On This Gay Day: Author Armistead Maupin was born

Author Armistead Maupin was born on this day in 1944 and is celebrating his 76th birthday today.

Maupin is best known for his Tales of the City novels which have also been turned into a series of television programs.

First published as a column in the San Francisco Chronicle. The series encompasses nine hugely popular novels: Tales of the City, More Tales of the City, Further Tales of the City, Babycakes, Significant Others, Sure of You, Michael Tolliver Lives, Mary Ann in Autumn and The Days of Anna Madrigal.

The books were turned into a TV series starring actress Laura Linney and Olympia Dukakis. Since 1993 four series have been created, the most recent debuting on Netflix in 2019.

Maupin chatted to OUTinPerth back in 2007 and spoke about how the characters in his books all have little parts of his own personality.  His life was captured in a 2017 documentary.

His 1992 novel, Maybe the Moon, which followed the serio-comic adventures of a dwarf actress working in Hollywood, was named one of the ten best books of the year by Entertainment Weekly. The Night Listener 2000, a psychological suspense novel inspired by an eerie episode in Maupin’s own life, became a 2006 feature film starring Robin Williams and Toni Collette. In 2017 he wrote a memoir titled Logical Family which grew out of his critically acclaimed one-man show of the same name.

Armistead Maupin has won numerous awards including the ‘Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement’ from the Publishing Triangle of New York, the ‘Lambda’s Pioneer Award’ (which is bestowed on individuals who have broken new ground in the field of LGBT literature and publishing) and the Visionary Award from the 2014 Outfest Legacy Awards for his collected novels.

The author was scheduled to return to Western Australia in July 2020, but sadly due to the COVID-19 situation the tour was cancelled.

OIP Staff, the post on Armistead Maupin was first published on 13th May 2020. 

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