Dennis McMillan, well-known to readers of the San Francisco Bay Times and to followers of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence as Sister Dana Van Iquity, received the Audrey Joseph LGBTQ Entertainment Award at the San Francisco Pride Ken Jones Awards held on February 29, 2024. The ceremony was held at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square.
The award is linked not only to the late great activist Ken Jones—the first Black President of SF Pride—but also to Audrey Joseph, the dynamic record executive, nightclub owner and manager, and LGBTQ rights activist who is still active in the San Francisco community and now lives in Palm Springs.
San Francisco Pride shared this about McMillan:
Dennis (he/him) started writing his own “comic book” at age six and a half—because the official readers they gave him were just too boring: “See Jane Run. See Spot Run.” Hardly real page-turners! Later in high school he was a news editor for the school newspaper. At UCLA he wrote for the SDS society (Students for a Democratic Society) newsletter.
After he came out, he wrote gay porn stories for a multitude of men’s magazines—he called it “entertainment for one.” He always used only part of his true name or backwards (he feared he might regret a true byline someday in politics. As if.) Two porn tales were published in book forms: “How to Succeed in Business” in Rogues of San Francisco 1993 and “Country Carryings On” in Country Rogues 1995 by Reid Dennis (both by middle name first and first name second).
He became “Sister Dana Van Iquity” with The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence on SF Gay Pride Day 1985. He’s still “Sister Dana!”
Sister Dana was a syndicated entertainment columnist for 36 different nationwide LGBT newspapers and magazines from 1985 until he wrote for the Bay Area Reporter. He then wrote legit news and reviews weekly for the B.A.R. He was on-staff Publication Chair for many years for the annual SF LGBTQ Pride Parade magazine. There he met the fabulous Audrey Joseph dealing with editing and attending general meetings, as well as dancing at her glorious gay club, Pleasuredome. He never met Ken Jones, but greatly admired his being “The Father of Diversity” and the first African-American President of Pride.
He next wrote weekly news and reviews for the San Francisco Sentinel, until it closed down in 1995. He reported for the SF Spectrum news after the SF Sentinel closed. He began writing biweekly everything-but-sports news for the San Francisco Bay Times with former publisher Kim Corsaro. Friends jokingly called it the Dennis Times, because he was then writing several articles for the paper. At the Bay Times he currently composes the “Sister Dana Sez: Words of Wisdumb from a Fun Nun” column that runs in each issue.
Published on March 7, 2024
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