The Story of A Friend of Dorothy's

I wrote A Friend of Dorothy’s when I was in my twenties, after seeing Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart for the first time when it opened at the Public Theater in New York City. Kramer's brilliant play awakened me to a reality I'd been avoiding even though it was staring me in the face: I was living at the epicenter of a medical catastrophe, and if I had any right to the label "writer," I had better start trying to write about it.

The novel was excerpted in the legendary gay magazine Christopher Street and in Permafrost, the literary journal of the University of Alaska, and had been contracted to be published by a small gay press in England, when they were acquired by an American company that wanted only to publish pornography. Despite one long, much talked about sex scene, my literary first novel was decidedly not pornography and thus off their list, and after a few more tries, the manuscript ended up in a drawer. I proceeded to publish ten short stories, have multiple play productions in New York and elsewhere, and win awards as a fiction writer, playwright, and screenwriter. My agent for the novel back in the day once said, “By the time this thing is finally published it’s going to be a period piece.” Well, here it is. Period and all. I've decided to self-publish the book, with a projected publication date of March 2025. And I need your help to do it.

“Nothing can have prepared you for the wit and insight, the eccentricity and inspiring optimism with which this consistently surprising young writer depicts a year at the heart of his generation’s greatest calamity.”—Joseph Pintauro, author of Cold Hands and Raft of the Medusa

Why self-publishing? Why now? At the time the book first went on the market to publishers, LGBTQ novels were harder to get published in general, and its story of being young and gay in New York at the height of the AIDS epidemic was also met by some with a distinct distaste for what was perceived as its inappropriately pro-sex conclusion in an era of safe sex taboos. The novel depicts the journey of a young man who starts out the story afraid of sex (of other people really, of life), and it was as if some publishers would have rather he stayed that way.

Flash-forward to now, and I thought that with times having changed, and LGBTQ lit springing up everywhere, and the AIDS era being chronicled on television and even in revivals of Larry Kramer's landmark work, the book might have a better chance. At the very least I figured the ending would no longer be so controversial. But alas, when I returned to my agent from back in the day, I was now met with handwringing from him, too, and the assertion that he had forgotten "how much graphic gay sex there is in the book." There actually isn't that much (sorry) -- but there is that ending!

“There is a knowingness, a sense of timing, a compassion and forgiveness under all the action, character to character. What Richard Willett has—in abundance—is love for the people he is chronicling and, by recording, saving.”—Allan Gurganus, author of The Practical Heart, Plays Well with Others, and Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All

But in the modern day I was also getting responses from some unlikely fans of the book. Most vividly from two women readers who may never have read a "gay novel" before, one of whom said: "I was bawling until I couldn't see the words on the page. . . . It's a beautiful story." The other said: "Your novel is exquisite, powerful, raw, sexy and an emotional roller coaster to see the character of Eric unfold from fearful to liberated. I cried, laughed and could relate to Eric's journey." So with such divergent points of view even in the woke 2020s, I decided to bypass the unpredictable middleman and publish the darn thing myself. Let the chips fall where they may.

What Your Contribution Means

You have the chance here to do more than just help a frustrated author finally get his acclaimed novel into print and preorder a copy of the book. You will also be helping to preserve vital LGBTQ history. When I reread the book recently, I was struck by how transported I felt back to another time, not only my own youth, but also a time when innocence ended for a generation of gay men. I haven't changed a word since I completed my last draft in the early nineties. There has been so much to deepen our cynicism and despair since then, it seems of value to recall how shocking it once was that there could be such a pandemic and how it tested and cost the lives of thousands of young men who moments ago had seemed to be living in a liberating disco-fueled wonderland.

