Stan Leventhal

18/06/2025

REMEMBERING THE WORK OF STAN

https://lambdaliteraryreview.org/2020/04/stan-leventhal/

28/05/2025

A Letter from Our Director - Saints and Sinners Literary Festival

In its twenty-two year history, the Saints and Sinners LGBTQ+ Literary Festival has established itself as one of the premier literary festivals in the country, showcasing the works of hundreds of best-selling and critically acclaimed LGBTQ+ writers from throughout the U.S., Canada, and abroad. Past attendees represent a “Who’s Who” of LGBTQ+ Arts and Letters including: Dorothy Allison, Ann Bannon, David Bergman, Lucy Jane Bledsoe, Patrick Califia, Michael Cunningham, Mark Doty, Elana Dykewomon, Jewelle Gomez, Judy Grahn, Jim Grimsley, Andrew Holleran, Saeed Jones, G. Winston James, Judith Katz, Moises Kaufman, Joan Larkin, Stephen McCauley, Val McDermid, Tim Miller, Michael Nava, Felice Picano, Carol Seajay, Martin Sherman, Patricia Nell Warren, Edmund White, and Emanuel Xavier to name a few.

Under the umbrella of the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival, Saints and Sinners has been strong and resilient much like many of Williams’ female characters. SASFest has survived Hurricane Katrina, COVID-19, and will work hard to persevere and press on during the current economic climate with public funding and grant money being cut from the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities.

We would like to do more than just endure the current climate, but we’d like to continue our tradition of championing LGBTQ+ authors through tough times and providing a safe space for those who need it. With this in mind, it’s our goal to provide travel stipends for young writers that otherwise would not be able to attend next year’s Saints and Sinners, and we would like to video record, edit, and publish at least ten of our 2026 literary discussions to our YouTube channel to archive the Festival’s history and provide accessible, quality content for those individuals unable to travel to New Orleans in March.

But we need your help to accomplish these goals. Please consider donating to Saints and Sinners for Give Out Day, a campaign dedicated to funding LGBTQ+ nonprofits through June.

Click here to show your support: https://www.giveoutday.org/organization/Sasfest

We appreciate your support at any level that works for you. If unable to give at this time, please considering sharing our donation page or our writing contests on social media. Every voice makes a difference!

Sincerely,
Paul J. Willis,
Executive Director

https://www.giveoutday.org/organization/Sasfest

SASFest offers a place for LGBTQ+ readers and writers to network, share ideas, solve problems, and celebrate success. A three-day event held each March in tandem with our parent organization, the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival, SAS offers literary...

24/05/2025

Focus on the human experience: Leventhal's writing explored the "multiplicity and depth of lived experience," especially within the gay community during the AIDS epidemic. He focused on everyday life, friendships, and the joys and sorrows of being young and creative in Manhattan.

Plain-spoken language: Similar to Christopher Isherwood, Leventhal used straightforward language to convey complex emotions and experiences. This allowed for a more intimate and relatable narrative.

Granting humanity: Leventhal aimed to portray characters with their full humanity, moving beyond stereotypes and offering "full portraits".

Celebrating q***r life: His work celebrated gay identities and experiences at a time when such voices were crucial.
Intertwining life and death: His stories often intertwined themes of life, death, and survival, particularly in the context of the AIDS epidemic.

Advocacy for social causes: Leventhal was a passionate advocate for social causes, including literacy. His message to readers emphasized the importance of literature and the joy of reading.
"We lived our lives, had our fun, hoped for the best." This phrase, though not a direct quote attributed to Leventhal, captures the spirit of resilience and determination that characterized the lives of many gay men during the AIDS epidemic, which his work explored.

26/04/2025

ONE DAY. FIFTY STATES. 1600 Bookstores.

Plenty of new books out this season along with backlists that will keep you reading forever.

This national one-day party held the last Saturday in April celebrates independent bookstores across the country online and in-store. Through exclusive books and literary items, contests, cupcakes, and everything in between, it’s a party you don’t want to miss!

15/01/2025

Thirty years ago today I lost my brother, Stan, to AIDS! He was not only my brother, but my best friend! He was also a writer, musician & friend to many & co-founded the Pat Parker/Vito Russo Center Library in NY! Not a day goes by I don’t think of him or wish I could give him a call to talk about the latest in music & politics. I miss him every day. I will keep fighting the fight against HIV/AIDS, like I do every year, in his memory! A special thanks to ReQueered Tales for bringing some of his works back to life & helping to keep his memory alive!

