Andy Towle

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{{Infobox person

| name = Andy Towle

| image = Andy Towle on the Great South Bay of Long Island.jpg

| caption = Towle on the Great South Bay of Long Island

| birth_date =

| birth_place =

| occupation = {{hlist|Artist|writer|publisher|media commentator}}

| education = Vassar College (BA)

| website = {{URL|andytowle.com}}

}}

Andy Towle {{IPAc-en|ˈ|t|oʊ|l}} born in Illinois in 1967 is an American artist, poet and journalist based in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He has received several fellowships for his poetry and fiction, and his poetry has been published in journals including the Paris Review{{Cite web |title=Andrew Towle |url=https://www.theparisreview.org/authors/3088/andrew-towle |access-date=2025-03-08 |website=The Paris Review |language=en}} and Poetry Magazine. He founded widely-read LGBTQ news blog Towleroad{{Cite web |last=Kearns |first=Pat |date=2024-06-19 |title=Three Provincetown Painters Display Whimsy, Masculinity, and Identity |url=https://provincetownindependent.org/arts-minds/2024/06/19/three-provincetown-painters-display-whimsy-masculinity-and-identity/?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAabDjamaS2-NVSu8J2OF3wUTOdGDQNESOeVyVrrDtHX0MroKXCPeVM6JUP8_aem_M73aKtsPjWGBg9almuRyTA |access-date=2025-03-08 |website=The Provincetown Independent |language=en-US}} and is now working as a painter.{{Cite web |date=2024-06-25 |title=NEW PAINTINGS BY ANDY TOWLE |url=https://www.provincetowncommons.org/commons-events/trevormikula-blc2f-dcdlr |access-date=2025-03-08 |website=The Commons |language=en-US}}

Background

Towle was born in River Forest, Chicago, Illinois in 1967.{{Cite web |last=Kearns |first=Pat |date=2024-06-19 |title=Three Provincetown Painters Display Whimsy, Masculinity, and Identity |url=https://provincetownindependent.org/arts-minds/2024/06/19/three-provincetown-painters-display-whimsy-masculinity-and-identity/?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAabDjamaS2-NVSu8J2OF3wUTOdGDQNESOeVyVrrDtHX0MroKXCPeVM6JUP8_aem_M73aKtsPjWGBg9almuRyTA |access-date=2025-03-08 |website=The Provincetown Independent |language=en-US}} He attended Oak Park and River Forest High School (’85). Towle holds two Bachelor of Arts degrees from Vassar College (’89) in Art History and English.

Career

File:Andy Towle at the New York City Proposition 8 protest.jpg demonstration against California Proposition 8.[http://www.towleroad.com/2008/11/we-did-it.html NYC Protest and Civil Rights March Opposing Proposition 8], Andy Towle, Towelroad.com, November 13, 2008; accessed November 14, 2008.]]

Upon graduating, Towle was awarded the 1989 W.K. Rose Fellowship in the Creative Arts from Vassar College.{{Cite web |title=WK Rose Fellows - Fellowships and Pre-Health Advising - Vassar College |url=https://fellowships.vassar.edu/fellowships/graduates/rose/fellowslist.html |access-date=2020-02-06 |website=fellowships.vassar.edu}} He also received a Wallace Stegner graduate fellowship from 1989 to 1991 from Stanford University,{{Cite web |title=Former Stegner Fellows {{!}} Creative Writing Program |url=https://creativewriting.stanford.edu/stegner-fellowship/current-fellows/former-stegner-fellows |access-date=2020-02-06 |website=creativewriting.stanford.edu}} and two writing fellowships, one in poetry and one in fiction, from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.{{Cite web |title=All Fellows Alphabetical |url=https://fawc.org/all-fellows-alphabetical/ |access-date=2024-07-29 |website=FINE ARTS WORK CENTER in Provincetown |language=en-US}}

While in Provincetown he produced poetry, and worked as a pool boy and a bartender at The Boatslip Resort. After moving to New York in 1992, he became a bartender and later a manager at the 1990s Manhattan gay bar Splash.

