Draft:Rick Karlin

Rick Karlin Rick Karlin is an American journalist, writer, and LGBT community activist. His community activism began in the mid-1970s as a gay father as a co-founder of Chicago's Gay & Lesbian Parents' Group and as a volunteer for Gay Horizons, a community services organization that eventually became Center on Halsted. {1} At Gay Horizons he worked on the Crisis Hotline and worked as a leader for "Coming Out" groups. He was also involved in helping the Gay & Lesbian Parents' Group become a program of Gay Horizons, and later served on Horizons' board representing the organization. Through his involvement with the Parents' Group he became acquainted with the staff of GayLife Newspaper and in 1978 began writing a weekly recipe column under the title, "The Gay Gourmet." Over the years, his scope of work for the newspaper expanded to include restaurant and movie reviews. He also continued his involvement with Horizons community services hosting and organizing a Friday evening coffeehouse for three years that was held at Jane Addams Hull House Center on Broadway Avenue in Chicago. In 1981 Karlin's first musical, written with composer and co-lyricist Frank DePaul, "Spin Cycle" opened at Chicago's Theater Building for a three-month run. {2) The duo produced three more plays, "Scrapbook," "Ladies at Large," and "Musical" before parting ways. Depaul later dies of complications from AIDS. In 1982 Karlin moved from GayLife Newspaper to Gay Chicago Magazine, at that time basically a bar guide. At first, he continued writing cooking columns and restaurant reviews, eventually adding movie and theater reviews to his repertoire and expanding Gay Chicago Magazine's scope of coverage from just bar events. He eventually ended up writing a "gossip column under a variety of names including Bessie Mae Kulo and Sue Deaunym about the goings on in Chicago's gay and lesbian bars, clubs community groups, and organizations. At this time he also became involved with The Gay Fathers' Coalition a group of gay parents groups from around the U.S. and Canada. He became active on the board and pushed for acknowledgment of the many co-gender organizations that belonged. In 1995 Karlin co-chaired the national conference, held in Chicago, and along with his co-chairs Julie Valloni and Mike Mennefee, lobbied the organization to change its name to Gay & Lesbian Parents' Group International. He went on to serve the organization for five more years as a board member and two years as Vice-President of Conference Planning. During his tenure, he helped to establish more family-centered activities at the annual conference and helped to create COLAGE (Children of Gays & Lesbians Everywhere.{3} After six years at Gay Chicago, Karlin's role had expanded dramatically. He was made Arts & Entertainment Editor and headed up a new section of the magazine, After Dark, with a staff of writers covering theater, food, film, music, books, community events, decor, and fashion. He also published two serialized novels, "Tales of the Second City", an homage to Armiistead Maupin's "Tales of the City", but with a distinctly Chicago bent, and a murder mystery, "Death on the Rocks" where readers had to go to community gathering places to gather clues and incorporate them into the final chapter that they would write to solve the murder. He also created several fundraisers, including "Cruising for a Dreamboat" for Chicago House. {4} The event was repeated for several years and was expanded to include dates of various gender identities. he event was a "bachelor auction" with date packages. The event was repeated for several years and was expanded to include dates of various gender identities. He also turned his birthday into a fundraiser for various community groups. At first, he would rent out Sidetrack, a video bar {5} on Sunday afternoons, prepare a meal, and have the bar screen their popular show tunes. He would invite his friends to donate instead of a card or gift. At one of the early parties, a pair of friends did a drag performance on a makeshift stage constructed from plywood and beer cases and donated their tips to the charity. The next year more friends performed. Within a few years, Sidetrack had expanded and had a stage built for the event, which was now open to the general public. By 1995 it was dubbed "Night of 100 Drag Queens" and that year raised $1,800 for GLPCI. The event continued for nearly 30 years raising nearly $1 million for charity. In 1993 Karlin and his now husband, Gregg Shapiro, attended the March on Washington {6) and participated in the mass "wedding" demonstration on the steps of the Internal Revenue Service Building in a service presided over by Rev Troy Perry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Perry Returning home Karlin and Shapiro had a private ceremony in July 1994 for family and friends. Frustrated by his inability to find wedding materials for same-sex couples, he decided to produce the world's first same-sex wedding expo. "A Commitment to Love" on February 6, 1994. He subsequently produced the event for four more years before it became more he could take on his own. In 1996 he stepped away from Gay Chicago Magazine and began broadcasting a weekly dining out segment on LesBiGay Radio {7} with Marsha Marsha and, later Penny Nichols, called