Johnny Townsend

JOHNNY TOWNSEND {[email protected]} earned an MFA in fiction writing from Louisiana State University. Six of his thirty-two books have been named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best of the Year, including one about his two years as a gay missionary in Italy, “The Abominable Gayman.” Most of his books are short story collections featuring gay, feminist, or otherwise unorthodox Mormons. He’s also written about the Upstairs Lounge fire, an arson at a gay bar in the French Quarter of New Orleans that killed 32 people on Gay Pride Day in 1973. He is an associate producer for the documentary “Upstairs Inferno” on the same tragedy.