American writer, editor and activist Steve Abbott was BOTD in 1943. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, he graduated from the University of Nebraska, and attended Emory University. He married Barbara Binder in February 1969, coming out to her as gay shortly after their wedding. Their daughter, Alysia, was born in December 1970. In August 1973, Barbara was killed in an automobile accident. Steve and Alysia moved to San Francisco in 1974, where he became involved with the city’s literary scene, befriending Allen Ginsberg, Aaron Shurin and Robert Glück. Abbott was one of the founding editors of the San Francisco Bay Area’s poetry newsletter Poetry Flash, and also edited the literary journal Soup, pioneering the term “New Narrative” to describe the work of Glück, Bruce Boone, Kevin Killian and Dodie Bellamy. A committed activist in San Francisco’s gay community, he helped found a gay fathers’ organisation, and was a regular contributor to The Advocate, The Sentinel and the Bay Area Reporter. His essays, comic poems and articles surveyed a range of his life experiences, including his trial for dodging the Vietnam War draft, the complexities of raising a child as a single gay parent, the rise of phone sex and the gentrification of San Francisco. He died of an AIDS-related illness in 1992, aged 48. His novel The Lizard Club was published posthumously. His life was recounted in Alysia’s 2013 memoir Fairyland: a Memoir of My Father, drawing on Abbott’s journals. An anthology of his writings, Beautiful Aliens: A Steve Abbott Reader, was published in 2019. He was played by Scoot McNairy in the 2023 film Fairyland, based on Alysia’s book.