Hurston, an African-American woman from Eatonville, Fla., moved to New York City during the era of “The New Negro.” Her 1928 essay, “How it Feels To Be Colored Me,” based on her life in Eatonville, inspired contemporary and conceptual artists such as Glenn Ligon, whose work is rooted in his  experiences as an African-American and gay man living in the United States.

Hurston’s most famous novel is Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and her literary successors include Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and Alice Walker.

County coroner Craig Harvey said Wednesday that the 54-year-old died of natural causes. Harris died July 23 while visiting Los Angeles to promote his latest book.

Harris lived in Atlanta and was considered a pioneer of gay black fiction, enjoying unprecedented success in the genre. He wrote 11 novels, and ten of them became New York Times best-sellers.

More than four million of his books are in print.

He was on tour for his most recent book, Basketball Jones, about the gay lover of an NBA star.

Harris grew up in Little Rock and attended the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where he continued to teach courses through last fall.

He self-published his first book, Invisible Life, after failing to find a publisher. He sold it himself at black-owned bookstores and beauty salons until Anchor Books published it as a trade paperback in 1994.

Harris wrote 11 books, with four million copies of his work in print. His writing also appeared in Essence, the Washington Post Sunday Magazine, and Sports Illustrated.

His novel If This World Were Mine was nominated for a NAACP Image Award and won the James Baldwin Award for Literary Excellence. Abide with Me was also nominated for a NAACP Image Award. His anthology Freedom in this Village won the Lambda Literary Award in 2005. Over the past three years, he has also been named to Ebony’s “Most Intriguing Blacks” list, Out Magazine’s “Out 100″ list, New York Magazine’s “Gay Power 101″ list, and Savoy’s “100 Leaders and Heroes in Black America” list.

Listen to an audio interview with E. Lynn Harris.

Maybe it’s because he made a life as a writer in a southern town for the past 50 years. Could be he is simply a private person who wanted to spend his artistic life on other topics. Whatever the reasons, I hope I wasn’t the only one who was surprised to find out that writer Reynolds Price is gay. Or queer to use the term he prefers.

The North Carolina native has a new memoir—his third. Called “Ardent Spirits: Leaving Home, Coming Back,” the book chronicles his life in the 1950’s when he was starting out as a writer and getting some booty at Oxford University. What male sex he did get (to hear Price tell the story he got more than his fair share), it wasn’t from his fellow Oxford students.

“I literally knew no other student who claimed to be queer (or appeared to be — it was some time before queer confessions became as common as weak jokes),” Reynolds writes. “And I couldn’t have told you, till late in my third year, whether or not there was a queer pub or other gathering place in the city.”

Some will be unhappy that a writer of Price’s stature kept his powder dry on gay issues and politics. I understand that impulse but if the struggle is  about individual rights, it’s hard to get funky about someone who lived a life based on his individual status. Also Price has earned my devotion after writing a line a friend told him about the word gay.

“Please don’t call me gay. If you need an adjective, call me morose.”

Somebody put that on t-shirt!

The Toronto-born author passed away at a Toronto nursing home on Monday after several years of poor health, his lawyer Marian Hebb said Wednesday.

She remembered Symons as a bold personality who never shied away from strong views on politics, love and literature, at times to the detriment of his personal relationships.

Symons’ cultural impact was significant despite having published only a handful of books, adds his friend and literary executor Christopher Elson.

They included “Place d’Armes,” which shed light on a marginalized gay community, and “Heritage,” which celebrated early Canadian furniture and was published while Symons was a curator at the Royal Ontario Museum.

“One of the terms that he used about himself would have been as a liberator of love and as a loyal Canadian and as a dissident voice in Canadian culture, standing for things that might have otherwise been forgotten or have fallen into unpopularity,” Elson said from his office in Halifax, where he is a professor of Canadian studies and French at the University of King’s College.

“The works of the ’60s and ’70s will stand as a kind of an accomplishment of an odd intersection of the Canadian Tory spirit with the hippie era and the sexual revolution. And I think that his vast diaries, only some of which have been published, will be a mine for people interested in the life of Canada in the 40-plus years that he kept diaries.”

“Place d’Armes” featured a gay protagonist, a sympathetic male prostitute and an unusual stream-of-consciousness style. It was published at a time when homosexuality was still considered a crime in Canada, and followed a scandalous tryst in which Symons left his wife and young son for a 17-year-old male lover, with whom he ran away to Mexico.

Hebb said many of Symons’ personal relationships were characterized by volatile emotions, driven by a sharp tongue and passionate views that would often drive conversation to argument.

