American writer and critic Dale Peck was BOTD in 1967. Born in Long Island, New York, he was raised in Kansas, and studied at Drew University in New Jersey. He made waves with his 1993 debut novel Fucking Martin, a grim drama about a gay hustler who returns to Kansas to nurse his dying lover. Released at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, it was praised for its corrosive portrait of homophobia and queer relationships, though was re-titled Martin and John for squeamish US readers. His 1996 novel The Law of Enclosures, a domestic drama about an elderly heterosexual couple, inspired by Peck’s parents, was adapted into a film in 2000. During the 1990s and 2000s, he became more widely known as a book critic for The New Republic, earning the nickname “Mean Mary” for his eloquent and bitchy take-downs of contemporary American novelists including Rick Moody, David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen, Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon. In a 2011 critique of contemporary Jewish-American literature, he wrote “If I have to read another book about the Holocaust, I’ll kill a Jew myself“, prompting a public outcry and a speedy retraction. He provoked further controversy over his 2019 article “My Mayor Pete Problem”, in which he described gay politician Pete Buttigieg as “just another unrepentant or at least unexamined beneficiary of white male privilege” and “a definite top-by-default vibe from him, which is to say that I bet he thinks about getting fucked but he’s too uptight to do it“. Igniting widespread criticism for being homophobic, the article was removed from The New Republic‘s website, followed by an apology from its editor (though not from Peck). His other literary works include four novels, and the children’s book Sprout, which won the 2009 Lambda Award for children’s writing. He lives in New York with his husband, and teaches creative writing at The New School.