Guide to the John Preston papers, circa 1973-1995

John Hay Library, University Archives and Manuscripts
Box A
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: Manuscripts: 401-863-3723; University Archives: 401-863-2148
Email: Manuscripts: hay@brown.edu; University Archives: archives@brown.edu

Published in 2022

Collection Overview

Title:	John Preston papers
Date range:	circa 1973-1995
Creator:	Preston, John
Extent:	52.5 Linear Feet 35 record center boxes , 7 document boxes, 4 shoeboxes , 2 clamshell boxes, 4 one-size boxes
Abstract:	Personal and professional correspondence; includes letters from friends, other writers, and groups whose focus is gay life and rights; also includes his outgoing letters on computer disk. Original typescripts of his writings; photographs; magazines with articles he authored; clippings; books written by Preston and others; and proofs.
Language of materials:	English
Repository:	John Hay Library, University Archives and Manuscripts
Collection number:	Ms.2011.032

Scope & content

The John Preston papers include correspondence, manuscripts, and research materials collected by John Preston, a notable gay writer, self-identified pornographer and LGBTQ activist of the 1970s and 80s, as well as several of his close friends and business partners. The materials in the collection date from roughly 1973 to 1995, spanning the last 21 years of Preston's life. The collection is organized into eight series.

Series I, Correspondence and subject files, circa 1979-1994, is comprised of incoming and limited outgoing correspondence and topical files related to Preston's research. The materials are arranged in two subseries: A. General correspondence and subject files, and B. Other correspondence. Significant correspondents include: Eric Garber (Andrew Holleran), Gail Hinand, Michael Lowenthal, Anne Rice, Sam Steward, and T.R. Witomski. Additional correspondence can be found throughout the collection, including the Writings, Media, and Additions series.

Series II, Writings, circa 1982-1995, is organized in two subseries: A. Writings of John Preston, and B. Writings of Others. The writings of John Preston are arranged broadly into fiction, nonfiction, and short manuscripts, while the writings of others are arranged largely by author. Included in Preston's writings are drafts of Franny, the Queen of Provincetown, the Flesh and the Word series, a number of titles from the Alex Kane series, and numerous short works and essays. Manuscripts frequently include computer printouts of multiple drafts, many edited by Preston friends and colleagues, page proofs, and related correspondence.

Series III, Media, 1983-1994, includes computer files and audio and video recordings (as well as accompanying hardware) containing correspondence, writings, interviews and addresses by or about John Preston and his work. Video and audiocassettes include interviews by and with John Preston as well as recordings of programs related to gay rights and AIDS activism.

Series IV, Visual Materials, circa 1980-1991, includes mostly photographs and negatives, many of which feature the author and some of which were taken by Preston himself.

Series V, Printed Materials, circa 1979-1994, include research materials, publications and other ephemera.

Series VI, Realia, circa 1992, the smallest series in the collection, is comprised of a box of Preston's personal items, including a Lambda literary award and several other objects relating to Preston's writing career.

Series VII, Subject Files, circa 1976-1994, contains research, correspondence, and personal records.

Series VIII, Additions, 1973-1994, includes materials donated to the John Hay Library by friends and associates of Preston, many of whom wrote to him frequently during his lifetime and collected materials related to his personal and professional life, including his letters, photographs, clippings, and miscellaneous printed ephemera.

Access Points

Subject Names

• McCray, Mike
• Prescott, Jack
• Holleran, Andrew
• Rice, Anne
• Hinand, Gail D.
• DeRoche, Celeste
• Witomski, T.R.
• Lowenthal, Michael
• Steward, Samuel M.
• Wood, Roy F.
• Hild, Jack
• MacAdam, Preston
• Rogers, Susan Fox

Subject Topics

• AIDS (Disease)
• AIDS (Disease) -- Prevention
• HIV (Viruses)
• Gays
• Sex therapists
• Language and Literature
• Safe sex in AIDS prevention
• Gay men

Document Types

• Writings (Document genre)
• Correspondence
• Fiction
• Essays
• Audiocassettes
• Plays (Document genre)
• Interviews
• Clippings
• Photographs

Arrangement

The papers are arranged in eight series:

• Series I. Correspondence and subject files, 1979-1994
  • Subseries A. General Correspondence and subject files, 1979-1994
  • Subseries B. Other correspondence, 1987-1993
• Series II. Writings, circa 1982-1995
  • Subseries A. Writings of John Preston, circa 1982-1994
  • Subseries B. Writings of others, circa 1987-1995
• Series III. Media, 1983-1994
• Series IV. Visual materials, 1980-1991
• Series V. Printed materials, circa 1979-1994
• Series VI. Realia, circa 1992
• Series VII. Subject files, circa 1976-1994
• Series VIII. Additions, 1973-1993

