John Mitzel

John Mitzel (1948-October 4, 2013) was Boston writer, publisher, book seller and gay community and cultural activist.

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio and educated at Boston University he was one of the organizers of Boston's first gay pride parade in 1971. Mitzel was a founding member of the Fag Rag collective in 1971 which published Fag Rag and he helped found the Good Gay Poets collective in 1973. He wrote numerous articles for Gay Community News (Boston) and had a column in Philadelphia Gay News in the 1970s and 1980s. As a publisher, he started Manifest Destiny Press in the 1970s and Calamus Books in 2002.

In December 1977, Mitzel with other members of the Fag Rag collective organized the Boston-Boise committee largely in response to the police entrapment of Boston gay men. And in April 1978 through Mitzel's acquaintance with him Gore Vidal spoke at a fund-raiser for the committee and the controversy that followed the event led to the resignation of a Massachusetts Supreme Court judge and the founding of GLAD and NAMBLA.

Mitzel operated the Boston branch of Toronto's Glad Day Bookshop for some fifteen years until about 2000. Mitzel then opened Calamus Books.

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