Executive Director of PhillyGayCalendar

Why I Walk

In two weeks I will be walking around Fairmount Park to support and remember those who are infected or affected by the HIV virus. I have certainly been affected by the epidemic. I took my first HIV test when I was seventeen. I remember feeling so nervous and thought that my life would be over if the test came back positive. But nonetheless, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around living with HIV.

The John J. Wilcox, Jr. Lending Library

Like Carrie Bradshaw and Monolos, books are what makes me happiest. I love books. The texture, the smell, the sound of pages turning. I love the static quiet and still air in bookstores and libraries, even comic book shops. I love the way standing in a room of books makes me feel like nothing is out of my reach. That I could learn anything, with enough time and effort, become a self-educated expert on any subject. As a card-carrying member of the gay lady club, of course GLBTQ fiction and history hold a special place in my heart.

Conversation with James Ijames

Actor/writer James Ijames has a busy year. The out Philadelphia transplant and Temple University grad appeared in a number of regional theater productions, including a celebrated staging of Tony Kushner’s epic Angels in America, in which Ijames played Belize. Later in the year Maukingbird Theater Company premiered The Threshing Floor, his one-man show about out writer James Baldwin. In August, he was announced as one of 5 finalists for the F. Otto Haas Award for Emerging Theater Artist. The recipient will be announced on October 4 at the Barrymore Awards. He was gracious enough to talk with me about his year, his play and what being gay and a person of color means to his art.