5 Questions with Brontez Purnell, Author of 100 Boyfriends
Brontez Purnell is a writer, musician, dancer, filmmaker, and performance artist. He is the author of a graphic novel, a novella, a children's book, and the novel Since I Laid My Burden Down. The recipient of a 2018 Whiting Writers' Award for Fiction, he was named one of the thirty-two Black Male Writers of Our Time by T: The New York Times Style Magazine in 2018. Purnell is also the frontman for the band the Younger Lovers, a cofounder of the experimental dance group the Brontez Purnell Dance Company, the creator of the renowned cult zine Fag School, and the director of several short films, music videos, and the documentary Unstoppable Feat: The Dances of Ed Mock. Born in Triana, Alabama, he's lived in Oakland, California, for more than a decade.
Brontez Purnell is in conversation with Melissa Broder to celebrate the launch of his new book 100 Boyfriends (published by MCD) in our City Lights LIVE! discussion series on Wednesday, February 17th
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Where are you writing to us from?
Oakland!!!!!
What’s kept you sane during the pandemic?
Literally not a goddamn thing.
What are 3 books you always recommend to people?
Everything I've written. [editor's note! Since I Laid My Burden Down, Johnny Would You Love Me If My Dick Were Bigger?, and The Nightlife of Jacuzzi Gaskett]
Which writers, artists, and others influence your work in general, and this book, specifically?
THE TEACHINGS OF THE LATE GREAT REVEREND DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
If you opened a bookstore, where would it be located, what would it be called, and what would your bestseller be?
Basically it would be the non-fictional version of the lesbian book store that Ellen Degeneres owned on her 90's sitcom Ellen. I think the store was called “Buy the Book”?
