s Man2Man Quarterly (1979–1982) and San Francisco's California Action Guide (1982). With producer Mark Hemry in 1984, he co-founded the pioneering Palm Drive Video featuring homomasculine entertainment, which in 1996 expanded to Palm Drive Publishing, San Francisco. For Palm Drive he wrote, cast, and directed more than 150 video features. As an eyewitness participant, he contributed an article on artist Chuck Arnett to editor Mark Thompson's Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice. He is a frequent historical journalist for the Bay Area Reporter
Bay Area Reporter
The Bay Area Reporter is a free weekly newspaper serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered communities in the San Francisco Bay Area; it is the oldest-continuously published, and one of the largest LGBT newspapers in the United States....
and Leather Times. In 1972, he was the first gay writer to unearth and interview Samuel Steward (Phil Andros); his Steward audiotapes were referenced in Justin Spring's biography of Steward, Secret Historian (2010). As a gay popular culture critic, he began collecting his extensive gay history archive in 1965.
As an analyst and framer of gay linguistics in the first post-Stonewall decade when gay journalists were inventing new words for the emerging gay culture, he coined the gay-identity word homomasculinity, and redefined S&M as "Sensuality and Mutuality" (1974). Documenting on page and on screen the dawn of the "Daddies"
Daddy (gay culture)
A Daddy in gay culture is a slang term meaning an older man sexually involved in a relationship or having a sexual interest in a younger man. The age gap may differ, but the relationship involves the traditional parental hierarchy of father-son dynamics, the daddy providing emotional support and...
and "Bear" movements, he was the first writer and editor to feature "older men" in the gay press (Drummer 24, September 1978) and "Mountain Men
Mountain man
Mountain men were trappers and explorers who roamed the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 through the 1880s where they were instrumental in opening up the various Emigrant Trails allowing Americans in the east to settle the new territories of the far west by organized wagon trains...
Bears" (Drummer 119, July 1988); he was also the first journalist to write specifically about hirsute men and first editor to publish the word "Bear" on a magazine cover (California Action Guide, November 1982); additionally, he was the first videographer to shoot documentary footage of the first "Bear" contest (Pilsner Inn, February 1987). Chris Nelson
Chris Nelson (photographer)
Chris Nelson , photographer and co-founder of Bear Magazine in the 1980s, was the photographic pioneer in the gay-oriented erotic photography of mature men with hairy bodies and facial hair...
photographed him for Richard Bulger
Richard Bulger
Richard Bulger is credited with coining the term "Bear" in 1985 as a description for heavy-set, often bearded and hairy gay men, eventually creating Bear Magazine in 1987. He was a pioneer in the publishing of erotic photography and stories for what grew into today's bear community...
's original Bear magazine as well as for the photography book The Bear Cult selected and introduced by Edward Lucie-Smith
Edward Lucie-Smith
John Edward McKenzie Lucie-Smith is a British writer, poet, art critic, curator, broadcaster and author of exhibition catalogues.-Biography:Lucie-Smith was born in Kingston, Jamaica, moving to the United Kingdom in 1946...
. As writer and photographer, he contributed fiction and photographs for covers and interior layouts for Bear magazine and other Brush Creek Media magazines. He wrote the introduction to Les Wright's Bear Book II and contributed to Ron Suresha
Ron Suresha
Ron Jackson Suresha is an American author and anthologist of books centering on gay and bisexual men's subcultures, particularly the Bear community.-Biography:Suresha was born in Detroit, Michigan...
's Bears on Bears: Interviews & Discussions as well as to editor Mark Hemry's fiction anthology Tales of the Bear Cult. In addition to Chris Nelson
Chris Nelson (photographer)
Chris Nelson , photographer and co-founder of Bear Magazine in the 1980s, was the photographic pioneer in the gay-oriented erotic photography of mature men with hairy bodies and facial hair...
, he has been photographed by Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe was an American photographer, known for his large-scale, highly stylized black and white portraits, photos of flowers and nude men...
, Daniel Nicoletta
Daniel Nicoletta
Daniel Nicoletta is an American photographer, photo journalist and gay rights activist.-Biography:Born in New York City, Daniel Nicoletta was raised in Utica, NY. In his late teens he left New York to attend San Francisco State University, later graduating from the Bachelor of Arts program...
, Arthur Tress
Arthur Tress
Arthur Tress is a notable American photographer born on November 24, 1940 in Brooklyn, New York. He is well known for his staged surrealism and exposition of the human body.- Education :* Abraham Lincoln High School, Coney Island, New York* B.F.A...
