Author Topic: Author Patricia Nell Warren Passed Away  (Read 3770 times)

Offline CellarDweller

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Author Patricia Nell Warren Passed Away
« on: February 10, 2019, 08:52:03 pm »

Patricia Nell Warren was born in Helena, Montana on June 15, 1936 and grew up in southwest Montana on the Grant-Kohrs Ranch near Deer Lodge.  Her parents, Con and Nell Warren, were cattle ranchers; Warren had one brother, Conrad.  She began writing at age 10 and got her first literary recognition at age 18, winning the Atlantic Monthly College Fiction Contest with a short story.

Warren earned an associate of arts degree from Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri in 1955, then a bachelor of arts in English in 1957 from Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York.

In 1957, she married Ukrainian emigre poet Yuriy Tarnawsky. Through her marriage, she learned the Ukrainian language and became associated with a group of other young Ukrainian emigre poets who became internationally known as the New York Group. As a part of their publishing collective, she began writing and publishing poetry in Ukrainian.

In 1974 Warren published her second novel, The Front Runner.  Told from the point of view of a gay track coach, the story chronicled his struggle to get a talented openly gay runner on the U.S. Olympic team, and to quash his own growing love for his protegĂ©.  The controversial book was the first contemporary gay fiction to make The New York Times Best Seller list.  The book sold 10 million copies and was translated in to 10 different languages.  Two decades later, Warren added two sequels, Harlan's Race (1994) and Billy's Boy (1996).  Warren also came out as a lesbian in 1974.

As a runner herself, Warren was one of the first women to run in the Boston Marathon, in 1968. She participated in a group of female runners who got women's marathoning recognized in the U.S.

In 1976, Warren published her third novel, The Fancy Dancer.  The story was set in her native Montana, tracking the struggle with sexual orientation issues of a young Catholic parish priest in a small cow-country town.

In 1978, came Warren's fourth novel, The Beauty Queen.  Also published by Morrow, this book was set in the New York City world where she'd spent many years. The story focused on a socially prominent Manhattan businessman, a closeted gay father trying to get up the courage to come out to his daughter, who had become a fiercely anti-gay born-again Christian politician.


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Author Patricia Nell Warren Passed Away
« Reply #1 on: February 10, 2019, 11:26:01 pm »
I'm very sorry to hear this. Just last week I was re-reading her article about gay cowboys.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Author Patricia Nell Warren Passed Away
« Reply #2 on: February 11, 2019, 10:40:52 am »
I wished she had been given more years, she was only 83. But she used the years she had very well and I'm told there's a fourth book in the Frontrunner series that will be published.
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Offline CellarDweller

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Re: Author Patricia Nell Warren Passed Away
« Reply #3 on: February 11, 2019, 07:28:19 pm »
Oh, I hope that's true!


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Author Patricia Nell Warren Passed Away
« Reply #4 on: February 24, 2019, 04:30:36 pm »
I was thinking yesterday that I ought to read The Front Runner again. I know I read it shortly after I moved to Philadelphia, but it must have been a "loaner" copy because the book is not in my library. I also remember being not particularly impressed by it. That may well have been in large part because of the "track and field" setting, which interested me not at all and made it difficult for me to become invested in the characters. Now more than 30 years on I look back at it as just one in a long line of gay stories where somebody ends up dead and somebody else heartbroken. Maybe that was new back in the day because the book and its success were so groundbreaking, but I admit that for me, now, it's gotten tiresome. And that cliche is still with us.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.