Guest Profile

Steven Petrow

Steven Petrow likes to be quite clear about himself: He is far from perfect when it comes to manners gay or otherwise. And he's neither obsessed nor obsessive about place settings and monograms.

What Steven does care about is the importance of treating everyone with respect and decency, which will make for a better and fairer world. As he wrote in the introduction to his new book, his work is about: "Helping people live with greater confidence and self-esteem by learning to lean on simple principles of human kindness; demonstrating how much language matters; urging recognition of LGBT families and their new or invented traditions; and documenting the rites and rituals of our commitment to and love for each other."

Steven Petrow is especially well suited as a guide to this new century. In addition to writing an earlier book about gay manners The Essential Book of Gay Manners & Etiquette, he writes the nationally syndicated column "Queeries," distributed by Q Syndicate to the top LGBT newspapers, and is a regular contributor to Huffington Post, Advocate.com, 365Gay.com, Yahoo Shine, among other outlets. He was also the first curator of the New York Times' same-sex wedding blog.

Mr. Petrow is also a former president of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, and his previous books include Dancing Against the Darkness; When Someone You Know has AIDS; The HIV Drug Book; The Essential Book of Gay Manners and Etiquette and The Lost Hamptons.