Sarah Schulman

Sarah Miriam Schulman (born July 28, 1958) is an American novelist, playwright, nonfiction writer, screenwriter, gay activist, and AIDS historian. She is a Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at College of Staten Island (CSI) and a Fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities. She is a recipient of the Bill Whitehead Award.
Early life and education.
Schulman was born on July 28, 1958 in New York City. She attended Hunter College High School, and attended the University of Chicago from 1976 to 1978 but did not graduate. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Empire State College.
Literary career.
Schulman published her first novel, "The Sophie Horowitz Story", in 1984, which was followed by "Girls, Visions and Everything" in 1986 — a cult classic that has never gone out of print.
Schulman's third novel, "After Delores", received a positive review in "The New York Times", was translated into eight languages, and was awarded an American Library Association Stonewall Book Award in 1989. "Empathy", a highly experimental work, appeared in 1992. Her novel "Rat Bohemia" (1995) received a full-page rave review in "The New York Times" from Edmund White, and was named one of the 100 best LGBT books by The Publishing Triangle.
Subsequent novels included "Shimmer", "The Child", and "The Mere Future". "The Cosmopolitans" was named one of the best American novels of 2016 by "Publishers Weekly". In 2018, she published "Maggie Terry", a return to and comment on the lesbian detective novel, addressing the emotions of life under President Donald Trump.
"" (1998), which won the Stonewall Book Award, argues that significant plot elements of the successful 1996 musical "Rent" were lifted from her 1990 novel, "People in Trouble". The heterosexual plot of "Rent" is based on the opera "La Bohème", while the gay plot is similar to the plot of Schulman's novel. Schulman never sued, but analyzed in "Stagestruck" the way the musical depicted AIDS and gay people, in contrast to work made by those communities that same year.
In 2009, The New Press published "Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences", which was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. In September 2013, "The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination", was published by the University of California Press. "Slate" called "The Gentrification of the Mind" one of the 10 "Best Most Unknown Books" and "GalleyCat" called it one of the "Best Unrecognized Books" of the year. It was also nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. "Israel/Palestine and the Queer International" was published by Duke University Press in 2012, and was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. Her 2018 book "Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility and the Duty of Repair" was published by Arsenal Pulp Press, was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, won a Judy Grahn Award by the Publishing Triangle, and was widely discussed and read.
Schulman was named one of "Publishers Weekly"s 60 Most Underrated Writers.
In 2018, the second edition of her 1994 collection "My American History: Lesbian and Gay Life During the Reagan/Bush Years" was issued including new material by Urvashi Vaid, Stephen Thrasher, and Alison Bechdel.
"Let the Record Show: A Political History of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power New York" (ACT UP, New York 1987–1993) was published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in 2021, and was a finalist for both the 2019 and 2020 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize for Works-In-Progress.
Activism.
Schulman's activism began in her childhood when she protested the Vietnam War with her mother. Later, Schulman was active in the Women's Union while being a student at the University of Chicago from 1976 to 1978. From 1979 to 1982, Schulman was a member of The for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse (CARASA) and participated in an early direct action protest in which she and five others (called The Women's Liberation Zap Action Brigade) disrupted an anti-abortion hearing in Congress. She was an active member of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power from 1987 to 1992, attending actions at the FDA, NIH, Stop the Church, and was arrested when ACT UP occupied Grand Central Station protesting the First Gulf War.
In 1987, Schulman and filmmaker Jim Hubbard co-founded the New York Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film Festival, now called MIX NYC and is currently in its thirty-third year.
In 1992, Schulman and five other women co-founded the Lesbian Avengers, a direct action organization. On her 1992 book tour for "Empathy", Schulman visited gay bookstores in the South to start chapters. The organization's high points included founding the first Dyke March during the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation, and sending groups of young organizers to Maine and Idaho to assist local fights against anti-gay ballot initiatives.
Since 2001, Schulman and Jim Hubbard have been creating the ACT UP Oral History Project, interviewing 188 surviving members of ACT UP over 18 years. They produced a feature documentary, "", which premiered at the Museum of Modern Art Gallery in the fall of 2010. Harvard purchased the archive for their collection, while maintaining free access, and the funds were used to produce "United in Anger".
