American writer and publisher Felice Picano was BOTD in 1944. Born in New York, he studied at Queens College and settled in Greenwich Village, managing a bookstore and befriending 1970s luminaries Gore Vidal, Robert Mapplethorpe, Edward Gorey, Salvador Dalí, Jerome Robbins and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. A founding member of literary group The Violet Quill with fellow writers Edmund White, Andrew Holleran and George Whitmore, he led the explosion of gay-themed American fiction during the 1970s. His novel The Lure, the story of a serial killer preying on gay men, was a national sensation, becoming the first gay-themed book to be featured by the Book of the Month Club. He is best known for his 1995 novel Like People in History. A national bestseller, it was described as “a gay Gone With the Wind“. He co-founded SeaHorse Press in 1977 and the Gay Presses of New York in 1981, dedicated to publishing gay-themed writing. He also worked as a writer and editor for The Advocate, Gaysweek, OUT and Christopher Street magazines. In 2004, he co-authored a new edition of The New Joy of Gay Sex, collaborating with its original authors Edmund White and Charles Silverstein. He also published a series of memoirs, detailing life in 1970s New York City and his many celebrity acquaintances. He died in 2025 aged 81.