Published from 1989-1993, the LGBTQIA+ magazine THING platformed artists like Frankie Knuckles, Larry Heard and Deee-Lite.

 

A new anthology will celebrate the late, great THING, an LGBTQIA+ magazine that operated at the heart of Chicago’s house scene in the early ’90s.

 

The new, 460-page book compiles all ten issues of THING for the first time. Founded in 1989 by designer and artist Robert Ford, THING became a staple publication of the Chicago house scene, which emerged out of the city’s queer underground. It platformed influential house artists like Frankie Knuckles, Larry Heard and Deee-Lite, while also publishing writing from American greats like Gary Indiana, David Sedaris, Vaginal Davis and Marlon Riggs.

 

THING explored all facets of the city’s club culture, publishing poetry, fiction, art, interviews and more. The magazine also provided uncompromising coverage of the HIV/AIDS crisis, printing first-person reflections, treatment resources and diaries from the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. Publishing was cut short in 1993, when Ford died from an AIDS-related illness.

 

“THING was a publication by and for its community and understood the fleetingness of its moment,” a description for the book reads. “To reencounter this work today is to reinstate the Black voices who were central to the history of AIDS activism and club culture, both of which were often sidelined by white discourses.”

 

Copies of the anthology will begin shipping out in February.