Ask the Author: Mike Coleman
Answered Questions (1)
Mike Coleman
As Ted and I approach our 50th year together, I’ve sensed a genuine interest from people of all ages in how we’ve made our relationship work. How did you meet? What was it like coming out in the 1970s? What’s your secret to staying together? The questions gave me the nudge I needed to write something about us.
I also wrote the book because Ted and I have something most young couples today do not: handwritten letters, 35 of them to be exact. We wrote them to each other when Ted was in a summer program at the University of Michigan and I was working in Nashville. It wasn’t long after we’d met. The letters document the love that bowled us over that summer of 1977.
The letters also document how carefully we considered starting an out-of-the-closet life together at a time when the gay rights movement was an odd, threatening concept to many Americans. They’re our history. I wanted to get them out of the closet, so to speak, and bring them to life in some way.
I also wrote the book as a way to pay tribute to Ted. He was farther along the coming-out curve than I was when we met. Without his guidance, I’m not sure I would have had the courage to stake out a gay life for myself … at least not an out-of-the-closet one.
Times have changed since the 1970s when we met, but coming out still isn’t easy. Our culture might be more accepting of LGBTQ+ people today, but sometimes individual families have not progressed at the same pace. Coming out to one’s family can be the hardest part of the process. I know it was for me.
I hope the book inspires others to have the courage to show their true selves to those they love—not to wait. And I hope it depicts, in real-life detail, the benefits of taking that step.
I also wrote the book because Ted and I have something most young couples today do not: handwritten letters, 35 of them to be exact. We wrote them to each other when Ted was in a summer program at the University of Michigan and I was working in Nashville. It wasn’t long after we’d met. The letters document the love that bowled us over that summer of 1977.
The letters also document how carefully we considered starting an out-of-the-closet life together at a time when the gay rights movement was an odd, threatening concept to many Americans. They’re our history. I wanted to get them out of the closet, so to speak, and bring them to life in some way.
I also wrote the book as a way to pay tribute to Ted. He was farther along the coming-out curve than I was when we met. Without his guidance, I’m not sure I would have had the courage to stake out a gay life for myself … at least not an out-of-the-closet one.
Times have changed since the 1970s when we met, but coming out still isn’t easy. Our culture might be more accepting of LGBTQ+ people today, but sometimes individual families have not progressed at the same pace. Coming out to one’s family can be the hardest part of the process. I know it was for me.
I hope the book inspires others to have the courage to show their true selves to those they love—not to wait. And I hope it depicts, in real-life detail, the benefits of taking that step.
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