Charles Koehler 0:02 I'm Charles Koeher, and this is Lambda Reports, a weekly program by and for the St. Louis lesbian and gay community. Lesbians and gays have come a long way from Stonewall Rebellion over two decades ago, the world has seen an increase in visibility through the electronic media, in magazines and newspapers and in the ever growing volume of writings by and about lesbians and gays. Joining us is a long time active member of the St. Louis lesbian and gay community and manager of our world two bookstore. Bill Cordes, good morning Bill. Bill Cordes 0:40 Good morning Charles. Charles Koehler 0:41 Bill, just why is it so important that books be made available to the community that are by and about lesbians and gays? Bill Cordes 0:51 Well, one reason, right off the top of my head is, is that an awful lot of misinformation exists about gay people, and that as people read books, that can be corrected. Charles Koehler 1:04 Now, when you say misinformation … Bill Cordes 1:07 There's a lot of myth about what it is to be gay and lesbian, and I think even young people who are growing up and listening to the impression of what it means to be gay on that they get from the media or from friends, locker rooms, that sort of stuff. There's a lot of misinformation about what it means, and a lot of people don't understand that for every gay person, there is another way to be gay. And one of the things that you get by reading about other people and what they've gone through and some of their experiences are the studies that exist are, or even good fiction that that show different ways that lifestyle can can be run. You know, you can pick up and start understanding that there's a lot more to the world than than what you've heard. A lot more to being gay and lesbian than what you've heard. And it just broadens one scope one, one's ability to deal with oneself. Charles Koehler 2:03 I understand how it's been said that that the the range of I don't like the word lifestyles, but I'll use it anyway, the range of lifestyles for lesbians and gays is it covers the full spectrum, just as the range of lifestyles for heterosexuals (certain certainly) the same sort of thing. Bill Cordes 2:22 It certainly does. And the problem is that gay and lesbian have been invisible for so long. People don't realize that, and so the stereotypes that exist have been what we've been allowed to see when gay and lesbian characters appear in a movie or that. And a lot of times it's the ludicrous and the very limited view of what it means to be gay or lesbian that is shown, and so without there being role models out there, one of the ways that people can can figure out who they are and see that there are more ways to be gay and lesbian is to read. Charles Koehler 2:58 I guess an analogy that might be common to most of our listeners might be judging the black community or the African American community, but the, by the way, African Americans are depicted in the movies by a character, let's say by such as Step and Fetch It. I mean, that's (certainly), it's, it's totally inaccurate, (Right.) Well, the books that we've been talking about that are written by or about lesbians and gays, can't they be found in most bookstores or in public libraries? Bill Cordes 3:33 Not really. And there's still a stigma about material gay and lesbian. A lot of people believe that, and again, it's a stereotype, believe that gay and lesbian material is sexual material, pure and simple, and avoid it. Most gay and lesbian material is not just pure sexuality, pornography, that sort of thing. And unfortunately, a lot of people have not got beyond that kind of view of it. Charles Koehler 4:00 And I guess it's, it's sexual to the same degree as most of the materials that can be found, let's say, say B Dalton. Bill Cordes 4:12 Certainly, certainly, yeah, there's certainly sexuality, and people doing things that come naturally in the course of their lives is written about, and a romance between a man and a woman is the same as a romance between two men or two women. And so in the course of a good romance novel, for instance, you're going to find some sexuality and that going on. But what I'm talking about is that as soon as you say the word gay and lesbian, an awful lot of people equate that to pornography, and pornography is something quite different. It's it's something that that an awful lot of bookstore owners will avoid. A lot of bookstore owners will avoid bringing in too much gay and lesbian material before fear of reaction from their quote, unquote, great customers. They don't want the reaction from the religious community or their conservative customers. Charles Koehler 5:07 I understand, for instance, that Walden Books nationwide has been pressured by some of the more conservative organizations to stop carrying any literature that is lesbian or gay, because they consider it to be pornography. Bill Cordes 5:23 That's correct. In fact, there is a religious fundamentalist group, and I can't remember their name right now. I was just reading about it last week that is putting pressure on K-Mart, which is the parent company of Walden Books, and asking them to withdraw anything gay and lesbian because, quote, unquote, that is pornography, and we don't want it. Certainly, most of the literature is not pornography in any way, shape or form can't even be equated to it. Charles Koehler 5:54 What's been happening in gay and lesbian publishing and writings? Are