From 1998 to 2002, Towle served as the editor in chief of Genre magazine,{{cite book|author1=Jim Buzinski|author2=Cyd Zeigler|title=The Outsports Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zc61AAAAIAAJ|year=2007|publisher=Alyson|isbn=978-1-59350-005-4}} and editor at large for The Out Traveler,{{cite web|title=Andy Towle|url=http://mije.org/features/lgbtqia-2013/andy-towle|website=The Maynard Institute|access-date=26 June 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160813033047/http://mije.org/features/lgbtqia-2013/andy-towle|archive-date=13 August 2016|url-status=dead}} an American gay travel quarterly.

Towle's poetry appeared in The Yale Review (May 1991),{{Cite web|url=https://yalereview.yale.edu/volume-lxxix-no-4-may-1991-summer-1990|title=VOLUME LXXIX, NO. 4 (May 1991-Summer 1990)|date=2015-07-09|website=The Yale Review|language=en|access-date=2020-02-06}} Ploughshares (Winter 1992–93),{{Cite web|url=https://www.pshares.org/issues/winter-1992-93/hard-evidence|title=Hard Evidence {{!}} Ploughshares|website=www.pshares.org|access-date=2020-02-06}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.pshares.org/issues/winter-1992-93/sea-migration|title=Sea Migration {{!}} Ploughshares|website=www.pshares.org|access-date=2020-02-06}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.pshares.org/issues/winter-1992-93/consideration-white-pitcher|title=In Consideration: The White Pitcher {{!}} Ploughshares|website=www.pshares.org|access-date=2020-02-06}} The Paris Review in 2000,{{Cite news|url=https://www.theparisreview.org/poetry/609/two-poems-andrew-towle|title=Two Poems|last=Towle|first=Andrew|journal=Paris Review|date=2000|access-date=2020-02-06|issue=157|volume=Winter 2000|language=en|issn=0031-2037}} and in Poetry Magazine (July 1988,{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse|title=Between Stations by Andrew Towle {{!}} Nocturne by Andrew Towle|last=Foundation|first=Poetry|date=2020-02-06|website=Poetry Magazine|language=en|access-date=2020-02-06}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse|title=Between Stations by Andrew Towle|last=Foundation|first=Poetry|date=2020-02-06|website=Poetry Magazine|language=en|access-date=2020-02-06}} November 1988,{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse|title=The Dead Sea at Dinner by Andrew Towle|last=Foundation|first=Poetry|date=2020-02-06|website=Poetry Magazine|language=en|access-date=2020-02-06}} February 1991,{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse|title=Luna Moth by Andrew Towle|last=Foundation|first=Poetry|date=2020-02-06|website=Poetry Magazine|language=en|access-date=2020-02-06}} May 1997,{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse|title=Vanished by Andrew Towle|last=Foundation|first=Poetry|date=2020-02-06|website=Poetry Magazine|language=en|access-date=2020-02-06}} and July 1999).{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse|title=Objects of Desire by Andrew Towle|last=Foundation|first=Poetry|date=2020-02-06|website=Poetry Magazine|language=en|access-date=2020-02-06}}

Towle founded the website Towleroad in 2003{{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tGQEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA20|title=The Advocate|author=Here Publishing|journal=The Advocate: The National Gay & Lesbian Newsmagazine|date=6 June 2006|publisher=Here Publishing|pages=20–|issn=0001-8996}} and left in 2021{{Cite web |date=2021-02-28 |title=It's Time: A Message From Andy Towle - Towleroad Gay News |url=https://www.towleroad.com/2021/02/its-time-a-message-from-andy-towle/ |access-date=2024-07-29 |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |title=Gay Blogger Andy Towle Exits Towleroad |url=https://www.advocate.com/media/2021/3/03/gay-blogger-andy-towle-exits-towleroad |access-date=2024-07-29 |website=www.advocate.com |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Zeigler |first=Cyd |title=Thank you, Andy Towle, for over two decades of amazing work in gay media |url=https://www.outsports.com/2021/3/2/22308152/andy-towle-towleroad-retires/ |access-date=2024-07-29 |website=OutSports |language=en}} to focus full time on a career in visual art.

In June 2024, Towle held his first solo painting show at Provincetown Commons in Provincetown, Massachusetts.{{Cite web |last=Kearns |first=Pat |date=2024-06-19 |title=Three Provincetown Painters Display Whimsy, Masculinity, and Identity |url=https://provincetownindependent.org/arts-minds/2024/06/19/three-provincetown-painters-display-whimsy-masculinity-and-identity/ |access-date=2024-07-29 |website=The Provincetown Independent |language=en-US}}