When Janessa Highland became show director at Martha’s Vineyard in Springfield, Missouri, in 2011, she knew she was following in big footsteps. That included those of Alicia Markstone, the 2002 Miss Gay USofA at Large, who had gone from small-town Missouri to Florida to be the show director at the famed Suncoast Resort Hotel. But…
For Chuck Pfoutz, New Show at Third Degree Glass Factory Is a Triumph Over the Haters
Blacklisting is an art deeply woven into the culture of St. Louis, a city that produces cold winters, but even colder shoulders. The July and August 2017 efforts of a disgruntled rival to blacklist photographer and producer Chuck Pfoutz, however, completely lacked the hallmarks of our local style. There was no subtlety and intrigue, no…
Meth at the Melrose
My husband sleeping by my side, I woke from a Saturday afternoon nap two summers ago to my friend and downstairs neighbor, whom I’ll call Keith, passionately kissing me. My Tower Grove apartment building, which we called “the Melrose,” was like a big gay frat house back then, a place where it wasn’t uncommon for…
Shooting on a Shoestring: St. Louis Native Kyle Coffman’s iPhone Film Selected to Screen at Marina del Rey Film Festival
Kyle Coffman was living comfortably with his longtime partner in Washington D.C, but was haunted by his unpursued dream of being a filmmaker. “I met my partner in Alton in 2003 and we moved to D.C. for his job. I never stopped writing and the dream never went away. Around 2011 I couldn’t take it…
Dustin Mitchell Bound for Texas State Penitentiary
This story is an update to Dustin Does Dallas. After years of getting off easy in St. Louis there was much speculation that Dustin Mitchell would skate by in Texas as well, and a five year deferred sentence for the charges he faced in Collin County gave an initial indication that might have been the…
Where We Live: Presenting the St. Louis Area’s Top 5 LGBT Neighborhoods
There was some grumbling in conservative Jefferson County when the 2016 DeSoto Christmas Parade was slated to include the county’s drag bar, Rumors on Ice. Among the garden-variety homophobic comments posted to the event’s Facebook page, one stuck with me: “Go back to the Central West End.” The remark amused me on a couple of…
Coming of Age in Popular Culture: For Author Donald Miller, It’s Academic
With several LGBT plays under his belt, Donald Miller felt confident that he could tackle writing a media focused textbook due to his love of all things pop culture and his master’s degree in media communications from Webster University. The task proved far more daunting and time consuming than he could’ve ever imagined. Even with…
Unity, Pride, and Shade: Summer Issue has it All
We’re honored to partner with Pride St. Louis and #Boom to bring you this combined Official Pride Guide and summer issue of Out in STL. Pride is when we take stock of where we are as a community, and while there will always be conflicts and rivalries (and shade!), I’m seeing more unity and collaboration…
The Night Dustin Mitchell Tried to Perform a Exorcism With a Snake In Dallas
This piece is an addendum to our longform feature, “Dustin Does Dallas,” which appeared in our Spring 2018 issue. On June 28, 2017, police near Dallas, Texas arrested Dustin Mitchell, a former St. Louis-area con man, for falsely presenting himself as an attorney. He spent six hours in jail, then his wife bailed him out.…
Dustin Does Dallas: How an Infamous STL Con Man Devastated DFW
On the morning of June 28, 2017, the doorbell rang at the luxurious townhome of Mr. and Mrs. Dustin Mitchell. The couple assumed it was a delivery, and Dustin answered the door in his pajamas to find an entire SWAT team there to arrest him. “What’s going on?” exclaimed Lacey McCullough as she watched her…