[ Golden Gater Online - September 16, 1997 ]
It can be an intimidating experience for any writer to go from the personal world of silently putting words on paper, to the public world of presenting to an audience. For gay writers, the experience can be compounded by the fact that some people simply are still not ready or are unwilling to accept gay words.
But now, gay and lesbian writers at SF State have a forum of their own where they can focus solely on their writing without worrying about whether someone will get hung up on the fact that the author or is the theme is gay.
A new group called GLOW, Gays and Lesbians Organized in Writing, is the first campus organization dedicated specifically to aspiring gay and lesbian writers.
The organization is the brainchild of Patrick Ryan, who is working on a masters degree of fine arts in the creative writing program. He is also the organizer of Queer Words, a poetry reading and benefit for the Cindy Kolb AIDS fund that has been held the past four semesters.
"First and foremost (GLOW) is a collaboration of gay and lesbian writers to promote gay and lesbian writing within the community and within SF State," Ryan said.
He and 11 other writers, about half from the MFA program, showed up for the group's initial meeting last week.
The 27-year-old Ryan said it was not some other campus group that inspired him to think of GLOW, instead, he said, "I think is was the lack of one that really got my mind going."
Even after Ryan got his mind going, he and the group experienced a small glitch leading up to their first meeting -- someone kept stealing the flyers Ryan had made for the event. He had to post them three times. He said he is not sure who was taking them down, and although it was upsetting, he cautioned about jumping to conclusions.
A former staffer with Fourteen Hills and Transfer, literary publications of SF State, Ryan said he hopes GLOW will reach a point where it too can be publishing a literary journal, one of gay writing. He said workshops with established gay writers and a GLOW web-site dedicated to gay writing will hopefully be part of the group's near future.
"We are hoping it will be real fun," he said. He added that you do not have to be gay to join.
Of those attending the first GLOW meeting, one was Jewelle Gomez, an instructor and director of the Poetry Center, who said that once Ryan started kicking the idea for GLOW around, it seemed a natural.
"I thought, 'hmmn,' why did it take so long," Gomez said.
"I also think in a city like San Francisco, which has a large openly gay and lesbian population, it is helpful to take advantage of that as a resource, which you can do when you identify yourself and your interest."
Gomez said she particularly felt that GLOW could help new gay writers who may need help finding themselves, and that having a support group to explore ideas in was invaluable. She said that all too often, if a minority writer is without some kind of support, or without any role models to relate to, they can end up thinking they do not matter -- as people and as writers.
"I know for me as a writer, as a lesbian, it was really significant to me early in my career the first time I heard a black woman poet. Because until that time, I felt really blocked as a poet," Gomez said. "I felt, 'who would be interested in what I have to say.' "
That is something Ryan and Gomez hope no one in GLOW will feel at SF State.
For those that are interested, Ryan said the next GLOW meeting will be held Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the Poetry Center reading room, Humanities 512.