NewTown Writers, a gay writers' group based in Chicago and founded in Lakeview ( then known as NewTown ) , reaches its silver anniversary this year. Since 1980, the organization has supported budding Clive Barkers and Emily Dickinsons with various public events, including meetings, series and dramatist workshops. In addition, the group has a literary anthology, Off The Rocks, and an e-zine, Swell.

Windy City Times recently conversed with Randy Gersham, the founder and president emeritus of NewTown Writers. Among other things, he discussed the organization's history and his own favorite writers.

Windy City Times: How did NewTown Writers start?

Randy Gersham: It actually started on a pretty informal basis. I had belonged to a writers' group in college and a couple informal groups in my hometown of Atlanta. [ In Chicago, ] a friend and I talked about being able to share our writing with others and thought that it'd be nice to have a gay writers' group.

Bill Patel and I took out an ad in a newspaper and heard from about five people. We started meeting on an informal basis every other Thursday at my apartment. In the beginning, we just wrote for each other. That group held together for about two years.

So I advertised again. ( At this point, Bill had drifted away. ) This new group was more interested in publishing and performing. It got a grant from a group called the Gay and Lesbian Academic Union, which allowed us to publish our first anthology, Off The Rocks. From that point forward, we continued to publish and perform. ( In those days, there were not a lot of gay and lesbian writers' groups. ) We sent our works out to different magazines and actually got several of our writers published.

Once we published Off The Rocks, we got a lot of submissions from around the country. Some of the authors who went on to be published nationally were first published in our magazine.

We then decided, since we were doing all of this regular business and needed money, to become a not-for-profit corporation. [ NewTown Writers, Inc., formed in 1988. ]

WCT: Will there be a special event to mark the 25th anniversary?

RG: Yes. I'm no longer a board member and [ the board ] is handling that. It'll probably be in August; our founding date is Aug. 18, 1980.

WCT: NewTown Writers had something at Bailiwick recently.

RG: Yes. We presented [ a play called ] Cayetano's Circus. [ It was written by Robert Engler and directed by Floyd May. The group also presented Working Stiffs 4 recently. ]

WCT: The group also encourages new writers.

RG: Well, that was basically our mission. It was to foster unpublished and unknown writers. In our workshops, we read portions of our works for feedback and critiques; there's plenty of support and camaraderie at those meetings. Typically, writers rework their pieces until they're sufficiently polished. Then they turn them into us for consideration to be included in Off The Rocks—or, we'll encourage them if the themes of their works are more [ appropriate ] for other specialty magazines, like a travel-related publication.

Otherwise, if it's an interesting play, we'll have it performed. Short stories, works of poetry or experimental works can be performed for the public. We've seen a lot of different styles; we've produced at least 20 plays and have performed 100 times, easily, throughout our history. In addition to having our own venue, other writers have other venues so it's a way of sharing information with each other.

WCT: It sounds like a lot of people should be indebted to the group.

RG: I think we've done a really good job for the community. In our 25 years, easily 500 writers have been connected with the group in one way or another. I think we have had an influence in Chicago, specifically, but also the Midwest, throughout the country and, in an sense, internationally. ( Some of our writers are from other countries. )

WCT: Who are some of your favorite writers?

RG: Oh gosh. Well, I tend to like the Southern genre since I'm from the South. Of course, I like Tennessee Williams and I like Margaret Mitchell. I also like British writers; I like [ Sir ] Osbert Sitwell. In addition, I like historical writers such as Will Durant.

WCT: You mentioned Margaret Mitchell. Out of curiosity, did you like the sequel to Gone with the Wind?

RG: I didn't think it needed to be written but that's my own personal prejudice. I thought the original was sufficient. I liked the mystery of the original.

WCT: To you, what is the essence of good literature?

RG: I think it [ involves ] distilled language, for one thing. I think that saying a lot with well-chosen words is important, that is, fewer words than one would use in life. Good characterization, good description ( which I'm big on ) , action and conflict ( which is also very important ) make up a good read that you just can't put down.

WCT: Tell me your thoughts about this quotation attributed to Ezra Pound: 'Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.'

RG: Right. I certainly agree with that.

Literature cannot sound like day-to-day language. The words have to be more carefully chosen, more meaningful; they have to be richer than life and have to represent life in a shorter duration.

WCT: Is there anything you wish to add?

RG: On a personal note, I'm extremely proud of the group and that we're still in existence after 25 years; we could probably go on for another 25 years.

On a different note, however, it's very interesting that when the group was formed, a lot of gay literature [ made up ] a fairly new genre. At the time, it was probably more necessary to have an exclusively gay writing group than it is now; our community seems to have integrated better into society now. Now, every bookstore seems to have a gay and lesbian section. I think we served a [ particular ] function in our day. Now we serve a slightly different function; rather than focusing on new gay literature, we can now be a little bit more experimental and expansive.

See www.newtownwriters.org .