OutWrite: The Speeches That Shaped LGBTQ Literary Culture

More than two dozen keynote speeches, panel addresses, memorial lectures, and performances from the OutWrite conferences of the 1990s come together in this fascinating and rousing volume. Arranged chronologically from 1990 to 1998, the volume reflects how the conferences gained impetus and focus thanks to the inclusion of more feminist and BIPOC voices. Essex Hemphill discusses the objectification of Black gay men in his 1990 speech “Does Your Mama Know About Me?”; Mariana Romo-Carmona’s 1992 keynote “The Color of my Narrative” urges writers to resist “censorship, exclusion, [and] deliberately twisting history to support the Eurocentric view”; and Cheryl Clarke pays tribute to Audre Lorde’s enduring power in her 1996 lecture “A House of Difference.” The pieces are a phenomenal look at a serires of events that defined the concerns and shaped the politics of LGBTQ literary America: “We are the evolving revolution,” said keynote speaker Minnie Bruce Pratt in 1996, “and the work we make is part of the world that will come to be.” Far from academic ephemera, these resonant messages offer ever relevant takes on the current discourse around identity, inclusion, dissent, and the responsibility of the artist. The result is an indispensable addition to literary and cultural history. (Mar.)