I am the author of the acclaimed novel The View from Delphi, which deals with the struggle for equality in pre-civil rights Mississippi, his home state. My short stories and essays have appeared in Stories from the Blue Moon Café (Macadam/Cage 2004), Men Like That (University of Chicago Press, 2001), Letters of the Twentieth Century (Dial Press, 1999), Breaking Silence (Xanthus Press, 1996), Speakeasy Literary Magazine,Commonweal Magazine, Utne Readers, and the Savannah Literary Journal. The View from Delphi was the spring section for “Talking Volumes,” the joint book club for Minnesota Public Radio, the Star Tribune and the Loft Literary Center. I have also written for Commonweal Magazine and has had my work featured in the Utne Reader.
I was born in Mississippi in 1951, grew up in the Jim Crow South and became involved in the civil rights movement in college. I hold a master’s degree in counseling psychology and have been active in human resource development for over 30 years, including holding the position of Vice President of Human Resources for a Minneapolis based corporation and later founding my own consulting companies. In that field I self-published Work Skills for Teams and Courageous Conversations, a revolutionary approach to diversity training. These programs have grossed over a million dollars in sales to organizations such as General Mills, Prudential Insurance Company, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Hewlett-Packard, and Avon. I also built a successful practice as a Leadership Coach to executives in Fortune 500 companies.
In 2003, along with Minneapolis civil rights leader and city councilperson Don Samuels, I co-founded the Institute for Authentic Dialogue to spark conversations across race. I have appeared before thousands of business executives, clergy, community and government leaders, and educators, teaching the skills for authentic dialogue through sharing my own race story.
Minneapolis Star Tribune, St. Paul Pioneer Press, and Minnesota Public Radio have all done feature stories on the work I am doing in race relations. I have appeared on radio and T.V. across the country and am a regular commentator for Minnesota Public Radio.
With my partner, artist Jim Kuether, I am completing an illustrated children’s book, Call Me A Dinosaur.
My new novel, The Healing, explores the subversive nature story plays in the healing of a people. I am also putting the finishing touches on a volume of personal essays tentatively titled: Growing Up a Gay Fundamentalist Southern Baptist in Mississippi or God What Were You Thinking?
Author, Speaker, Storyteller, Mississippi native
Hi My Dear Friend….Susie gave me your web site….it’s great….Take Care…Scott
This all sounds real interestin’!
Thanks, Scott. It’s great to be in communication again. I bet with both have some great stories to share in catching up. A lot of things can happen in 40 years!
Thanks, Trixie, that’s a high compliment coming from you. I’d like to link up to your website, at the risk of putting mine to shame. But I’m willing to take that risk if it means enlightening the masses to your sage pronouncements. I know I’ll never be quite the same, no matter how much I try.
I recently read your article in Commonweal Magazine entitled “Coming Home,” and am planning on using it in a paper I’m writing. I greatly enjoyed your article and just wanted to let you know that you present the issue of homosexuality and theology in a whole new light. As a homosexual and hopefully a budding theologian myself, your article was truly inspiring.
Zachary, I’m proud that the article impressed you enough to reference in your paper. Let me know if there is any way I can be of further assistance. And if you are willing, I would love to read your paper. Good luck in your studies. I’m excited about the path you have taken as a gay Christian. We need your voice.
This may be a delayed reaction, but I just read a reprint of your “Coming Home” article in Utne Magazine. I also share your experience with the concept of holding two contradicting thoughts. I am a christian who was raised in the church ahd heavily involved in many areas of ministry including serving as an elder for 6 years. I have run away from that “family” but still firmly hold a belief in God. Although I am not gay, I feel much frustration with the animosity Christians hold towards the gay community. After experiencing a number of emotional tragedys I gave up on believing God was good. I was a caregiver for a disabled man and had to take him to a weekly church service, my first time back at church in about 3 years. Those were healing and refreshing times for me, often leaving me in tears but genuinely experiencing the loving presence of God. The minister was gay. and the church even had a float entry in the annual gay pride parade…. I would like to hear how some fundamentalist Christians can explain God using a gay minister to reach a lost and hurting child such as myself.