, David Hurles, David Sparrow, Robert Opel
Robert Opel
Robert Opel was a photographer and art gallery owner most famous as the man who streaked during the 46th Academy Awards in 1974...
and his nephew Robert Oppel, and Jim Tushinski.
Early life
Fritscher was raised in Peoria, Illinois. His father was the child of Socialist Austrian-Catholic immigrant stonemasons (arrived 1885) and his mother was the grandchild of Irish-Catholic immigrant steelworkers (arrived 1847). His uncle and namesake was the noted World War II Catholic army chaplain, Father John B. Day. Born during the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
and growing up during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in rental housing, he was that generation of gay persons who in their teens, during the 1950s, rebelled against conformity through the birth of pop culture and the Beats
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
; in their twenties, during the 1960s, they marched for peace and civil rights; and, in their thirties, during the 1970s, they dared secure the cultural and esthetic foundations of modern gay liberation in its first decade after the Stonewall riots
Stonewall riots
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City...
.
In 1953 at age fourteen, he received a Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
scholarship to the Pontifical College Josephinum
Pontifical College Josephinum
The Pontifical College Josephinum is a four-year, Roman Catholic liberal arts college and graduate school of theology founded by Monsignor Joseph Jessing in 1888 and located in Columbus, Ohio, USA. The seminary prepares its students to become priests in the Roman Catholic Church. Students come...
where he attended both high school and college studying Latin and Greek, earning a degree in philosophy in 1961, followed by graduate work in theology and the Scholasticism of Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...
(1961–1963). He was also schooled by Jesuits in the Humanism of Marsilio Ficino
Marsilio Ficino
Marsilio Ficino was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance, an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism who was in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day, and the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin...
, Erasmus, and Jacques Maritain
Jacques Maritain
Jacques Maritain was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive St. Thomas Aquinas for modern times and is a prominent drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
. In 1962, and 1963, inspired by French Worker-Priests
Worker-Priest
Worker-priest was a missionary initiative by the French Catholic Church in particular for priests to take up work in such places as car factories to experience the everyday life of the working class...
and tutored by Saul Alinsky
Saul Alinsky
Saul David Alinsky was a Jewish American community organizer and writer. He is generally considered to be the founder of modern community organizing, and has been compared in Playboy magazine to Thomas Paine as being "one of the great American leaders of the nonsocialist left." He is often noted...
, he worked as a social activist on the South Side of Chicago
South Side (Chicago)
The South Side is a major part of the City of Chicago, which is located in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Much of it has evolved from the city's incorporation of independent townships, such as Hyde Park Township which voted along with several other townships to be annexed in the June 29,...
in the same neighborhoods worked twenty-five years later by Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
. He was ordained by the Apostolic Delegate with the orders of porter, lector, exorcist, and acolyte. In 1964, he entered Loyola University Chicago
Loyola University Chicago
Loyola University Chicago is a private Jesuit research university located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1870 under the title St...
and completed his master’s and doctoral programs, writing the first ever dissertation on Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
titled Love and Death in Tennessee Williams(1967).
In 1961, he first arrived in San Francisco establishing the city as the home base of his peregrine life. From there, as a university professor, beginning in 1965, he taught at Loyola University Chicago
Loyola University Chicago
Loyola University Chicago is a private Jesuit research university located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1870 under the title St...
, received tenure at Western Michigan University
Western Michigan University
Western Michigan University is a public university located in Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States. The university was established in 1903 by Dwight B. Waldo, and as of the Fall 2010 semester, its enrollment is 25,045....
, and was repeated visiting lecturer at Kalamazoo College
Kalamazoo College
Kalamazoo College, also known as K College or simply K, is a private liberal arts college in Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1833, the college is among the 100 oldest in the country. Today, it produces more Peace Corps volunteers per capita than any other U.S...
. From 1968 to 1975, he served on the board of directors of the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
The Kalamazoo Institute of Arts is a non-profit visual arts museum and school in downtown Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States. Admission to most exhibitions and programs is free.-History:...
where he founded and directed the museum film program. In 1969 he founded and taught the first film-as-literature courses at the Western Michigan University Department of English. In San Francisco, he transformed his academic credentials and his publishing career in the Catholic press into the straight corporate world as editorial writer for KGO-ABC TV, as technical writer for the San Francisco Muni Metro, and as manager of marketing at Kaiser Engineers, Inc. (1976–1982).
