I received a call from Bookazine this afternoon. They're a major wholesaler in the bookselling industry. Ron Hanby has passed away.

In the late 90s I worked for them as a senior buyer (mostly religious books as well as a few mainstream publishers like Chronicle and St. Martins). I was in the closet because my boss, a kind woman, happened to be an evangelical and would never have hired a gay man to help her with Christian titles. And that's how I met Ron.

Ron was the gay sales rep for Bookazine. He'd been doing that for several years before I came to the company. Oddly, despite our phone conversations and occasional meeting, he never realized I was gay until after I left and started Lethe Press. How odd.

We stayed in touch over the years, of course. If you published gay titles or magazines and wanted them sold in America, at one point you dealt with Bookazine and Ron. He loved Renaissance Faires and the juicy bit of industry gossip and was a big supporter of my press.

And if you were a gay bookstore, you also dealt with Ron, who supported such stores not because there was money to be made but because he believed in them.

Now he's gone. I know many people who are shocked by the news. I'm one. I wish he knew how many people he had helped over the years.