LETTERS READ INCUBATOR XVII: Peter DeLancey

From LETTERS READ by Nancy Sharon Collins

December 4, 2024 · 7 min · Season 8 · Episode 5

About this episode

This episode discusses the life of Peter DeLancey, a queer individual during the early days of HIV/AIDS, connecting his story to broader themes of LGBTQ history.

This podcast, and one or two more before year’s end, wrap-up the 2024 incubator-style mini-series on the early days of HIV | AIDS. Brought to you in support of the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana. The recording is about Pierre Rene “Peter”, as he was known, DeLancey. A sad story with a bittersweet ending. He was queer. At a time when being gay or homosexual or light in one’s loafers was not okay in most polite societies. Peter's story brings together two previous Letters Read subjects, Stewart Butler of The Faerie Playhouse and Skip Ward . Both produced, and broadcast, at the beginning of the COVID epidemic in 2020. The featured image is a portrait of Peter from Burt Harter's "Encounters with the Nude Male" self published by Harter in 1997. The image was included in a Doug McCash, Times-Picayune article published June 25, 2002 entitled "The Life and Death of a Painter in Legacy and Limbo".

People in this episode

Host: Nancy Sharon Collins

Topics covered

HIV
AIDS
LGBTQ history
queer identity
art
personal stories

Keywords

Peter DeLancey
HIV
AIDS
LGBTQ
queer
art
Stewart Butler
Skip Ward

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Times-Picayune

Books & works: Encounters with the Nude Male