Daniel Curzon

{{short description|American dramatist}}

{{multiple issues|

{{COI|date=October 2010}}

{{BLP sources|date=October 2010}}

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{{infobox writer

|name=Daniel Curzon

|birth_name=Daniel Russell Brown

|birth_date={{birth date and age|1938|3|19}}

|occupation={{flatlist|

• Novelist
• playwright
• educator
• writer

}}

|nationality=American

|education=University of Detroit (PhB)
Kent State University (MA)
Wayne State University (PhD)

}}

Daniel Curzon (born March 19, 1938) is an American novelist, playwright, educator, and writer of etiquette manuals for gay men.

Born Daniel Russell Brown, Curzon received his Ph.B. from the University of Detroit in 1960, his M.A. from Kent State University in 1961, and his Ph.D.{{cite book|last=Andrews|first=Clarence A.|title=Michigan in Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fDGTbYivSdQC&pg=PA225|access-date=25 February 2014|date=1992-01-01|publisher=Wayne State University Press|isbn=9780814323687|pages=225–}} from Wayne State University in 1969. He has taught at a number of universities since 1962; from 1980 until his retirement, he taught at the City College of San Francisco as an instructor in English.{{cite web|title=Finding Aid to the Daniel Curzon Papers, 1960-1996|url=http://sfpl.org/pdf/libraries/main/sfhistory/GLBT/GLC52_Daniel_Curzon_Papers.pdf|publisher=San Francisco Public Library|access-date=29 November 2012}}

He is the author of Something You Do in the Dark, first published by G. P. Putnam in 1971. It is the story of a gay man's attempt to avenge his entrapment by a Detroit vice squad police officer by murdering him. Chris Freeman says the book is "filled with rage at the oppression gay people experience"{{cite book|last=Chris Freeman|editor=Allida Mae Black|title=Modern American Queer History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J8ZaIoiRW4YC&pg=PA151|access-date=25 February 2014|year=2001|publisher=Temple University Press|isbn=9781566398725|pages=151–}} Encyclopedia of American literature said that it had a "gloomy" tone.{{cite book|last1=Serafin|first1=Steven|last2=Bendixen|first2=Alfred|title=Encyclopedia of American literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G7QLAQAAMAAJ|access-date=25 February 2014|year=1999|publisher=Continuum|isbn=9780826410528}} The Los Angeles Advocate appreciated "its spirit of nowness" as the first gay protest novel.{{Cite book|last=Curzon|first=Daniel|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BKMRK0l8XGMC|title=Something You Do in the Dark|date=1977|publisher=IGNA Books|isbn=978-0-930650-16-2|language=en}} The Misadventures of Tim McPick (original title: Queer Comedy) was called a "light-hearted picaresque".{{cite book|last=Woods|first=Gregory|title=A History of Gay Literature: The Male Tradition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3rEJ9hpvwlcC&pg=PA340|access-date=25 February 2014|year=1999|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=9780300080889|pages=340–}} The World Can Break Your Heart, a coming out story, follows a different pace than many in the genre, and thus for the character, coming out provides fewer rewards and causes greater sacrifices.{{cite book|last=Saxey|first=Esther|title=Homoplot: The Coming-out Story and Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Identity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OpPcf6t5rVgC&pg=PA24|access-date=25 February 2014|year=2008|publisher=Peter Lang|isbn=9780820488752|pages=24–}}

Other works include From Violent Men, Among the Carnivores, Curzon in Love, The Bubble Reputation, or Shakespeare Lives!, and What a Tangled Web. His non-fiction books include The Big Book of In-Your-Face Gay Etiquette and Dropping Names: The Delicious Memoirs of Daniel Curzon.

Curzon edited and published the early homophile magazine "Gay Literature: A New Journal"{{cite web|url=http://www.tyleralpern.com/70s3.html |title=1970s Index to Gay Publications 3 |publisher=Tyleralpern.com |access-date=2014-07-29}} in 1975 and 1976. The magazine included poetry, fiction, literary reviews, essays, photography, and short plays. Curzon's own written work sometimes was included. Curzon contributed articles for other magazines such as "Gay Times" in 1976 and "Alternate" in 1978.

In the theater, Curzon won the Southwest Theater Association's National New Play contest with Godot Arrives in 1999.{{cite book|last=Drew|first=Bernard A.|title=Literary Afterlife: The Posthumous Continuations of 325 Authors' Fictional Characters|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c91Vrl20Y4sC&pg=PA71|access-date=25 February 2014|date=2009-12-22|publisher=McFarland|isbn=9780786457212|pages=71–}} His play My Unknown Son was produced off-Broadway at the Circle Rep Lab in 1987 and at the Kaufmann Theatre in 1988, as well as in Los Angeles in 1997. Baker's Plays published Curzon's one-act play, A Fool's Audition. Seven volumes of his Collected Plays have been published as POD books through BookSurge. His plays have also been performed at such theaters as Theater Rhinoceros, New Conservatory Theater, New City Theater, Above Board Theater, as well as at the Fringe Festival in San Francisco and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Curzon, who is openly gay,{{citation |title=Students' Web evaluations of professors criticized |first=Eric |last=Rineer |date=October 29, 1999 |url=http://www.dailynebraskan.com/search/?t=article&s=start_time&sd=desc&d1=40+years+ago&q=Curzon |periodical=Daily Nebraskan |access-date=2008-01-24 }} is currently a retired professor of English.{{citation |title=CCSF English Department Newsletter |date=Spring 2006 |access-date=2008-01-24 |url=http://www.ccsf.edu/Departments/English/newsletter/mar06newsletter/ }}