Rainbow Warrior

Jay Blotcher in Conversation with Nina Shengold

To commemorate LGBTQ History Month and National Coming Out Day, Blue Heron Bookstore will present a queer history lesson. Veteran activist Jay Blotcher will be in conversation with award-winning author Nina Shengold about completing “Rainbow Warrior: My Life in Color” (Chicago Review Press), the memoirs of Gilbert Baker, the artist-activist who created the iconic Rainbow Flag.

Jay Blotcher, a veteran progressive activist with ACT UP and Queer Nation, is a member of the board of the Gilbert Baker Foundation. A friend of artist-activist Baker, Blotcher was tasked to complete his memoirs after Baker died in 2017. Blotcher’s essays appear in ten anthologies and on Substack. He has been a full-time Ulster County resident since 2001.

“Flags are torn from the soul of the people.”

Gilbert Baker - 2007

Photo by Mark Maxwell

More information can be found at www.gilbertbaker.com

Nina Shengold is an author whose books include Reservoir Year, River of Words, and Clearcut. Her teleplay Labor of Love won a Writers Guild Award and a GLAAD nomination.

Photo Credit: Franco Vogt