John Preston, an author of gay erotica and gay-themed nonfiction, was born December 11th, 1945 in Medfield, Massachusetts. He recognized his orientation early in life and as a teenager began experimenting with his sexuality, an activity he would later write about in several of his more personal works of nonfiction. In 1963 he moved to Illinois to attend Lake Forest College and afterwards moved back to Boston in order to seek an openly gay community. Prompted by the suicide of a lover, Preston decided to come out as a member and advocate of gay society and moved to Minneapolis to help establish the "Gay House" and the accompanying Gay Community Services. He emigrated from major U.S. city to city during his life, moving to Los Angeles during the 1970s to become an editor for the gay magazine The Advocate and later re-establishing himself in San Francisco and then New York City to experiment in various sexual movements. During this time, Preston became deeply involved in the Leather and BDSM subcultures, which he celebrated in several of his written works. After stints as a sex worker and an S/M underground enthusiast, he began writing erotic fiction and become known for his stories describing the sexual escapades of fictional character Aristotle Benson in an erotic series known as Mr. Benson. Preston pushed for the development of better quality gay erotic writing, which he regarded as a genuine art form, as well as gay nonfiction in general. He received the Lambda Literary Award and the American Library Association's Stonewall Book Award for his nonfiction anthologies, which included Personal Dispatches: Writers Confront AIDS, Sister and Brother: Lesbians and Gay Men Write about their Lives Together, Member of the Family: Gay Men Write About Their Families, Friends and Lovers: Gay Men Write About the Families They Create, and Hometowns: Gay Men Write About Where They Belong. Preston moved, once again, to Portland, Maine in 1979, where he continued writing as both an author and a journalist and working as a gay activist. He pioneered a safe sex erotica movement and edited a safe sex-themed anthology titled Hot Living, which was published in 1985. He also co-founded the AIDS Project in Southern Maine as a part of his efforts to increase awareness of the disease and worked as a safe-sex instructor for the gay community. In 1987, Preston was himself diagnosed as HIV-positive and took a hiatus from writing in order to come to terms with his illness. He resumed, however, and continued writing until his death in Portland on April 28th, 1994 from AIDS complications.

During his life, Preston corresponded frequently with writer Anne Rice (with whom he collaborated on his anthology Flesh and the Word: An Anthology of Erotic Writing) as well as with several other well-known authors and gay activists. He published many significant works of LGBTQ-themed fiction and nonfiction during his lifetime, including I Once Had a Master and Other Tales of Erotic Love, The Big Gay Book: A Man's Survival Guide for the Nineties, Franny, the Queen of Provincetown, the Alex Kane series, and Hustling: A Gentleman's Guide to the Fine Art of Homosexual Prostitution. He did much of his writing under pen names; these pseudonyms included Jack Hilt, Mike McCray, and Preston MacAdam. He rejected the categorization of his work as "erotica," deeming it elitist, and preferred instead to call it pornography; a lecture he gave at Harvard on the subject entitled "My Life as a Pornographer" was later turned into an accompanying essay collection of the same name. His posthumously-published anthology Winter's Light dealt with his struggle to cope with both his own status as a person living with AIDS (PWA) and the loss of many of his friends and fellow writers to the epidemic. Preston's work remains well-regarded today as both an advancement in the world of gay literature and a strong example of activism in the LGBTQ community.

Access & Use

Access to the collection:	There are no restrictions on access for non-digital materials, except that the collection can only be seen by prior appointment. Some materials may be stored off-site and cannot be produced on the same day on which they are requested. Advance notice is required to view born-digital records. Born-digital materials in this collection have not been reformatted yet. Researchers may request access to copies by contacting the John Hay Library with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. Access to original physical digital media is restricted.
Use of the materials:	John Preston transferred his copyright to all his writings to Brown University. For permission to publish or cite materials from the John Preston papers, please contact the John Hay Library, Brown University.
Preferred citation:	John Preston papers, Ms.2011.032, Brown University Library.
Contact information:	John Hay Library, University Archives and Manuscripts Box A Brown University Providence, RI 02912 Telephone: Manuscripts: 401-863-3723; University Archives: 401-863-2148 Email: Manuscripts: hay@brown.edu; University Archives: archives@brown.edu

Administrative Information

ABOUT THE COLLECTION
Acquisition:	Collection received as gift of John Preston and the John Preston Estate (1992-1995). Additional materials received from Celeste DeRoche (2000), Lark Hapke (1995), Diane Hamer (2007-2009), Gail Hinand (1995), Michael Lowenthal (1995-2007), and various other sources.
Processing information:	As I processed the John Preston Collection, I attempted to remain respectful of provenance (original order) whenever possible. As part of this effort, I broadly categorized the materials into correspondence, writings, floppy disks, etc., visual materials, printed materials, additions, and subject files while allowing for a fair amount of overlap between series. This entails that the correspondence boxes contain some manuscripts and printed materials; the writings series contains some letters and printed ephemera, and so on. The Preston estate donated several boxes' worth of his own personal alphabetized subject files; we kept these mostly in order while organizing the materials. The Additions series was something of a complication: rather than attempting to categorize each non-Preston accession on its own, we arranged them together as a large group and divided them into the subseries correspondence, printed papers, and writings. This allowed us to accommodate diverse materials without losing any of Preston's original order. Some of Preston's letters included correspondence with people of renown such as Anne Rice and Michael Lowenthal; however, rather than distract from the main subject of this collection, John Preston, by creating special series for others, we merely integrated their materials with the rest of the additions. Several preservation efforts were taken: in addition to re-foldering and re-boxing the materials when necessary, we examined one water-damaged manuscript for conservation possibilities (although little was able to be done for it). We removed some of the large-scale images from their mounts and frames and placed them in one-sized boxes. The most rearrangement we did in the collection was in the writings series. The series was re-organized into two broad categories: the writings of John Preston and the writings of others. The Preston writings were further arranged into works of fiction, works of nonfiction and short writings in order to improve user access to the collection. The Realia and Printed Materials portions are also comprised of materials we combined in order to create more cohesive series. I dispensed with very few materials; almost everything that was donated in the Preston accessions was retained during our processing. Overall, the most important features of original order have been retained and I believe we have maximized user access with what liberties we took in rearranging donations.
ABOUT THE FINDING AID
Author:	Rachel Taylor
Encoding:	This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2022-10-05.
Revisions:	2018-11-07 Revised by Nicholas Friesner
Descriptive rules:	Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Sponsor:	Processing funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

Additional Information

Inventory

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