Rick Karlin has been a freelance journalist and editor for the past 40+ years, He is currently the Arts & Culture editor for Out South Florida and a contributing writer for The Bay Area Reporter, and Grab Magazine Chicago. His most recent book, written with historian Fred Fejes, is last “Last Call South Florida: 1001 LGBT-Friendly Taverns, Hangouts, and Haunts,” released in 2024, it includes bars from Palm Beach to Key West from the past 100 years. Previously he worked with historian and journalist Sukie de la Croix on “Last Call Chicago: 1001 LGBT-Friendly Taverns, Hangouts, and Haunts,” (2022.) Both books were ranked number one on Amazon’s LGBT Studies and LGBT Travel categories.
His memoir “Paper Cuts: My Life in Chicago’s Volatile LGBT Press” was published in 2019. He has also written three novels and has written the book and lyrics for many musicals which have been produced in Chicago. He wrote for nearly every LGBT publication in Chicago, starting with GayLife in the 1970s followed by Gay Chicago Magazine (entertainment editor), Outline/Nightlines (now Windy City Times), Chicago Free Press, ChicagoPride.com, Boi Magazine and Grab Chicago Magazine. He was also an on-air personality for LesBiGay Radio.
In recognition of his years as an LGBT community activist and writer, he was inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame in 1997. He moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 2013, where he lives with his husband, poet and journalist, Gregg Shapiro, and their dog Miss Coco.
His books are available on the website of his publisher Rattling Good Yarns https://rattlinggoodyarns.com/
BarnesandNoble.com https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Rick%20Karlin.
Remember dancing at The Copa, The Other Side, hanging out at The Marlin Beach Hotel, those wild days in Key West, Miami in its heyday, H.G. Roosters, the Turf bars, and K&E’s in Palm Beach? It will all come flooding back to you in Last Call South Florida: 1,0001 LGBTQ-Friendly Taverns, Haunts & Hang-Outs. Filled with hundreds of photos, old ads, and news clippings, it sweeps aside the glitter, glamor, and glitz of the Sunshine State’s LGBTQ nightlife scene to look at the very real people who ended up on both sides of the bar. With interviews with dozens of people from investors and entrepreneurs to entertainers, bartenders, go-go boys, drag performers, and “bar celebrities,” to the customers who came to escape their everyday lives, be entertained, be among others like themselves, and along the way, became a community. It is filled with hundreds of photos, old ads, and news clippings.
Last Call Chicago: A History of 1,001 LGBTQ-Friendly Taverns, Haunts & Hangouts could not have been written by anyone but authors Rick Karlin and St Sukie de la Croix. Both are journalists with a keen eye for history, who reported on the events and comings and goings of Chicago’s LGBTQ-friendly bars and clubs. Last Call Chicago is a walk back in time from the Speakeasies of the 1920s to the latest hot spots, and all done without looking at a single app.
Last Call Chicago: A History of 1,001 LGBTQ-Friendly Taverns, Haunts & Hangouts is a history of LGBTQ venues in Chicago going back in time as far as records of such venues exist. Both before and after Stonewall, LGBTQ bars and hangouts served the purpose of bringing the LGBTQ together and served as informal community centers. They were and are part of the vibrant fabric of the LGBTQ community. Opening Last Call Chicago is like stepping into a time machine that transports us across the years to bear witness to the triumphs, challenges, and sometimes heartaches of the LGBTQ community in Chicago. It could not have been written by anyone but authors Rick Karlin and St Sukie de la Croix. Both are journalists with a keen eye for history, who reported on the events and comings and goings of Chicago’s LGBTQ-friendly bars and clubs. Last Call Chicago is a walk back in time from the Speakeasies of the 1920s to the latest hot spots, and all done without looking at a single app.
From the 1970s at GayLife, the ‘80s and ‘90s at Gay Chicago Magazine, where ie eventually became entertainment editor, through stints at Chicago Outlines/Nightlines (Now Windy City Times), Chicago Free Press, LesBiGay Radio, and Boi Magazine, Rick Karlin was at the center of Chicago’s LGBT media, be it print, radio, and/or web. His memoir, Paper Cuts: My Life in Chicago’s Volatile LGBTQ Press, gives us an insider’s view of the machinations that took place in a surprisingly cut-throat industry.
His memoir is more than a tell-all exposé of Chicago’s LGBTQ press since he devotes as much ink to his own life as to the goings on at various Chicago media. Amid all of the newsroom drama (and there was plenty of that!) Karlin intersperses all of the changes in his own life: raising a son as a single gay man; coming out to his family; changing various day jobs; gradually becoming more active among the gay community; meeting men, including his husband Gregg; earning a Master’s degree, all the minutiae of living in Chicago as a gay man during the end of the twentieth century, is just as valuable reading as the other events he records.
Interested in booking Rick Karlin for a speaking engagement? Email RickKarlinWrites@gmail.com.