Patricia Nell Warren (born 15 June 1936) is an openly lesbian[1] American author and journalist.
Contents |
Primarily known as an author, Warren is also commonly known as "the mother of Frontrunners" - the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender running/walking clubs that have been started in Los Angeles and other large cities around the world which was inspired by Warren's bestselling novel The Front Runner about a gay coach and his Olympic runner. [2] There have been several failed attempts to have TFR made into a full length feature movie, but a production with a viable production budget has never materialized. As a runner herself she was one of the first women to run in the Boston Marathon. [3]
She was introduced to Ukrainian literature in the late 1950s by her husband Yuriy Tarnawsky. Prose writer, poet, translator, publisher and editor, she has published three books of poetry in Ukrainian including The Tragedy of Bees (1960), Legends and Dreams (1964) and Pink Cities (1969). She stopped writing in Ukrainian and left the group in the early 1970s, shortly after she divorced Tarnawsky.
Warren, aka "Patches", to her Front Runners family, also frequented the runs and the annual dinners held by the Los Angeles group and participated in the annual Christopher Street West GLBT rights parade as part of the Frontrunners contingent during the 1990s thanks to then president Marty Freedman and then executive board member Don Norte.
Warren often travels at the invitation of gay rights and other non-profit groups, and is highly regarded as a speaker. One of many such trips was to Anchorage, Alaska, on November 9, 2002 for the 25th Anniversary of Identity, Inc., an organization concerned with issues of sexual identity.
In December, 2006, Warren hired veteran political consultant Neal Zaslavsky and announced her candidacy for City Council in West Hollywood, CA.[4] Warren was outspent nearly 10 to 1 by her opponents and was subject to frequent criticism by local resident Jeanne Dobrin. While she was unsuccessful in her run, her campaign was much respected by the entire community for its positive, issue-oriented approach. Among Warren's many proposals in line with traditional city issues, Warren's campaign also issued a comprehensive white paper proposing that West Hollywood become the first city in the nation to offer a universal single-payer health care system for all residents.