Dan Savage Popular Books

Dan Savage Biography & Facts

Daniel Keenan Savage (born October 7, 1964) is an American author, media pundit, journalist, and LGBT community activist. He writes Savage Love, an internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column. In 2010, Savage and his husband, Terry Miller, began the It Gets Better Project to help prevent suicide among LGBT youth. He has also worked as a theater director, sometimes credited as Keenan Hollahan. Born in Chicago to Roman Catholic parents, Savage attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in acting. After living in West Berlin from 1988 to 1990, he moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where he befriended Tim Keck, co-founder of The Onion. When Keck moved to Seattle, Washington, Savage moved as well to become an advice columnist for The Stranger, which Keck founded; he had offered Savage the position after Savage wrote a sample column which impressed him. Savage has since become a sex columnist and a vocal proponent of LGBT rights in the United States, voicing his advocacy through his column, Savage Love, and a podcast version of his column, the Savage Lovecast. In 2001, Savage and his readership coined the term pegging to describe a woman anally penetrating a man with a strap-on dildo.Outside of his writings and podcasts, Savage has advocated for progressive politics and advancing the rights of LGBT youth to prevent suicide in the community. He has opposed laws restricting pornography and the sale of sex toys, and founded the It Gets Better Project with his husband Terry Miller, whom he married in 2005. Savage has been featured on numerous television programs and news outlets, including Countdown with Keith Olbermann and Anderson Cooper 360. Savage has attracted controversy over his comments and actions related to LGBT issues. He coined the term santorum to define a by-product of sex after former senator Rick Santorum made anti-LGBT comments in 2003, and condemned the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for its support of California Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California. His activism and public speaking has brought praise from celebrities and politicians, including former president Barack Obama. Early life and education Dan Savage was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Judith "Judy" (née Schneider), who worked at Loyola University, and William Savage Sr. He has German and Irish ancestry. The third of four children, he has two brothers and one sister. Savage was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Quigley Preparatory Seminary North, which he has described as "a Catholic high school in Chicago for boys thinking of becoming priests." Though Savage has stated that he considers himself "a wishy-washy agnostic" and an atheist, he continues to identify as "culturally Catholic".Savage attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he received a BFA in Acting. He lived in West Berlin from late-1988 to 1990. Career Savage Love In 1991, Savage was living in Madison, Wisconsin, and working as a night manager at Four Star Fiction and Video (now Four Star Video Cooperative), a local video store that specialized in independent film titles. He befriended Tim Keck, co-founder of The Onion, who announced that he was moving to Seattle to help start an alternative weekly newspaper titled The Stranger. Savage "made the offhand comment that forever altered [his] life: 'Make sure your paper has an advice column—everybody claims to hate 'em, but everybody seems to read 'em'." Savage wrote a sample column, and to his surprise, Keck offered him the job.Savage stated in a February 2006 interview in The Onion's A.V. Club (which published his column until 2021) that he began the column with the express purpose of providing mocking advice to heterosexuals, since most straight advice columnists were "clueless" when responding to letters from gay people. Savage wanted to call the column "Hey, Faggot!" in an effort to reclaim a hate word. His editors at the time refused his choice of column name, but for the first several years of the column, he attached "Hey, Faggot!" at the beginning of each printed letter as a salutation." In his February 25, 1999, column, Savage announced that he was retiring the phrase, claiming that the reclamation had been successful.He has written in a number of columns about "straight rights" concerns, such as the HPV vaccine and the morning-after pill. In his November 9, 2005, column he wrote that "[t]he right-wingers and the fundies and the sex-phobes don't just have it in for the queers. They're coming for your asses too." Theater As a theater director, Savage (under the name Keenan Hollohan, combining his middle name and his paternal grandmother's maiden name) was a founder of Seattle's Greek Active Theater. Much of the group's work were queer interpretations of classic works, such as a tragicomic Macbeth with both the title character and Lady Macbeth played by performers of the opposite sex. In March 2001, he directed his own Egguus at Consolidated Works, a parody of Peter Shaffer's 1973 play Equus which exchanged a fixation on horses for a fixation on chickens.Letters from the Earth (2003), also at Consolidated Works, was Savage's most recent production. Letters was a trimmed version of Mark Twain's The Diary of Adam and Eve. It received scathing reviews, including one from The Stranger - "My Boss's Show Stinks". Media appearances In addition to writing a weekly column and four books, Savage has been involved in several other projects. From 1994 until 1997, he had a weekly three-hour call-in show called Savage Love Live on Seattle's KCMU (now KEXP-FM). From 1998 to 2000, he ran the biweekly advice column Dear Dan on the news website abcnews.com. He is now the editorial director of the weekly Seattle newspaper The Stranger, a promotion from his former position as The Stranger's editor-in-chief. Savage stars in Savage U on MTV, contributes frequently to This American Life and Out magazine, and acts as a "Real Time Real Reporter" on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. He has also made multiple appearances on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann and CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, to discuss LGBT political issues, such as same-sex marriage and Don't Ask Don't Tell. In 2014, he participated in Do I Sound Gay?, a documentary film by David Thorpe about stereotypes of gay men's speech patterns.In 2016, he was the first guest of Twice Removed, a family history podcast hosted by A. J. Jacobs. In the episode, Savage's lineage was traced to Nan Britton, Paul Popham, and others. Podcast The Savage Lovecast is a weekly audio podcast based on the column Savage Love, available via iTunes and at the Stranger's website for free download. It features Savage answering anonymous questions left by callers on a voice recorder (answering machine). He often returns calls to questioners who give their phone numbers, and such phone calls are part of the podcast. He also consul.... Discover the Dan Savage popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Dan Savage books.

