We’ve likely all been exposed at some point to the children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are.” For those of us familiar with the book, just hearing the name makes us think of the distinctive artwork. Knowing the book so well, it’s puzzling to think we probably don’t know much about its illustrator and author Maurice Sendak. And maybe the least known bit of info about the 80-year-old author is that he is gay.
Sendak publicly came out recently during a New York Times interview. He came out by way of answering probably a throw-away question from the interviewer: “Is there anything you haven’t been asked?”
An answer to a simple question during a media interview has been the way out of the closet for several public figures of late, among them financial guru Suze Orman and Olympic diver Matthew Mitcham.
With them, as likely with Sendak, it wasn’t a secret in their social circles. After all, Sendak told the Times that he had a partner for 50 years, and the author sidelined his writing and illustration work in recent years to care for his partner who died last year.
This could become a blog post about coming out, being a role model for younger LGBTQ youth or any number of issues. Those thoughts came to mind as I read the story in The Advocate e-newsletter this week with the headline Author Maurice Sendak: "I’m Gay" efficiently summarizing the story. I then went back to re-read the Times story and see just how matter-of-factly the reporter and the outlet included this new bit of info in the story. It simply was a man talking about his career, his life, and his family, including his partner.
The story was assigned to focus on Sendak’s career as an advance to a star-studded fundraiser celebrating his work in New York City last week. The lead paragraph talks about the trials in Sendak’s life, including grieving for the recent loss of his long-time partner. The story then talks about the author’s life and obviously does briefly chronicle his coming out during the interview.
It makes sense for The Advocate to focus only on the coming out story. That angle fits with its readership just like the Times Arts Section kept the focus mainly on the original assignment of covering this literary legend’s life, what its readers would want to know including his being gay.
This might best be a case study in knowing your audience, when writing a story as well as pitching a client or project. It’s PR 101 but could be a reminder to us all as we research a media outlet’s demographic or browse a reporter’s past clips to see what particular bent he or she takes on coverage of a beat.
And it reminds us all that sometimes the LGBT angle is the whole pitch, and sometimes it could be just a small part of the story.
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