Donna Minkowitz is the author of the memoir Growing Up Golem: How I Survived My Mother, Brooklyn and Some Really Bad Dates, which was a finalist for both a Lambda Literary Award and the Publishing Triangle’s Judy Grahn Nonfiction Award. She won a Lammy for her first memoir, Ferocious Romance. Minkowitz once disguised herself as a 16­year­old evangelical boy to report on a convention of the Promise Keepers, the Christian ­right men’s group. According to director Kimberly Peirce, the movie Boys Don’t Cry was inspired by Minkowitz’s article on the life and death of Brandon Teena. She’s written for the New York Times Book Review and performed at The Kitchen.