With twenty years' editorial experience, he entered post-Stonewall gay publishing as founding San Francisco editor in chief of Drummer magazine (March 1977-December 31, 1979); he was one of only two editors in chief in Drummer history. He also contributed to the start-up of dozens of other emerging gay magazines as well as to book anthologies for new publishers such as Gay Sunshine Press and Bowling Green University Press. His first novel was What They Did to the Kid: Confessions of an Altar Boy (1965), and his first gay novel was I Am Curious (Leather) aka Leather Blues (1969). He authored the first nonfiction book on gays and magic in Popular Witchcraft Straight from the Witch's Mouth (1972). His solo anthology Corporal in Charge and Other Stories was the first book collection of leather fiction and the first collection of fiction from Drummer. The title entry "Corporal in Charge" was the only play published by editor Winston Leyland in the Lambda Literary Award
Lambda Literary Award
Lambda Literary Awards are awarded yearly by the US-based Lambda Literary Foundation to published works which celebrate or explore LGBT themes. Categories include Humor, Romance and Biography. To qualify, a book must have been published in the United States in the year current to the award...
Winner Gay Roots: Twenty Years of Gay Sunshine - An Anthology of Gay History, Sex, Politics & Culture (1991).
On May 22, 1979, the night after the White Night riots
White Night Riots
The White Night riots were a series of violent events sparked by an announcement of the lenient sentencing of Dan White, for the assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk. The events took place on the night of May 21, 1979 in San Francisco...
, he first met his spouse Mark Hemry under the marquee of the Castro Theatre
Castro Theatre
The Castro Theatre is a popular San Francisco movie palace which became San Francisco Historic Landmark #100 in September 1976. Located at 429 Castro Street, in the Castro district, it was built in 1922 with a Spanish Colonial Baroque façade that pays homage—in its great arched central window...
during the post-riot Castro Street peace demonstration which also celebrated the birthday of Harvey Milk
Harvey Milk
Harvey Bernard Milk was an American politician who became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors...
. With a Civil Union
Civil union
A civil union, also referred to as a civil partnership, is a legally recognized form of partnership similar to marriage. Beginning with Denmark in 1989, civil unions under one name or another have been established by law in many developed countries in order to provide same-sex couples rights,...
in Vermont (July 12, 2000) and a Canadian marriage (August 19, 2003), they were constitutionally married in California (June 20, 2008). His previous significant partners were David Sparrow and Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe was an American photographer, known for his large-scale, highly stylized black and white portraits, photos of flowers and nude men...
.
Writing by Fritscher
Novels
- Some Dance to Remember: A Memoir-Novel of San Francisco 1970-1982
- What They did to the Kid
- Leather Blues
- The Geography of Women: A Romantic Comedy
Non-Fiction
- Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer - A Memoir of the Sex, Art, Salon, Pop Culture War, and Gay History of Drummer Magazine from the Titanic 1970s to 1999, Vol. 1
- Mapplethorpe: Assault with a Deadly Camera: A Pop Culture Memoir-An Outlaw Reminiscence
- Popular Witchcraft: Straight from the Witch's Mouth
- Television Today
- Love and Death in Tennessee Williams
- When Malory Met Arthur: Love and Death in Camelot
Academic & Professional Publications
Short Fiction Anthologies
Plays and Screenplays
Short Fiction Magazine Erotica
Books featuring writing by Fritscher
Jack Fritscher Appearing in Others WorksAwards
2010- San Francisco Book Festival: Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer Vol. 1
- Living Now Book Awards: Gold Medal-GLBT Fiction - Stonewall: Stories of Gay Liberation
- Pantheon of Leather: Northern California Regional Award
2009
- Independent Publisher Book AwardIndependent Publisher Book AwardThe Independent Publisher Book Awards , launched in 1996, are designed to bring increased recognition to titles published by independent authors and publishers...
: Bronze Medal-Gay/Lesbian - Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer Vol. 1 - National Leather Association InternationalNational Leather Association InternationalNational Leather Association:International is a contemporary BDSM organization based in the United States. NLA-I is a pansexual organization with chapters all over the United States and Canada. It is an association of leather peoples with a common philosophy...
: Geoff Mains Non-Fiction Best Book Award - Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer Vol. 1 - National Leather Association InternationalNational Leather Association InternationalNational Leather Association:International is a contemporary BDSM organization based in the United States. NLA-I is a pansexual organization with chapters all over the United States and Canada. It is an association of leather peoples with a common philosophy...
: Cynthia Slater Non-Fiction Feature Article Award - "Spill a Drop for Lost Brothers: An Obituary for Larry Townsend"
2008
- ForeWord MagazineForeWord (magazine)ForeWord is a trade journal published six times yearly with the tagline, “Reviews of Good Books Independently Published.” The magazine is distributed primarily to librarians and booksellers to familiarize them with upcoming books from small, independent, and university presses, as well as...
