American writer and activist Paul Monette was BOTD in 1945. Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, he studied at Yale University, and became a literature professor at Milton Academy. In 1978, he moved to California with his partner Roger Horwitz, publishing two acclaimed volumes of poetry, The Carpenter at the Asylum and No Witnesses and several gay-themed novels including Taking Care of Mrs Carroll and The Gold Diggers. Horwitz’s illness and death from AIDS in 1985 inspired Monette’s memoir Borrowed Time. In 1988, he formed a relationship with Steven Kolzac, whose death two years later from AIDS resulted in what Monette called his “second widowhood”. He went on to chronicle the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the novels Afterlife and Halfway Home, and wrote an episode of TV series thirtysomething, featuring of the first mentions of AIDS on American television. His 1992 memoir Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story was highly praised, winning the National Book Award for non-fiction. He died in 1995, aged 49, survived by his partner Winston Wilde.