“He was somebody that seemed to crystallize people’s opinions,” said Hebb, who knew Symons for roughly 15 years. “People loved him or hated him and sometimes I think people didn’t really know which they did because he seemed to provoke people’s emotions, partly because of what he wrote and partly because of how he dealt with people.”

After Mexico, Symons’ moved to Morocco, where he spent 25 years and produced the 1986 novel “Helmet of Flesh.” He returned to Toronto in 2000.

One-time friend Marc Cote lauded Symons for being among the first to celebrate Canadian art and culture as curator of the Canadian collection at the ROM in the early ’60s, noting that it was during this time that he wrote the groundbreaking book “Heritage.”

“That was truly revolutionary because up until that point things Canadian were, at best, second rate,” said Cote, owner of Cormorant Books. “Any Canadian artist or cultural product was _ by virtue of it being Canadian – automatically second or third rate. He came along and said, `Not so.”’

One of Symons’ last published articles was an afterword to an anthology of his work, edited by Elson. It was written at the age of 65, as Symons’ sense of his own mortality set in.

“Perhaps I’ll manage a great sunset. I’ll try,” Symons writes in “Dear Reader: Selected Scott Symons.”

“But of this I am sure – I won’t die pewling in a senile bed. I quest the right death. The given death. It will find me. I’ll be ready, and I’ll smile.”

Longtime friend Mary Kay Ross said Symons’ final years were marked by a host of health problems that left him barely mobile. She says she last saw him before Christmas and noticed a change in his demeanor.

“I was quite touched by the last years of his life when he really had so little, he had very little money, very few friends,” said Ross, who knew Symons for 40 years. “He seemed to become much kinder and sweeter.”

Ross said a high mass would be held at St. Thomas’s Anglican Church in Toronto on Friday. It will be followed by a reception.

Symons is survived by a sister, six brothers and his son Graham.

But where would an openly gay or lesbian, bisexual or transgender appointee or elected official make the most difference during the next administration?

We asked policy analysts and political advisors, politicians and celebrities, business leaders and theologians, bloggers and law professors, writers and LGBT organization leaders this question:

Aside from the presidency, to what government leadership position would you most like to see an openly LGBT person elected or appointed and why?

We received 28 responses from people gay and straight. Elizabeth Birch responded. And so did Rue McClanahan, Danny Roberts (from Real World New Orleans), Joe Solmonese, Kevin Jennings, and so many more.

Of those, five said we need an openly queer person on the US Supreme Court; three suggested Secretary of State. But then there was Richard Kim, who crowed, “Rachel Maddow for White House Press Secretary” and Joan Garry, who, with a wink, threw in Tim Gunn for Chief of Staff.

You can find answers to our question by clicking on individual names, which are in alphabetical order below. The answers are thoughtful, silly, poignant, surprising. Rev. Irene Monroe reminds us of our forgotten history in the military. Robert Rabin explains why a lesbian Supreme Court Justice will change more than you think. And GoodAsYou’s Jeremy Hooper says what we need most of all is a new cabinet position: Secretary of Cutting Through the B.S.

Take a look at what people said by clicking on their names. Some of the responses are very short- some are very long- but all are satisfying. Add your own suggestions either here or after individual answers.

Andrew Belonsky: Restoring our moral authority

Wayne Besen: A voice at the table of justice

Elizabeth Birch: Making LGBT issues human

Bevan Dufty: Righting the wrongs

Robert Gant: Demonstrating the ability to govern

Joan Garry: Barack needs a Gunn

Neal Giuliano: Expanding common ground

Mitchell Gold: Decorating the Oval Office

Michael Guest: A symbol of America’s re-commitment to equality

Jeremy Hooper: The Secretary of Cutting Through the B.S.

Jody Huckaby: Making a bigger difference

Lane Hudson: We need to be in the Senate

Kevin Jennings: LGBTs are naturals at diplomacy

Richard Kim: Rachel Maddow for Press Secretary

James Kirchick: How a gay appointee could strengthen democracy

Ross LaJeunesse: We need a GLBT Calif. Governor

Rue McClanahan: My Chairman would know Alexander the Great

Jon Mallow: Why a gay official won’t matter

Irene Monroe: A history lesson

Robert Rabin: We need a gay Supreme Court Justice – and we need her now

Danny Roberts: Young gays need an openly-serving military offical to look up to

Charlie Rounds: This country needs a good, old-fashioned house cleaning

Dana Rudolph: Preparation for citizenship

Aubrey Sarvis: A Frank voice in the military

Joe Solmonese: Beyond the obvious

Geoffrey Stone: Providing a distinct perspective

Sarah Warn: Give Lesbos back to the lesbians

Bob Witeck: Vital access to the President’s ear