Dan Savage & Terry Miller
Daniel Keenan "Dan" Savage (born October 7, 1964) is an American author, media pundit, journalist and newspaper editor. Savage writes the internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column Savage Love. Its tone is frank in its discussion of sexuality, often humorous, and hostile to social conservatives and Rick Santorum's views on homosexuality. Savage has clashed with cultural conservatives on the right, and the gay establishment, on the left. He has also worked as a theater director, both under his real name and under the name Keenan Hollahan, using his middle name and his grandmother's maiden name. In 2010, Savage and his husband Terry Miller began the It Gets Better Project to help prevent suicide among LGBT youth.
Dan Savage was born to William and Judy Savage in Chicago, Illinois. He is of Irish ancestry. The third of four children, Savage was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Quigley Preparatory Seminary North, which he has described as "a Catholic high school in Chicago for boys thinking of becoming priests." Though Savage has stated that he is now "a wishy-washy agnostic" and an atheist, he has said that he still considers himself "culturally Catholic."
Savage attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he studied theater and history. As a theater director, Savage (working under the name "Keenan Hollahan") was a founder of Seattle's Greek Active Theater. Much of the group's work has been queer recontextualizations of classic works, such as a tragicomic Macbeth with both the title character and Lady Macbeth played by performers of the opposite sex. In March 2001, he directed his own Egguus at Consolidated Works, a parody of Peter Shaffer's 1973 play Equus which exchanged a fixation on horses for a fixation on chickens. Savage has not directed, produced, or performed in any productions since a 2003 production of Letters from the Earth, also at Consolidated Works, his trimmed version of Mark Twain's The Diary of Adam and Eve, which received scathing reviews, including one from his own paper, "My Boss's Show Stinks".
Dan Savage (born October 7, 1964) is an American author, media pundit, journalist and newspaper editor. Savage writes the internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column Savage Love. He has also worked as a theater director, both under his real name and under the name Keenan Hollahan, using his middle name and his grandmother's maiden name. In 2010, Savage and his husband Terry Miller began the It Gets Better Project to help prevent suicide among LGBT youth.
Savage and his husband, Terry, have one adopted son, D.J., and were married in Vancouver, BC in 2005.
In 1991, Savage was living in Madison, Wisconsin, and working as a manager at a local video store that specialized in independent film titles. There, Savage befriended Tim Keck, co-founder of The Onion, who announced that he was moving to Seattle to help start an alternative weekly newspaper titled The Stranger. Savage "made the offhand comment that forever altered [his] life: 'Make sure your paper has an advice column-everybody claims to hate 'em, but everybody seems to read 'em'." Savage typed up a sample column, and to Savage's surprise Keck offered him the job.
Savage stated in a February 2006 interview in The Onion's A.V. Club (which publishes his column) that he began the column with the express purpose of providing mocking advice to heterosexuals, since most straight advice columnists were "clueless" when responding to letters from gay people. Savage wanted to call the column "Hey Faggot!" in an effort to reclaim a hate word. His editors at the time refused his choice of column name, but for the first several years of the column, he attached "Hey Faggot!" at the beginning of each printed letter as a salutation." In his February 25, 1999 column, Savage announced that he was retiring the phrase, claiming that the reclamation was successful.
He has written in a number of columns about "straight rights" concerns, such as the HPV vaccine and the morning-after pill, stating in his November 9, 2005, column that "[t]he right-wingers and the fundies and the sex-phobes don't just have it in for the queers. They're coming for your asses too."
In addition to maintaining his weekly column and authoring four books, Savage has been involved in several other projects.
From 1994 until 1997, he had a weekly three-hour call-in show called Savage Love Live on Seattle's KCMU (now KEXP). From 1998 to 2000, he ran the biweekly advice column Dear Dan on the news website abcnews.com.
He is now the editorial director of the weekly Seattle newspaper The Stranger, a promotion from his former position as The Stranger's editor-in-chief. Savage currently stars in Savage U on MTV, contributes frequently to This American Life and Out magazine, and acts as a "Real Time Real Reporter" on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. He has also made multiple appearances on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann and CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 discussing LGBT political issues such as same-sex marriage and Don't Ask Don't Tell.
The Savage Lovecast is a weekly audio podcast based on Savage's column Savage Love, available via iTunes and at the Stranger's website for free download. It features Savage doing a call-in version of his sex advice column. It is routinely rated as the top podcast in the iTunes "Health" category.
On September 21, 2010, Savage started the It Gets Better Project in light of the suicide of 15-year-old Billy Lucas, who was bullied for his perceived sexual orientation. The project encourages adults, both LGBT and otherwise, to submit videos assuring gay teenagers that life can improve after bullying in early life. As of January 3, 2011, the project had over 5,000 user created testimonials.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Savage“The Kid” is a great real-life story, about a gay couple going through adoption. Dan Savage, most famous for his “Savage Love” advice column (and podcast), is a terrific storyteller, and chronicles not only the problems he and his boyfriend faced, but also the mistakes they made. In the process, he shows us his relationship, the good and bad, and tells us what the kid means to them. - Kyell Gold
Further Readings:
The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family by Dan Savage
Reading level: Ages 18 and up
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Plume; 1ST edition (September 26, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0452287634
ISBN-13: 978-0452287631
Amazon: The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family
Dan Savage’s mother wants him to get married. His boyfriend, Terry, says “no thanks” because he doesn’t want to act like a straight person. Their six-year-old son DJ says his two dads aren’t “allowed” to get married, but that he’d like to come to the reception and eat cake. Throw into the mix Dan’s straight siblings, whose varied choices form a microcosm of how Americans are approaching marriage these days, and you get a rollicking family memoir that will have everyone-gay or straight, right or left, single or married-howling with laughter and rethinking their notions of marriage and all it entails.
The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant by Dan Savage
Reading level: Ages 18 and up
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Plume; Reissue edition (June 1, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0452281768
ISBN-13: 978-0452281769
Amazon: The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant
Dan Savage's nationally syndicated sex advice column, "Savage Love," enrages and excites more than four million people each week. In The Kid, Savage tells a no-holds-barred, high-energy story of an ordinary American couple who wants to have a baby. Except that in this case the couple happens to be Dan and his boyfriend. That fact, in the face of a society enormously uneasy with gay adoption, makes for an edgy, entertaining, and illuminating read. When Dan and his boyfriend are finally presented with an infant badly in need of parenting, they find themselves caught up in a drama that extends well beyond the confines of their immediate world. A story about confronting homophobia, falling in love, getting older, and getting a little bit smarter, The Kid is a book about the very human desire to have a family.
It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living by Dan Savage & Terry Miller
Reading level: Ages 18 and up
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Plume; Reprint edition (January 25, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0452297613
ISBN-13: 978-0452297616
Amazon: It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living
Every story can change a life.
Growing up isn't easy. Many young people face daily tormenting and bullying, and this is especially true for LGBT kids and teens. In response to a number of tragic suicides by LGBT students, syndicated columnist and author Dan Savage uploaded a video to YouTube with his partner, Terry Miller. Speaking openly about the bullying they suffered, and how they both went on to lead rewarding adult lives, their video launched the It Gets Better Project YouTube channel and initiated a worldwide phenomenon.
It Gets Better is a collection of original essays and expanded testimonials written to teens from celebrities, political leaders, and everyday people, because while many LGBT teens can't see a positive future for themselves, we can.
More LGBT Couples at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance
More Spotlights at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My List/Gay Novels
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