MATTHEW GREGORY “MONK” LEWIS, British gothic novelist, born (d: 1818); Have you ever read an 18th century Gothic romance? They are incomparably silly, overripe, and, except for their excruciatingly stilted language, great fun to read. Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto started the literary vogue, and it was quickly followed by Lewis’s Ambrosio, or The Monk (1795), and, in America, by the novels of Charles Brockden Brown. The Monk is the most lurid example of the genre, and Lewis was forced to delete many passages for a second edition that were considered “scandalous,” so scandalous, in fact, that Lewis’s literary stock skyrocketed and he found himself lionized by high society on the Isle of Hypocrites.

The Monk combines the supernatural, the horrible, and a little bit of raw sex in its plot about Ambrosio, the superior of the Capuchins of Madrid. (It is essential to the Anglo-Saxon Gothic novel that affairs of the flesh always take place in Latin climes.) Ambrosio is seduced by Matilda de Villanegas, a woman driven to blind nymphomania by demons, and who enters the monastery, and Ambrosio’s bed, disguised as a boy! After he discovers that the boy is actually a woman, Ambrosio’s entire character changes, and he pursues other women with the aid of magic and by murdering. His sins are found out and he is tortured by the Inquisition, finally being sentenced to death. He makes a bargain with the Devil to escape, but the Devil destroys him.

It seems apparent that had the wild nympho Matilda actually been a boy, none of Ambrosio’s problems would have followed. In real life, Lewis at twenty-eight was in love with fourteen year old William Kelly, a male incarnation of Matilda who brought him nothing but misery.

DAVID DIAMOND, American composer (d. 2005); An American composer of classical music. he was born in Rochester, NY and studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Eastman School of Music under Bernard Rogers, also receiving lessons from Roger Sessions in New York City and Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He won a number of awards including three Guggenheim Fellowships, and is considered one of the preeminent American composers of his generation.

Many of his works are tonal or modestly modal. His later style became more chromatic. Diamond was out long before it was socially acceptable and was and outspoken critic of anti-Semitism.

Poet, teacher and community activist JUNE JORDAN was born on this date in Harlem to Jamaican immigrant parents. Jordan received numerous honors and awards, including a 1969-1970 Rockefeller grant for creative writing, a Yaddo Fellowship in 1979, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in 1982, and the Achievement Award for International Reporting from the National Association of Black Journalists in 1984. Jordan also won the Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Award from 1995 to 1998 as well as the Ground Breakers-Dream Makers Award from The Women’s Foundation in 1994.

DAVID HOCKNEY, English artist, born; An important contributor to the British Pop-art movement of the 1960s, Hockney is considered one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. He settled in California during the 80's. While still a student at the Royal College of Art, Hockney was featured in the exhibition Young Contemporaries — alongside Peter Blake — that announced the arrival of British Pop Art. He became associated with the movement, but his early works also display expressionist elements, not dissimilar to certain works by Francis Bacon.

Sometimes, as in We Two Boys Together Clinging (1961), named after a poem by Walt Whitman, these works make reference to his sexuality. In 1963 Hockney visited New York, making contact with Andy Warhol. Later, a visit to California, where he settled, inspired Hockney to make a series of oil paintings of swimming pools in L.A. These are executed in a more realistic style and use vibrant colors.

He also made prints, portraits of friends, and stage designs for the Royal Court Theater, Glyndebourne, La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera in NYC. Early in his career, Hockney exhibited a distinct crush on rock star Cliff Richards.

Richard was referenced directly and indirectly in Hockney's work. Often Hockney referred to him as 'Doll Boy' after Richard's 1958 hit single Living Doll and many early works have the letters "CR" or "DB" or the numerical representation "42" where 4 represents the D and 2 stands for the B. For more of Hockney check out his web site.

PAUL LISICKY is an American novelist and memoirist born on this date. While a student at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he won a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He also received awards from the James Michener/Copernicus Society, the Henfield Foundation, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where he was twice a winter Fellow. He is the author of the novel Lawnboy and the memoir Famous Builder. He has taught creative writing at The University of Houston, Antioch University, and Sarah Lawrence College, in addition to several summer writing programs including the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Nebraska Summer Writers Conference, The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Indiana Summer Writers Conference. He currently lives in New York City.