In 2009, Schulman declined an invitation to Tel Aviv University in support of Palestine and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. She is on the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace and is faculty advisor to Students for Justice in Palestine at the College of Staten Island. She is also on the board of RAIA (Researching the American/Israeli Alliance).
Schulman was US Coordinator of the campaign to free Tarek Loubani and John Greyson from prison in Cairo. Working with Tim McCaskell, Stephen Andrews, Justin Podur, Cecilia Greyson, Mohammed Loubani, Naomi Klein, and Dan Malloy in Canada, Matias Viegener in Los Angeles, and Ian Iqbal Rashid in Britain, and with thousands of volunteers around the world, the campaign was able to rescue the Canadian prisoners in 50 days, an extraordinarily rapid release time for international political prisoners.
In 2016, Schulman was faculty for Lambda Literary Foundation Writers' Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices at University of Southern California. She selected 10 LGBT writers for a one-week intensive immersion course in nonfiction. In 2018, Schulman curated First Mondays at Performance Space New York — a monthly series presenting a wide range of writers reading new works-in-progress where transgender writers Torrey Dorra, Jeanne Thornton, and Nahshon Anderson read excerpts of their literature to publishing professionals.
In 2017, she joined the advisory board of Claudia Rankine's Racial Imaginary Institute.
Theater.
From 1979 to 1994, she had 15 plays produced in the context of the avant-garde "Downtown Arts Movement" based in New York City's East Village. Venues included The University of the Streets, P.S. 122, La Mama, King Tut Wah-Wah Hut, the Pyramid Club, 8BC, Franklin Furnace, The Kitchen, Ela Troyano and Uzi Parness' Club Chandelier, Here, the Performing Garage, and others. Schulman was admitted into the Sundance Theater Lab in 2001 with the play "Carson McCullers", based on the life of the 20th century writer. The workshop starred Angelina Phillips and Bill Camp and was directed by Craig Lucas. The play had its world premiere at Playwrights Horizons in 2002, directed by Marion McClinton and starring Jenny Bacon. "Carson McCullers" has been published by Playscripts Inc. This was followed by a commission from South Coast Repertory for which she wrote two plays: "Made in Korea", based on the memoirs of Mi Ok Bruining, and "Mercy". Both plays were presented in several readings and workshops.
In 2005, Tim Sanford, artistic director of Playwrights Horizons, produced "Manic Flight Reaction". Director Trip Cullman developed the work at New York Stage and Film, and it opened at Playwrights that winter, starring Deirdre O'Connell with Molly Price, Jessica Collins, Austin Lysy, Michael Esper, and Angel Desai.
Schulman secured the rights to write an adaptation of Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Enemies, A Love Story", which premiered at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia in 2007, directed by Jiri Ziska. It later had a New York reading at the New York Theatre Workshop, directed by Jo Bonney.
In 2018, her play "Between Covers" was included in New Works at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, her play "Roe Versus Wade" had a reading at the New York Theatre Workshop and she was commissioned by BMG and The Manchester Factory to write the book for "The Snow Queen", a theatrical work highlighting the music of Marianne Faithfull. She has also been commissioned by BMG and the Ma-Yi Theater Company to create a musical version of "Made in Korea" (based on the memoirs of Mi Ok Bruining) using a classic R&B catalogue.
Film.
In fall 2009, Schulman and Cheryl Dunye wrote the screenplay for Dunye's film "The Owls", starring Guinevere Turner, Lisa Gornick, Cheryl Dunye, and V.S. Brodie. The film had its world premiere at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival in January 2010. She and Dunye then wrote an X-rated film "Mommy Is Coming," which was produced in Germany by Jürgen Brüning and selected for the 2012 Berlin International Film Festival.
She is co-producer with Jim Hubbard of his feature-length documentary "" which premiered at the Museum of Modern Art on the opening night of Documentary Fortnight on February 16, 2012. The film's international premiere was in Ramallah, Palestine. It won Best Documentary at both MIX Milano and ReelQ in Pittsburgh.
Schulman played filmmaker Shirley Clarke to Jack Waters' Jason Holliday in Stephen Winter's response to Clarke's 1967 documentary "Portrait of Jason", "Jason and Shirley", which premiered at BAMcinemaFest in June 2015 and played for a week at the Museum of Modern Art in October 2015.