there any trends that you've seen? Bill Cordes 6:01 One of the more interesting trends today is for years, gay male novels included mostly just gay male characters or male characters. Lesbian novels included mostly just lesbian characters today. One of the interesting trends is that a lot of the the mainline lesbian and gay male authors are including opposite gender people in their their novels, so you get true gay and lesbian literature in one book. That's happening more and more often, and I think it's a healthy trend. Charles Koehler 6:35 And some of the the lesbian and gay publishers and authors also are becoming more mainstream are being recognized by mainstream media, for instance, National Public Radio, Newsweek and also the Post Dispatch, have all had reviews of gay or lesbian fiction within the past few months. And what can you tell us about that? And what do you think this might mean? Bill Cordes 7:00 I think it's it's a natural maturing of our literature. We have some very good authors, and just as gay people don't read only gay and lesbian literature when something is of value and is well done from from the the traditional literature side, we read it, and just as our authors are producing, some of them are producing, producing things that are quite valuable and very well done, and it's being noticed by people who are not gay and lesbian. And so as the media catches on to that, and the media is always a little bit behind what's going on. As the media catches up to that, it's going to be reviewing more and more gay and lesbian literature we have. The other thing that happens is, is a number of authors who have not been known as gay and lesbian, authors who have have have been writing in what's called the mainstream are more and more today, including gay and lesbian characters in their works, whether they are gay or not. And so you have a kind of a merging of the literature, because we are out there, and we exist, and our life exists, and people are starting to not hide that as much as they used to, Charles Koehler 8:21 It's, it's getting a little bit off the subject. It's even coming to the the newspapers in the in the comic strips. For instance, Doonesbury is one example where Trudeau had a Gary gay character in the strip. It was sort of a groundbreaking work that he did. So it's, it's, it is, as you said, true. Bill Cordes 8:42 Well, we've even, if you look at the Simpsons, the cartoon show on TV, you had a gay character in one of the episodes recently. Charles Koehler 8:50 I believe it was a male secretary to Homer Simpson, right? Interestingly enough, that person was played by trying to … Bill Cordes 8:59 The voice was Harvey Fireside, who is a very famous gay playwright. Charles Koehler 9:05 So it's, it's becoming more and more apparent. Another thing that's that's being done. I'm just reading from a recent Newsweek article from January on a several several books that were written specifically for children of gay and lesbian parents. And it goes into some detail talking about that there is some 7 million children of such parents out there. So it seems that not only are we talking about niches such as lesbian and gay, but also more specific niches children of lesbians and gays, and those particular markets are being addressed. Talking about the range of books written by and for lesbians and gays, can you give us some specific examples? That's one. Books written for children of lesbians and gays? Bill Cordes 10:02 Sure. Well, for instance, there's a large body of writing about gay and lesbian and religion. One of the more popular books today is a book called Things They Never Taught Us in Sunday School. I'm sorry, Things They Never Told Us in Sunday School. It's a very popular book right now, very well done, and addresses some of the specific questions about being a Christian and being gay. There are lesbian and gay cookbooks. Some of them are done just ordinary collections of recipes, but by gay organizations to raise funds for their organizations. There are books about what it means to be gay, books like testimonies or revelations, which are collections of writings by people about their coming out experiences. There's a lot of good fiction about just about everything, including an awful lot of work recently in the mystery or thriller genera in which we have gay detectives or lesbian detectives solving crimes within our community. And some of the things, one of the more popular is by Katherine Forrest called Murder at the Nightwood Bar, which is a lesbian bar. Charles Koehler 11:22 I think that's one of the books that was reviewed on National Public Radio just recently. Bill Cordes 11:26 Yeah, it's a very good book. And in fact, one of the movie companies has picked up rights to do it. I don't know if they're actually going to do it or not, but it could become a movie in the near future. There's a lot of studies and essays and a lot of personal writings, and there's a lot of biographies, you know, we've got a lot of gay people. You know, recently, there was a biography called Take Off the Mask, which is about an umpire in the National League, a guy by the name of Pallone who was essentially fired as an umpire because he was gay, although that was was kind of covered up at the time. You know, Holly Near's new book, Fire in the Rain, Singer in the Storm, is very popular. So there's a lot of biography, there's, there's, there's a lot of literature across the entire