's Book of the Year: Bronze Medal-Gay/Lesbian Fiction - Stonewall: Stories of Gay Liberation
2007
- Erotic Authors Association: Lifetime Achievement Award
- ForeWord MagazineForeWord (magazine)ForeWord is a trade journal published six times yearly with the tagline, “Reviews of Good Books Independently Published.” The magazine is distributed primarily to librarians and booksellers to familiarize them with upcoming books from small, independent, and university presses, as well as...
's Book of the Year: Bronze Medal-Gay/Lesbian Non-Fiction - Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer Vol. 1
2005
- ForeWord MagazineForeWord (magazine)ForeWord is a trade journal published six times yearly with the tagline, “Reviews of Good Books Independently Published.” The magazine is distributed primarily to librarians and booksellers to familiarize them with upcoming books from small, independent, and university presses, as well as...
's Book of the Year: Gold Medal-Gay/Lesbian Fiction - Some Dance to Remember: A Memoir-Novel of San Francisco 1970-1982
2002
- Independent Publisher Book AwardIndependent Publisher Book AwardThe Independent Publisher Book Awards , launched in 1996, are designed to bring increased recognition to titles published by independent authors and publishers...
: Outstanding Book of the Year Award - What They Did to the Kid: Confessions of an Altar Boy - Independent Publisher Book AwardIndependent Publisher Book AwardThe Independent Publisher Book Awards , launched in 1996, are designed to bring increased recognition to titles published by independent authors and publishers...
: Story Teller of the Year Award - What They Did to the Kid: Confessions of an Altar Boy
2001
- Independent Publisher Book AwardIndependent Publisher Book AwardThe Independent Publisher Book Awards , launched in 1996, are designed to bring increased recognition to titles published by independent authors and publishers...
: Finalist-Gay/Lesbian - Corporal in Charge of Taking Care of Captain O'Malley and Other Stories
1999
- Independent Publisher Book AwardIndependent Publisher Book AwardThe Independent Publisher Book Awards , launched in 1996, are designed to bring increased recognition to titles published by independent authors and publishers...
: Finalist-Gay/Lesbian - The Geography of Women
1998
- Small Press Book Awards: Gold Medal-Erotica/Sex - Rainbow County and Other Stories
1990
- Lambda Literary AwardLambda Literary AwardLambda Literary Awards are awarded yearly by the US-based Lambda Literary Foundation to published works which celebrate or explore LGBT themes. Categories include Humor, Romance and Biography. To qualify, a book must have been published in the United States in the year current to the award...
: Finalist/Best Gay Novel - Some Dance to Remember: A Memoir-Novel of San Francisco 1970-1982
1978
- Society for Technical Communication Awards, San Francisco, Pacifica/Golden Gate Chapters Best Public Relations Brochure: "Alumina: Kaiser Engineers, Inc."
- Society for Technical Communication Awards, San Francisco, Pacifica/Golden Gate Chapters Best Public Relations Brochure: "Steel: Kaiser Engineers, Inc." (The two brochures tied for First Place.)
Grants
1975 Faculty Research Fellowship Grant, Western Michigan UniversityWestern Michigan University
Western Michigan University is a public university located in Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States. The university was established in 1903 by Dwight B. Waldo, and as of the Fall 2010 semester, its enrollment is 25,045....
, Department of English: Completion of Interviews Conducted in 1972 of Samuel M. Steward (aka Phil Andros)
1974 National Endowment for the Humanities
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...
, Literature and Culture in America, University of California, Berkeley
1969 Ray B. Browne
Ray B. Browne
Ray Broadus Browne , was an American educator, author, and founder of the academic study of popular culture in the United States. He was Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. He founded the first academic Department of Popular Culture at...
and Pat Browne Research Grant, American Popular Culture Association
Journal of Popular Culture
The Journal of Popular Culture is a peer-reviewed journal and the official publication of the Popular Culture Association.The Journal of Popular Culture publishes academic essays on all aspects of popular or mass culture...
: Interviews of Anton LaVey
Anton LaVey
Anton Szandor LaVey , born Howard Stanton Levey, was the founder of the Church of Satan as well as a writer, occultist, and musician...
, Frederic de Arechaga, and Others for Popular Witchcraft: Straight from the Witch's Mouth
1969 Filmmaker Grant, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
The Kalamazoo Institute of Arts is a non-profit visual arts museum and school in downtown Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States. Admission to most exhibitions and programs is free.-History:...
: 16mm Film for Television: Kalamazoo Art Center