An in-depth look at the career of President Barack Obama and his views about gay-related issues, starting when he ran for Illinois senate in 1996 and ending mid-way through his term as president. Written by Tracy Baim, publisher of Windy City Times, the book also includes articles and essays by some of the most respected journalists, bloggers and activists in gay media. This book, with 570 pages and 140 images/photos, has extensive coverage, in words and images, of Obama's record on gay and AIDS issues, including detailed quotes from his speeches, photos at gay events, and answers to surveys early in his career. Essayists and writers in the book include Lisa Keen, Kerry Eleveld, Michelangelo Signorile, Phill Wilson, Chuck Colbert, Pam Spaulding, Wayne Besen, and many more.
Tracy Baim is publisher and executive editor at Windy City Media Group, which produces Windy City Times, Nightspots, and other gay media. She co-founded Windy City Times in 1985 and Outlines newspaper in 1987. She has won numerous gay community and journalism honors, including the Community Media Workshop's Studs Terkel Award in 2005. She started in Chicago gay journalism in 1984 at GayLife newspaper, one month after graduating with a news-editorial degree from Drake University.
Baim's newest book is Gay Press, Gay Power: The Growth of LGBT Community Newspapers in America. The book is available on Amazon in B&W and color editions, as well as on Kindle. Baim is the author of Obama and the Gays: A Political Marriage, now available on Amazon and Amazon Kindle. In the book, she is also joined by two dozen other writers. It is also now on iPad.
Baim's other books include Jim Flint: The Boy From peoria and Leatherman: The Legend of Chuck Renslow (co-written with Owen Keehnen). She also has a novel, The Half Life of Sgt. Jen Hunter, released in early 2011 on CreateSpace through Amazon, and on Kindle. It is about lesbians in the military just prior to Don't Ask, Don't Tell, during the early 1990s Gulf War. The book was written in the late 1990s, was adapted for stage as Half Life in 2004, and is now being published for the first time.
Baim is the editor of Out and Proud in Chicago: An Overview of the City's Gay Movement (2008, Agate), the first comprehensive book on Chicago's gay history; Where the World Meets, a photo book about Gay Games VII in Chicago (2007, Lulu.com--Baim served as co-vice chair of the Gay Games board); and Half Life, a novel about lesbians in the military, which was adapted for the Chicago stage and performed at American Theater Company in 2004.
Baim was executive producer of the lesbian feature film Hannah Free (2008, Ripe Fruit Films), starring Sharon Gless, and of Scrooge & Marley (2012, Sam I Am Films, LLC). She was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 1994 and was named a Crain's Chicago Business 40 Under 40 leader in 1995.
Baim is a native Chicagoan and has been with her partner, 20-year Air Force veteran Jean Albright, since 1994.
