For the last five or six years of his life, from 1987 until he died in 1993, I was in conversation with David Wojnarowicz—over the phone, in postcards and letters, and a handful of visits in person in San Francisco and New York City. With every interaction, we reached toward an intimacy that we never had time to fully realize.
We made plans to make books together. I published Memories that Smell like Gasoline, which he saw a few weeks before he died. When he realized he was running out of time for any of our other plans, he asked me to carry them out in his absence. Our conversations were never dramatic; our affection for one another, always understated.
I made those books we discussed—The Waterfront Journals (1996), which selected from early fictional pieces he called monologues, and In the Shadow of the American Dream (1999), which selected from his diaries. And I missed our conversations and correspondence.
This postcard from David was sent on May 29, 1991. It’s just a quick note, dashed off while he was on the road in the desert. A note of thanks and news, nothing more, really, than his way of saying I’m thinking of you.
I’ve never stopped thinking about David.
—Amy Scholder, July 2023
Amy Scholder is a literary editor and film producer. Her films include My Name Is Andrea, a hybrid documentary about feminist iconoclast Andrea Dworkin directed by Pratibha Parmar, and Disclosure, a documentary about the history of transgender representation in film and TV directed by Sam Feder. Over the years, Scholder has managed print imprints at the Feminist Press, HIGH RISK Books/Serpent’s Tail, Verso, and Seven Stories, and ushered works into print by Sapphire, June Jordan, Kathy Acker, David Wojnarowicz, Karen Finley, Ana Castillo, Coco Fusco, Elfriede Jelinek, Gary Indiana, Paul Preciado, Virginie Despentes, Kate Millett, Jill Johnston, Barbara Hammer, Joni Mitchell, Justin Vivian Bond, and Pamela Sneed. She is currently an editor-at-large at City Lights Books and serves on the ONE Archives Foundation and City Lights Foundation Boards.