Partners in Dine. During this time he also was working as the special event coordinator for Horizons Community Services on a part-time basis, attending grad school and teaching full time. He also joined the staff of Outlines/Nitelines (now Windy City Times) {8} as a gossip columnist and restaurant reviewer. IN 1997 He was inducted into the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame, now the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame in recognition of his fundraising for the gay and lesbian community and his work in Chicago’s gay press. {9} In 2000 Karlin left Outlines/Nightlines to work for Chicago's other leading LGBT newspaper Chicago Free Press https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspapers_of_the_Chicago_metropolitan_area as well as a contributor to The Chicago Tribune's new online service Metromix {10} Pegasus Productions staged a 20th-anniversary production of Karlin's first musical "Spin Cycle" to mixed reviews. What was seen as fresh and daring 20 years earlier looked like a tired genre now. In 2001 and 2002 Karlin, and his husband Gregg Shapiro, co-chaired the Lesbian Community Cancer Project (now part of Howard Brown Health) {11} Coming Out Against Cancer Silent Auction, raising the most money in the charity's history at the auction, $20,000. In 2005 Karlin and Shapiro produced the Out Music Awards in Chicago. The event was a critical success but lost money. "Show Biz Kids," Karlin's first novel was published in 2006 as a print-on-demand book.{12} In 2009, although no longer involved in producing "Night of 100 Drag Queens" Karlin still participated by performing (in drag.) He then decided to leave Chicago Free Press, dissatisfied with the publisher’s behavior (several top management have already quit). The newspaper shut down two weeks later. In March of 2010, he assumed the role of editor of boimagazine {13} a role he'd fill for four years. At the same time, he began as a contributing writer for Chicago Pride https://chicago.gopride.com/ an LGBT online news and entertainment site. In 2013 Karlin began to winter in Wilton Manors Florida and began writing for Guy Magazine and its sister publication Florida Agenda, {14} both now defunct. In 2014 Karlin moved to Fort Lauderdale as a full-time resident just as The New American Folk Theater in Chicago produced the musical "Witches Among Us” https://www.witchesamongus.com/ that Karlin wrote with composer and lyricist Scott Free {15} It is set in and produced in a bar. The show runs for one month in October. In 2015 Karlin began writing travel articles for South Florida Gay News (SFGN) as a travel writer. {16} In 2016 he began working for the Stonewall National Museum and Archives {16}proroducing its annual conference, The Stonewall National Education Project. He worked on the project for two years but left when they wanted to make it a full-time job. He joined the board of Chicago's professional LGBT theater company, Island City Stage {18} mostly helping out with silent auctions, and volunteering as needed. In 2018 He took on the role of Educational Outreach Chair and began running drama camps during school break periods in the summer, spring, and winter, producing plays and improv workshops for junior high students. Karlin's memoir of his years in Chicago's LGBT press, Paper Cuts: My Life in Chicago’s Volatile LGBTQ Press, was published in 2019 {19} by Rattling Good Yarns Press and for a brief period was the number one seller in LGBTQ Studies. In 2019 Karlin was asked to take over the daily posting on the website of the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame. (see earlier citation) and within a year he was the board’s cochair bringing it back from three years of hibernation when there were no nominations or induction ceremonies. He brought together a group of volunteers a mixture of the new board and previous volunteers who were able to work together and come up with a slate of nominees for an induction ceremony in 2020. Due to the COVID pandemic, the induction ceremony was virtual and conducted entirely online, but Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot {20} did tape a message to be included. By the following year, a small in-person ceremony was held and in 20222 a full-fledged induction ceremony at the Chicago History Museum was held. Karlin headed the Hall of Fame for one more year, resigning in 2023. In 2022 South Florida Gay News publisher Norm Kent {21} died, leaving the newspaper to co-publisher and editor Jason Parsley. All that he left, besides the name and reputation, was debt. Parsley closed down SFGN and opened OUT South Florida. (OUTSFL) {22}, a new publication. In addition to his duties as Arts and Travel Editor, he asked Karlin to take on the role of Arts & Culture Editor, expanding his role with the newspaper greatly. Karlin began writing regular theater reviews, restaurant reviews, a weekly cultural activities column, and a weekly calendar of events, as well as occasional travel features for both the weekly newspaper and the 10-issue-a-year magazine. Rattling Good Yarns Press {23} announced that Karlin, along with South Florida historian Fred Fejes, {24} has written Last Call South Florida: A History of LGBT Bars, Clubs & Taverns From Plam Beach to Key West. It will be released in October 2024.