My Blue Coiling Snake, My Empty Room

At a dinner party in Detroit, Bill Lifton meets Jay, a high school teacher with muscular arms and a roguish grin. Their unexpected passion blooms until tragedy sends Jay in search of a more affirming existence in San Francisco. Bill follows him and they build lives in community with other gay men and lesbians. As their love grows, so does the deep contentment of lives well lived; but, the AIDS epidemic rips through claiming its victims. Facing the rupture that illness and death inevitably bring, a figure from the past provides life affirming focus. My Blue Coiling Snake, My Empty Room is a story that transcends time and place, exploring profound issues of love, grief, and forgiveness with humor, pathos, and a deep appreciation for the fragility of all life.

Lynn Crawford was born and grew up in Dearborn, Michigan, where she began writing, drawing, and painting. She went to Henry Ford Community College and then the University of Michigan-Dearborn where she was editor of the school newspaper and literary arts journal and earned a B.A. in English with honors. In the mid-1970s she "ran away with the circus"-Theatre Group of Ann Arbor. In Ann Arbor, she continued writing, went to graduate school, met her long-time partner, and began her practice as a clinical social worker. In 1984, she moved to San Francisco, where she died in 2017. Lynn studied and practiced Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, shamanism, and Jungian psychology. She read widely, wrote, made visual art, loved, and was beloved. She was a loyal friend and daughter, a great cook, a hilarious wit, and raconteur. Her work has been published in Sinister Wisdom, The Bay Guardian, Inquiring Mind, and Tricycle.