Irascible, cantankerous, outspokenly gay, aggressively liberal, aggressively creative, aggressively brilliant.
In the last months of his life, Adam found a home with a Las Vegas church called Affirming God’s People UCC. A potential boyfriend took him there, but Adam is the one who stayed. He loved the community, and the community loved him back. There were church dogs, too, which apparently sealed the deal.
Originally from Chicago, he had been: a DJ, including a stint doing classical music for an NPR station; English professor at USC, Columbia, UNT, and UNLV; an English instructor for the U.S. Navy; a cabdriver; an award-winning poet; a screenwriter; a novelist; and founder and editor-in-chief for 153 issues of Danse Macabre, Nevada’s first and finest online litmag.
His personal life is his, and he never gave me permission to divulge, but one piece, Soviet, shows where his private and public lives came together in astonishing poetry.
His work remains available on Amazon, on the oldest surviving version of Danse Macabre, and on the daily version, DM du Jour.
His love for the work remains available in my writing and the writing of others who worked with him. Vale.