Born December 11: John Preston

On Thursday, April 15, 1993, longtime activist John Preston delivered the Jon Pearson Perry Lecture at Harvard, which he titled My Life As a Pornographer. He was 47 and it had been ten years since the release of his classic gay SM novel Mr. Benson [Kindle], which he published under his real name. (In a great reversal, he used a pseudonym for his straight adventure books.) Preston said, "Pornography has made me be honest, about myself and some of the most intimate details of my life and my fantasies. ... Once I had exposed my own sexual fantasies, my most intimate desires, I feared little else about self-exposure as a writer." Among his other popular one-handers were In Search Of A Master, Entertainment for a Master, The Love of a Master, and I Once Had a Master. He edited many important anthologies including Flesh and the Word, Personal Dispatches: Writers Confront Aids and Hometowns: Gay Men Write About Where They Belong. His most famous non-erotica novel is Franny, the Queen of Provincetown, which has been adapted for the stage. He died of aids at 48. Dozens of authors paid tribute to him in Looking for Mr. Preston.