board, virtually every kind of book that you can find in any bookstore you're going to find in a gay bookstore and find in with specifics aimed at the gay community, from everything all the way up to travel guides. There's a lot of gay travel guides including there's even some rather interesting magazines that are specifically aimed at the gay community and talk about travel. There's coincidence with name, there's a magazine called Our World, which is a gay travel magazine. Charles Koehler 12:46 So another magazine that pops into mind is RFT, which … Bill Cordes 12:51 Right. Charles Koehler 12:52 Can you tell us a little bit about that? Bill Cordes 12:53 RFT is one of the oldest gay publications in the in the country, and it's published. RFT is published primarily for people who live in rural settings. Talks about the gay life in rural settings and some of the difficulties that are specific to those kinds of settings, and some of the solutions that work there. It's it's a rather interesting magazine. It's always been one that never looks good. It's always been kind of a mimeograph type of situation with with covers that don't look very professional. So a lot of times it's ignored. But it's got some very good content in it, Charles Koehler 13:36 Stories from the heartland of America. Bill Cordes 13:39 Yes, precisely, it's being gay on the farm. Charles Koehler 13:44 What it must be like. I'm sure that there's large or interesting articles in there. You gave us an idea of the range of books that covers just about any and everything can be imagined. Bill Cordes 14:01 Sure, you know, books on relationships, and you know, one thing that unfortunately is we've got a lot of right now, is a lot of books on AIDS and dealing with death and dying and things like that, which is very important to our community right now. Charles Koehler 14:17 So dealing with the issues of AIDS, aside from our in addition to the medical aspects Bill Cordes 14:24 We've got books on the medical aspects of it, but we've also got books on counseling people with AIDS. We've got people on on healthy lifestyles to prolong life. And we've got books. One of the the newest books is a very controversial book that it's called Poisoned by Prescription, and it talks about AZT, the drug, and it talks about a lot of things that people need to know if they're coming into a situation where they're going to be on that drug. Charles Koehler 14:53 Lot of what to think about. (Right.) You talked about some of the popular books. Now, can you give us any idea of some other hot authors whose new works seem to be really best sellers in this area. Bill Cordes 15:05 Armistead Maupin, anything he does is hot. He writes with a light style, and most of his works are comedy type of novels and very episodic. And they, they're very, very popular. Charles Koehler 15:26 Famous for the Tales of the series, Bill Cordes 15:28 Tales of the City series. And he's definitely mainline. He's He's published by a big house. And when they do city tours, they do, you know, stops in the biggest bookstores in the biggest cities. Charles Koehler 15:46 It was in St Louis not too long ago. Bill Cordes 15:48 About a year ago, little over a year ago, he was in and did a stop at Left Bank Books. Rita Mae Brown is very popular, and she's an author who started out primarily writing lesbian type of material, and her her material has gotten more and more generic as it's gone along, and now is very mainstream and is also published by by the big houses. Much of her newer work has very little specific lesbian or or gay content, although it's not ignored, but her earlier work was almost exclusively lesbian novels, and has matured and grown into something much more mainline, and virtually everything that she puts out hits the best seller list. Charles Koehler 16:35 One of the things that I think is interesting is that when we talk about lesbian or gay literature are literature written by lesbians and gays. I would imagine that almost all of our listeners, regardless of their orientation, have written, have not written, have read something by someone who's lesbian or gay, just in the course of their growing up and reading things that were assigned to them in school, certainly even things read to them in the cradle are Hans Christian Andersen. Bill Cordes 17:09 Hans Christian Andersen is a very good example. I can remember one of the reasons I was kind of grinning as you were talking about that. I can remember specifically my junior high school teachers trying to explain away some of the references in the Walt Whitman material that we had to read, things like, like, no, when he's talking about kissing the lips of soldiers. That's literary license. He didn't really kiss soldiers lips. Well, if you go to his diaries, of course he really did kiss soldiers lips. The there are a tremendous number of gay people who have have turned out a vast amount of literature that is very well known and that everybody has read. They did not, however, you know, usually include gay characters or allow sexuality to be be brought to anything that was non-traditional in their works. And so, you know, the works did not stand out as gay and lesbian material, but there's a tremendous number of authors that both lesbian and gay male that people would recognize instantly. Charles Koehler 18:18 That I've read, (Yeah.) Our World Too, the bookstore that you founded and manage is is much more than a business, and it's