Best Seller Dan Savage Books of 2024

  • Outlaws of the Brasada synopsis, comments

    Outlaws of the Brasada

    Les Savage

    A Civil War veteran and widower struggles to keep his children alive in a pair of classic Western tales.Things looked dark for Emery Bandine when he returned to Spanish Crossing fr...

  • The Impossible Will Take a Little While synopsis, comments

    The Impossible Will Take a Little While

    Paul Rogat Loeb

    More relevant than ever, this seminal collection of essays encourages us to believe in the power of ordinary citizens to change the world In today's turbulent world it's hard not t...

  • Boys Keep Swinging synopsis, comments

    Boys Keep Swinging

    Jake Shears

    In this “exhilarating yet poignant account of one boy taking flight” (Shelf Awareness, starred review), one of rock music's most entrancing figures transforms the vividness of his ...

  • Many Love synopsis, comments

    Many Love

    Sophie Lucido Johnson

    “A fastpaced debut… A candid, modern take on polyamory for fans of memoirs and graphic novels, and anyone interested in stories of dating, love, and romance.” Library JournalAfter ...

  • The Secret of Ferrell Savage synopsis, comments

    The Secret of Ferrell Savage

    J. Duddy Gill

    Middle school romance is hard enough, but cannibalism really gets in the way. This humorous look at first crushes and family secrets is sure to be devoured.Ferrell Savage is finall...

  • The Sawbones Book synopsis, comments

    The Sawbones Book

    Justin McElroy, Sydnee McElroy & Teylor Smirl

    Every week, Dr. Sydnee McElroy and her husband Justin amaze, amuse, and gross out (depending on the week) hundreds of thousands of avid listeners to their podcast, Sawbones. Consis...

  • It Gets Better synopsis, comments

    It Gets Better

    Dan Savage & Terry Miller

    Every story can change a life. Watch a video Growing up isn't easy. Many young people face daily tormenting and bullying, making them feel like they have nowhere to tu...

  • A Love Like No Other synopsis, comments

    A Love Like No Other

    Pamela Kruger & Jill Smolowe

    Drawn from personal experience, these stories offer vivid and beautifully rendered snapshots of the adoptive parenting experience. Featuring: Marcelle Clements, Laura Shaine Cunnin...

  • Die Abenteurer - Folge 01 synopsis, comments

    Die Abenteurer - Folge 01

    Hubert H. Simon

    DIE ABENTEURER AUF DEN SPUREN DER VERGANGENHEIT: Auch in unserer modernen Welt gibt es unzählige Rätsel. So ist bis heute das Geheimnis des BermudaDreiecks ungelöst. Auch wurde b...

  • Die Abenteurer - Folge 21 synopsis, comments

    Die Abenteurer - Folge 21

    Wolfgang Hohlbein

    FOLGE 21: DER FLUCH DER MASKE: Man sieht es vielen Fundstücken nicht an, welche Grausamkeiten vor undenklichen Zeiten mit ihnen begangen wurden. Auch die Totenmaske des MayaHerrsch...

  • Teaching the Cat to Sit synopsis, comments

    Teaching the Cat to Sit

    Michelle Theall

    A compelling memoir of a gay Catholic woman struggling to find balance between being a daughter and a mother raising her son with a loving partner in the face of discrimination.Fro...