Collections by Michelle Brown WSG Chicago Author& Historian Owen Keehnen

Owen Keehnen 

has had his fiction, essays, erotica, reviews, columns, and interviews appear in dozens of magazines and anthologies worldwide.His books include Dugan's Bistro and the Legend of the Bearded Lady, Tell Me About It with St Sukie de la Croix, The LGBTQ Book of Days and A Place for Us: LGBTQ Life at the Belmont Rocks.

With the Windy City Times co-founder Tracy Baim, Owen co-authored, the Chicago LGBT historical biographies including Leatherman: The Legend of Chuck Renslow, Jim Flint: The Boy From Peoria, and Vernita Gray: From Woodstock to The White House.

He’s a co-founder of the Legacy Project. The Legacy Project was inspired the first time the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was shown at the National March on Washington for LGBT Civil Rights in 1987. Chicago's Legacy Project celebrated the LGBTQ community by installing the first of its kind “Rainbow Pylon” streetscape, This Legacy Walk is a dynamic outdoor LGBTQ history exhibit. Every year on National Coming Out Day new plaques are added. The pylons are to be named the first multi-block LGBTQ landmark in the world.

Owen is a frequent speaker on LGBTQ history and has chaired several panels for the Out at CHM, the Chicago History Museum series.