more of a community resource for lesbians and gays. Bill Cordes 18:32 Yeah, one of the, one of the things we call it is your community place, because it's a place where we don't just sell books. That's what keeps the doors open. We do a lot of other things. Charles Koehler 18:41 For instance, I understand that you can get their news of events of interest in the St Louis lesbian and gay community, or pick up a copy of the Lesbian and Gay News Telegraph, or the Show Me guide. There's a wide range of magazines and publications from various cities, St. Louis, around the Midwest and across the nation. (Right.) available there. Can you give us an idea of some of the other things that are available? Bill Cordes 19:09 Well, little over a year ago, we built in the basement of our store we built a community room, and that community room is used for our various different groups to hold meetings. It'll it'll hold up to 25 people, and we make it available at very low cost, usually $5 or less. And it has been the birthplace of several organizations in our community now, which is one of the things we had hoped it would happen when we built it. Our bulletin board in the back of the store is a network for people in the community. You see a lot of business cards of people who are in the community, who are looking for just friendly customers, people within the community. And so a lot of people leave business cards, most of the organizations have brochures back there, so it's a place where you can come and find out about other organization. Of course, we have, we carry the local publications, but several other publications. Our hotline, I shouldn't say hotline, our telephone is used as much or more than the hotline. Our store is open 89 hours a week. And that's Charles Koehler 20:21 And that's definitely in excess of, (Yeah.) unfortunately, I guess the Lesbian Gay hotline is open, Bill Cordes 20:28 And our phone number is very accessible. So we tend to get, even though we don't cultivate them, we tend to get a lot of hotline type calls. We do over 500 referral calls a month for things within the community. A lot of I guess the majority of them are people saying, I'm new in town, or I'm just visiting St. Louis, where are the bars at? but an awful lot of the calls are coming out calls. A lot of the calls are people looking for gay professionals, counselors or medical doctors, or people looking for specific information about AIDS or our organizations. We do a lot of organizational referrals, a lot of referrals for the various different student groups or for the youth group or for the religious organizations or the churches that existed that either are part of the community or cooperate with the community. So we get a lot of calls like that. We do a lot of hotline type work, even though we don't really, we're not really set up for that. Charles Koehler 21:31 I understand also that Our World Too, there is original artwork created by St. Louisans that that's there for display and also be purchased with interest. Bill Cordes 21:44 Right the area in our shop, above our bookshelves, is area that we allow artists to come in and display their work. So we do have local artists. Usually, there's always something on display. Sometimes we have a lot, sometimes we have very little, but we make space available for local artists within the community to come in and display their works to the community. We also, any time there's an organization that's got something special going on, we generally get a lot of phone calls about it and give information about it. But we'll also sell tickets. For instance, we sell a lot of tickets for the Wired Women dances. I shouldn't say dances, but they're concerts. Also, you know, anything the pride committee is doing, we have their merchandise on sale for people to get all year long, their T shirts and buttons and things like that. And we distribute thousands of of their their booklets for, you know when, when Pride Week comes along, what's going on, we one of the primary distribution points for for their material. Charles Koehler 22:52 And I think it's important to to note that all of these activities are done without commission or just as a community service. Bill Cordes 23:00 That's right. We don't take a commission on any of that stuff. The only, the only way we get any money is if we saw somebody a book, and that's completely volunteer, voluntary. If they come, if somebody comes in and buys a book or a magazine, we we profit on the stuff that we provide, but all of the things that we do for the community is done so that we can be a good neighbor. Charles Koehler 23:21 Can Can you tell us a little bit more about your philosophy behind Our World Too? Bill Cordes 23:27 I originally opened the store because there was a vast amount of literature that was not available in St. Louis, and I wanted St. Louisans to have that available to them. You could, you could access it through catalogs, but you had to wait for it. You couldn't browse. You couldn't see what you were getting in advance. You had to pay shipping charges, things like that. Charles Koehler 23:44 And Our World Too, by the way, is the only bookstore in the St. Louis region for this St. Louis lesbian and gay community. Bill Cordes 23:54 That's right, that's right. There's really, there's really not that many around the country. There's only a handful of bookstores like ours, anywhere in the country, and so St. Louis is rather unique