Michael Lassell is a professional writer and editor.

Parents: Michael Joseph Lassell (1917-2006) and Catherine Lassell (b. 1920); no siblings

Education: Great Neck South High School

Great Neck South High School

William A. Shine Great Neck South High School is an American top public four-year high school. It is located in Lake Success, serving students in grades 9 through 12. However, GNSHS is officially listed in Great Neck...

 (grad. 1965); Colgate University

Colgate University

Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York, USA. The school was founded in 1819 as a Baptist seminary and later became non-denominational. It is named for the Colgate family who greatly contributed to the university's endowment in the 19th century.Colgate has 52...

 (B.A. 1969); California Institute of the Arts

California Institute of the Arts

The California Institute of the Arts, commonly referred to as CalArts, is located in Valencia, in Los Angeles County, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the United States created specifically for students of both the visual and the...

 (MFA 1973); Yale School of Drama

Yale School of Drama

The Yale School of Drama is a graduate professional school of Yale University providing training in every discipline of the theatre: acting, design , directing, dramaturgy and dramatic criticism, playwriting, stage management, sound design, technical design and production, and theater...

 (MFA 1976).

Lassell has written extensively in the fields of design, travel, the arts (especially theater), and GLBT studies. His poetry, stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in newspapers, magazines, books, journals and anthologies in the U.S. and abroad, as well as numerous college and university textbooks. He has been most often anthologized for his poem, written at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, "How to Watch Your Brother Die." His work has been translated into numerous languages, including French, Dutch, Spanish, German, Catalan, and Braille. His work behind the scenes on Broadway with Disney have been described as some of the most honest accounts of production life.

He served as features director of "Metropolitan Home" from 1992 until 2009. Prior to that, he served as managing editor of Interview and L.A. Style magazines, also as a theater critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and L.A. Weekly.

Lassell currently resides in Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...

, New York City, with his rescued dachshund mix, Schuyler.

Awards

• Lambda Literary Award for Poetry - Decade Dance (1990)
• Nomination: Lambda Literary Award for Poetry - A Flame for the Touch That Matters (1998), The World in Us: Lesbian and Gay Poetry of the Next Wave (2001)
• Society of American Travel Writers Foundation Lowell Award, Gold Medal