26/10/2024

This past October the The Le***an, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Centerthey celebrated re-opening of the Pat Parker/Vito Russo Library.

Carol Rosenfeld representing The Publishing Triangle read the following piece -

Stan Leventhal had a vision—one that would create a library dedicated to LGBTQ books. He shared this vision with others, including the Publishing Triangle and the Center, and introduced what he called his "lion," a metaphor for his passion and central concept. Stan's dedication was clear: he wanted the library to be a full service lending library and also serve as a repository for out-of-print LGBTQ literature, ensuring these works would always be available.

That vision became reality with the establishment of the Pat Parker/Vito Russo Library, created by the Publishing Triangle and the Le***an and Gay Community Services Center of New York. Named in honor of poet Pat Parker and author-activist Vito Russo, the library served as a lending and browsing space for LGBTQ literature.

Stan was later joined by Kevin Jennings and Brian Phillips, and together with the help of dedicated volunteers and donated books, they built the library, one shelf at a time. Over time, the vision was for the Library to become more than just a collection of books—it would become a space for community engagement, hosting book fairs, readings, lectures, seminars, storytelling programs, and a special literacy program that was close to Stan's heart, aimed at helping those who needed reading assistance.

Their ultimate goal was for the library to become a permanent fixture at New York’s LGBTQ+ Community Services Center.

And now, with the re-opening of the library, I know that Stan would be sipping his glass of jack, taking a slow pull of his cigarette and be beaming with joy.

https://gaycenter.org/event/pat-parker-vito-russo-library-re-launch-event/

https://donyc.com/events/2024/11/24/open-pat-parker-vito-russo-library-tickets

Check out (OPEN) Pat Parker/Vito Russo Library at The Center in New York on November 24, 2024 and get detailed info for the event - tickets, photos, video and reviews.

29/09/2024

DID YOU KNOW that Stan's Uncle was Harold Leventhal?

He loved his Uncle. Harold came to Stan's memorial at The LGBTQ Center in NYC.

Harold Leventhal (May 24, 1919 – October 4, 2005) was an American music manager. Leventhal's career began as a song plugger for Irving Berlin and then Benny Goodman.

While working for Goodman, he connected with a new artist, Frank Sinatra, booking him as a singer for a Benny Goodman event. Leventhal later managed The Weavers, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Alan Arkin, Judy Collins, Theodore Bikel, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, Mary Travers, Tom Paxton, Don McLean and many others, and promoted major concert events in the genre, thus playing a significant role in the popularization and influence of American folk music in the 1950s and 1960s.

He died in 2005 at the age of 86.

If you want to know some more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Leventhal

11/09/2024

Never Forget

We look back in time via The Advocate's special cover story after the tragedy on September 11, 2001.

30/08/2024

Why revisit the early years of HIV/AIDS in Gay America?

I wrote After Francesco because as we approach the 40th anniversary of the first Center for Disease Control report on what would become known as AIDS, the pandemic - as my generation of gay men experienced it - is becoming a footnote in some histories, and completely absent in others. The contemporary fiction by gay authors of the time is largely out of print, books like Facing It by Paul Reed, Eighty-Sixed by David B. Feinberg, A Hundred Days From Now by Steven Corbin, and The Body and Its Dangers by Allen Barnett. The gay writers we lost to the disease leave behind a legacy of what might have been - had this country decided that the lives of gay men mattered, had it dedicated the resources necessary to fight the crisis as it had done with Legionnaire's Disease and Toxic Shock Syndrome. I imagine the body of work created by Reinaldo Arenas, Allen Barnett, Joseph Beam, Christopher Coe, Steven Corbin, Sam D'Allesandro, Melvin Dixon, Michael Grumley, Tim Dlugos, David B. Feinberg, John Fox, Robert Ferro, Essex Hemphill, Bo Huston, Stan Leventhal, Paul Monette, Darrell Yates Rist, Marlon Riggs, Vito Russo, Assotto Saint, Randy Shilts, George Whitmore, and many, many others, had they lived. Had their own government and so many of their fellow Americans not turned their backs because.....

https://www.malloywriter.com/newsletter.htm

12/08/2024

Sacred Spells is essential reading as a dissident counter-archive that affirms Black and q***r working-class life beyond state and media necropolitics, and in a sense, we are all living in Assotto Saint's world now, luckily with this book to guide us. - TThe Gay & Le***an Review

Poetry sustains people and place.

12/08/2024

Beautiful New Editions - make for great summer reads.

19/07/2024

Have you added SKYDIVING on Christopher Street to your WANT TO READ LIST! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57660144