Despite recent setbacks to the queer literary scene like the closing of the nation’s oldest bookstore, Giovanni’s Room, the truth is that Philadelphia is in the midst of a literary reawakening.
Anyone who steps into a coffeehouse hybrid, membership-driven indie publisher or author reading will be hard pressed to dispute the fact that the City of Brotherly Love is an exciting place for anyone who reads, writes, touches or sells books.
Paul Lisicky, an American novelist, memoirist and newly minted Philadelphia resident, took some time to discuss the changes happening in his newly adopted city.
“I was orbiting around Philadelphia, trying to find a place to live, and I think I finally landed,” said Lisicky, who also teaches creative writing at Rutgers University’s Camden campus. “I’d lived in New York and Provincetown since the early ’90s. I left a long-term relationship of 16 years and part of orbiting was about trying to make a home that felt fully me.”
Lisicky’s former partner, poet Mark Doty, won the National Book Award in 2008.
“I don’t think the closing of Giovanni’s Room is necessarily an LGBTQ failure, but it’s just part of a general trend in the culture around bookstores as physical places,” said Lisicky. “The culture and customs are not as concretized in Philadelphia as they are in New York. The newer literary scene in Fishtown and Kensington is not unlike that in Brooklyn.”
Physical bookstores are harder to come by nowadays, which may indicate that the guard has changed. Philadelphia, a city of neighborhoods, is bursting with established spaces that welcome the public. The Kelly Writer’s House at Penn offers author and student readings through the academic year, Big Blue Marble Books in Mt. Airy offers classes and readings and the William Way LGBT Community Center in the Gayborhood hosts a monthly Queer Writers Collective. The biggest names in writing make pit stops at The Free Library’s Author Series all year long and both Temple and Rutgers-Camden offer master’s of fine arts degrees in creative writing. The Apiary Magazine’s Literary Calendar can be a useful tool to find out what one wishes to know.
The closing of Giovanni’s Room and the inclusion of Pennsylvania to the list of states that allow marriage equality is a telling sign of the larger change in the acceptance of queer culture. As a student at the Iowa Writers Workshop 24 years ago, Lisicky remembers the first time he workshopped a story with a gay character in it.
“People came up to me before class to congratulate me for my bravery,” he said. “It felt alternately compassionate and patronizing.”
Recently at Rutgers-Camden, he had a student workshop on a piece in which gay sex appeared briefly on the page.
“Overwhelmingly, the other students in the class suggested more sex,” said Lisicky. “That’s a different world than even five years ago.”
Tucked away in a cozy Old City apartment, Lisicky has been working from home on his forthcoming memoir, “The Narrow Door,” which will be published by Graywolf Press in fall 2015. When he’s in need of a latte or simply human interaction, Lisicky likes to stroll down Second Street to United by Blue, an outdoor apparel shop and coffeehouse. UBB removes a pound of trash from oceans and waterways for every product sold. Coffee shops aren’t just selling caffeine anymore. Another new cafe hybrid in Spring Garden, Vice, serves coffee, tattoos and books.
And still, there’s room for more.
“I would love to see a space that caters to every slice of our diverse community, but also offers a place for gay artists to gather and strengthen the bonds within our community and also develop and share our artistic skill sets,” said Brad Winhauser, a local writer and Temple University professor.
An exciting concept called Community Supported Press has been introduced at the Head and the Hand Press, a new space in Fishtown. The CSP model works just like the Community Supported Agriculture model used by Philadelphia urban farms. Instead of vegetables, CSP members receive a year’s worth of books. An upfront investment is provided, in this case $50. This spring’s literary harvest included a memoir, almanac and two chapterbooks.
“Writing is in a huge renaissance in the United States,” said local poet Elliott batTzedek. “MFA programs are springing up everywhere, desktop and digital publishing has created an explosion of small presses and online journals are, I swear, doubling in number every month.”
One of those new online journals, Cooper Street, was created this spring by MFA students at Rutgers-Camden. Tinge Magazine is edited by the Temple MFA-ers.
As a growing number of readers get their information electronically, will-living room bookshelves become sparse?
“I use my e-reader far more than physical books,” said Lisicky. “I have around 10 books in my apartment. But I have boxes and boxes in storage.”
The future is hard to imagine without beloved places like Giovanni’s Room.
Things in Philadelphia are changing, but some aspects of the literary community have not. Writers still put pen to paper (or fingertips to keyboard) and share their work, in some form, with the world. Philly has a seat at the table and writers like Lisicky can proudly claim this city as their home.