Last night, the Palm Springs Library presented “The
Significance of LGBT Pulp Fiction with Author Katherine V. Forrest,” an author interview
conducted by Dr. Christopher Freeman. Forrest is the author of Curious Wine and other lesbian-themed novels. Freeman has published numerous works on gender studies.
The term “pulp fiction” refers to the cheap “pulp magazines”
printed on low-quality paper and produced in the early twentieth century. These
precursors to modern mass-market paperback novels were sold in drugstores,
train and bus stations, and grocery stores. Their bold covers reflected the often
torrid or taboo subject matter contained within the slim volumes.
Freeman and Forrest encouraged audience members to relate
their experiences with pulp fiction. Their tales shed a fascinating spotlight
on the struggles faced by gay and lesbian readers and writers in the decades before
and after the pivotal Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village in 1969.



Many of the authors of the lesbian-themed books were later
discovered to be men with female pen names. Few authors, like Ann Bannon (who
wrote as A. Bannon) were openly out of the closet. Dr.
Christopher Freeman, an English professor at the University of Southern California, discussed Maurice (pronounced Morris) by E. M. Forster, which had been written in 1913-1914 and twice revised decades later. Forster had resisted publishing the book because he knew his story of same-sex love would be all the more controversial because of its happy ending. Thus it wasn’t published until six decades after he had first written it.
Christopher Freeman, an English professor at the University of Southern California, discussed Maurice (pronounced Morris) by E. M. Forster, which had been written in 1913-1914 and twice revised decades later. Forster had resisted publishing the book because he knew his story of same-sex love would be all the more controversial because of its happy ending. Thus it wasn’t published until six decades after he had first written it.

As a writer hoping to add more LGBT characters to my Young Adult novels (The Teen Wytche Saga), the evening was a fascinating immersion into the history of the gay rights movement as seen through LGBT literature.
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