When I started writing Tales of the City I was one year away from being a mental illness. It wasn't until 1975 that the American Psychiatric Association took homosexuality off the list of mental illnesses - and in many states, including the state of North Carolina where I grew up, homosexuality was a crime. An arrestable crime. It still is, in many parts of the world.

Outing is a nasty word for telling the truth.

I think that instinct, that storytelling instinct, rescued me most of my life.

But it's amazing how many people think that gay men should slink off into the shadows when it comes to having friendships with children.

I think many writers write because it's a convenient way to explain themselves to themselves. We take the chaos and the turmoil and the bullshit of our lives, and we make it into something that has a harmonious shape and sound.

I had been a storyteller by instinct all my life. I was that boring little kid who made the rest of his friends sit around the campfire and listen to his ghost stories. It's been very much a part of my makeup.

I think a lot of gay people who are not dealing with their homosexuality get into right- wing politics.