Armistead Maupin
Tales of the City stands as the most notable work in the career of Armistead Jones Maupin Jr., an American novelist, screenwriter, journalist, and writer of gay fiction born on May 13, 1944, in Washington, D.C.
Maupin's early education took place at Ravenscroft School and at Needham B. Broughton High School. He subsequently attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After his academic years, he served as a military officer before moving into journalism and, in time, into fiction writing. He is a citizen of the United States and writes in American English.
Over the course of his career, Maupin has worked across several professional roles, functioning as a novelist, a screenwriter, and a journalist in addition to his broader identity as a writer. His work in gay fiction has formed a significant part of his output. The range of occupations he has held reflects a professional life that moved from military service through journalism and into sustained literary work, with screenwriting complementing his novels along the way.
His works are catalogued under the Library of Congress Name Authority File under the authorized label Maupin, Armistead, with the LCNAF identifier n78012070, and are accessible through the Open Library under the identifier OL336072A. Tales of the City remains the work for which his name is most formally documented across major bibliographic systems, including the Virtual International Authority File under identifier 17253465.
Quotes by Armistead Maupin
My youth would be like that, the slow decay of cherished myths – about politics and race, about love itself – until nothing was left but compost from which something authentic could finally begin to grow.
Over the next eight years, almost without noticing, I arrived at a quiet revelation. You could make a home by yourself. You could fill that home with friends and friendly strangers without someone sleeping next to you. You could tend your garden and cook your meals and find predictable pleasure in your own autonomy.
Like I’ve always said, love wouldn’t be blind if the braille weren’t so damned much fun.
The bay was bright blue today, the hard fierce blue of a gas flame. If there was fog rolling in – and there must be, given the insistence of those horns – she couldn’t see it from here.
But it’s amazing how many people think that gay men should slink off into the shadows when it comes to having friendships with children.
