Black Gay Genius: Answering Joseph Beam's Call was born out of a series of conversations, panel discussions, debates, and dinners with friends, colleagues and comrades over the years, assessing the impact and legacy of Joseph Beam and the writers of the In the Life generation. This anthology aims to bring that dazzling history of the black gay arts movement of the 1980s front and center to contemporary Black gay life. Black Gay Genius consists of writers, scholars, and activists responding to In the Life and the influence of Joseph Beam. This text celebrates with those that remember and know, and introduces to the ones that don't, to this important, unstudied literary legacy. Editors: Charles Stephens & Steven G. Fullwood. Publisher's note.