“The writing is poignant, realistic and fine; the reader is pierced and instantly seduced by the characters’ appeal and immediacy.”—Harlan Greene, author of The German Officer’s Boy, What the Dead Remember, and Why We Never Danced the Charleston

What I Need and What You Get

My $6,000 budget for this project covers the following expenses in getting the book out there: I have already spent some money on paying an excellent consultant (Michael Dobkins, https://www.dobkins.net) to help familiarize me with the self-publication process (his fees over many months have and will come to about $2000). I've also paid to begin the process of filing an affidavit for my publishing company name, The Magic Show Press, and renting a post office box to serve as its mailing address (the two together came to about $150). I've opened an account at Ingram Spark (for printing of the hardcover and paperback editions of the book) (an initial print-run cost of about $700) and Draft2Digital (for the ebook). And I've hired two fantastic designers, for the cover ($1100) and the interior of the book ($1600).  I'll be donating my own services as a copy editor and proofreader, since I've been gainfully employed doing those jobs freelance for more than 35 years. And finally, I will need to purchase the ISBN numbers required for each published edition ($345 all told). 

But I will reward you for helping me out with this! Here's what you get for your donation.

For a $15 donation:

You will receive a copy of the ebook edition of A Friend of Dorothy's when it's published next April.

For a $25 donation:

You will receive a copy of the paperback edition of A Friend of Dorothy's when it's published next April.

For a $50 donation:

You'll be first out of the gate, receiving a copy of the hardcover edition of A Friend of Dorothy's when it's published in March of next year.

For a $100 donation:

You will receive a copy of your choice of edition of A Friend of Dorothy's, and you will be personally thanked in the author's afterword.

For a $250 or more donation:

You will receive your choice of edition of A Friend of Dorothy's, you'll be thanked in the afterword, and you'll be guaranteed a complimentary copy of your choice of one of the books to come from the Magic Show Press: my short story collection, my movie reviews, and a book on my picks through the years for the Oscars.

For a $500 or more donation:

You will receive your choice of edition of A Friend of Dorothy's, you'll be thanked in the afterword, and you'll receive a complimentary copy of each of the books to come from the Magic Show Press: my short stories, my movie reviews, and my picks for each year of the Oscars.

So who is this Richard Willett guy anyway?

Here's what it says on Wikipedia:

Richard Willett is a Canadian-American fiction writer, playwright, and screenwriter. He was born in Hollywood, California, where his father, Bob Willett was a reporter covering the movies for the Canadian press. Willett grew up in Vancouver, Canada, and lived for many years in New York City.

Life and career

Willett left Vancouver for New York at the age of nineteen and began writing short stories. His first published story appeared in Christopher Street in 1991. Subsequent stories appeared in Hawaii Review, Karamu, Oxalis, Art & Understanding, and American Writing, as well as a short play in Art & Understanding. His novel A Friend of Dorothy’s, a semiautobiographical work written at the height of the AIDS epidemic in New York in the 1980s, was excerpted in Christopher Street and Permafrost and will be published in 2024.

In 1990 Willett was the recipient of an Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellowship and in 1993 he received a Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference to study playwriting with Horton Foote and Wendy Hammond. In 1994 he joined Interborough Repertory Theatre’s New Directions Theater, where his plays S.O.S., The Godsend, Hot Air, and Triptych were premiered off-off-Broadway. In 2001 he and his frequent director Eliza Beckwith spun off from IRT as a separate company called New Directions Theater (NDT), where they premiered Willett’s Random Harvest, The Flid Show, and Tiny Bubbles. In 2022 his play A Terminal Event, which won a Julie Harris Playwrighting Award from the Beverly Hills Theatre Guild, was premiered at the Victory Theatre in Los Angeles. In 2023 9/10 and Grief at High Tide are both scheduled for world premieres. [Note from me: These happened! And 9/10 won 4 Broadway World Awards!]

As a screenwriter Willett has twice been in the Top 50 of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Nicholl Fellowships competition, a finalist for the Page International Screenwriting Awards as well as both the Sundance Screenwriting and Episodic Labs, and a semifinalist for the Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition. A short film he wrote, The Gazebo, is scheduled to be shot in July 2024, and he has finished the script for an upcoming animated feature for children.

And Finally

A donation isn't the only way you can help. You can also help me get the word out, about this fundraising campaign and about the upcoming book as well. (See the Indiegogo share tools for some ideas.) And you can also buy one or more copies later, when it's in print and available at quality bookstores everywhere! And sign up for my newsletter at www.richardwillettwriter.com to get updates on this and other projects plus my amusing side of things.