Preston falls to AIDS
Vicki Richman
By Bob B. Chatelle
Boston Local member and longtime National Writers Union
activist John Preston died of AIDS at this home in Portland,
Maine this past Wednesday. John was 48.
John was a dedicated and devoted member of the National
Writers Union and he gave generously of his time to the
Boston Local. He could be counted on to come down from
Portland to appear on panels at out Spring Writers Confer-
ence, to speak out for our rights on Writers Rights Day, to
participate in readings, or to speak to WORDS/NWU, the
local's gay/lesbian/bisexual caucus. John was a fierce
advocate of free speech and an opponent of censorship in all
of its insidious forms.
I did not know John Preston, although he was most definitely
one of my heroes. I first met him in the fall of 1990, when
he did a panel with Amy Hoffman for the Local's sexual-
minority caucus. John, who first attracted a following with
the novel, _Mr. Benson_, serialized in _Drummer_ magazine,
spoke frankly and intelligently about writing pornography.
In so doing, he gave me permission to write pornography
myself and to confront the internalized sexual oppression
that had long hampered me as a writer, as an activist, and
as a human being. In a most significant way, John Preston
was my liberator. (I've since had a number of sex stories
published in magazines that cater to the gay male audience.
The only magazines that have ever paid me on acceptance,
rather than publication, are those published by _The Advo-
cate_. John was once editor of _The Advocate_, and I sus-
pect that this policy is his legacy.)
Over the past several years, John devoted much of his time
to compiling and publishing anthologies, including _Personal
Dispatches: Writers Confront AIDS_, _Hometowns: Gay Men
Write About Where They Belong_, and _The Big Gay Book: A
Man's Survival Guide for the '90s_. He also anthologized
two volumes of erotic writing: _Flesh and the Word_ and
_Flesh and the Word: II._ As an editor, John was thrilled
to get many people into print, some of them for the first
time.
As a gay man, I mourn the loss of John Preston because it
comes at a time when we are so desperately in need of his
kind of intelligence and leadership. Our national lobbying
groups are now dominated by assimilationists who beg for
acceptance, people unwilling and unable to fight for sexual
liberation, people eager to sacrifice the rights of those at
the margins to ensure "a place at the table" for those will-
ing to obey and conform. John would've had none of it.
John celebrated freedom and would never trade in his dignity
in exchange for mere tolerance.
About a year ago, I had the honor of appearing on a panel
with John at the Spring Writers Conference of the Boston
Local. The last time I saw him was last fall at the Out-
Write conference in Boston. Due to the last-minute cancel-
lation of Tony Kushner, John was asked to give the keynote
address with just a few hours notice. He, of course, did a
fine job.
About a month ago, Maria Pallante, the Executive Director of
the National Writers Union, wrote to John to ask him to
serve on our Advisory Board. At the time, we did not real-
ize how serious his illness had become. He was, unfortu-
nately, unable to respond. I hope, however, that at least
he was pleased to have been asked.
The last time I saw John was at OutWrite, when I attended
his workshop on writing pornography. He was asked what he
looked for as an editor, and what might make him reject a
submission. "I will not accept a story," he said, "if you
degrade your characters. You may put your characters
through hell, but you must always treat them with dignity
and respect." It was a typical John Preston comment. John
was a gentleman who treated his fictional characters as well
as those he encountered in reality with dignity and respect.
I'm sorry I didn't know him better. He is a loss to the
union, to the sexual-minority community, to humanity as a
whole. We will miss him.
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Bob Chatelle k...@world.std.com National Writers Union
Cambridge, Massachusetts UAW Local 1981, AFL/CIO
Boston Coalition for Freedom of Expression
PGP Public Key Available on Request
"Censorship is the strongest drive in human nature; sex is a weak second."
--Phil Kerby
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Vicki Richman vic...@panix.com National Writers Union
Bedford, Brooklyn NY PGP 2.3a UAW Local 1981, AFL/CIO
"There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you."
-Zora Neale Hurston