Provincetown Stories with Russ Lopez

This week, we welcome author, editor, and publisher Russ Lopez to The Art Colony to discuss his new book, Provincetown Stories. Lopez recounts first visiting Provincetown in January 1981, returning for decades with his husband, and eventually buying a home before COVID, while noting changes such as higher costs, heavier tourism, and evolving attitudes around race and performance. He describes his earlier LGBTQ history book Hub of the Gay Universe (2019) and explains that fiction offers freedom to convey “truths” without strict documentation. Provincetown Stories is a linked collection of short tales with recurring characters, renamed locations, frank depictions of sex and partying, and magical realism, including an immortal Cuban figure, Luna, and a made-up Feast of St. Bonaventure. Lopez reads excerpts about arriving over the Truro hill and Provincetown’s artistic creativity rooted in unconventional freedom, then shares where to find the book and upcoming local events.