WILLIAM STEWART, a professional calligrapher, was born on this date, in Providence, Rhode Island, the only son of Frank Stewart and Caroline Townsend Stewart. He earned a B.A. in Russian from Reed College in 1973.

William’s calligraphy works include a logo for the long-running NPR series Music from the Hearts of Space, the Kimono condom logo, and calligraphy for books by the poet James Broughton, as well as dozens of works of fine art calligraphy. More about him and his work can be seen here: https://www.quillemot.com/ 

As “Sister Succuba,” William was among the first Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. He created the Sisters’ handwritten calligraphic logo, and is credited with proposing the phrase “Perpetual Indulgence” at the Sisters’ founding meeting in his apartment in 1979. He and Gilbert Baker were first to be canonized Saints of the Order.

William lost several close friends and lovers to AIDS and volunteered with Shanti Project during the crisis. In 2014, he established Groundswell, a queer retreat center and intentional community in Mendocino. Though disease cut his life short, William laid plans for Groundswell’s survival, intending the forested refuge to remain a place of ecological stewardship and service to queer and other marginalized peoples.

For over six decades, William T. Stewart cultivated interests in languages (his own native English and several others, actual and imagined), communications theory, editorship, literature, linguistics, writing systems, geography, cartography, cultural history (actual and imagined), social mores, environmental advocacy, consciousness-raising, heart circle practice, radical truth-telling, planetary collapse prognostication, and the deconstruction of inherited systems of resource extraction, concentration, and deployment in the context of late-stage capitalism. He was one of the first financial supporters of White Crane.