Talk:John Preston (American author)

Untitled comments
In addition to adding text to the John Preston entry, I've made some minor changes to the previous text:

"Born . . . in Medfield" was changed to "grew up in Medfield" because Preston's obituaries give conflicting information on where he was born. If the author of the original text has information on this beyond what is available on the Internet, he can certainly revert that portion of the text.

"Edited a newsletter devoted to sexual health" was changed to "edited two newsletters," because Preston edited one in Minneapolis and one in New York.

"He was the author or editor of more than thirty gay books" was changed to "nearly fifty books," because the number was much higher than thirty (see the bibliography linked from the Preston Project; Preston wrote many pseudonymous books) and because some of his books did not have gay subject matter.

All other changes to the original text are simply for the purpose of expanding or specifying the biographical information.

Dusk Peterson 02:10, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Above, I misremembered what the original text was that I changed. "He worked as a sexual health therapist" was changed to "edited two newsletters devoted to sexual health."

Checking the source cited by the original entry author, I see that the bio stub is based on Ashlyn Donnchaid's biography (which is quoted at queertheory.com, beginning with the words "John Preston was born"). Her source for that biography appears to be the New York Times obituary for Preston, which stated that Preston "was certified as a sexual-health consultant by the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Medical School." The obituary in turn was based on information released by Preston's publicist at the time of his death.

I can't yet confirm whether Preston was certified as a sexual health consultant, though I've confirmed from a primary source that he was a student at the University of Minnesota Medical School's Program in Human Sexuality. However, even if he received certification, that doesn't necessarily mean he worked as a consultant. The only information I've been able to confirm from another primary source is that Preston received money from the federal government to provide counselling and education to gay people in Minneapolis and St. Paul, and that he used at least part of this money to publish and edit a newsletter, Gay People and Mental Health. (See G. Schoener's "John Preston Helps to Start Gay Community Services" at The Preston Project.) Preston also helped edit the SIECUS newsletter later.

Dusk Peterson 14:48, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

invalid link
I have deleted an invalid link...Zigzig20s 21:55, 20 December 2006 (UTC) I have contacted the webmaster for that link, and added the new url.Zigzig20s 07:35, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Graduating from Lake Forest College
John Preston attended and graduated from Lake Forest College. This should be mentioned in the wiki article on him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.49.162.189 (talk) 22:02, 1 October 2010 (UTC)