solicit any of the material we get. We do not print everything we get. If we did, each issue would have to be 200 pages long, simply unaff ordable. We try to edit submissions as little as possible with respect to the author. Incidently, if we were stricly a literary maga zine and only published works that were up to literary stan dards (wherein we would feel obliged to pay the author, which we can’t possibly do), we would not be RFD. Whether or not our offerings are in teresting or whether or not there is a coheseive overall theme is left to fate. Seren dipity alone is responsible when a theme or a literate piece does appear! Secondly, RFD was originated by faeries and has been continually produced by various faerie collectives. A large, though not total, pro portion of our readership are faeries, hence the preponderance of faerie material. We would print more articles on other subject if people would send them in. Thirdly, RFD is produced by non-professionals - most of the staff here are not com mercial artist and have never seen the production of a magazine. In addition, we produce RFD with no electicity in what used to be the bee-tending shed . In other words, you can’t get more primitive conditions than these' And as for the use (and abuse!) of the Dover publications ethchings, we would gladly use less of them if we had more printable original art instead. We use what we have. I hope this sheas a little light on the reasons RFD is the way it is. If it seems parochial, it is because the circulation is small and rather specialized. If we went slick and added those subjects that are already we 1 1 -publisized in other gay magazines, RFD would lose some of it’s charm. In Love, Dwight £ By the way, we thank you for finding things to appreciate as well.
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D I R E C T O R Y
The Fund for Human Dignity is seeking information for the updated fourth edition of Local AIDS Services: The National D irectory, especially from all newly formed AIDS service organ izations and those that have changed address and/or the range of services they provide. The Directory, is the most compre hensive list of AIDS services and resources available nation wide. Organizations should con tact Ira Berkowitz, Project Coordinator, The Fund for Human Dignity, 666 Broadway, Suite 410 New York NY 10012 to request a survey update form. ■ T H E R E ’S
H O P E
At tne request of the Gay and Lesoian Alliance Against Defa mation, Bob Hope filmed a 30 second public service announce ment condemning anti-gay violence. "Hope’s staunch con servatism makes him all the more credible as a spokesperson against anti-gay violence. He takes it out of the partisan political sphere to a purely moral ground where all violence is recognized to be wrong...", notes Karin Scnwartz who dealt with Hope’s people throughout the negotiations. Here is tne text of his anti-vlo1ence PSA: I’m proud to live in this great, free country. I’m proud of our commitment to free speech... and I’m proud of our country’s commitment to protecting the rights of its citizens to work and live free from bigotry and violence. That’s why I was amazed to discover that many people die each year in anti-gay attacks and thousands more are le#t scarred, emotionally and physically. Bigotry has no place in this great nation and vio lence has no place in this world But it nappens. Prejudice hurts... kills. Please don’t be a part of it... by your words or by your deeds. Thank you. ■ A I D S M E M O R I A L Q U ILT* R E T U R N S T O W A S H I N G T O N Requests and encouragement from around the world have prompted the NAMES Project to display the Quilt for the third year in a row October 6 -8 . The display will culminate the 19 city 17.000 mile trek for the«Quilt. The Quilt is expected to include 12.000 3 ’ by 6 ’panels, 6 times the size of the inaugural dis play in 1987. Deadline for sub mission of panels is August 1st. 1989. Send to: The Names Project POB 14573, San Francisco 9 4 1 1 4 5
■ N A M E S F » R O U E C X N O M I M A X E D The Names Project responsible for creating the acres-large AIDS Memorial Quilt was nomi nated for a Nobel Peace Prize by Congresswomen Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer. The Quilt, along with letters, photos and poems that have been recieved with the panels, represents one of the largest collections of archival material about individual lives in the twentieth century. When the more than 9,000 panels are displayed together, the Quilt offers a graphic symbol of the human death toil of the epidemic for all people across the world. “The AIDS Quilt blankets the world of prejudice and fear with a sign of hope and sews a col lective human face on this dis ease to heal the bitterness between people," said Boxer. ■ W H A X N E W S I S E I X X O F > R I N X "? As I sat down to type up the "news" we received from various sources, I lost all motivation. Most of our readers probably get other gay rags whether it be The Advocate or a local paper, I thought to myself, so what's the point of telling them something they likely read elsewhere. So then it flashed, why not relate news that affects our unique community of readers. Where's that news going to come from7 We could make it up like the "News from Lake Wobegon", creating fictitious characters, or you could send in stories of "real" events that happened to you or friends of yours, or we could just drop the news section. Some press releases we receive seem significant enough to share. If there is a lull in the news then you won’t find any. If you happen to read anything that is worth sharing please send it to us. We count on yail to make this the special magazine that it is. Thanks... your news coordinator, Stv.