Profiles
LGBT Ally: Allan Creasy
by Sarah Rushakoff | photos courtesy of Allan Creasy If you’ve lived in Memphis for a while, chances are you’ve had a conversation with Allan Creasy. It might have been at Celtic Crossing in Cooper-Young, where he tended bar and ran trivia nights for years. Maybe it...
Oothoon’s: Retail Magic
story by Robin Beaudoin Ownby | photos by Beverly Love “I never would have thought back then, this is what I’d end up doing. It’s hard to leave the store now. My husband has to drag me out,” Michelle McMillen swoons. “In a previous life, I was in graduate school to be...
Community
Nikki Veit, Training Badass
by Leila Hinkle (Above: Veit with her fiance, Carly Crawford. Photo by Phillip Van Zandt.) Not all sheroes wear capes. Some are out there living and speaking their truth and sharing their passions. Such is the case with Nikki Veit. Her superpower is inspiring others...
Afro-Latino Week Virtual Events
Cazateatro Bilingual Theater Group is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization founded in 2010. The mission of Cazateatro is to share the Hispanic-American culture through the scenic arts to create a unifying bridge for our wide-ranging community, stressing the importance...
Martha Hample
story and photos by Tricia Dewey When she heard this Focus issue was themed “Sheroes,” Martha Hample said, in typical understated fashion, “I’m not sure entrepreneurs are sheroes.” But in 2020 and beyond we’ve seen the need for social interactions, and supporting...
Art & Culture
Rufus, In Retrospect
By Chris Azzopardi | photos by V. Tony Hauser It all started with Rufus Wainwright in his bathrobe. The crooner, at the forefront of virtual pandemic performances in March 2020, performed a song a day at his home piano in the Hollywood Hills during his “Quarantunes...
Silver Fox Fever
By Chris Azzopardi | photos by Robert Viglasky / Hulu Russell Tovey steamed up screens as Jonathan Groff’s hunky boss on the HBO series Looking, about an intimate group of gay and queer friends living in contemporary San Francisco. Impassioned thoughts on the...
Stanley Tucci Is the Gayest Straight Actor You Know
By Chris Azzopardi | photos courtesy of Bleecker Street Stanley Tucci has survived the icy death stare of Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly and told Cher to her face that she looks like a drag queen. Aside from starring as the queer second-in-command next to those gay...
Travel
Original Memphis: Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park
story and photos by Tricia Dewey Located on the third Chickasaw Bluff, Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park is 13 miles north of Memphis and contains 12,529 acres of oak-hickory forest, two lakes, 20 miles of hiking trails, a biking trail, two disc golf courses, and miles...
Original Memphis: Gay River Cruises of the 80s
by Vincent Astor | images courtesy of Vincent Astor 1980 was a very busy year for activism in Memphis. The Tennessee Gay Coalition for Human Rights had a Memphis chapter (later the Memphis Gay Coalition). Memphis hosted the Southeastern Conference of Lesbians and Gay...
Happy 5th Birthday to Us!
by Joan Allison Focus | Mid-South Managing Editor and Creative Director Focus was born of a passion that our publisher, Ray Rico, wanted to bring to fruition. ‘Rico,’ as he is called by most people, is a Latinx man who is gay. When I first started at Ray Rico...