in having something like this. The original concept was to bring, you know, give St. Louis and more choices than they had before. We've got over 2000 titles of books in the store at any one time, and are generally bringing in anywhere from from 10 to 15 new titles every single week. Some some periods are slower than that, but some periods are stepped up. I remember one week where we got in 50 new titles. There's a lot being done in gay and lesbian literature, and we try to stay abreast of it. I do about three hours a day of research for titles and ordering information and and ordering an inventory type work every single day, seven days a week, about three hours a day average. Charles Koehler 24:49 I understand that if a book is not in the store, that it can be ordered. Bill Cordes 24:53 For the most part. There are some publishers that we don't have a relationship with, but for the most part, yes, that's true. However, if the book is gay or lesbian and current, we probably have it. We spend a lot of time doing that. It's either, if we don't have it, it's on its way. Charles Koehler 25:09 Great, great. Bill, I understand that Our World Too is in very real need of support to stay open. Bill Cordes 25:19 That's true. Charles Koehler 25:21 It's a unique, one of a kind community resource for the lesbian and gay community, as we mentioned before, it's the only bookstore for lesbians and gays in the St. Louis region, and it's been very supportive of the St. Louis lesbian and gay community. What can our listeners do to help out, to help Our World Too stay open as a resource to the community that it has become. Bill Cordes 25:46 One of the easiest things that people can do is simply drop in the store and browse, and if they see something they like, buy it. Charles Koehler 25:52 You don't have to be lesbian or gay to do that. Bill Cordes 25:54 No, of course not. And we do have material there, like I said, there's a lot of information on AIDS. And AIDS is not a gay problem. It's a community problem. We've got a lot of other things that people would be interested in, especially some of the artwork people might be interested in. Charles Koehler 26:10 One thing I might mention about the bookstore Our World Too, is just how it looks. It's very bright and open and cheery environment. We looks a little bit like a in a sense, almost like a multi-bookstore in its appearance. It's clean, it's open, well-presented. Bill Cordes 26:29 Thank you. We try very hard to keep it clean and shiny and a place that people can feel comfortable coming into (It is.) Another thing that we're asking people to do, if they're in a position, is buy stock in Our World Too, Our World Too is, I'm not the owner. I'm the store is a corporation, and I'm only one of the people who are a part of it. And we're asking if people are in a position to invest as little as $50 in the store, and that would be great, greatly helpful. Our problem is not sales. Although for a while during this recession, we have had a problem with sales, although once people found out we were in trouble, that they picked up a little bit and are a little bit more normal than they were for a while. But our problem is is covering some of the capital costs from leftover from when we open the store. A lot of that debt that we went into to open the store is due now, and some of it's getting kind of ugly, and we're needing to convert that. And so we're asking people to invest as little as $50 in the store, if they're able, and that would be a tremendous help. Charles Koehler 27:38 I think that it's significant to note that that the investment that would be made is much more than in corporation or whatever, but it's truly an investment back into the community. Bill Cordes 27:53 It truly is. And one of the things too, is some of the people that we have talked to have got the idea that we're asking for donations, and we're not really. The stock is actually a $50 worth of stock is worth $50 the store is, is, has, has true value, and the stock is priced accurately. So they're getting stock that is actually worth $50 and as we overcome the problems, and as the the community continues to as the store continues to grow in the community, the store is technically profitable right now, so we're not going any further into debt. We're simply trying to to keep some of the dangerous debt from from shutting us down at a time which would be very frustrating to to have an operation that's successful and and actually profitable and go out of business because of something old that you couldn't cover. The growth rate has been 25 to 35% every year, annual growth rate, which is phenomenal, and the store is quite well supported and growing. So it's not, it's not like we're trying to subsidize it. It's we're simply trying to cover some old problems. Charles Koehler 29:00 Great, great. Well, Bill, thanks for being with us this morning, and I wish you and your staff the very best of luck for our readers to find out or for our listeners to find out more about what's available for the lesbian and gay community in print material and much, much more, and to find out how you can help out. Call 533-5322, that's 533-5322, or better yet, stop in at Our World Too at 11 South Vandeventer, that's one block north of Forest Park Parkway. Stop in and help out a St. Louis institution. For Lambda Reports this is Charles Koehler. Join us again next week, same time, same station. Transcribed by https://otter.ai